Food for Thought: Launching a small business in 2020.

After twenty years of imagining and two years of planning, I set up Laura’s Larder, a fine food store and delicatessen, launched in February in Petts Wood, Kent. We opened on the cusp of the pandemic and the UK’s worst recession in recorded history. Not exactly ideal commercial conditions...

Fortunately, before I launched my first business venture, I spent a long time working in the Tech sector. The terms “pivot”, “agility” and “resilience” are common currency in that world. The strategies and modelling behind them stood me in good stead to quickly adapt to the ‘new normal’.

At Laura’s Larder, everything from the aprons to the coffee cups to the quality of our food ingredients has been carefully considered. Whatever is thrown at me, I do not compromise on this. We found a way to pivot without losing our brand values - by quickly leveraging the power of proximity. Lucky for us, local shopping is having a positive moment.

With the huge increase in our potential customer base working from home and avoiding crowded city centres, we set about building relationships (albeit socially distant ones) in store and online. And we were quick to try new things, whether this meant changing our opening times, increasing deliveries or stocking plenty of what people needed – which at one time was plenty of pasta!

No amount of planning can insulate us from seismic world events but staying on top of developing trends helped us - and could help you - adapt and grow. We really are all in this one together. As the lure city centres wane, small businesses like ours - especially if we band together and advocate for our sector - could be best placed to adapt and survive. We hope we’re here in Petts Wood to stay. Time will tell...

Read the original article in VM Spotlight here