One of the things I found frustrating was the cost of the type of classic, quality shoes available for boys in the UK, so one of my goals was to try to keep the price as low as possible without sacrificing on the quality.
I did look in to getting a shop in Cheltenham but the rents are very high, one very small retail outlet in a good area for shopping that I felt would suit my potential customers was £18,000.00 a year and I would have had to sign up for a minimum of 5 years so I would have had to increase the price of the shoes quite alot to cover that cost plus I would have to employ people to work in the shop and then there are the rates and insurance etc. So I decided to keep it all on line to keep my costs down.
This meant that my web shop needed to be right!
I was conscious of the image I wanted to put across. I had researched a lot of websites selling shoes and the one thing that really frustrated me was that when I landed on the site it wasn’t clear where to click to see what I wanted, it was also very common to find the websites had so much information on them I would click straight off because they looked messy, too many colours, too many lists etc.
I am the type of shopper that when I walk in to a shop I don’t trail through the rails looking at each individual item I scan the shop visually and if nothing pops out in the colour that I like I walk away! I suppose I am a lazy shopper (unusual for a woman maybe, I don’t like shopping unless I need something and don’t see the point of window shopping??!!) I like to get to what I want quite quickly.
I was quite clear in my mind about the type of boy that would want to wear the shoes that Cool Boys would have and so I wanted to put that across in my logo and my website. I was really lucky to come across a fabulous lady in the USA that was a graphic designer but also an illustrator, she is a mother of boys too and totally understood where I was coming from when I gave her my brief. We never met but had a great understanding and she was just as excited about Cool Boys Shoes as I was!
We finally came up with the logo and I feel it puts across what we are all about.
The boy in the logo is inquisitive about life and loves exploring the world, the ensigns behind him actually spell out C B S. The slightly nautical feel is because we love the sea and sailing and I always feel water is a good energy.
In my opinion a cool boy loves exploring new things, he is fun, enjoys school but loves the holidays too, loves sports, generally behaves well but is also a boy and of course gets up to mischief sometimes!

I had business cards, headed paper and compliment slips printed and I felt really proud to hand my card out.

The feedback was really positive from the start which was good to hear.

A girlfriend that doesn’t have children but is very stylish and whose opinion I respect, saw my business card for the first time and said “it makes me think of the famous five” I was pleased with that response.

In the mean time the website and on line shop was being developed and the designer and I came up with the idea of the picture of the boy looking out to sea being expanded to show what he was exploring down that telescope and this is where the first illustration on the website was born, when Ellen (the designer) sent it I was so excited! She had the idea to add a dog (the boys faithful friend) and I got one of those feelings you get when you just know something is really good, she is such a talented lady and so I commisioned a couple more from her to show Max and Bentley (we decided the characters needed a name at this point) in other fun activities that a cool boy would be get up to, fishing, flying a kite etc. In the future I would like to have a series of books telling all about the adventures Max and Bentley get up to!
The website and shop took much longer than I had anticipated but it was worth the wait, I could have bought an ‘off the shelve’ site and just filled in the gaps but that wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good. It was important to make the sight easy to navigate as well as secure and the developers that created it were fantastic and really good at what they do. Ellen helped me a lot by designing the printable shoe gauge to measure the childrens feet before ordering the shoes and the conversion chart to convert the continental sizes in to UK sizes etc.
I looked in to how to measure feet properly and felt I needed to put this information on the site to help mums feel more confident about ordering shoes on line. Although lots of people order on line now and it is increasing all the time some of the feedback I had from the market research I did was that some mums still feel they ought to go in to a shop to get their childrens feet measured and then buy from that shop. After I explained that by the time they had spent money on petrol and parking, dragged the children here and there, moaning and groaning! It was worth taking the time to measure at home, pay for postage and try at home in a more relaxed situation, even if they have to be exchanged it is still cheaper and easier, they were willing to give it a go.
Another important thing I wanted to do was have pictures of the shoes on a foot. So many websites just show the shoe on its own. I enlisted my son Max to be a model for that so I could do most of the boys shoes but not the baby ones, I intend to get that done at some point too.

We are delighted to open our online shop. My initial idea to offer other mums affordable, classic boys shoes will now be tested! I am happy with the current range which includes boys boat shoes, loafers, deck shoes with good winter soles, chukka boots and a small selection of baby shoes. I’ll be adding a beautiful Chelsea boot and a more sturdy winter boot in a couple of weeks with some excellent slippers following shortly after.

