Julie Deane founded Cambridge Satchel Company in her kitchen in 2008, with her mom at her side. "It’s one of those business that was started out of necessity because I needed to make school fees for my daughter, who was being bullied at school," says Deane. "I made a promise to her that I would move her to a place that she could be really safe and happy. Once you make a promise to your children, there’s no going back."
So she developed a few ideas for companies she could start with a budget of £600, one of which was a satchel company. Now, people scoff at the idea of starting a company on such a shoestring budget, but Deane maintains, to this day, that "it seems a perfectly reasonable amount to give something a go with," and that you can get a sense of whether something has legs or not without getting in too deep.
Once she decided on satchels, Deane sat down at her kitchen table and started Googling handbag manufacturers, leather goods manufacturers, leather suppliers, saddle makers and anyone who would cut leather and make things from scratch for her. She "hammered" the Internet to make sure nobody else was doing it — a process she now knows is actually calledcompetitor analysis. When she determined that her venture was unique, she'd drive to the tanneries and manufacturers to get them on board.
She found a leather supplier and got to work on a prototype. With a product in the works, she then set out to build a website. "I didn’t know very much about websites at all," says Deane. "I thought, 'It can't be that hard, there must be a course on the Internet.'" She found one, and she spent two nights taking a course and then made the website on the third night.
"At this point, most people have access to the Internet, and it’s all there," says Deane, who now speaks to students about entrepreneurship and bootstrapping. "I tell them, 'You don’t need to pay someone else to do your web design and SEO and AdWords campaign' ... it's lazy."
Deane put herself on every free online listing she could — from the Yellow Pages and mom blogs to Etsy and eBay. "I read this book called Guerilla Marketing, and it says you need to try multiple avenues of marketing, and if people see your name enough times, then they’ll get curious enough to look you up," she says.
As she started selling chestnut, dark brown and black satchels online, Deane engaged her customers. She'd ask them to send a photo of them with their satchel and to write a testimonial for the site if they really loved the bag (and to send it back if they didn't), thinking a solid review could lend her fledgling business credibility and encourage other people to buy. A few of Deane's early customers mentioned their love for fashion blogs, which opened a world of opportunity to Deane.
Today, Cambridge Satchels are sold in 190 outposts in 100 countries, and the company does more than £8 million in annual sales. And all Julie Deane set out to do with £600 was make enough money to cover her daughter's tuition and provide her with a place that she would feel safe and happy.
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