Innovation in funding 2015-15: Aviela
- The Guardian
- Aug 19, 2015
- 1 min read
‘I have been putting a third of my salary into developing my products’
Aviela was registered in 2007 but only started active trading three years ago. At the time, I had come to the end of my contract working with an IT company, and my husband had been made redundant from his job. I was responsible for paying the mortgage and bills. At the end of my contract I only had £100 in savings.
The raw material I needed for my products were in Ghana and the amount of money needed to purchase an initial 30kgs was £1000. Then as fate will have it, my father in-law passed away. My husband borrowed money for tickets from his cousins so we could travel to Ghana for the funeral. I was aware that clothes and shoes from the UK were a hot sell in Ghana so I invested my £100 in clothes and shoes from Primark and took them with me. I was able to sell them for five times the original price and made £1,800.
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I purchased my first 30kgs of raw material and shipped it to the UK. After making the first £100 of sales I reinvested in the clothes again to raise another £1,800 to further invest in the business.
Fortunately I found a job two years ago and in the last two years I have been putting a third of my salary into developing my products.
Patricia Monney is the director of Aviela
Source: Theguardian.com
