ENTERPRISE + INITIATIVE Page 28 of 33

Today’s shared stories come from Edinburgh-based artist Rhiannon Connelly and designer Ayesha Puri in New Delhi, India.

Ayesha Puri

I recently gave up my career of nine years as a tax consultant with a leading ‘Big 4’ firm to pursue my dream of becoming an entrepreneur and setting up my own venture, All Things Pretty (ATP). We focus on cushions and table linen and are slowly looking at expanding into other product lines in home décor.

Giving up my job was not an easy decision as my nine years in the role had given me a comfort zone.  I had worked hard to build a career and position for myself and often wondered if it was worthwhile to give it all up to do something entirely different.  However, although I had no experience, I did have faith, which to my mind is the most crucial ingredient to success.

Though my family was very supportive of my decision, I did meet a lot of people who warned me against the competition, the long gestation period for setting up your own business and the many other factors involved in giving up a steady, secure means of living. This meant it took me a while to make up my mind.  The realization to finally take the plunge came about two years ago when I was setting up my home with my husband and shopping for home linen. That’s when it struck me that if I had a keen eye to spot things for my home and I actually enjoy the process of hunting for the right stuff and finding the perfect spot for it, I would probably enjoy it as a business. I do believe in the adage that you must do what you love and love what you do.  However, though that was the trigger that sent me thinking.

I finally took the plunge only a few months ago when I decided “If I am going to go give this idea a shot, it has got to be now” –  and thus ATP was born.  I currently retail my products through a few home décor stores across India. It wasn’t an easy start with the retail stores – I wrote to dozens of them requesting for them to see my work and give me an opportunity to display my products. It took a while for me to understand how to go about manufacturing and showcasing merchandise at stores. During my initial few meetings, I met some very helpful, wonderful people who very kindly showed me my mistakes and guided me on how I should proceed. Even though every meeting may not have resulted in a sale or an opportunity for a tie up with a store, I learned so much from meeting experienced people who had been involved in this field for years.

It has been about six months since I have been fully involved in ATP. I am looking at expanding my market and selling my products overseas. In the next few years, I hope to get into exports, open a lifestyle store and be known as the one stop shop for home décor.

[All images courtesy of Ayesha Puri]

Find out more on the ATP Facebook page

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Rhiannon Connelly

Doing what I love – without realising it, this has been my guiding principle all along. My first experience of a “proper job” was so spectacularly awful that I left after a few months, and from then on I’ve always felt it was a priority to enjoy what I was doing. But that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been ups and downs and I’ve had to maintain a flexible approach. However, the threads of colour and travel keep appearing.

My first real passion was textile design using painted silk but after seven or eight years I basically burned out and made the difficult decision to stop (despite having been quite successful with a lot of outlets including Liberty of London, and seeing the likes of British TV personalities Jon Snow and Philip Schofield wearing my ties.) This tough choice led to quite a blue period – however, I was fortunate that I could return to tourist guiding ,which I also really enjoyed, and this gave me some breathing space.

Image – Rhiannon Connelly

Over time photography became more important, growing from something I did ‘on the side’ into a full time occupation. At first I did weddings and portraiture, which I liked but realised after a while I did not love. And then photographic art became my main focus – specifically a particular style of Polaroid manipulation, which partly attracted me by its vibrant colours.

But then Polaroid went out of business, leading to another period of creative block. I resolved to find a way to use up the last of my supplies in a joyful way to get past this. What I came up with was the “12 City Project” where I spent a week a month for a year photographing 12 European cities. This was quite an ambitious plan but I did complete the shooting part on schedule. I think that just announcing my plans at the outset gave me a lot of the momentum to carry it out.

Now I have used nearly all of my supplies and although the Impossible Project is working on new film types, so far it does not yet suit my style. For me, the bright colours are as essential as the ability to manipulate the images. Instead of falling into another blue phase I’ve started to develop a range of textiles using my existing images. And I’m on the lookout for a different medium in case the film doesn’t give me the results I want.

If there was anything I would like to have known earlier on it would be that discovering and doing what you love is not something that happens in a straight line but rather spirals in and out so that no skill learned is ever wasted. And to follow any interesting avenues without worrying that it is a “wrong” direction.

Whatever happens, in the future I would like to grow the textile range, explore licensing and find ways to share some of the techniques I’ve learned with others.

 [All images courtesy of Rhiannon Connelly]

To find out more about Rhiannon and her work visit her website.

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