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The idea from BodyMap came from an existing business that I run
called Tailor Made London which uses high-cost body scanning
technology to create bespoke clothing,
but with BodyMap we saw another market.
We saw the potential to take that
body scanning technology, make it a lot cheaper
and then allow people to use body measurements either taken at home
or in a gym or a shopping mall
and use that body measurement data to then buy clothing online
not just bespoke clothing but any off the peg clothing.
We had to take high cost body scanning technology and we had shrink it down to
make it low-cost and potentially take it into the home.
And so,
it was really when Microsoft released the Kinect device
that we realised that there was the potential to take body scanning into
the mainstream, into people's households.
And so we set about sort of two years ago to help
build on this existing platform
and to create the business.
And in terms of
taking an idea and sort of
building technology around it
you know, obviously it's being difficult,
but with the help of
such schemes as the School for Startups' Launcher programme
we've been able to get access to
easy funding, which means we've taken
what was and idea and sort of created it into
into future business. The steep learning curve with starting any business
is really, sort of, risk. You know there's a lot of hurdles to get over
in terms of funding,
in terms of staffing,
but really, for us,
and in my particular case because I've run businesses before,
the steepest learning curve is
is to take something that you have that is working well and then
try and drive it forward
so with any person who starts their own business,
myself in particular, I find it easier to start a business
than to manage a business
and that's probably the steepest learning curve because
any entrepreneur basically just wants to get on
and build something, but unfortunately there's always the
day-to-day running of the business which for anyone is a steep
learning curve. The best piece of advice I give to anyone who has a great idea
but is not sure how to turn it into a business
is to go out and research your market.
Go and speak to
maybe other people who work within the industry
I think you'll be very surprised that
when you go out and start businesses, you think potentially that other people doing a
similar thing
are competitors and rivals but you'd be surprised that people
are more than willing to give you advice and help. I've had calls myself
from people starting similar businesses overseas.
I think we're all in this together somehow and
I think to share your experiences with starting a business is
very valuable
and so to someone who
is thinking about doing it themselves, I think the best way is to go out and speak to
people, research your market, research your product,
and then when you are happy with that, when you feel really comfortable to take
that step,
then go and look for funding
at the launch of a program
or somewhere else like that.