Businesswomen by chance

It all started by chance. Anna was out walking in London with her sister and their children and saw a Mini Micro Scooter in the playground. Her son had a go and wouldn't get off the lightweight three-wheeler scooter. She decided to buy one for him. "It changed my life," she said.

Her son used it a lot and other mums soon started asking Anna where she got it. Anna went to find out where she could get some more. Her local shop had run out so she searched the web for the Swiss-based manufacturer, Micromobility, and found the UK distributor. She asked how many they had sold in the UK. The answer: 1,500 in two years. Anna thought she could sell some so she ordered three and put a sticker on the bottom with her contact details. Gradually the orders started coming in, but then the company's UK distributor stopped supplying them.

Anna was not put off. So convinced was she that this was a product which mums would buy that she rang Switzerland and bought a pallet of 48. "It was pretty scary," she said. She sold all 48 in two weeks, just 10 months on from when she bought her original order of three. She started putting adverts in local cafes and shops.

Meanwhile, Micromobility were looking for another UK distributor. Anna, who now has three sons and had taken time out of her career as a City lawyer, decided to team up with her friend Philippa who had sons the same age as Anna and an older daughter. The two had met in 2004 at a baby clinic. Both had tried and tested the scooters on their children and were convinced they would sell well among other parents.

They decided to fly to Switzerland to meet the Micromobility team. "They were very cool," says Anna.  The three-wheeler Mini Micro Scooter was not the main focus for their business. Anna and Philippa gave them their views as consumers on where they should go next - they suggested, for instance, bringing out a pink version for girls - and, with their passion for the product, convinced the chief executive to give them the rights to distribute the scooters in the UK for two years.

"It was a massive learning curve," says Anna.  The two had to learn about everything from shipping, pricing and book-keeping to approaching retailers and setting up a website. The scooters were shipped to Anna's house. "The delivery men had to sit there while I was feeding the children," says Anna.

Anna and Philippa's company, Micro Scooters, now employs 10 people, including Anna's husband, and has won the distribution rights in the US, South Africa and Holland. It sold over 100,000 scooters last year. Anna says the company's biggest break was getting into John Lewis, one of the UK's biggest department stores. John Lewis agreed to take 100 scooters at first. It is now their best-selling toy.

As their children grew, the women could see the potential for the next scooter up and started distributing the Maxi Micro Scooter for children aged 5 plus just before Christmas.  As with the Mini Micro Scooter, they started by targeting mums. With each sale, they had got contact details and they emailed them about the Maxi scooter. They leafleted school fairs and other places where mums collected. "They are our ambassadors," says Anna, adding that the company has never paid for an advert, although it now employs a PR firm, Mothership, which, in keeping with the company's approach, is run by two working mums.

Both Anna and Philippa have moved out of London. Anna is living in nearby Essex and the company now has an office and warehouse near her home where her husband, who has 30 years' experience in sales, is based.  "Each time we reached breaking point," she says, "we took another person on to take up some of the work. It was just that it caught on so quickly. The growth has been so fast that each time we kept thinking it would get easier something else happened."

Anna had chosen to take time out of her law career to be with her children so she didn't want to put them in full time childcare. However, her youngest son went to nursery in the morning and then sometimes would watch a video in the early afternoon if Anna needed to catch up on work. She then looked after the children after school and, when they lived in London, she and Philippa would meet up at night to do some work. "I used every minute of every day," she says. Later, she had an au pair and her parents live nearby so can do pick-ups from school if she has to go to a meeting in London.

Now all the children are at school and she can build on the international distribution network. The company has appointed distributors in the US, South Africa and Holland, based on a similar model to that used in the UK. That means working with other mums and promoting the scooters by word of mouth. Anna and Philippa have persuaded Micromobility that toyshops are better outlets than sports shops for the micro scooters. Anna says if they found another product which was right and which she and Philippa believed in they would consider taking it on.

Anna can't envisage going back to law now. "I have learnt so much and every day is different doing thing. I have learnt about everything from negotiating a deal with John Lewis to the finer points of managing contracts for staff and the merits and qualities of shrink wrap. I would never have put myself down as a salesperson," she says. "But it is so easy when you believe in the product."