Creative Warwickshire programme enables Emma to complete rags to riches story
The Little Soap Company is a real small business success story. Driven by the passion, creativity and hard work of founder Emma Heathcote-James, it is now listed among the fastest growing companies nationally in the toiletries sector.
Like most success stories, it has been far from all plain sailing. Life and business tend to hurl obstacles in your way - and how you deal with those is often the difference between success and failure.
Emma rose to those challenges and made her dream - to run a thriving business making pure, natural soap accessible to all - come true. The Little Soap Company's success is down to her own skills, strength and resilience - but she also pinpoints crucial support from Creative Warwickshire, a dedicated business support programme for creative and digital businesses, along the way.
Emma, How did you hear about the Creative Warwickshire programme?
One of our suppliers, a designer, had been on the initial programme and I wanted something local, short and doable that looked inspiring and different from the usual.
What did it entail and what did you take from it which helped your business to grow?
The programme entailed intensive training days, interactive workshops, networking events and one-to-one sessions - and it delivered just what I needed at exactly the right time.
My aim from the start was to bring back the humble bar soap and make it natural and cool. When I started in 2008 the soap category was in decline in every single retailer, attracting only an older and reducing demographic. It was dull and staid. It frustrated me that I couldn’t buy natural, let alone organic, bar soap in the supermarket so my simple vision was to make pure, natural soap accessible to all. There is genuine provenance from hand-making on my kitchen table in a small village, selling at local farmers markets, to getting it to the supermarket shelf, at an affordable price.
Little Soap Company really has been a rags to riches tale. We brought the first organic soap to the supermarket a decade ago and have remained there ever since. With various ranges for differing audiences, we entered the sector, brightened the shelves and brought an entirely new audience to purchase bar soap.
So all was good….the company was flying and, on the outside, all was fantastic - but then an unexpected relationship breakdown pulled the rug from under me. I ended up quite poorly as a result. For the first time, the fire in my belly had gone out and it was really frightening.
I had a really successful business but no oomph for it. I really needed to get that back and, thanks to the Creative Warwickshire programme, get it back I did!
Simply taking time out, being inspired by others in the room and the leaders, was just the ticket. Galvanised and inspired all over again, I created an entire new Grapefruit Range of products, and an organic haircare range for our 10th Anniversary in 2018 (for Waitrose and Ocado) - and boom, I have not looked back since.
So the programme has had lasting benefits in terms of the way it shaped your approach to the business?
Yes, absolutely! I am a creative and it reinstated that fact and also that it’s okay to be one. It’s easy for that creativity to be dampened by the necessities of running a business but it reminded me to do what I am good at and enlist others far better than me to do the bits I can’t!
It also reminded me that I need to create space, where possible to grow – personally, professionally and business-wise. To work on the business more than in it. Thinking, rather than hands-on doing.
The Little Soap Company is clearly thriving? Any plans for future growth?
We are now deemed one of the fastest growing companies in the toiletries sector, having spent 2019 building the team and putting new systems in place ready to take us to the next level to accommodate the year-on-year growth. It was terrific to make this years LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders List and make the final five Amazon Small Business Shortlist, a nod that we are back on track for sure!
We’ve just launched our new brand Eco Warrior range into Sainsburys and it’s about to launch into Ocado and Boots and other outlets over the coming months. This range takes this step further to entice another audience to the shelves, one that is looking to eradicate unnecessary plastic bottles, tubs and tubes from their bathrooms and washbags. Giving bar soaps such individual functions – as a shampoo, a shaving bar, an exfoliator and so forth – offering specific performances. We now have this opportunity for bars to shift up a gear. They are absolutely no longer just for washing our face and bodies.
As we continue to lead the way, others are thankfully now following, creating even more choice for consumers. I never wanted us to be the lone organic or natural bar on the supermarket shelf. The opposite! I passionately believe the next step is for pure, natural soap to become the norm – not the niche.
The progress we have made has been very satisfying heartwarming - and the Creative Warwickshire programme played a huge part in that.