The Small Business Journey: Part 1 - Mistakes and Lessons

I’m Alice, and I founded JuJuni Childrenswear two and a half years ago. I’ve decided to do a little mini series on the blog about the journey of starting a small business, and the lessons I have learnt so far. 

In this first part I’m going to talk you through the three main mistakes I have made so far in my small business journey - and hopefully it might help a few people out there to not make these same mistakes. 

1. Buying too much stock
   
   When I launched JuJuni my main and first mistake was buying too much stock. Often you can get caught up in the cost price becoming lower the more stock you buy, but actually investing so much in a lot of stock at the beginning of JuJuni was my biggest mistake. Buying smaller quantities is actually more cost effective for small businesses, because our cashflow and budget was negatively impacted by holding so much stock and not testing the market first.
   
   
2. Investing in an office
   
   We invested in an office when I started JuJuni, thinking it would be a really good idea to hold our stock and give us a workspace. However I had recently given birth and realistically needed to be with baby at home. This was a lot of investment for something that was actually holding back my productivity - so now I work from home and hold all of our JuJuni stock upstairs in my house!
   
   
3. Realising I can’t do it alone
   
   This is my third mistake, and it is only recently that I have admitted to it. Up until December I was running everything on my own, from designing new collections, to answering customer enquiries, to our social media planning to packing orders from my house. It was too much for me to take on, and although I have all of the creativity and passion needed to run JuJuni I don’t have the business know how to complete everything in the way JuJuni deserves.
   
   Once I admitted this and have taken on some help I feel refreshed and ready to take on 2022 with a new lease of life! Always admit when you can’t do it alone, and delegate the tasks that you don’t enjoy or find difficult because they are not a good use of your time.

I hope this has been helpful for you, and would love to hear the lessons and mistakes you have made along the way too! And stay tuned next week for part 2, where I'll be talking about all of the positives I have found since starting JuJuni.

Love,

Alice

x