Entrepreneurs need three attributes to be successful – creativity, passion and tenacity, according to Paul Lindley, the founder of fast-growing baby food producer Ella’s Kitchen.
The former accountant and kids’ TV executive launched the business, named after his daughter, six years ago with a clear mission – to produce healthy, tasty packaged food for pre-school children.
He had the vision and brand before the product – not the most traditional route for an entrepreneur, he admits, but having worked in children’s television, he knew everything about the buying habits of parents and the optimum way of marketing to them.
Today Ella’s Kitchen has 14% market share in the UK, exports to Europe and the US, employs 40 staff and has launched 70 products.
Paul outlined his views on business and talked through the growth of Ella’s Kitchen at the latest South West Entrepreneurs’ Forum meeting, hosted by Swindon law firm Thring’s in its Bristol office and co-sponsored by Barclays Bank and accountants RSM Tenon, which has its regional base in Swindon.
Expanding on his three key points of creativity, passion and tenacity, he said passion gave any business an extra 10% – although it should not be a passion for making money but providing the best service possible to the customer.
While a healthy cashflow was vital to every business, he said the first thing he did every morning was not to look at the finances but to look at any customer feedback and deal with it promptly.
“Our vision is to become the world’s first premium food brand for pre-school children,” he said.
“We see it like visualising a lighthouse. It’s always there but as you make your way towards it sometimes you have to zig zag.
“You need to keep your belief in gut feeling as well. By all means use charts and diagrams for the business but back them up with your gut feeling.”
While the company has been ranked among the UK’s fastest growing and has won a raft of awards, its own measure of success is what it calls tiny tummy touch points – how often its products reach pre-school children.
“We set ourselves a target of 200m of these when we started. Now, as we are expanding, introducing new products and looking at new markets overseas, we have raised that to one billion,” he said.
