Sarah Batters, owner of Batters and Co, explains why the business should win the home business category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
I became pregnant in Australia one year before planning to relocate to the UK. Knowing that I would not receive maternity pay in Australia or the UK, I decided to request a voluntary redundancy from my company to start up my own venture.
I have always enjoyed small coding projects and wanted to combine this love with marketing, so I enrolled in a skill-share webcast course at home to boost my coding skills. I completed the course in four weeks and set up Batters and Co, a web design and digital marketing agency, from my home in Sydney. I focused on clients in Australia but also in the UK so that I would be able to transition the business with our move.
My first clients in the six months before my baby was born got some serious mates rates and developed my abilities and processes. I was finishing one website the day before my daughter was born. With her arrival, I took a 10-week break before starting to slowly build clients again.
Once I moved to the UK in April, I quickly built up new clients from my kitchen and within four months had more work than I could physically do, so I have built up a network of freelancers from Ireland to Sydney via India. I work with them while my daughter naps.
Despite only being able to work 15 hours a week, I am projected to turn more than £30k this year. As a side project, I have also launched a candle brand selling candles I make on my kitchen stove when I’m not building websites or taking care of my daughter.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
