York - A Flying Visit Filled with Frights, Food and Fun!

I have just got back from a night's stay in the beautiful city of York where we were celebrating a friend's birthday which always involves some Halloween fun with it being so close to All Hallows' Eve!

We ventured to York early Sunday morning so we could enjoy a full day and prepare ourselves for the activities we'd booked. We arrived at the Hotel du Vin York in time for a glass of celebratory champagne and a delicious lunch of Welsh Rarebit enjoyed in the lovely, comfy yet modern bar area. The hotel is situated just a ten minute walk from the centre of York with ample parking (we were told parking in York is pretty horrific) and the hotel itself is beautiful living up to the Hotel du Vin standard.

Our room was a great size with a little lounge area and a big bathroom with twin sinks, a freestanding bath and waterfall shower (I have a thing for bathrooms!). The room had lots of storage and a Nespresso coffee machine alongside a mini-bar full of drinks and local snacks. My only gripe with our room was as it was on the front of the building opposite the main road it was a little loud overnight so, if possible, I'd ask to be placed towards the back of the building next time.

After dumping the bags and filling our bellies we ventured into the centre of York. As the weather wasn't great we got a taxi (only £5) but passed by the pretty railway station and the overpowering walls of the city which are the most complete example of medieval city walls still standing in England today, to our first stop, the York Dungeons! As it was near Halloween and the birthday girl likes scaring her friends we found this activity appropriate!

We quickly moved up the queue (pre-booking is advised) and was greeted by the friendly staff who took a great group picture before we entered into the darkness! I won't give too much away about the dungeons but if you like history as I do, it was interesting to hear about York's background through the ages and the whole experience awakens all of your senses (including smell!). It was lots of fun, however the scariest part for me was when we were locked in a pitch-black room hearing about Dick Turpin, the murderer who was tried and executed in York, when my friend jumped out and grabbed me - it took me a while to calm down!

On leaving the dungeons we were all in need of a drink so we walked towards the famous cobbled streets - The Shambles in search of a pub. The Shambles are gorgeous with lovely boutique shops on either side of the cobbles. We were offered tea tasters from out of the window of one of the shops which was delicious and of course, we had to go inside a traditional sweet shop where we all came out with bags of goodies! The girls carried on shopping while the boys found a traditional pub serving real ale and exotic beers - both groups were happy!

After a quick refresh in our rooms, we met for drinks in the bar of our hotel which is renowned in the area for amazing cocktails. The menu was extensive and we particularly loved the custom Hotel du Vin blends which the bar staff created. We decided on dinner in the hotel as we're all big fans of the food Hotel du Vin serves - we weren’t disappointed as both the food and service was fantastic.

Day two of our little break in York and our first stop was brunch in one of the many independent cafes in the city. Staff at the Hotel du Vin recommended Mannion & Co so we made that our first stop. The bistro specialises in artisan baking and the bread served with our brunch was simply delicious. After Eggs Benedict, Welsh Rarebit (again!?) and Chorizo Sandwiches we went on to explore.

We walked alongside the pretty River Ouse keeping an eye out for Judi Dench as Katie informed me that the dame herself has an apartment overlooking the river. It's a shame we didn't spot her!

Next, we walked around admiring the architecture and stopped in to look around a few unique shops on our way  to the York Minster. I've never seen shops like those in York before - one of my favourites was a stunning soap store The Yorkshire Soap Company which, on entering, it felt like you'd walked into Disneyland! The music was perfectly matched to the environment and the delicate sweet smells instantly made your smile. We had to pick up the cupcake designed soaps to believe that they weren't actually the real thing they were so well-made.

The York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. The craftsmanship and detail is amazing. I didn't quite imagine that the cathedral would be so large, it's one of the biggest I've ever seen and it was lovely to be able to walk around the whole of it amongst the Autumn leaves and peering into the cute teashops along the way.

Our final stop in York before heading back home had to be Betty's Tea Rooms, opened in 1919, it takes you back to Victorian days... even the servers dressed the part. As Katie recommended we went to the big tearoom in St Helen's Square as opposed to the smaller Betty's to get the full experience. The queue was out of the door but the 20 minute wait didn't feel long as we had hundreds of intricate cakes to feast our eyes upon! Although it's not as cute as some of the modern cake shops, it was a wonderful and scrumptious experience. We all had cream tea with our scones and tea served on silver platters and old-fashioned cups which made it taste even more delicious.

