From Redundancy to £4M: How an iPad Sparked a Multi-Million Pound Business
A Cambridgeshire woman who found herself penniless after losing her accountancy job has revealed the extraordinary journey that led her to create a business turning over an astonishing £4 million. Lucy Bowes, aged 29, explained that she took redundancy in 2021 when the technology company Arm, where she worked, was acquired.
The Humble Beginnings with an iPad
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Lucy spent her time drawing what she describes as "truly awful" portraits of friends and family on her tablet. Her fortunes began to shift after she adopted her dog, Lola, and started obsessively drawing her pet as well. "I began using a print on demand company to print my portraits onto t-shirts, but I had the idea they would be so much nicer sewn into the actual clothes rather than just printed on," Lucy explained.
"It felt like a scary moment, but also an opportunity - almost a sign to give it a proper go and see if I could turn it into something real," Lucy told the Mirror. However, she confessed that at this point she had never even used a sewing machine. "I genuinely thought they just worked like printers and you could just press a button!" Lucy added.
Building the Business from Scratch
Fortunately, Lucy was able to enlist her dedicated boyfriend, Andy, who watched sewing machine tutorial videos on YouTube to learn how to digitise and sew the portraits. Thus, Lucy & Lola was born. "To be honest, it took us a few months to really get to grips with it," Lucy said. "We were completely self-taught, and some of those very early orders were definitely a bit ropey. We learned through trial and error, fixing mistakes and improving with every single piece."
Digitising does not come cheap, however, with Lucy pointing out that hidden costs include necessary software priced at around £1,000. "We didn’t actually have that at the time, so we had to take it on finance and pay it off monthly," she revealed. "On top of that, external digitising companies can charge around £20 per individual design, so the costs add up very quickly when you’re experimenting or still learning."
Rapid Rise to Success
Thankfully, their rise to success was rapid. Lucy recalled that in December 2021, they made £50,000 and their Etsy shop even featured in CNN’s 'Best Gifts to Buy' list. "Honestly, it was just for myself," she said of the early days of the business. "I was completely obsessed with Lola and wanted to wear something with her on it. There was no big business plan at that stage - it was just me being a proud dog mum and wanting something personal that I couldn’t find anywhere else."
After receiving her very first order, Lucy admitted she danced around the kitchen in delight. "It felt huge - like we’d made it," she enthused. "Looking back it was just one order, but at the time it felt like everything we’d worked towards had suddenly been validated."
"It happened incredibly quickly. That Christmas we were featured on CNN and took hundreds of orders overnight. Until then, I hadn’t really believed it could be a proper business - it was still just something I was enjoying doing. But that moment changed everything. We’d only started offering the embroidery in October 2021, so it was within a month, and suddenly the demand was there."
Sustaining Growth and Expansion
By the close of the festive season with £50,000 in takings, the hard work was still in its infancy. "We were staying up all night sewing, then going straight into our full-time jobs during the day," Lucy said. "It was exhausting but exciting in equal measure. The following year we turned over our first £1 million, and honestly, I still can’t quite believe it even now."
Today, Lucy & Lola operates from their own embroidery studio based in Cambridge, where all orders are made and dispatched. "We’re now a team of 12 young women, not including Andy, working across embroidery, artwork and dispatch," Lucy revealed. "Andy and I are still very hands-on, though - especially at Christmas, when we often end up pulling all-nighters on the machines alongside the team."
Reflections and Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Lucy closed: "We've now turned over £4 million since launching. No investors, no experience. Just a wild dream and a lot of late nights." As for her advice to others with similar ambitions, she encouraged: "You never know what could happen. If you put everything into it, it really could become a success too. You don’t have to have something perfect to start - the most important thing is to just make it exist. You can figure things out as you go along."
