Your Name: Gemma Regalado
Business Name: Jane&Philbert, a service for web and branding design
Type of Business: Design
Business Location: Southhampton, United Kingdom
Website http://www.janeandphilbert.com
Twitter @janeandphilbert
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/janeandphilbert
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/janeandphilbert
Reason for starting
Jane&Philbert was started as little creative outlet designing custom logos after I closed down my first freelancing business. It started to gain a bit of traction, and I realised that I wanted to make Jane&Philbert a fiery, sassy place for female solopreneurs to help build their own brand, and to take down the elitist techie façade from running a website, while still offering web and branding design with my unique take on feminine design.
How do you define success?
Knowing that my work is genuinely helping people and that people are engaged with what I’m doing. It’s extremely special when I hear feedback from my course students or from a subscriber who has just managed to back up their website thanks to the information I put out there. It makes me excited to wake up every day.
Biggest Success
By far and away, my proudest moment was launching my free five-day crash course called, “Pimp that ‘Press site,” designed to help small business owners tart up their WordPress websites. I didn’t want to just give away an e-book or an arbitrary PDF – I wanted people to sign up to my site and really learn something. The response I had was so humbling because so many people who signed up, emailed me to tell me how much they enjoyed it, how much they learned and showed me their “before and after” pictures. It was such a joy because I felt that I was showing women in particular how to define their own brand and how not to fear their websites.
What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
Saying “no.” I realised that in order to actually have the time to focus on my business, I had to start being very strict with my time and to stop taking on work just for work’s sake. I completely stopped taking on maintenance work, and work solely on brand overhauls and totally new websites and logo designs, of which I only take on six projects per year. I had to realise that my business was the most important client I had.
Who is your most important role model?
Marianne Cantwell from www.free-range-humans.com. Her advice and her business courses were instrumental to me in starting up Jane&Philbert, and opening my eyes to creating a business that I really wanted.