I was still keeping the old business ticking over and we also started renting out the Portugal house so had plenty to keep me busy but it wasn’t enough, my husband kept telling me about how ‘on line’ was the way of the future and perhaps I should get in to something to do with that, at one point I was training to help him with his business and this involved me learning about internet marketing etc.

From the time Max was a baby I had made regular trips to Portugal and would buy most of his clothes and shoes there. As he was in Nursery and we were spending less time in Portugal I was forced to buy shoes for him here in the UK.

I was amazed at the lack of classic boys shoes and if and when I could find them they were so expensive, Max has feet that grow quickly so I was reluctant to pay the prices they wanted, I would try to hold out for a trip to Portugal and only bought the shoes I absolutely had to in the UK like school shoes, I wanted to have a choice of shoes for him to wear depending on the occasion and I definitely didn’t want him in trainers unless he was playing some sort of sport. Anyway, we were going to the states for Christmas 2009 and I was going to buy him some shoes there as we hadn’t been to Portugal and the ones he had were on their last legs, I was exasperated to find the same problem there! We arrived back in the Uk and I desperately went out to look for some decent shoes for him and that was the start of my idea for cool boys shoes. I walked in to a well known high street shop that sells good quality shoes and the choice of casual shoes for boys was pitiful and what they had was expensive, when I asked if they had more choice they directed me to the rows and rows of trainers! I don’t want trainers!! I asked why and they couldn’t really explain other than that they thought they wouldn’t sell as most people want trainers.

I started to research  by asking people I knew what they felt and they seemed to agree with me so I then started to look in to the world of children’s shoes!

It was a great help to be able to speak to an old friend of my husbands that had been in the shoe industry for 25+ years, he agreed with me that there was a gap in the market for what I was looking to do and he gave me loads of useful information including advice to go to a trade fair for mid to high end shoes in Italy that he was attending . The fayre was only a few weeks away but I decided to jump in and book my flights and Hotel room and do some research in the mean time. Just before the fair I got an e mail from my husbands friend saying he couldn’t make it! HELP! I don’t speak Italian, I don’t really know what I’m looking for, how do I get from the airport to the hotel?, to the fair? Ah well, I’ll just have to get on with it.

I arrived in Italy and couldn’t believe that nobody spoke English! Nothing was written in English! Anyway, I got on a bus that I thought was going to the fair and 20 minutes in to the journey it stopped and people started getting off but not everyone??!! Panic! Then I spotted somebody carrying something with the name of the fair on it and they were headed for the door so I jumped up and got off and followed them. Luckily for me, it was going to the right place, phew.

I trawled round this absolutely massive trade fair asking questions, taking notes etc. , etc., and then came back to the Uk after a couple of days with loads of information and a lot more research to do.

I finally chose to get samples from the few suppliers that I thought had what I wanted and then organised an evening at my home and one day at my sister in laws home where I asked other moms to come and check out the samples and fill out a questionnaire to give me their honest feedback. It was really useful.

Unfortunately I had to ditch one of my suppliers and find another one, which I did after a month or so which unfortunately delayed things a bit but better to get it right. There was a lot of negotiating to be done too, as I was a new business with no history to supply the manufacturers with it was quite tricky to get them to take me seriously! One potential supplier that had shoes I liked didn’t want to supply me without me paying everything up front but I was reluctant to do that because he was quite a small manufacturer and I had no way of knowing he could come up with the goods to the standard I wanted. I offered to pay some up front and the rest once I had checked the order was correct but he wouldn’t agree so I had to loose him too! I was concerned that I was taking longer than I had planned but the thought of making the right first impression and not dissapointing people kept me from rushing things.

When Max was born in October 2003 I was so happy. I assumed I’d get bored after a few months and then want to get back to my business. How wrong I was, I loved being at home with him and I was actually quite out of my depth and found it pretty challenging! My hats went off to those moms I knew that juggled babies, toddlers and careers, I found it enough to keep everything under control with one little person! I approached the whole thing with the same attitude I approach most things and that is to get organised and stay as organised as possible so as to not loose control, Max was in a routine very quickly and sleeping through the night from 7pm to 7 am at about 8 weeks. I made sure I had naps when he did and that I ate well and so the whole journey was really lovely. I fed him myself to about 9 months, I was expressing so that if I wanted to go out and have a nice meal and a glass of wine or two Max would still get to have my milk, I had a freezer full and my friends called me the Unigate cow!! Charming!

We lived in a Marina in Hampshire at the time and were right on the Solent so every day I would walk Max around the Marina and every night he had his window a jar and I am convinced that good sea air did him the world of good.

