Company name:  Curiosity Cottage

Client name: Lisa Schofield & Emma Cliff

Location: Aiskew, North Yorkshire

First contact: November 2020

Business Launch: September 2021

Business Summary: Classes & community events for young families

Design Work: Logo, leaflets, social media adverts, social media set up, website

Company website: www.curiositycottage.com  (website designed by Sandcress)

Introducing the client: Lisa & Emma originally contacted me as they were keen to start a business; originally to open their own nursery.  They had both worked in the childcare industry for their whole careers and were interested to enjoy more freedom from being self-employed.

The journey: This was quite a journey for them.  After running the figures, it became quickly apparent that the original idea of the nursery couldn't work for these ladies in the way that they would like it to.  In fact, they would be working harder and earning less! So we went back to the drawing board and came up with an idea of a community centre where they would be able to offer classes & groups to women with babies or young children.  Over a few weeks, this was built into a robust business strategy with a promising profit and loss forecast. Further strategic business planning went ahead and Curiosity Cottage was born.

We developed a programme of different classes and groups that would initially be offered and started the build of the website and social media. 

The launch: We did a 'prelaunch' of the website to give local parents the opportunity to learn about The Curiosity Cottage and what Lisa & Emma would be offering.  We started by giving them the opportunity to register their interest.  Around a month before the official 'launch' and open day, we put the complete website live with the ability to book onto the upcoming classes, groups and events.  The response was fantastic.  The open day was an enormous success with a huge number of people in attendance. Parents have been steadily booking their children into the classes and the first round of classes went down enormously well!  These are two extremely tenacious ladies who should be incredibly proud of what they've achieved. Lisa and Emma were able to successfully start a business, and since it's been developing well and begun to grow.

We were very lucky to find Cressida in the early days of starting our new domiciliary care company. Cressida has been amazing at giving us tasks and goals in order to get ourselves up and running. She has always been just a message or call away if ever we have been stuck. We have really appreciated the wealth of knowledge and experience she has been able to share with us. We look forward to continuing to work with her as our business grows!  Lisa Scott

Cressida has been super helpful whilst we’ve been setting up our business.  Designing our website and logo which we love Emma Cliff