Jenny Inglis, MD of Launchpad Publishing Ltd, explains why the business should win the home business category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
Running a magazine publishing business from home has not been without its challenges. With three young children under foot - not to mention a DIY-mad husband - things can get pretty hectic. The way I make it work is to involve the family as well.
After a hectic and amazingly successful month of crowd-sourced fundraising on Kickstarter this summer, Whizz Pop Bang was born. It’s a gender-neutral science magazine aimed at making science fun and engaging for six to 11-year-old children and their parents. Each magazine contains loads of ideas for science activities that children can do at home - and the experiments all need to be tested first. That’s how I’ve changed working from home from being the problem to being the solution.
The kitchen has been turned into a makeshift science lab - windowsills are full of jars growing different kinds of crystals, boiled cabbages are being used to test for acids, and fake blood is being mixed in pudding basins! We’ve had model rollercoasters spanning the living room furniture, toy elephants have been lifted with levers and we’ve had catapults being fired between children’s bedrooms. The neighbours weren’t too impressed when a drinks bottle rocket blasted into their garden, but on the whole it’s been pretty friendly.
And the DIY husband? He’s been put to good use in building a home-based packing station for packaging up the magazines and posting them out to customers.
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.
