Day in the life of a social business founder on lockdown.
Ever wondered what it’s like to run your own social business? How about in a global pandemic?
I was on the 2014 Year Here programme, and have been running our community powered fashion brand, Birdsong, ever since. birdsong.london. Our workshops and warehouse may be closed but in between furlough, here’s how we worked together to ensure a resilient company existed on our return.
9am — back in London I’m slightly more of a morning person, but since coming to lockdown in Durham with my partner, there’s a little less traffic to wake me up. And less competition for the shower.
I’ll wake up and check our social media platforms, email and business WhatsApps for urgent enquiries, and make a mental list for the day in order of priority. I then record this as a ‘stand up’ on our team Slack channel, which we use instead of email. We’ve been trying to use an agile framework for a few years now, and the main thing that’s stuck is our stand-ups.
9.15am — I get a cup of coffee and attempt a run. I’ve been doing the NHS Couch to 5k app throughout lockdown and it’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed running. Afterwards I hop in the shower and put some Birdsong clothes on — a definite perk of the job is my infinite supply.
10am — I video call my business partner — our design and production manager — and we go through our stand up, which is our top three priorities for the day. It’s good to check in at the end of the day and see if we got them all done. Three is also good — stops you biting off more than you can chew.
10.30am — I go through my inbox. On Year Here we were taught amazing tricks for organising and running an email inbox, which changed my life. We were encouraged to keep zero emails, but in reality quite a lot pile up. We usually have projects to work on based on our product cycles. While our production is closed on lockdown, we’re focusing our efforts on digital marketing, search engine optimisation and building leads for a potential investment round.
Today I’m working on SEO, with the help of a huge marketing agency we met while we did Year Here six years back. They work with our main competitors and still offer us pro bono work, which is brilliant for a small company who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford their rates.
2pm — I’ll usually have a few more video calls through the afternoon. Sometimes it’s really exciting — yesterday I spoke to the founder of a household name fashion brand through a mentoring opportunity. Sometimes it’s a webinar provided by a business accelerator we’re on with EY. There are other Year Here alumni on the programme (we get everywhere!) so there’s always a friendly face. We also have a venture support WhatsApp group that gets used daily. It’s super useful having a group of 30+ other social entrepreneurs at your fingertips. We have video catch-ups now, but usually they’re once a month at the pub.
7pm — I’m a late starter, late finisher kind of person. I’ll usually be very engrossed in my work or end up chatting slightly longer than I need to with a journalist or potential partner — though this often works in our favour. I’m very into cooking on lockdown, so experimenting with more vegan recipes while I’m at my partners. We make something time consuming and then eat quite late, with a glass of wine or three. Afterwards I might watch an episode of Killing Eve and finally get to bed.
