I turned our family card game into a £1 million business – but I only have to work 30 mins A DAY
Hazel Reynolds, 32, from Brighton, says starting a business has made her a better mum
ARRIVING home in tears with her self-esteem at rock bottom after yet another awful day at work, Hazel Reynolds knew she had to make a change.
Encouraged by her husband Chris, 34, the former journalist from Brighton decided to quit her job and start a business of her own – a card game she’d dreamt up to lure her then 12-year-old sister away from her iPad.
Despite finding out she was pregnant the day after launching Randomise, in just four years Hazel’s company is on course to hit the £1million turnover mark, despite the fact she often works just half an hour a day.
Here, speaking exclusively to Fabulous Digital for our Bossing It series about ordinary women who have launched incredible businesses, mum-of-two Hazel, 32, says starting a business has actually made her a better parent…
I HONESTLY thought I’d found my dream job at a charity after quitting my role at a consumer magazine in London.
I’d finally ditched my four hour daily commute to London and back - but it turned out to be nothing like I thought it would be.
It wasn’t a very healthy working environment and I had a crisis of self-esteem. I’d come home crying every night and thought I was the worst employee in the world.
It was then my husband said I needed to get out and suggested I make a go of the game I’d come up with last Christmas.
Randomise is a bit of a mash-up of charades and Pictionary, where the player has to act, describe or draw what’s on the card for their team to guess.
Our family loved it, and when my husband said I should sell it I thought it was a nice idea, but at that point I imagined entrepreneurs who started their own businesses had to be ruthless, work 80 hours a week and sacrifice their family. It didn’t sound like me at all.
But the weeping mess I’d become wasn’t me either. So in September 2015 I handed in my notice and agreed I’d give the game four months to take off, living on Chris’ £40,000 salary as an audience researcher for a TV channel.
But I hit an instant hurdle: the day after I set up the company, I found out I was pregnant.
We were thrilled, but it certainly threw a spanner in the works. I suffered really badly with nausea in the first few months – I was practically bed-ridden, it was such a struggle.
Every time I moved I felt I was going to be sick. I snatched half an hour here and there when I felt able to work on my laptop from my bed.
We set up a Kickstarter campaign - where strangers fund creative projects online - to show people the game idea. I remember a real low point was filming a video for our page – at that stage I hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant so I had to pretend I was having loads of fun while feeling like I was going to puke at any minute.
Incredibly we managed to raise just under £4,500 in three weeks – it was amazing so many people wanted to buy the game.
We also signed up to the NatWest Entrepreneurial Spark business accelerator programme, which meant we got free office space in Brighton plus loads of free coaching.
With an injection of £5,000 from our personal savings – a big risk given we had a mortgage and a baby on the way - we had enough money to manufacture our first batch of Randomise in time for Christmas 2015.
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We got three quotes and ended up going with the company that produce cards for games like Monopoly and Uno.
We also managed to get on the Amazon Launchpad, which is a scheme that promotes new start-ups and products. That made us really visible on the site which I believe was fundamental to the business taking off.
I enrolled in the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service, which means I send them a huge pallet of 3,000 games direct from the manufacturer, which they then store, pack and post when orders come in. The packing and posting fees are pretty much the same as it would cost you to send it via Royal Mail, and given I was expecting a baby it was too much for me to do all that by myself, so it worked out perfectly.
In June 2016 I had our son Charlie, and in the six months after I was working an average of half an hour a day, which seemed bonkers given our turnover was around £164,000.
But once you’ve designed the product, got a manufacturer and done your page on Amazon, there's actually very little work involved afterwards other than marketing and coming up with new ideas.
By the end of 2018 we had sold 55,000 copies of Randomise and launched two new games – Soundiculous and The Pretender, which is now our top-rated game on Amazon.
When we design a new game we ask all our friends and family to test it out for us and tell us what they think. All our games have been adapted according to the feedback we received.
They all start as felt tip drawings on pieces of paper. In the beginning I asked my friend Leigh, who is an illustrator, to produce all the drawings for us, then my friend Paul did the layout, putting them in a special format using InDesign for the manufacturer.
My husband Chris went part-time when Charlie was six months old, then three months later he came to work with me full-time. Now we do 50-50 work and childcare.
I had our daughter Cora in January last year, and we have since taken on two members of part-time staff.
Over the past three years we’ve seen a turnover of more than £750,000. This year (to September) we’re forecast to make £450,000, which is double last year’s takings, and by the end of 2019 I’m confident we’ll have made well over £1million.
Thinking of starting a business?
Hazel says: “Follow your passion - something that gets you excited to build a business around. Passion and enthusiasm are contagious and if you love what you do, other people will want to be a part of whatever you are creating.
“Put your values at the heart of your business - decisions are a lot easier if you know who you are and how you want to do business.
“Work smarter by ruthlessly prioritising - if I hadn't had two babies in the last three years, I can definitely see how I might have succumbed to the stereotype of the 'always on' entrepreneur who works 80 hours a week. But I honestly don't think my business would have benefited. Working less forces you to constantly reassess what tasks are really important.
“Spend time away from your business - I find I have the best ideas when I am nowhere near the office.
“Define your own success - it's easy to assume that growth is always good and the more money you make the better, but these things are only good if they fit your vision of success.
“For me, success means creating exciting new games, building a small and very happy team and increasing the positive impact that we have on the wider world through our charitable initiatives.
“But it also means having the time and flexibility to enjoy spending plenty of quality time with my husband and children, and, in the future, hopefully just a little more 'me' time!”
I never dreamed having my own business would give me such flexibility. I definitely have a sense of “imposter syndrome” – like I’m playing at being an entrepreneur and someone’s going to find out I’m just making it up as I go along. But I’ve actually got to the stage now where I know that’s what I’m doing and I’m comfortable with it – I think that's what most people are doing! I've taught myself business finance just from Googling all the words I don't understand.
I now see so much more of my husband, and while one of us works, the other is with the kids.
That freedom to spend more time with our children is way more rewarding than any financial gain and it’s definitely made me a better mum - I feel incredibly lucky.
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