Crafting a future for home businesses

Chairwoman of the group, Marceline Smith, a graduate of Grays School of Art in Aberdeen gave up a full-time web design job after getting the chance to show her work at a local gallery.

She has a website, www.askingfortrouble.org, and sells bags, fabric purses, covered notebooks and similar products globally via eBay-style websites for handcrafted goods.

With a seeming mission to take the naff out of crafts, the group's 31 young members are keen to offer a real alternative to the "mass-produced culture of the high street".

Smith said: "You can have something hand-made and unique. It doesn't cost the earth, and they can make a living out of their art."

She supplements her income with freelance web design. "It is definitely a side business rather than a full-time thing," she says. "But some members do it full-time, and they make a living."

Smith, with some of her fellow craft mafiosi, recently took part in an event to promote awareness of the growth of small, home-based businesses, organised by Enterprise Nation, a home business website.

Craft businesswomen took part in a documentary, to be aired on 20 November, designated as the UK's first Home Enterprise Day.

The driving force behind Home Enterprise Day and Enterprise Nation is Emma Jones, the author of Spare Room Start-Up, How to Start a Business from Home, and founder of the website. Jones's research found that five million people in the UK keep their jobs while building their own company at night and at weekends.

"People are building a business on the side to ease themselves out of employment and into self-employment," she said. "It's the best way to start, because they are keeping their costs and risk low and building confidence while building cash-flow."

Other research has identified the home as a fertile place for business start-ups.

Last week, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Scotland found 66 per cent of owner-managed businesses were based in the home – in the UK generally the proportion is 47 per cent.

Yet Jones and others believe the government is missing a trick over economic policy in supporting this sector.

The GEM report cited tenancy agreements as a major hurdle – the Model Revised Scottish Secure Tenancy Agreement stipulates that tenants must ask the landlord for permission to run a business from their home

"Home-based businesses are largely ignored by government at all levels," says Colin Mason, professor of entrepreneurship at University of Strathclyde.

Such businesses tend to grow, but not by increasing employment – a key government measure that can often give access to funding opportunities.

Often such businesses outsource non-core activities – accountancy, marketing, IT, manufacturing and web transactions.

"A lot of home businesses seem to be ineligible for public-sector assistance, particularly as a lot of that assistance is linked to investment and job-creation. If you are creating jobs indirectly, that rules you out," said Mason.

He admits home businesses are often off the radar of local authorities because they tend to stay small, but he says: "Home does not preclude growth. You can become a significant business from home. Given that more that half of business starts-ups are in the home, it is a no-brainer that local authorities are going to meet the target for a chunk of these start-ups if they encourage home-based businesses."

Smith agrees that there is scope for more support: "People don't know about these things, they don't know what funding they can get, or even what tax benefits we can get. That is one way the Craft Mafia can help. If I find out one piece of information, I can share that with everyone."

HOME'S BEST FOR SCOTLAND'S ENTREPRENEURS

THE latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Scotland Report, conducted by the University of Strathclyde's Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, found that the majority of new businesses (58 per cent) started in Scotland last year and the majority of established small businesses were both home-based.

Other findings were that over two-thirds of early-stage home-based entrepreneurs and three-quarters of more established operators are male, contrary to the popular female stereotype of home-based entrepreneurs.

The report found that, despite their relatively minor direct contribution to job-creation, home-based businesses hold their own in exports. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of home-based businesses made more than 50 per cent of their sales to customers outside the UK.