Although we only had two days in York, we left feeling we had got to know the beautiful city and the lovely people. It's somewhere I'd definitely like to return to.

Jane x

Highlights

• Cocktails in the Hotel du Vin York - especially one of the staff's own creation 'Lipstick on His Collar'
• The beautiful shop The Yorkshire Soap Company to make you feel instantly happy!

Must-Dos

• Cream Tea at Betty's - Victorian elegance at its finest! 
• A walk around (and inside!) York Minster

Happier, Inc. Co-Founder & Chief Happiness Officer, Nataly Kogan Tells Us What Makes Her Happy!

I've been a fan of the app Happier ever since I saw it's catchy icon in the App Store in June and couldn't wait to give the free app a go. Four months on I use it daily and tell all my friends about it! I even wrote a review on my favourite app, you can read my full post here. When we contacted co-founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happier, Inc. Nataly Kogan, we were really pleased that she was more than happy to answer some questions as part of our blog's Entrepreneur Interviews section.

Based in Boston, Happier, Inc. is on a mission to inspire people to be happier in their everyday lives. Research has shown that in sharing good things and focusing on the positives, we become healthier and more productive. The company's first product, the beautiful iOS app and online community designed to encourage people to share happy moments enables us to do just that.

Since using Happier, I have become more grateful for the little things in life and aim to put three happy moments in each day. Nataly, co-founder of Happier, Inc. talks to us about her positive moments, energy, favourite foods and wanting to be a spy! We're sure she'll inspire you as much as she has us...

Enjoy, Jane x

What inspired you to create Happier Nataly?

After my family fled Russia in 1989, I had a rough time. After a few months in refugee camps in Austria and Italy, we finally made our way to the United States and then spent a year living in the projects, on welfare, in Ypsilanti (outside Detroit). When I finally got on my feet I decided that to make up for the hardship my family went through by chasing the American Dream. To me, this dream meant becoming HAPPY. And the way I thought you got there was by achieving a LOT and making a lot of money. 

So for the next 20 years I did just that - a series of impressive jobs, starting companies, publishing a book with Hyperion, getting the fancy stroller and the fancy car, you name it. By the time I was in my early 30s, I really appreciated my life but I was not happy. Not at all. Mostly I was really exhausted.

My father is a scientist so I decided to see if there was scientific research about what I could do to be happier. I spent a few years reading every academic paper and hardcover book I could find and then I  had a "holy crap" moment. I was doing it all wrong. Money or achievements don't make us happy. But there are some really simple things that we can do and that have been scientifically proven to lead to positive and optimistic thinking. Some of the most powerful are: Focusing on and capturing a few positive things about our every day, helping others smile, being surrounded by more positive people (because happiness is contagious). 

I changed my approach based on what I had learned, stopped chasing happiness, and became a lot happier. And this inspired me to create Happier and to encourage millions of other people to stop saying "I'll be happy when..." and start saying "I am happier now because..." 

Another huge inspiration for me was realizing that being happier isn't just more fun. There is wide body of research that shows being more positive is fundamentally important to living well. Happier people catch fewer colds, have a 50% lower chance of a heart attack, are less depressed, stressed, and anxious, sleep better and make healthier lifestyle choices. And that's our mission at Happier: To help millions of people become happier in their everyday lives so that they live better and in more fulfilling ways. 

What have you learnt along the way?

Oh so much! One of the most amazing things we've learned is just how powerful it is to be able to come to a community focused on appreciating small positive things and to read what makes others happier. So many of our users tell us that they start using Happier at first as a gratitude journal, to capture what they appreciate in their lives. But what keeps them coming back multiple times a day is the amazingly supportive community and the fact that they can get an instant positivity boost when they read other users' happy moments.

We have 1000s of emails from users sharing with us that reading happy moments shared by the community helped them get through a difficult situation, a tough day, or a really horrific life experience. We are so grateful to know we can make someone's life better but true credit goes to the community at Happier, where people share these small positive moments and encourage each other, even on tough days.

How would your colleagues describe you?

