A 26 year-old businesswoman from our village is celebrating receiving £3000 worth of extra funding following a “Dragon’s Den” style event organised by Nottinghamshire Community Foundation.
Olivia Swift’s successful pitch at the Nottingham Trent University Business School secured the cash from The Nottingham Building Society to help the Ruddington entrepreneur grow her business.
Olivia achieved national recognition last year after designing a fashion top which allows women to breastfeed babies discreetly in public. Although not previously a fashion designer, nor a mum herself, Olivia says: “I became inspired to create the special top – made out of a translucent chiffon material – during my midwifery training at The University of Nottingham. It was there I began to hear about the problems women can sometimes face with public breastfeeding – so I wanted to design a product to help.”
She then founded Lotus Maternity to market her unique breastfeeding top – and put her name forward for this competition in March 2018 by submitting a business plan to the Foundation. It resulted in her being shortlisted to go and face the “Dragons”!
Prior to the final, Olivia pitched to friends and family members to ensure that her presentation did not exceed the ten minute allowance for the competition. The panel of “Dragons” in this case (pictured top L-R) comprised local business leaders Nina Dauban, Melanie Currie, Beverley Parr, Martin Collins, David Marlow and Kevin Shakesheff.
Olivia says: “I was the last of the eight finalists to go and present to the panel. It was a little nerve-racking beforehand as I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed because without winning the competition I couldn’t see how I would be able to keep driving Lotus Maternity forward without financial support and backing. On entering the board room, all the panel seemed very friendly and keen to learn about my business. I wore one of the brand’s products to the presentation, to demonstrate how my nursing tops worked to facilitate discreet public breastfeeding. The Q&A section following the pitch was something I was apprehensive about as you never know what the panel are going to ask. However, I think that my in-depth working knowledge of the business and also my background in midwifery allowed me to answer their questions to the best of my abilities.”
After learning that her pitch had been successful, Olivia visited The Nottingham’s headquarters to be presented with her cheque. She will now be working with Martin Collins from the panel – who’s from White Label Resources – to see how her business can be developed further.
