It’s my last post before Christmas and naturally, it’s a time of reflection. This past year has been what I’ve been wanting to do for years. Finally start working on my business - properly. Last January I enrolled myself in a shoe design course. Last February I enrolled myself in the AllBright Academy for female entrepreneurs. Last March I quit my full-time job to go full time on my business. Come the summer I was in desperate need of money and have been working a part time job since.

This time last year I still hadn’t figured out how the design was going to work. Since we had no idea, I didn’t have a prototype, so nothing I could show anyone. For all intents and purposes it was still a pipeline dream. This time last year I hadn’t trademarked the company name (even though I had one), I didn’t have a website and very few people knew what I was aiming to achieve. This time last year I was so scared about meeting investors yet I knew I had to at some point. I had no other entrepreneurial friends to help me along my journey and I was already feeling myself fall into the rat race in my corporate job.

Twelve months on, we have a conceptual design that is the best we’ve ever had. I’ve had one prototype made and another on its way. I have my website set up and have been blogging my journey. I have over 500 followers on Instagram (without even having a product), I have met three investors and built a network of entrepreneurs through the academy. I have graduated from my shoe design course, I know more about the industry than I’ve ever known and I have completed my Business Plan. I have thought so much about the brand behind Lucy Rose, what it stands for, and where the points of uniqueness will be. I am turning it from a 2D name into a 3D personality.

The last 12 months have not been easy, but it has been the year of my biggest personal growth. There have been some huge highs such as seeing the first prototype and getting positive feedback from investors to big lows of feeling too overwhelmed to climb this uphill mountain and the struggle of growing an Instagram following organically (I mean that is just soul destroying).

As it comes to the end of the first year of the most effort I’ve ever put in to Lucy Rose, I can hand on heart say that I am not yet where I want to be, but I am a hell of a lot closer than I was this time last year. If that’s not progress, then I don’t know what is.

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have the most amazing time with loved ones and I’ll see you in the New Year (hopefully with some exciting news to share not long after).

Em x