Ha! I should ask them. Probably energetic, fiery, full of ideas (sometimes too many), overusing the word "awesome", did I say energetic?

I hope and I think they would say that I live and breathe Happier - not just the company, but everything we are about and our vision. And they would be right.

What does a typical day at Happier HQ look like?

There really isn't a typical day since we're a young start-up and things change a lot.

Most days you'd come in and find us cranking in our very bright and open Happier HQ, which is on the fifth floor of this beautiful industrial building, and is a very airy loft. We usually have some music cranking (we take turns taking over the speakers so everyone can share their music tastes). The team usually grabs lunch together - we try to not have meetings too much so this is a great way to catch up. Burritos are high on our list of faves and if it's remotely nice out we are out there, catching some sun.

Every Wednesday at 6pm we have Happier Hour. It's a chance for a team to grab some drinks and snacks and just chill out at the office. We often invite friends or other start-ups to join us, and once a month have an open community Happier Hour. It's one of our favorite team traditions and we even have a custom Happier Hour neon sign!

Since I do a lot of speaking and work with investors and partners, I run around and travel more than anyone on the team. We all use virtual chat and other tools, like Google Hangout, so we stay in touch even when I am on the road.

What has been your biggest challenge to date and how did you overcome it?

I think one of the biggest challenges is that people assume they need to be happy to be on Happier. It's actually the opposite.

Most of us are not insanely happy or really unhappy all the time, we're somewhere in between. We have good days and rough days and routine days and days we just don't want to get out of bed. The premise of Happier is that because happy moments can be so small - a good hot coffee in the morning, a favorite song coming on during a commute, a nice text from a friend or a hug from your kid - you can find one in every single day, including the tough ones.

So we try to articulate this as much as we can so that new users coming to Happier don't think this is a community only for endless optimists or people who are shouting about how happy they are. The best way we've found we can do this is through the happy moments our users are sharing - so you'll find those right on our homepage on happier.com and on the Discover tab in the Happier iPhone app.

If you weren't spreading happiness with Happier what would you be doing?
Well, for a while I really wanted to be a spy. (Let's just leave it at that.)

But probably I would be driving my family nuts by trying to start my own fashion label. It would have a lot of edgy cuts and yes, tons of orange, of course. 

And finally, what's the best piece of business advice you've ever been given?

Tough to pick just one, but one of my favorites is about asking for help and asking for feedback ALL THE TIME. No one has ever built a great company on their own.

I have a rule - I ask for help once a day. A mentor, someone on my team, a friend. Sometimes it's big, sometimes something small. But it's a way of thinking and it also sets an example for my team that they can and should do the same.

Quick Fire Favourites...

Way to unwind?

Go for a really quick walk outside.

Fitness activity?
Walking and yoga. Especially hip hop yoga.

App (that's not Happier!)?
Instagram.

Food?
A really crispy baguette with butter.
Figs. More figs.

Steel cut oatmeal made with hot milk.

Cherries. More cherries.

A really great steak with a glass of Rioja.

(Can you tell I like food?)

Song?
Lose yourself by Eminem. It's my fight song.

Working Autumn Lunches by Katie & Jane

I love everything about Autumn (apart from the rain!). Many of my favourite things are the burnt orange colours of the fallen leaves, gorgeous blue skies on a crisp, misty morning and wrapping up warm to brave the elements but... my ultimate love of Autumn is the food!

Autumn is a time for me to ditch the cold food and opt for more comforting, warm dishes. When Katie and I are working and eating together, we try to include seasonal foods such as: beef, pork and chicken, cod, crab, sea bass and squid, cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes and kale and apples and pears.

Working from the Kitchen Table

Obviously if we are working from one of our homes, we like to keep lunch simple and quick to prepare so we don't get too distracted from what we are doing. It's easy for us to get carried away and forget to eat when we're together which is why I find it a good idea to prepare food in the morning to eat in the afternoon.

Following a nice Autumn walk the other day, I made Katie a wintery noodle salad which she loved. The recipe is adapted from one of my favourite cookbooks by Sophie Dahl entitled From Season to Season. The dish consists of soba noodles, shredded red cabbage, carrot sticks and a sliced spring onion. Simply cook the soba noodles and leave them to cool while preparing the veg. Make a sauce of sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce and agave syrup and pour all over.  You eat the vegetables raw, so it's easy to cook it in the morning ready for lunch.

