The thriving business founded on love
It is not often that love is the foundation for a business, but that was how it worked out for Adele MacKinnon, who used her wedding gift money to buy a Roland CAMM-1 GR-640 vinyl cutter in 1999. Today the business is thriving, and is strong evidence of a trend that is seeing small businesses create a strong niche using social media and alternative online routes to market.
Monday, 15 Jan 2018 17:38 GMT
Adele MacKinnon founded her business on a Roland CAMM-1 GR-640 in 1999, using gift money from her wedding to purchase it
MacKinnon explains: “After leaving college I initially worked for a couple of signage companies, finally settling at Technical Signs in Watford where I met my husband. I left work to have my first child and began to work freelance, with my husband cold-calling high street businesses every Friday to source me work.”
The family then moved to Bedfordshire and—with the arrival of their second child—the Roland DG machine became virtually redundant as she focused on raising her young family. The cutter was put in the loft for a number of years and MacKinnon contemplated on selling it on a number of occasions.
Fast-forward through the break for the business that lasted until 2010, while MacKinnon’s family grew up, and the Roland was dug out of the loft and Nutmeg Studio was reborn.
MacKinnon continues: “We dug the cutter out of the loft after many years in retirement and it still worked perfectly. I used the Roland DG CAMM-1 product for vinyl graphics to decorate my daughter’s bedroom with personalised wall stickers. Friends and family saw these and encouraged me to sell them online, which I did initially via eBay.”
We dug the cutter out of the loft after many years in retirement and it still worked perfectly”
With notonthhighstreet.com used as a further springboard for the new business it has grown exponentially and today specialises in wall art stickers for a wide variety of businesses, including a brand stocked by John Lewis.
Sales have increased at a rate of 50 percent year on year since Nutmeg was re-founded. This has enabled an investment into new technology, with the latest being a Roland VersaCAMM SP-300i eco-solvent inkjet printer/cutter in March 2015, alongside a Hotronix Auto Open Clam heat press. This led to the expansion of the product line with the addition of full-colour wall stickers and graphics, and printed apparel.
The company now offers an extremely broad range of printed and personalised products to businesses and end-users alike – one of the most popular products being iPhone charger stickers, which were dreamt up by MacKinnon when she got fed up of her daughters stealing her charger. When the stickers where marketed online, the response was amazing; the iPhone charger stickers have become Nutmeg’s best-selling product to date.
MacKinnon concludes: “Buying the new kit was a life saver when it came to the iPhone stickers as initially we were cutting the names out of vinyl and weeding them. With the addition of the new printer we were able to print and cut them seamlessly, reducing production time considerably.
“I am now working on a range of off-the-shelf retail window graphics and will be investing in new Roland DG technology as I continue to expand Nutmeg Studio’s product offerings.”
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