Money

I pulled my son out of school aged 14 so he could pursue his business dream & we’ve made £3.6MILLION flogging wax melts

Published

3 hours ago

September 25, 2024

I pulled my son out of school aged 14 so he could pursue his business dream & we've made £3.6MILLION flogging wax melts

A MUM pulled her son out of school when he was just 14 so he could pursue his business dream – and now the business has made £3.6million.

Noah Carlile-Swift was just a teenager when his mum Tara suggested they start a business together to help build his confidence after his secondary school education left him feeling “stupid”.

Noah Carlile-Swift and mum, Tara, are the co-founders of FrecklefaceCredit: Facebook

Noah was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia when he was just 11Credit: Facebook

Last year, the company had sales of £3.6millionCredit: Instagram

When Noah was just 11, he was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia, effectively meaning, as Tara, 50, says, he was “bright, at the top end of learning ability, but not in the way that school teaches it. So he struggled with exams and with comprehension, which is mainly what school is about.”

So, with the support of Noah’s school, they started Freckleface, a fragrance company selling wax melts – scented pieces of wax that release an aroma into the room when heated on top of a burner – and soon after Noah left his school in Spalding, Lincolnshire.

Tara told The Times: “They [Noah’s school] agreed that he was doing stuff outside of school with the business – building the website, taking computers apart, designing logos – and was much better using his skills on something he got reward from, rather than feeling stupid every day.”

Starting as a kitchen table business, Freckleface now has its own factory in rural Lincolnshire and operates five shops in York, Cambridge, Lincoln and Stamford – with plans to open more outlets next year.

Last year, the company had sales of £3.6million and a pre-tax profit of £600,000.

Tara is the managing director while Noah runs the retail side of things with the long-term plan being that he takes over her role in 10 years’ time.

For Tara, it was certainly an unconventional route into being an entrepreneur as her “only qualification” is a Btec in sign writing.

When she was just six months old her dad died suddenly of a heart attack aged 46 and her mum went on to remarry when Tara was six.

Due to her stepdad’s job in HM Coastguard it meant the family “moved every few years”, including spells in the Isle of Wight and the Gower Peninsula in Wales.

Almost as soon as Tara gained her Btec, it was made virtually redundant due to the march of technology and “the whole signwriting world went digital”.

We took our kids, 15 and 10, out of school to live on a 35-foot boat – we brought our dog too but it almost ended in tragedy

After she “bummed around for a couple of years” Tara did a course to become a personal assistant.

She chose a college in Nottingham after she met Simon, her husband, on a night out in the city.

Tara said: “I went for the weekend, met Simon, and we moved in together two weeks later. We’ve been together ever since.”

After her PA course she landed a job at Experian, the credit-checking firm, where she spent three years learning about business “through osmosis” as she sat in on meetings with the top team.

Tara added: “At the time, you don’t realise, but you’re absorbing it all, sitting with finance directors taking minutes of all the meetings.”

She and Simon were also trying for a baby, but after suffering a series of miscarriages, decided to take some time out from the corporate life and head to Australia for a year.

As they landed back in England Tara found out she was pregnant with Noah.

Tara then got a temping job with Boots, the high street chemist, which has its headquarters in Nottingham.

CHANCE CONVERSATION

It was while at Boots a chance conversation lead to a dramatic change in her career.

Tara said: “I was sitting in the canteen eating my sandwich and the people next to me were talking about products they were developing for pregnant people and I chipped in and said, ‘I don’t think you should do it like that, I think you should think about this,’ and they offered me a job in the marketing department.”

After a couple of years at Boots, she left as part of a restructuring and retrained as a project manager, taking the Prince2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) project management qualification, before working as an administrator for Siemens on railway bids.

That job though meant long hours and frequent travel, with Tara often being away three night a week, which she and Simon juggled alongside his shifts as an IT worker.

To help Noah make his transition to secondary school, Tara quit her job as Siemens and needing an extra income, became a foster carer.

The couple fostered 23 children in three and a half years.

How to start your own business

Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis revealed his tips for budding entrepreneurs:

One of the biggest barriers aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners face is a lack of confidence. You must believe in your idea — even more than that, be the one boring your friends to death about it.
Never be afraid to make decisions. Once you have an idea, it’s the confidence to make decisions that is crucial to starting and maintaining a business.
If you don’t take calculated risks, you’re standing still. If a decision turns out to be wrong, identify it quickly and deal with it if you can. Failing that, find someone else who can.
It’s OK not to get it right the first time. My experience of making bad decisions is what helped develop my confidence, making me who I am today.
Never underestimate the power of social media, and remember the internet has levelled the playing field for small businesses.
Don’t forget to dream. A machine can’t do that!