Firing Up Our Brains

Some spices are said to boost brain power which is always welcome when we're prepping for a social media training session or organising the marketing for our first app! I'm slightly addicted to cooking Mexican street food at the moment (think burritos and tacos) and chef Thomasina Miers has some amazing recipes in her book Mexican Food Made Simple. Autumn Tacos with Onion, Squash and Chorizo (minus the chorizo for me) and Winter Tacos with Creamy Greens are two current favourites to enjoy over lunch.

Eating Out and About

If Katie and I are out at meetings (or taking a class) we like to find somewhere to work before or after as a nice change of scenery. I took Katie to Boston Tea Party in Birmingham where we chose tea and cake after a long meeting. Boston Tea Party has a gorgeous menu and so many different teas and cakes to try. I particularly love their Eggs Florentine and selection of gluten-free cakes. It's also got a great, unique atmosphere with really friendly staff.

Sometimes the only option is to eat on the go so I grab a healthy Eat Natural bar packed with nuts, seeds and fruit and sometimes chocolate and yoghurt! I've tried so many 'healthy' bars in a quest to find a perfect snack without tonnes of sugar or preservatives in and these are, by far, the best!

Tea Time!

Often we'll work with each other for half a day as we find having time to get our work done apart really helps but we'll always make time for tea! Katie and I are kind-of green tea connoisseurs now having made it our mission to drink more of the super-tea throughout the day and we both agree our favourite brand is Clipper. Katie's kitchen looks a little like a teashop with the amount of herbal teas she has but we always go back to our favourite... Clipper Pure Green Tea! 

And our perfect pick-'us'-up with our tea? Homemade Banana Bread of course! My favourite recipe is from the domestic goddess Nigella Lawson available on her website here.

Well all this talk of food is making me hungry so I'm off for lunch!

Jane x

A Beautiful Mess Challenge Fifteen: Photograph Your Reflection

Well this challenge was a lot harder than it looked! One of the A Beautiful Mess girls favourite ways to take a self-portrait is to photograph their reflection using a reflective surface. Naturally, I used a mirror to do this challenge which is what the book recommends.

One of the tips; look into the lens is interesting as I've read from others (Alexa Chung) never to look into the lens. I agree with the book - you want to be looking at the lens rather than at yourself in the mirror! I couldn't quite angle the camera properly, another tip in the book, I think I need more practice! 

Another thing the girls recommend is to try looking in different directions, which I did try but felt a bit silly! One of my favourite tips is not to forget that you can edit out the camera which I was able to do although I would have liked more space in the overall picture.

After many, many attempts, here's the final picture...

Jane x

Previous Posts...

Introduction to the A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book 
Challenge One: Photograph Your Pet
Challenge Two: Capture Unique Personal Details
Challenge Three: Get the Best Cell Phone (or Point and Shoot Camera) Photos
Challenge Four: Know How to Use Overcast Light vs. Direct Sun
Challenge Five: Find Flattering Window Light
Challenge Six: Take a Shadow Portrait

Challenge Seven: Take Macro Photos
Challenge Eight: Understand Depth of Field

Challenge Nine: Make Homemade Filters

Challenge Ten: Photograph a Collection
Challenge Eleven: Take Amazing Photos of Your Home
Challenge Twelve: Capture Your Daily Routines
Challenge Thirteen: Photograph Your Daily Outfits
Challenge Fourteen: Photograph Food

Lady Geeks Unite: Putting the Her in Hero

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day to not only celebrate Ada, the very first computer programmer, but a day celebrate the technology industry, an industry that features a balanced ratio of male and female creators of technology as well as consumers of it, women are celebrated as tech pioneers just as much as their male counterparts, and females sit beside men at the forefront of technological advances in the UK.

Well not yet, rewind to 2013 and what Jamie Oliver did forschool dinners is now on the uprising in the form of a brilliant but fierce campaigning agency called Lady Geek and its mission to inspire girls to change the world through technology. Lady Geek is the creation of Belinda Parmar an author, professor and campaigner who's mission is to enable women to live in a world where anything is possible and no career, including one in tech, is off limits.

