Chatting to Mama Bamboo, a sustainable social enterprise from forest to baby
Here at Doppler, we’re all about doing good. We want to do good in the world, we want to help others feel good, to reach their dreams of doing good and in turn, share that with the world. We believe that if we’re getting to reach our dreams and generally, hang out doing work and creating things that make us feel amazing and sharing that with others, then the world would be a better place.
That was all a lot of ‘goods’! But we mean it, we want to help shape and create a world that feels good. And we do this by supporting social enterprises, B Corporations, and artists of all kinds to reach their dreams. This might be through sharing information about fundraising, supporting marketing strategy or business coaching.
What is Social Impact Fundraising?
Money is a funny thing; it can make people feel really gross and icky, which can get in the way of them being able to share their gifts and talents with the world. Want to know a bit more about fundraising as a social enterprise or B Corp? Take a look at our blog here.
But if you’re doing good and working towards social or environmental goals with a big impact on our world, then there’s lots of funding and grants out there that you could be taking advantage of. It’s called Social Impact Fundraising or sometimes just Impact Fundraising. Here’s a brief list of Social Impact Fundraisers and Investors if you’re stuck on where to get started.
Social Impact Fundraising is when investors, whether they’re banks, companies or individuals, invest in companies, organisations, and funds with the intention of generating a social or environmental benefit or impact, as well as a financial return. Ethical, impactful, and green investing is on the rise, with more and more people becoming aware that the world and the people in it, need a lot more good.
B Corps – for people and the planet
We’re on a mission to promote and highlight B Corps and social enterprises that have successfully been selected for Social Impact Funding and grants. Which brings us to the wonderful Mama Bamboo!
Mama Bamboo are a female-founded, award-winning B Corp that are disrupting the world of nappies and wipes. Sustainable from forest to bottom, Mama Bamboo is the only UK nappy company to be B Corp certified and Summit level certified by Sustainable X.
Laura Crawford CEO and Jenny Potts COO of Mama Bamboo and their lovely smiles
We love what Mama Bamboo is doing, and our founder, Danielle, was absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to catch up with Laura, CEO of Mama Bamboo recently.
Read on to find out more about Mama Bamboo and their journey, it’s a bit of a long one so we recommend you get comfy with a cuppa and a biscuit!
Talking to Laura, CEO at Mama Bamboo
Danielle (D): Hi Laura, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I just love your approach to business; I love what you're doing. I find it really inspiring when people are going down a different path and breaking the norm. Something that's quite close to me is fundraising because I'm helping several different brands go through it at the moment.
Initially when I was researching and doing lots of interviews with different founders and CEOs, I found that there was this real gap, particularly from, female founders, female CEOs, and or people from underrepresented minority groups, where they were just not getting money from the big guys, you know, we don't fit into this system of being financed. There was also this real fear of taking on investment and somebody coming in and just completely scrapping your values as well. Because of the nature of the businesses I work with, which is people trying to do something different, trying to do something for good. And actually, trying to solve some social or environmental problems along the way, I think there was this huge fear that if they get money from somebody, they're going to say: no, you need to now focus on profit, and forget all your moral values.
Which is why I was so excited to chat with you! I felt like your journey is something worth sharing because it’s bloody awesome, as well as sharing with other people that there are alternative ways to raising money that aren’t through a typical venture capitalist route. So, how did you decide which route you would go with fundraising?
Laura (L): Well, when we started talking about more funding, we had a long chat about the way we should do it. Whether we should offer individual angel investors that were friends, family, and ourselves. We questioned if we wanted more angel investors or did we want to go through venture capitalists? Did we want to raise money through the bank and have long term loans? Or did we want to go down the EIS route?
Now the EIS route basically landed in our laps when a customer of ours, Diana, contacted us and said: ‘have you considered this?’ And at the time, we really hadn’t and didn’t even know anything about it. We felt a little uncomfortable about venture capital, so it was kind of serendipitous, it came to us at exactly the right time.
We got speaking to Diana and she explained that through this EIS scheme, we wouldn’t have like one or two investors but possibly a few hundred investors and their investments could range from a few hundred pounds to a few thousand pounds! But they would have an interest in the business, and we would obviously have to report to them during the period. We could communicate with them as much as we wanted, but they wouldn’t have automatic control or rights to sit on the board or anything like that. We obviously must do what we stated in the offer document but the investors would not be able to out-vote us on anything strategic.
We’re trying to do something slightly different with the business and it just sounded so good when she explained it. We were concerned that any other route would effectively give someone else control to potentially change our vision. Diana also went through why this was a good deal for the investors because I was concerned about why you would invest in a company with no control and no influence. Plus, we’re a start-up and high risk. But Diana explained that the risk is spread over 200-300 people, so it doesn’t feel like a high risk. She also explained that there’s tax eligibility for the investors because they’re investing in a green and sustainable company.
Diana also took us through the types of people that invest in businesses like ours, where they’ve actively chosen to invest in ethical businesses, sustainable businesses, and community projects. They’re not driven purely by profit; they’re interested in sustainable business and that’s why they’ll take a chance on a green start-up like ours.
So, all the ducks lined up and it was the perfect option when we were looking for somebody, or a group of people, to come on-board and invest in us to give us that cash flow and capital to do a lot of the expansion work that we needed to do.
