narzipan: This Mum Runs At Start Up 2017 Birmingham

Mel Bound's fab keynote speech at the end of Enterprise Nation's Start Up 2017 event in Birmingham was for many the highlight of a very exciting day.

Here's what you missed (you missed a lot!!)

The First Step

A need!

A desire for some much needed headspace, exercise and me time led Mel to post on Facebook asking if any other busy mums felt the same and would anyone like to go for a run next Wednesday? 75 people showed up! Talk about discovering a need and a demand for something missing in these enthusiastic ladies lives.

Developing The Idea

Mel quickly set up a This Mum Runs Facebook page and within days had hundreds of members. Most businesses can only dream of such momentum. Using an online coaching template for an 8 week beginners guide to running she quickly set up some structure and trained up additional TMR (This Mum Runs) running coaches.

Community Marketing

Important: Mel has done nearly all her marketing through Facebook and spent less than £2k on advertising. The caring and supportive attitudes of the TMR community are a big attraction and it is this inclusive attitude to welcome everyone that gives the concept mass appeal. There is no confidence-bashing focus on weight or competitiveness and a goal "to empower more mums around the world to be happier and healthier".

Build a tribe as they say.

Checkout the inspiration category on TMR's website: Inspiration

Funding Your Business

Mel stated that she needed money to scale the business up from its current locations in Bristol and Bath. She turned to Crowdcube who have raised over £200m for over 400 businesses.

Before the campaign went live Mel and her team spent 3 months promoting the forthcoming fundraising round. This preparation was vital to gaining attention on launch and a prominent position on the homepage. Mel raised 50% of her target in 20 minutes and 100% in 10 days.

As you can see above she now has 300 investors who provided £100k in return for 14.68% of her business. Over half of the investors are TMR runners and 80% are female. Refreshing!

Finding Customers

Mel has proven a master at building TMR with an inspiring and supportive community spirit that generates phenomenal word of mouth and positive recommendations. There are now over 6,500 members. Through working with Facebook on the She Means Business campaign Mel had access to data confirming there has been more than 10,000 posts and 52,000 comments on the TMR page. Mel herself has made over 10,000 comments. Try and beat that for customer engagement!

Building Income

TMR offers 90 free runs a month but generates most of its income from paid courses for beginners to seasoned pros. To supplement this Mel has also launched a cool range of clothing which is extremely popular with members proud to show they are very proud to be in TMR. Mel admitted that the first attempt at a clothes range was a bit rushed so they took more time and care second time around.

Mel's Top Tips!

Find someone who does know how to do the things that are not your strong point.

Mel has a super confident altar ego that she uses to appear more confident than she feels. Mel was so nervous when pitching at E Nation's Festival of Female Entrepreneurs that to hide that her legs were shaking she kept moving them from side to side.

Mel only spends one hour a day on emails and encourages people to only contact her if it's important.

Mel recently took herself away for a few days isolation to mentally detox and gain much needed headspace to think clearly what to do next with the business. Helping mothers such as Kelly Pike below, who needed a boost to her confidence is the why that drives every step forward TMR takes.

Mel Recommends!

To build your confidence Mel suggests watching this Ted Talk on body language by Amy Cuddy. It gets you to notice the effect your body language has on others and how they view you.

Fake It Until You Make It!