It's astounding that just 17% of the tech workforce in the UK is female, 22% in US and it is declining each year by 0.5%, meaning that in 30 years only 1% of tech creators will be female.

Lady Geek’s campaign Little Miss Geek aims to communicate with teachers, schools and parents to break the tech taboo and inspire young girls to embrace it and not write it off as a subject they wouldn’t be suited to, and it’s working. 

Having spent two years working in inner city schools, trialing a series of programmes supporting girls through primary, secondary and university education and creating tech clubs and one-off events designed to inspire, Little Miss Geek has increased the number of girls taking GCSE Computing by 52%.

Today marks the first Her in Hero Day, celebrating not only Ada Lovelace but all female tech pioneers such as Mary Anderson, the inventor of windshield wipers, and thanks to Little Miss Geek and all involved who have pledged their support, schools across the county will be hosting a Her in Hero assembly bringing together females working in the tech industry to take part in encouraging young children that they can have build a career in technology if they want to.

If you would like to find out more about Lady Geek visit www.ladygeek.com and head to www.littlemissgeek.com to find out all about the campaign. 

Help celebrate tech superwomen everywhere today with Lady Geek on Facebook and join us in supporting the campaign on Twitter too by using the hashtag #HerInHero

Happy Ada Lovelace day!

Katie x

A Beautiful Mess Challenge Fourteen: Photograph Food

As a food lover and someone who loves to cook, I was really excited to learn a little more about how to take great photos of food from the A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book, although I do disagree with their statement of sometimes it's inappropriate to take pictures of food... I do it all the time! I do agree that, like the girls, food is a big part of my life. I remember occasions, like holidays, by the food I eat and the new restaurants we discover. Some people may say that's a little sad, I don't!

The book gives five tips on photographing food... I especially love the 'food styling isn't just for food stylists'. I long to take photos as beautiful as the ones I admire in Sainsbury's Magazine or the food section of my favourite Red. The girls remind you to add colour through napkins, remove clutter and to take a moment to look at the whole frame.

Also, I tried to remember the tips of trying different angles and to get stuck into the food before snapping away!

The above includes gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies adapted from a recipe in Nigella Lawson's cookbook Kitchen, Coconut and Crab Rice and Flourless Chocolate Cake from both of Sophie Dahl's gorgeous cookbooks and a beautiful purple cabbage... the beginning of a stir-fry!

Previous Posts...

Introduction to the A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book 
Challenge One: Photograph Your Pet
Challenge Two: Capture Unique Personal Details
Challenge Three: Get the Best Cell Phone (or Point and Shoot Camera) Photos
Challenge Four: Know How to Use Overcast Light vs. Direct Sun
Challenge Five: Find Flattering Window Light
Challenge Six: Take a Shadow Portrait

Challenge Seven: Take Macro Photos
Challenge Eight: Understand Depth of Field

Challenge Nine: Make Homemade Filters

Challenge Ten: Photograph a Collection
Challenge Eleven: Take Amazing Photos of Your Home
Challenge Twelve: Capture Your Daily Routines
Challenge Thirteen: Photograph Your Daily Outfits

A Beautiful Mess Challenge Thirteen: Photograph Your Daily Outfits

I decided to carry out this challenge everyday for a week to get a range of different looks and what fun it was! The A Beautiful Mess girls gave a few tips in the book for taking the best outfit photos. One tip, try different poses was really useful, especially when, most of the time, I was photographing myself. I took note of the tip to take close-up shots too in the following...

I didn't quite get the knack of taking my own photos when no one was around but I'm sure I'll get better at this during the book's 'Self-Portrait Challenge' later on. What this challenge did make me realise is, as I work from home (which I love!), I'm often in my exercise clothes with no make-up on... healthy but it doesn't make for particularly fashionable pictures on our blog!

My next challenge is 'Photograph Food' which I am really looking forward to doing.

Jane x

Previous Posts (they're mounting up!)...

