Business Idea, input appreciated!

[Beccaroll]

Up until my maternity leave I worked for the family business - the week after I gave birth there was a huge family row resulting in me and my sister resigning from the company - my maternity leave ends in January and I need to find something to do!! I made the decision a while ago that I would do as much as I could to not work full time anymore with 2 kids as I found it awful with just 1...so I have been thinking and come up with something.

Ive always, always, always wanted to be a midwife and Im madly interested in pregnancy, birth, babies etc - midwifery isnt an option for me just yet as cant commit to the study and then working the shifts wouldnt be possible at the moment.

My second though fell to training to be a doula - but again I couldnt work the hours - I would have to be available 24 hours and couldnt get childcare for then.

Which brings me on to my idea...Im thinking of training in hollistic therapies (aromatherapy, massage, indian head massage, reflexology etc) and specialising in pregnant and postnatal women. I could do this as a mobile business or from a room in the house - this brought me on to thinking further and have been thinking about a longer time plan.

A shop that caters for all things pregnancy - basically helping pregnant women. Primarily focussing on the therapies but also offering beauty treatments (safe for pregnancy), stocking hard to find but useful products sourced on the internet etc etc

Forgive me if this post is waffled - I have only just started thinking this through and just wondered if it sounds viable/something you would use?

Im excited at the thought of being free of the family business politics and doing something for myself that fits round my childrens lives in something Im really interested in.

Please be truthful and just tell me if its bollocks!

Becca
xxx

[WideWebWitch]

No, I think it's a good basic idea - offering a service/s to pregnant women. But you don't need the overheads of a shop necessarily - you could do it online? My first thoughts anyway.

[emwi]

When I was pregnant I was mystified why there wasn't more for pregnant women - mainly clothes wise. I did go for a very expensive but lovely massage at Space NK. and I think it is something pregnant women would pay for, Agree with www about the overheads of a shop, also, I concluded that even in london women weren't pregnant for long enough and spend enough money on it for it to be worth shops investing in. Still find it hard to believe though.

[samACon]

Sounds good, I would have loved to have to have someone buy me gift vouchers for it for my birthday!!

[bobthebaby]

There is so much you can't do when you are pregnant, what a great idea to go somewhere where you didn't have to ask if it was safe in pregnancy.
Is there a specialist maternity shop, or for that matter a baby shop in your area that you could piggy back onto with your first idea, either by paying to advertise in their shop, putting something in with purchases etc? Sure ladies aren't pregnant for long, but if you are it feels like the longest time.
Pregnant ladies are usually friends with other pg ladies which gives you lots of opportunity for referral or introduce a customer offers. I hated going out towards the end - so being mobile really save on overheads while being totally useful to your target market.
I'm less sure about the shop idea as trudging around Mothercare is about as much baby stuff as I want to do when pg. Really like the mobile therapist idea though and you could also do baby massage, so as to still be useful to new mums in the post natal period.

[katierocket]

good idea I think. Someone bought me a Clarins pregnancy treatment when i was pregnant (obviously!) and it was lovely but it would be great to do it in comfort of own home.

[Beccaroll]

Thanks for your comments...

My starting point will be the training so Im looking into college courses in my area. When I get the qualification Ill start off as a mobile therapist and put the shop idea on hold as the "dream" I would like to one day achieve I think. I totally agree about the lack of decent, trendy maternity clothes Ill add that to the dream

The only thing is just being a mobile therapist limits my ideas somewhat - I liked the idea of providing really useful products that arent usually readily available in the typical high street shops.

[tamum]

It sounds great, Beccaroll. I think the point about an online shop is very good. Depending on where you are, it might be hard to build up and maintain a really big clientele. The problem with a shop for pregnant women is that they stop being pregnant quite soon, so you wouldn't get the same repeat business as in a clothes shop, say. I guess if you're in a big city that wouldn't be such a problem, but being online aswell would help a lot, I'd have thought. Good luck!

[wobblyknicks]

One word of advice - before you get planning too much, check out the insurance side of doing it. My mum's a holistic therapist and was quite interested in offering massages etc for pregnant women but when she looked into the safety/insurance side of things she said it wasn't worth it. She said there was too much responsibility to the women and sooner or later there'd be someone who had a pg complication soon after a massage, purely a coincidence, but my mum hated the idea of having to prove what she was doing was safe. Ok, whenever you do therapies there's the chance someone might get ill and blame it unfairly on you but with an unborn baby it's much harder to prove the cause, harder to treat and a much more sensitive issue.

Not trying to put a downer on the whole idea though, if it seems to be a good idea for you, loads of luck!

[Beccaroll]

Thanks wobblynicks I had never considered that side of things.........hmmm.....worth thinking carefully about

[Freddiecat]

There's a shop in Cardiff for pregnant women called Swells and it's moved to a more prestige location in the last year or so, must be doing OK.

Never went in there because I went down the budget route with my first pregnancy but might try it next time.

Clarins offers some maternity massages and treatments at certain centres - but when I tried to have them they were all during the working day.

How about cordinating maternity classes and treatments around the country? Pilates, yoga and swimming etc. because this information is really hard to get hold of.