D: That’s fantastic, so many useful pieces of information! I knew bits about the scheme but it's so interesting to hear about. Do you now feel like you are going to build that relationship with those investors? Is the plan to then bring them closer into the business or you think they'll stay at a distance?
L: Now, we’re planning out our communication with the investors. Some of the investors have an immense wealth of knowledge and experience. Two of them have reached out and said, ‘Look, I'd be willing to talk to you, I'd be willing to give you advice’, and I never want to turn down sound advice. So, we're working out how we communicate with all of them and keep them informed whilst not bombarding them with info. Some of them want to know more, some of them want to know less.
I don’t know whether you read the news in the Express today, but we're expanding our team. We’re bringing in a Marketing Manager and we’ve brought in a Non-Executive Director. He was one of the managing directors at Ella's Kitchen, so, he obviously was very interested in an ethical start-up with fast consumer moving goods like ours.
He wanted to offer some advice and be involved a little more, so we invited him to be our Non-Executive Director, and he'll be the first one that we've had! It's a great position for us to be in to have a Non-Executive Director of such calibre and experience because we benefit from his experience whilst still maintaining our control. We're able to set the ethos and the tone. We can make business decisions, whether it's based on profit, or sustainability, etc.
D: Yeah, totally. So, do you get scared? Or does this scare you at all? Because one of the things that I'm incredibly impressed by is how easy this all seems for you! Does it frighten you to grow this?
L: Not growing bigger. I think it frightens me to completely fall on my face. So, yes and no. It's risky. Whatever you do has risks involved in it, but I think “What’s the absolute worst that can happen?”. The worst result would be to have to close the company at some point in the future, but in the meantime we’ll have saved 1000’s of tonnes of crude oil and carbon. I'm probably more nervous of it getting out of my control.
Apparently, we need to call ourselves a scale up now, as we've moved on one step from a start up. And the optimists talk about us reaching £10million turnover within a few years. What does that mean though? Does that mean 40 people working in the company and that we must have a proper office and lots of bureaucracy, and we have to all work 60 hours a week? We want to try and stick to our principles and remember why we started this and what is important to us.
One of the key reasons I started this rather than going back to the City was that I wanted to achieve a better family life balance and I wanted to offer other return-to-work parents meaningful, flexible work. Occasionally, we probably really annoy our suppliers when we say “please be aware that most of us finish at 3pm due to the school run, so this may have to wait until later”. And I can absolutely see that some suppliers probably say “what are you talking about?” I can see that being more of a problem going forward as we go into this sort of scale up period. Other people’s expectations will be harder to manage.
D: Yeah, I love that so much. That really resonates with me, recently things have gotten really busy on my side and I'm pretty disciplined with my boundaries and I've really worked hard at that. And I’ve just knackered myself, no space for my family, no space for any of the people I love. It's challenging and when everyone around you is going, well, you've just got to accept that you've got to work longer hours. No, I don't.
D: So, my next question was going to be what are your top challenges now? What do you think are your challenges post funding?
L: One of our biggest challenges for the next six months is to navigate the whole freighting crisis that has hit the world. But beyond that immediate problem, I think our big challenges are going to be prioritising the opportunities. We've talked about different product ranges, we've talked about growing internationally, we've talked about developing app subscriptions, we've talked about partnering with charity, Ickle Pickles, to develop nappies for premature babies – there’s loads of things we could do.
But, taking a bit of a step back and saying, this isn't our money, its investors’ money, we must make the most sensible decisions with it, and we also must be conscious of not just being that lovely child that has too many pennies in his pocket running into the sweet shop to buy absolutely everything! I think there's a bit of a challenge in planning longer term and slowing down sometimes to make the best decisions and do things in the right order.
D: Oh yes, I hear that completely. So, this is probably the toughest question, but what advice would you give somebody reading this? Someone who’s starting over or starting out? Or, you know, you a couple of years ago - what advice would you give to somebody on this path?
L: I think the advice that I would give to anybody doing this type of thing is recognise when it's time to grow your team and bring in expertise. It hurts as a small business when you first start hiring people. Because the expenditures feel like an overhead rising. But if you pick the right people, and it's the right time, bringing in expertise, fresh blood, fresh eyes, sometimes extra bodies will help your business grow.
D: It is painful, those first few hires. And there’s always that consideration of risk and, I think there's a temptation that I have so much with clients, it's such a temptation to do that as cheaply as possible. It's trying to be economic, but there's a sort of false economy behind it. And I'm constantly saying a lot of these relationships, you will build over a long, long period of time. Find the right person at the right time, like you said, and take a bit longer.
Thank you so much for chatting to me today, I think your story is incredible. I think what you've done is amazing. So, I'm just a big fan, basically. And I think it's helpful for businesses and corporations in a similar position to you!
L: Ah thank you! It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.
We absolutely loved chatting with Laura and the journey that Mama Bamboo has gone through to secure funding and hearing all about their next steps.
Watch this space for more interviews with social enterprises, B Corps and small businesses doing good in the world as they go through the funding and grants cycle!
And if you want to know more about fundraising, working with Doppler and seeing if we could support you in your journey to do good or share good out in the world, why not get in touch and let’s see how we could support you in your success?