Sophie Downes
Sophie Downes is one of the enterprising young people in our SEED (Self Employment and Entrepreneurial Development) Programme.
A print designer, she’s made fantastic progress in her business, achieving several milestones, including receiving her very first wholesale order, developing her own stationary collection with her SEED funding, and attending New Designers 2022 in London to showcase her work.
Sophie shares with us in her own words how SEED and GrowBiz have supported her on her business journey so far.
‘Hi, I'm Sophie. I'm 23 and I'm a small business owner from Perthshire.
I graduated from art school in 2021. And at the beginning of this year, I took the jump of leaving my job in retail to focus on my creative business from home.
Everything I knew about business was completely self taught, and there are a lot of areas that I was unsure about. In January this year, I received an email from an organisation called GrowBiz who run a project called SEED which is aimed at young people in Perthshire looking to develop a business idea, I was assigned a mentor who helped me with business developments that I'd been hoping to achieve.
A month later, I received my very first wholesale order Media Gift Shop wanted to stop my cards. SEED gave me advice around creating a wholesale price list, writing terms and conditions and how to communicate with retailers.
No question was a silly question with SEED and I always felt supported throughout my business journey. After a couple of interviews and zoom calls, I was awarded a grant from GrowBiz which allowed me to develop my very own stationery range. I conducted market research, develop new patterns, sourced suppliers, and after a lot of emails and research later, I had designed and produced a brand new stationery collection. This was unbelievably rewarding and made possible by SEEDS financial support.
With my new products I applied to take part in an event in London, I was invited to showcase my work at New Designers 2022 in a curator section called one year in this was an amazing experience I met spoke to you and sold my work to so many lovely people and members of the industry.
All in all the support from SEED has been amazing. Eight months on I have now taken part in two pop-up events have developed new product ranges have a growing list of stockists, and within the past week I've been shortlisted as a finalist for the Women’s Enterprise Scotland Start-up Business of the Year award. I'm so grateful that SEED reached out to me and I'm so excited to see how my business grows in the next few months. Thank you from one happy human to another.’
Find out more about how SEED and GrowBiz could help you on your business journey.