Pair plan giant strides in business with One Small Step

CLAIRE Mitchell had her Eureka! moment while driving along with her baby daughter. She wanted to stop and feed the little girl then realised that she had the carton of formula Ultimo milk with her but no sterilised bottle. Why had no-one invented a teat which could be attached directly onto a bottle or carton?

Claire, a former care home manager based in Grewelthorpe near Masham, and her husband Rob have in the three-and-a-half years since that day, “begged and borrowed” £75,000 to develop her idea into Chillipeeps, a teat which comes in its own pod and can be taken home, washed, sterilised and reused. It’s about to go into production, and was launched at the Harrogate International Nursery Fair in March, immediately attracting orders for 10,000, retailing at £4.99.

Chillipeeps Ltd will also be launching a pre-sterilised disposable version of the teat for use in parts of the world where water may be contaminated during natural disasters. It can be used on standard mineral water bottles. “We’d like to work with aid agencies in supplying this other, not-for-profit product, which we hope would be subsidised by sales of the reusable one,” says 39-year-old Claire.

A cash injection of £50,000 would enable production of the second product sooner than anticipated. Within a few weeks she will know whether she has bagged that money for her business, when the results of a public vote on enterprising new ideas are announced.

The Take One Small Step competition has attracted 5,000 entrants from the country’s small businesses or would-be entrepreneurs since being launched by Barclays.

Entries embraced everything from a student phone app to a kit with raw ingredients and simple instructions to cook a meal, a new piece of speech and language therapy software and the reconstruction of a Roman fort in Cheshire as an educational tool. A panel of business brains have now whittled the ideas down to 27, and with nine £50k prizes to be won, the odds are good.

Claire Mitchell’s baby feeding device is up against another contender from this region, a golf game aimed at youngsters by a police officer turned businessman called Clive Metcalf from Leeds. A keen golfer, 43-year-old Clive started his own golf events and conference business 10 years ago. With a retired businessman friend, Marshall Capel, he developed the idea of Kwik Golf, a game which aims to increase the uptake of golf by children and young people and secure the future growth of the game.

“Seeing my own children and their attachment to computer games, and also knowing that golf clubs are closing for lack of younger members, I wanted to find a way of taking golf to children in schools and enthusing them to get off the sofa,” says Clive.

“Developed to work alongside golf, children can play one, three or six holes, with teams of two playing against the clock. Each second taken is one point, and each shot taken is ten points, Players tee off simultaneously, then race to finish each hole as quickly as they can. The clock stops when the second ball enters the hole.

“One form of the game is played on an actual golf course, and the others are played on mock courses on the school playing field, with a lighter ball. A golf pro goes in to school to tutor the children in how to swing a club before they actually play.”

Clive says he would use the £50k, if he won it, to give free licences, clothing and equipment to 625 schools in Yorkshire and the North East in the next year to speed up the growth of Kwik Golf.

“It would help us to get 32,500 young people playing , and hopefully many of them would love it enough to stick with it as they get older.”

Michelle Mone, the woman who turned the international Ultimo lingerie brand into one of the UK’s most successful businesses, says more such competitive opportunities should be available for people with good ideas.

“The £50k allows people to take their business to the next level, and so many of the final 27 deserve that chance. Banks also have to start opening up to new businesses more, as well, otherwise the economic machine won’t get moving again.”

In addition to a good idea, Mone says essential ingredients for success are “fire in the belly, checking out the competitors, never being complacent, work the hardest you can work, play the hardest you can play, and always give something back.”

To vote in the Take One Small Step business competition go to www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk