Cheryl Cullen

Cheryl Cullen

What do you with your handbags when you need it to be hands free? You probably put it on the floors of cafés, pavements, public toilets, the bus and tube. Then, when you arrive home you chuck it on the kitchen worktop or the bed! And that’s ok? Well actually it’s not! A recent heath study conducted in the USA found that 1 in 4 handbags, after being placed on the floor collected bacteria that ranged from E COLI to Hepatitis. Cheryl Cullen, of Kitten Kit, who brought pole dancing into our homes also wants us re-think the way we store our handbags.

41 year old Cheryl Cullen set up Kitten Kit.com in 2004 from her kitchen table which now enjoys transatlantic sales and saw her win British Female Inventor & Innovator of the year award.

Always one to pick up on trends, Cheryl spotted a gap in the market during the ‘pole dancing for fitness’ fad. Cheryl says,” I was working full time as a Service Director but had always dreamed of running my own business. Lots of my friends were talking about pole dancing, but they didn’t want to attend a class as they weren’t confident enough. So I did some research into how I could supply such a product and got to work on a business plan.”

”My first real challenge came whilst trying to finance the business. Meetings with male bank managers proved tricky as they failed to see the market for this as a domestic ‘fitness’ product rather than something for the adult entertainment industry. So I decided to fund it myself, supported by my part time job. Looking back, it’s great to have proved the bank managers wrong!”

The Kitten Pole was born with the first order placed on November 2004. Since then, this portable, adjustable pole has been bought by thousands in the UK and within just 3 months sales came in from Europe, America and the Middle East. This growth allowed Cheryl to expand her business with new products. The next product was the popular invention the ‘handbag hanger’. Simply, this portable ‘hook’ clamps to any table to keep your handbag clean and safe when you’re out.

Cheryl’s advises hygiene is not the only advantage, “Handbag theft is any woman’s worst nightmare! Again, from listening to friends I realised there was a market for such a product, so looked in to existing options. A friend bought a similar product back from Germany and using this I set about finding a supplier that could make modifications to the packaging so it was right for the UK market.

The handbag hanger now enjoys online sales and is also stocked in independent retailers.

“Cheryl’s advice to anyone thinking of starting out is: Be confident in your idea. Test it against your target audience (in my case, my female friends!) Ask yourself, have you got the time, energy and finance to do this? Will your partner, friends and family support you? Take advantage of the free help available to you. Business Link (especially the website www.businesslink.gov.uk) is a great starting point for those of you thinking of doing the same Have a clear business plan and set realistic expectations.