Introduction to the A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book 
Challenge One: Photograph Your Pet
Challenge Two: Capture Unique Personal Details
Challenge Three: Get the Best Cell Phone (or Point and Shoot Camera) Photos
Challenge Four: Know How to Use Overcast Light vs. Direct Sun
Challenge Five: Find Flattering Window Light
Challenge Six: Take a Shadow Portrait

Challenge Seven: Take Macro Photos
Challenge Eight: Understand Depth of Field

Challenge Nine: Make Homemade Filters

Challenge Ten: Photograph a Collection
Challenge Eleven: Take Amazing Photos of Your Home
Challenge Twelve: Capture Your Daily Routines

Pinterest - The Only Social Network Needed for Luxury Brands?

Katie suggested I write this blog post after we listened to Jo Malone at a recent Red Network Event talk about how her brand, Jo Loves, uses social media. When Jo told us that she was debating the future of the Jo Loves Facebook page, the audience gasped! Pinterest is the social network of choice for the future of her luxury brand.

What is Pinterest?

'Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organising the things that inspire you' according to the Pinterest team and I think the word 'inspire' sums up what Pinterest is perfectly... a place to gain inspiration from, whether it be for your next adventure, wedding or interior design - there's a pin for nearly everything!

Going back to basics, Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing social network. Users can create 'boards' containing theme-based photos or videos (pins). Pins can be uploaded by the user, repinned (similar to retweeted) from other people's boards or taken directly from a website. Users can also like and comment on their favourite pins and follow other people's (and brand's) boards.

Although development of Pinterest began in only 2009, it's now the third most popular social networking site in the world. It gains 104 million hits per week but still a lot less than Facebook's seven billion! 

Take a look at Pinterest's 'Pinning 101' for the basics here. 

Who Uses Pinterest?

Ok, we know how popular Pinterest is but who actually uses it? If I tell you the most popular Pinterest boards are DIY/Crafts, Recipes then Quotes and the most popular pin source is handmade and vintage online store Etsy... would it surprise you to know that 80% of Pinterest users are female!?

The average female users are aged between 23 and 34 (Facebook's is 18 to 24) with an increased disposable income than those on other social networking sites, plus users follow 2.4 more brands on Pinterest than they do on Facebook. If we go back to the title of this blog post, we can start to build an understanding of why luxury brands often choose to focus their efforts on Pinterest.

Who's Doing it Well?

Mashable reported that the most popular branded boards are surrounding food, fashion, home and weddings - topics already popular with Pinterest's female users.

The rundown of the three most popular boards by followers...
1. L.L. Bean – Woodland Creatures
2. Jetsetter – Daily Moment of Zen
3. Nordstrom – Garden Wedding Ideas

Two brands that I follow and admire on Pinterest are Sephora and Jetsetter, with Jetsetter being featured in the top three above.

I first stumbled upon beauty brand Sephora when I visited Paris with my mum and best friend for my thirteenth birthday and automatically fell in love with the place so I suppose I am a little biased, but I love their activity on Pinterest. The brand really engages and gives something back to their followers through their design inspiration boards (Nailspotting), how-to boards (Get the Look and PRO Tips), shopping inspiration boards and also 'Sephora Sweepstakes'. Interestingly, according to Sephora, their Pinterest followers spend 15 times more than their Facebook fans.

Onto Jetsetter which fits in perfectly with Pinterest's aim of being a tool to inspire... it is an online travel site that gives members great offers on everything related to travel including hotels and tours along with sharing expert knowledge on the world's best destinations. Pinterest users love their inspirational travel images, insider tips and travel quotes. They have 4.5 million followers!

Why Luxury Brands?

Pinterest is an inspirational, visual and positive and, above all, aspirational social network. The reason luxury brands work so well on the platform is that users pin things they aspire to have and create a visual map through Pinterest of going ahead and achieving it, whether it's booking that five star hotel or treating themselves to luxury products.

Luxury brands aren't missing a trick when it comes to Pinterest as the network generates 27% more revenue per click than Facebook and drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined! Plus, Pinterest users are 10% more likely to make a purchase than if they were referred from Facebook and spend 10% more!

 As I've said before, along with Instagram, Pinterest is my favourite social network due to the positive and inspirational elements of the platform. It is addictive though due to its simple design, the minimal effort needed to use the site and the separation from all the personal (and often very boring!) status updates and picture uploads you will find on Facebook. Due to its addictive nature, I'd recommend you, like me, limit yourself to pinning a number of pins in any one session (mine is five!) this stops you getting carried away with endless pinning into the early hours!

