It was late 2003 and our book group was fast becoming a career counselling session. Donna, two other friends and I (with nine under fives between us) were all getting to that stage when the kids have started at playgroup and the big question hanging over us was “what next?” I knew that I wanted to work for myself and although my pre-baby career in publishing and multimedia had been going well, I had never really felt fulfilled or inspired – I didn’t really care whether the world had one more advertising training software package. I think Donna felt the same about accountancy.

When Donna and I spotted an article about the Baby College programme on the same day, we crossed e-mails telling each other about it. It sounded like a fantastic idea. Baby College offers parent and baby development classes in three different age groups. It was exactly the type of class I would have attended with my two children John and my little girl Rowan when they were babies, as it offers a fun activity session along with a wealth of interesting developmental information. The classes include baby signing, multi-sensory games, movement, music and even gentle physical exercises to help make sure balance develops properly and reflexes are replaced at the right stage. They sounded like great fun to attend and very rewarding to teach so we decided to find out how to start our own business and bring the classes to Oxford.

After dusting off our rusty business skills, one of the first steps was to complete a market research survey and prepare a business plan which we presented to the two creators of the Baby College programme. Fortunately they seemed quite impressed and we entered negotiations culminating in signing a contract with them in September 2004.

The rest is history. Following some very intensive training and a rather panic stricken marketing phase in autumn 2004, we launched in Oxford with 3 classes in January 2005 and then finally acquired the trademark and became proud parents of our own thriving baby business later that year. Our initial three classes grew in two years to 18 classes in 8 venues in Oxford and the surrounding area and I am happy to say that most of the very first Marston class were still attending two years on (although their tiny babies were less tiny by then). It seemed that we were right about the classes, they are very well structured and informative and the positive feedback we get from our satisfied customers is very rewarding. We love being able to offer information and advice to new mums and to watch their relationship with their baby strengthen and develop over the weeks. Mums and dads who attend say they love having lots of ideas for things to do at home and usually they find some good friends at class as well.

I wouldn’t say that running your own business is for everyone. We have both been lucky to have very supportive families and friends as it can be quite stressful at times especially trying to start a new class. But the benefits of having a business that fits around school hours and school holidays are huge and allow us the luxury of plenty of time with our own children. Donna has two boys, Joshua and coincidentally Rowan (a boy). We even have time to go running. Having never run before, we both now run the 10K Town and Gown every summer. We still meet up with our book group too. Sometimes we even talk about books!

Bea