Emelie Andersson - KIDDO - sustainable interior design for creative children
instagram: kiddo.interior
KIDDO - sustainable interior design for creative children #1
Describe the idea:
KIDDO makes it easier for parents to find second-hand products for their children. This is a local company in Helsingborg that aims to increase the reuse of children's furniture in the community. KIDDO provides a range of upcycling services like furniture renovation, selling/buying used interior products and custom-made orders.
Who are you? Previous education/jobs/ experiences etc.
I am a psychology student at Lund university with an interest in behavior management, organizational culture and innovation. I have also studied communication, design and illustration. I have always had an interest in creative projects, upcycling and interior design. My previous work experiences is in retail, service and the event sector.
What will you do during these three months? How will you spend the time?
During the summer I will create a website for marketing and customer orders. Me and my team will also get a creative studio and start upcycling used interior products that will be ready to sell in August. In addition we will stock up some furniture for upcycling projects during the fall.
What do you expect to achieve during Leapfrogs?
I expect to get some experience in starting a business, marketing products and finding new customers. With the possibility of working full time with my project during the summer, I hope to find an efficient way of working part-time with KIDDO during the rest of the year, to keep it up and running.
#2
Tell us what you have done on your projects so far during the Leapfrogs time:
Since the Leapfrogs project started I have started working on building a website and created a logo. I have also created illustrations for design of prototypes and researched the market of second hand furniture for children. We have also found a creative studio where we re-paint and renovate used furniture. During the end of June I have started a few up-cycling projects that will hopefully be sold in August. We are soon starting our social media marketing and trying to define our customers to know where to aim our marketing.
Has everything gone according to the plan? Has anything unexpected occurred? Has something been easier/harder than expected?
Most things did not go according to plan. The website designing was trickier than expected. And trying to create a business model that is built through community and local exchange of products is a real challenge. It is harder than expected to find time to create products, plan the marketing and build a website, as well as finding customers has been a bit of a struggle with only one person working on the project at the time.
What will you focus on during the remaining time? Will you follow your original plan or has anything changed along the way?
During the remaining time I will follow the original plan of creating a website, start marketing products and continue to up-cycle products that will be sold in August and during the fall. Hopefully we will also be able to devote some time to develop our business idea to create more of a community-based model where the customers are more involved in the whole process.
#3
How did you experience the three months?
I have mixed feelings about these three months because while the work has been really fun and evolving it’s also, at some points, been frustrating and slow. Things took so much more time than I had planned. But overall I feel really happy with the result and the opportunity of working full time on my project during the summer was crucial to taking my project to the next level.
What has been hardest/most enjoyable?
The hardest thing was trying to find motivation to work with your project everyday even when there was only a lot of problems to solve and a lot of things to figure out how to do. This is were the team plays a crucial role I think. The majority of the summer I was working alone with no team which required a lot of dedication and self-encouragement (not to forget: self-leadership). The most enjoyable thing was the opportunity to actually make reality of a vision that I’ve created in my head and haven’t had the time to work on. I’ve loved having the time to make a project plan, set goals, talk to other entrepreneurs and learn new things.
Did it go as expected? Will you continue working on your project in the future?
Looking on the results now at the end of the summer I do think that it mostly did go as expected. The biggest problem for me was the heat wave because the space i rented for painting furniture really wasn’t optimal for that kind of weather. This made the process of renovating products a lot slower than expected. Basically creating the website, marketing the products and selling products was delayed by four weeks. Now I will continue to work with the project part time during the fall to reach the goal of selling 20 products and hosting one creative up cycling event. After that we’ll see what happens.
What would you say is the most important lesson learnt while working on your project?
I know that, when there’s problems and things are not running smooth, I often loose all my motivation. Then I have trouble moving forward and get really fixated on the problems I think I can’t solve. A really important lesson for me was that it worked really well to just leave the problems and not think about them for a few days, instead I tried to focus on another project or some new idea that was not related to the problem. After focusing on something else for a while the inspiration came back to me and I automatically found a solution to the problem. So instead of spending time dwelling over a problem that I can’t solve right away, I should spend the time thinking about something completely different and the new inspiration will give me new ideas about how to solve the problem or who might be able to help me.
Do you have any tips to other ”new” entrepreneurs?
Try not to get too fixated on the goals and achievements that are measurable (like the amount of views, customers, sold products etc). The most important thing is what you learn and how passionate you feel about your project.
Another tips is to try new things often. Don’t get stuck in doing everything according to plan or the way you think things should be done. Try new things even though it might fail because thats how you learn and evolve.