The Geordie who turned a £45 lend from her mum into a £25m party dress business

A Newcastle entrepreneur has revealed how she turned a £45 loan from her mum into a £25m fashion business.

Pink Boutique founder Alice Hall was a teacher who was struggling so much, worked in a bar at night and did weekend promo work just to pay the bills.

But after spotting a gap in the market for what she calls "glam fashion online", The Mirror reports she was so determined to make a change she used £90 - half of which she borrowed from her mum - to start the business on eBay.

Seven years on from launching the firm, it is now racking up sales of £25 million a year.

Alice says that the fashion websites around at the time were missing the mark, showing models who looked very natural wearing party dresses.

“I am from Newcastle upon Tyne, the party city where the girls love tan and make-up.”

She had an idea for doing things differently, but Alice admits that she endured a couple of failed starts as a result of poor quality samples. So she set off hunting for a wholesaler she could rely on who could provide good quality stock, eventually locating one in the UK.

“I was really struggling for money, so I begged my mum to lend me £45 so I could afford a £90 pack of six dresses.”

Recruiting a friend from the bar as a model, she listed them on eBay, and they all sold very quickly.

“When they sold, we reinvested and bought two packs, then four packs and so on until Pink Boutique was born."

Alice had been using her lunch breaks from her regular job to handle posting out her orders, but before long that break simply wasn’t long enough.

So teaming up with her mum Jackie, she went full time with the business, Alice handling the creative side of buying, selling and marketing, while Julie took on the admin and finances.

Alice graduated from university with a journalism degree, but had no prior business knowledge, so she had to learn everything about running a business.

She says: “I did a lot of Googling, bought marketing books and watched YouTube tutorials.”

Timing helped with spreading the word too, as she set up a Facebook page for the business just as the feature was launched on the social media site, and it quickly built up interest.

“We managed to go viral without spending a penny! Our strategy was to create and share engaging content and we built a massive community of like-minded women.”

PinkBoutique’s unapologetic love of all things glam has helped the business take off at some rate. That initial £90 spend led to a turnover of £500,000 by the end of year one.

And now the business is on track to bring in £25 million in sales, with 2,000 garments a day being shipped out from its Newcastle warehouse.

Alice says: “It’s surreal that a business I started in my living room has gone this far.”

She isn’t standing still either, with the firm now building a strategy for exporting.

PinkBoutique was a family affair from the very beginning, but Alice has also had to grapple with the challenge of running a business while starting a family.

While she says she struggled to get her head around the change that her daughter brought to her usual schedule, she has now found a better work/life balance.

What’s more she reckons that motherhood has actually helped the business, as it’s made her more single-minded at work, focusing on just one or two big things for Pink Boutique to achieve each year.

"I completely take my hat off to anyone who has young children and starts their own business! Luckily we had scaled our business to the point where I was able to take maternity leave, but I know this isn’t always possible for people with small businesses," she said.

"Having an online business that’s open 24 hours is like having a baby that doesn’t sleep. I joke that the business was my first baby as it’s needed so much attention and nurturing. Since becoming a mum I have become infinitely more organised and that’s what’s getting me through."

Clearly not all start-ups will enjoy the sort of prodigious growth seen by Pink Boutique, yet Alice believes there are lessons others can learn from her experiences.

She says: “Try to learn as much as you can in the beginning when you’re small, but then don’t be afraid to pay for experienced staff when you can. Our business really changed gears when we brought in a management team.”