I did what I needed to do to keep my existing business ticking over but I didn’t have any desire to go back at full pace like I used to. Plus I had quite a lot on to keep me busy.

We had kept our flat in London and the tenant that had been living there for 6 years was moving out so the place needed completely updating so I had that to organise and oversee, it was 3 months of going in to builders merchants with Max in a sling, he was 6 months old at the time, and driving to and from London with him, it was a little stressful but at least we could be together and I actually enjoyed the work, sourcing the materials, keeping on top of the works etc. It was all finished and the flat was re let in the August.

Before Max was even a thought we had bought a plot of land in Portugal where we wanted to build a house that we could use as a holiday home and possibly live out there for a year or two. We started building on the plot when I was a few months pregnant in the Spring of 2003 and the house was finished in August 2004 when Max was 10 months old. We needed to have a car over there so we loaded up a car with as much as we possibly could and got the ferry over to Spain and we drove through Spain to the Portuguese border, Max was a star and when we stopped at the border we decided to carry on to where the house was instead of staying in a Hotel somewhere which was the original plan, we were making such good progress and were excited to see the house. We arrived looking rather worse for wear and Max was a bit grizzly at this point, we also looked a bit like the Beverley hill billys as the car was filthy and we were all crumpled from the journey. It was magical to get to our room and all get bathed, put Max to bed and then we had something to eat in our room sitting in our bath robes anticipating the next morning and the builder handing over the house, we slept very well that night.

There was a lot to do to get the house finished and I stayed out there with Max getting that organised, I furnished it practically from scratch other than a few pieces we had sent over from the UK, we loved it there and James came up with the idea of spending Christmas there, inviting his parents and their dog! The house was a shell and surely we couldn’t get it ready enough to have christmas there? Well, why not?! I’m always up for a challenge! So I went out a couple of weeks early and organised everything. Having Christmas in another country isn’t that straight forward, cranberries? Turkey? Chestnuts? Anyway we had a fabulous time and you’d never have known that the house was an empty shell a few weeks before. We had a beautiful tree, garlands on the fireplaces and it was like home from home.

As soon as Max started crawling around we realised that living right on the water was very stressful! We decided to sell the lovely Marina home we were living in at the time as it’s not practical with a toddler. The agents warned us that these homes take time to sell but ours sold really quickly and we ended up renting in Gerrards Cross for 6 months whilst we decided where to live.

I was going to pay a bit more attention to my business and found it quite tricky finding help as I didn’t know many people in the area and cleaners and baby sitters were very expensive so James suggested speaking to a friends au pair that used to baby sit for us and do the odd bit of ironing and cleaning.

She had recently gone back to the czheck republic so I contacted her to see if she wanted to spend a few months helping us out, it would give her a chance to live close to London and we knew we really liked her and more importantly so did Max, she agreed and it made life so much easier. We were very lucky to have her, Lucie, she loved Max, was hard working, flexible, patient and very conscientious. We knew we could trust her and she was a great addition to our family. We found a house in Cheltenham that we loved and so decided to move there, we gave Lucie the option of coming with us and thankfully she accepted, she was a tremendous help with everything. Lucie ended up staying with us for another year and then moved back to her country to get on with her life, I stay in touch with her to this day and will always be grateful for her time with us, we realised how lucky we were and how special she really was when we tried another Au pair, disaster! She didn’t last long and we wouldn’t try another one!

I didn’t enjoy my work as much as I had for various reasons, my attitude had changed as had the company I was with and so I enjoyed my time with Max and made the most of Portugal before we would be committed to school schedules etc………….., we would go out there for a month or 6 weeks with Lucie and we all had a lovely time,I also got to know Cheltenham and we love this town and the surrounding area.

When Max went to Nursery aged 4 I found I had more time on my hands and looking back on what I had done with the flat and the house in Portugal I decided I would like to learn more about Interior design and discovered that I could take an HND in Spatial Design locally so embarked on my life as a mature student for the next 2 years!

A friend decided to join me at the last minute and that made it much more fun as we would drop the boys (her son was at the same school) in the morning and then car share, it was an interesting time, getting the old grey matter going again was exhausting at first.  It was a full time course and I found it a bit hard at the beginning but soon got in to the swing of things and thoroughly enjoyed it. I discovered that it was something I wouldn’t like to do for other people but used the knowledge to re design the house we are in at the moment and therefor at the end of the 2 years I found myself at a bit of a loose end again!