Training for starting a new business

Since starting work at the age of 17 as a laboratory assistant for Pilkington's Glass, it had been Valerie Craine's ambition to run her own business. Even when she had her first child ten years later, she did not think of herself as a housewife in the long term. In spare moments and while the children were at school, Valerie worked on a project in which she had a strong interest. She and her husband Ken—full‐time technical manager—felt that there was a need for a protective coating material suitable for glass containers used in industry, laboratories and hospitals for storing acids and chemicals. They finally developed a technique for spraying glass with a tough transparent plastic material. Sprayed on to a glass container, it forms a coating which remains intact even if the glass shatters. An enthusiastic response to Valerie's informal market research convinced her that their amateur project could become a profit making concern. But Valerie lacked commercial expertise and was also unsure whether she could adjust to a full‐time commitment outside the family. The New Enterprise Programme which she attended in Manchester in June last year helped her to develop the necessary professional approach and reassured her that she could cope with running a home and a business. Towards the end of the course, Valerie and Ken were sufficiently confident to apply for a second mortgage on their house to finance the business. ‘Through the advice I received on the course, I was able to present professionally laid out cash flow forecasts which impressed our bank manager and tipped the balance in our favour’ said Valerie. Valerie and two family friends who have come in as her partners are now coating 1,000 glass containers a day, based in small factory premises on a new industrial estate in Bournemouth. They already employ six part time staff. They have now also established that the coating can be applied to a range of glass products including fluorescent lighting. Costs are already being covered and expansion in the very near future seems assured.