She decided to start her own business just as the fostering was coming to an end but describes the first few months as “absolute carnage”.

Tara said: “We had a baby who we had from birth and he had gastric problems so he didn’t sleep and was sick constantly, plus I had a teenager who was neurodiverse, all while I was doing the business.

“We were making the products all week and then I was putting them in the car, driving all over the country, sleeping in the car, doing whatever we needed to get the products out there.”

But while it was exhausting, they knew they were on to something.

‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’

She added: “It became obvious really quickly that we had something special.

“We would go to a fair, sell out, come home, make it all again. Go to another show, and sell out. And so on.”

The baby boy was then adopted permanently by “the most super family in the world” and the Carlile-Swifts still see him every six weeks but Tara said the initial separation was “awful” and she threw herself into the business.

Tara said: “We decided, ‘Let’s take the business really seriously’.

“We came up with a business plan that said we wanted to have stores on every UK high street and for the brand to be global within ten years.”

Freckleface moved into its first industrial unit in 2019, just a few months before Covid hit.

The pandemic could have derailed production but sales were boosted by people working from home and “everybody wanting their houses to smell great”.

FIRST SHOP

The firm was also helped by reduced rents and breaks on business rates during the pandemic which helped them open their first Freckleface store in Stamford, Lincolnshire, in July 2020.

Another shop in Cambridge opened the following year.

In order to save money Tara and Simone built the shop interiors for the first three stores, with Noah taking on the responsibility for the last two.

Along with its stores, Freckleface products are also stocked in more than 800 shops nationwide and the brand has run collaborations with the Royal Horticultural Society and Laura Ashley.

Freckleface now has a workforce of 60, including Tara’s husband, who joined in 2020 to run the manufacturing side.

Tara puts a lot of the company’s more recent success down to the initial slog at trade shows and local fairs.

She said: “The customer you meet at a show is a super-loyal customer. They will shop from you online and will seek out your high street stores.

“And our product is a consumable one, so they tend to come back every month or six weeks to stock up.

“So the hard work of schlepping around the country at shows is why the business built so quickly.”

The family has not raised or borrowed any money to finance the business.

At first, they struggled even to buy a kilo of wax, which would have cost “£10 or so”.

Even though working capital is “still the biggest stresser that keeps us awake at night and stops us from growing quicker”, Tara added she’s “not interested” in raising investment.

She said: “We want to be a heritage brand that’s still going to be on the high street in 50 years and we will hand down the generations of Frecklefaces.

“We’re not in it to make a quick buck.”

The company name is Tara’s nickname for Noah was he was tiny, because she had been taunted by playground bullies for being a “freckleface” and wanted to ensure Noah thought the name was a term of endearment.

She said: “We’re very freckly, we’re plastered. And we would call each other freckleface.

“So it was a natural decision when we were naming the business, but we never thought back then we were going to have all these shops.

“And now people shout Freckleface at us across the street, but in a nice way.”

The company opened its first store in Stamford, Lincolnshire, in July 2020Credit: Instagram

Freckleface now has five branches around the countryCredit: Instagram

Tara pulled her son, Noah, out of school when he was 14Credit: Instagram

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Money

Should investors make the most of stocks’ seasonal weakness?

Published

14 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

The summer is often choppy and this year was no exception. Stocks were near all-time highs at mid-year with volatility close to all-time lows.

August then saw the worst one-day sell off since 2020 and early September the worst week since 2022.

The zig-zag pattern is continuing, with investors worried about the risk of recession in the US. With global growth slowing and inflation cooling off, we are in a reflation phase, in which central banks usually lower interest rates and government bonds do well.

It’s a harder call for stocks.

If a recession is in the offing, the first Federal Reserve rate cut can signal the start of a bear market. If growth remains firm and rates are cut for inflation reasons, it can be bullish. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have a broadly neutral view on stocks while favouring bonds over commodities.

Most likely, stocks will come out of the summer doldrums on a positive footing, but things may get worse before they get better

Averages can hide a lot of information but September is historically the worst month of the year for stocks, with returns falling short of cash by 1.7% since 1986. Over the last five years, stocks have underperformed cash on average by 3.5% in September.

We put seasonal weakness down to the fact it’s hard for investors to get a good take on earnings trends during the quieter summer months and market liquidity isn’t great.

The business cycle has been particularly hard to read this year, with the post-pandemic swings in growth and inflation behind us.

The onset of Covid-19 was like a rock thrown into the pond and the waves are only just settling. Global growth has been steady this year, with a strong US economy making up for softness elsewhere.