I'm off to pin just five pins now... find me on Pinterest here and our 'Katie & Jane' Pinterest boards here - have fun!

Jane x

Radio Plus: Our Journey to the App Store and Beyond

Last week we were invited to be guests on the Radio Plus Talk Business show hosted by Mark Sephton. With a lot of nerves and excited energy we arrived at the studio ready to talk about being entrepreneurs and creating our very first lifestyle app, Countdown Keeper.

The first part of the radio show focused on us as individuals, the journey that led us to meet each other and how we find life as entrepreneurs. Mark asked some thought-provoking questions including what makes each of us happy and what we feel our purpose in life is! We weren't informed of the questions before and being one of life’s planners I’m not the best at ‘off-the-cuff’ answers to questions of such significance but I answered with sincerity. As friends and business partners Jane and I share the same goal to reach the end of our lives and look back at all the places we’ve been, experiences we’ve encountered, products we’ve created and people we’ve inspired along the way by making things happen.

Mark also asked us to discuss our strengths and how we complement each other as business partners. Something that we already knew about our partnership is that, between us, we have a good balance of moving forward but keeping focused on the present. We are both impatient out of excitement and eagerness to explore different ventures within our business but between us we try very hard to dedicate our focus to one thing at a time (well three things at a time as opposed to ten!)... we're working on it!

Mark also touched upon what makes us happy and apart from Jane’s beautiful dog Beau (now my adopted friend too!) we highlighted the roller-coaster that is the life of an entrepreneur. Something all business owners have to be prepared for are the lows that can be really tough, challenging, stressful and with a lot of beating yourself up, but then the come the highs! The highs are the reason Saturday and Sundays become working days, they are the elation felt at even the slightest issue being overcome, highs are hearing that a new client loves what we offer and how we do things differently, and a high certainly is cracking the HTML code over on our blog! These happy moments are everything to us and are so much more meaningful than in any job we have ever had before because we're achieving these milestones all on our own.

We like to meet as many entrepreneurs as we can to share their advice when starting out in business and find out what keeps them striving forward, you can read our interviews with them here. 

After a brief business round up, where I shared a somewhat fumbled view on Bill Gates (I was caught off guard!), we got onto the interesting stuff… all-things apps!

We were asked to explain the vision for our app business which is to create meaningful lifestyle apps with a purpose, solving problems and enhancing everyday life. We must have, between us, nearly 100 app ideas and we, like everyone else every couple of days will be inspired by an experience and note down ‘we could create an app for that!’. 

Mark asked us for tips on creating an app and so far in our small journey, through extensive research we have realised that the most important steps you can take before you even decide to go forward with an app idea are the following principles – and they take time!

*Please Note: we are by no means experts (yet!) we are just sharing our findings with you!*

1. Research everything you possibly can about the app industry
2. Track the App and Android stores to find out what types of apps are downloaded and why over a period of 6-12 months
3. Find your audience – where are they? Do they even download and use apps?
4. Establish your app’s purpose – why are people going to love it and need it every day?
5. Find people to work with who get you, the concept behind your idea, who you trust and tell you how it is (this step is very hard!)
6. Plan your marketing – this is the most important step, how are you going to get people to find your app?

To listen to our thoughts on these points head to this link where you can hear the interview in full. We hope to write an eBook after the launch of Countdown Keeper where we will share what we’ve learnt about the journey with others, including the good, the bad and the ugly!

On a final note we talked about how we wanted to inspire other women to create a business, specifically in the tech industry. Next week, October 15th will mark the fantastic Lady Geek’s first 'Her in Hero Day' where schools are encouraged to celebrate Ada Lovelace, recognised as the first computer programmer in the 19th Century. The campaign highlights past and present female tech heroes and aims to inspire girls to change the world through technology. It's something we're proud to be helping to spread awareness of and have encouraged our local Alderbrook School to be involved. To find out more about Lady Geek, Little Miss Geek and their campaigns head to their Facebook page to be part of the conversation.

We look forward to appearing back on Radio Plus to share more insights into the world of apps soon and in the meantime you can find out more and sign up to be the first to hear about Countdown Keeper, released in November, here.

Katie x