Averages can hide a lot of information but September is historically the worst month of the year for stocks

Meanwhile, inflation is back in a range consistent with central bank targets. Investors were hoping central banks would cut rates for inflation reasons, but a run of weaker manufacturing data and US jobs reports is testing nerves.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see further volatility in the near term, especially with a contentious and close fought US election in the background. That said, our base case is that, true to seasonal form, stocks will rally into the New Year on the back of Fed rate cuts and more reassuring US data.

Investor sentiment can be a useful tool for timing moves back into stocks. Three times in the last year, we’ve seen our composite sentiment indicator move into overly bearish territory and, each time, the market has rallied.

In October and April, the sell-off was due to geopolitical risk and, in August, on concerns around the health of the US economy and a surge in the yen that triggered a disorderly unwind of carry trades.

The business cycle has been particularly hard to read this year, with the post-pandemic swings in growth and inflation behind us

Stocks saw four weeks of declines with volatility spiking to the second highest level since the global financial crisis. Depressed investor sentiment again signalled the lows and markets recovered quickly.

For active investors who can be nimble, volatility can be an opportunity, but we’d trade equity exposure around a neutral position until we know more.

For now, we have higher conviction on a positive view on government bonds and a negative view on commodities. We don’t currently expect a US recession, as service sector activity remains strong and interest rates have been on hold rather than rising.

Most likely, stocks will come out of the summer doldrums on a positive footing, but things may get worse before they get better.

Trevor Greetham is head of multi asset at Royal London Asset Management

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Money

Channel 4 star WINS fight to keep bikini sunroom she built in garden of £4million home after neighbour spy row

Published

36 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

Channel 4 star WINS fight to keep bikini sunroom she built in garden of £4million home after neighbour spy row

CELEBRITY interior designer Celia Sawyer has won her planning dispute over a luxury sunroom she built without permission in the garden of her Sandbanks home.

The star of Channel 4’s Four Rooms had the glass-walled building with a retractable roof installed in 2020.

Celia Sawyer was embroiled in the privacy row with her neighbour for monthsCredit: Splash News

Interior designer Celia was faced with having to tear down her sunroomCredit: BNPS

Celia’s property (white) and neighbour Neil Kennedy’s property (red)Credit: BNPS

Celia has won the planning disputeCredit: Tim Stewart

The sunroom backs on to Poole Harbour and even has a small sandy ‘beach’ in front of it with sunbeds on.

Mrs Sawyer, known as Mrs Bling, has regularly posted pictures on Instagram of herself lounging in the 21ft by 15ft room wearing a bikini or thigh-splitting skirts.

Last year the 58-year-old became embroiled in a row with nextdoor neighbour Neil Kennedy over a first floor balcony he had built without planning permission.

She claimed that it breached her privacy as he was able to look down to the bottom of her garden where she sunbathes.

Mrs Sawyer and her husband Nick lost out in the dispute when BCP Council granted Mr Kennedy retrospective planning permission that allowed him to keep his balcony and other alterations he had done.

Afterwards the council received an anonymous tip-off informing them that Mrs Sawyer’s sunroom had been built without permission.

Officials contacted her and told her she had to submit a retrospective planning application for it.

She faced having to tear it down if it was rejected.

A council case officer has now granted her planning approval saying they were satisfied the building did not cause any harm to the area.

Hollyoaks’ title sequence shake up confirm which cast survived brutal cull after time jump relaunch

Planning officer Emma Woods said the sunroom wasn’t visible from the street and can only be seen from the water and neighbouring properties.

She said the sunroom is “open in nature” and “does not appear at odds with its surroundings” pointing out that many waterside properties have outbuildings like boat houses.

She noted it is about 3ft from Mr Kennedy’s property but it is not overbearing due to its modest height and open nature.

What are your retrospective planning permission rights?

A local planning authority can request a retrospective application, according to Gov.uk.

You should submit your application without delay.

Although a local planning authority may invite an application, you must not assume permission will be granted.

A person who has undertaken unauthorised development has only one opportunity to obtain planning permission after the event.

This can either be through a retrospective planning application or an appeal against an enforcement notice – on the grounds that planning permission should be granted or the conditions should be removed.

The local planning authority can decline a retrospective planning application if an enforcement notice has previously been issued.

No appeal may be made if an enforcement notice is issued within the time allowed for determination of a retrospective planning application.

She said: “The design retains a sense of openness and is considered to fit comfortably with the established character and appearance of this stretch of the shoreline.

“Overall it is considered that the development respects the amenities and privacy of the occupants of the neighbouring properties.”

The council only received one representation from a neighbour who said the sunroom was well designed and made a positive contribution to this part of the harbour.

Mrs Sawyer was granted the retrospective planning application with condition that the sunroom must not be used for habitable accommodation.