Spotlight on North Home

I’m half Polish, half Norwegian: grew up in Poland. I lived and worked in London for ten years before moving to Leeds around five years ago. I’ve always been interested in interior decoration and helped my parents design a few rooms of the family home in my late teens. Whilst in London I worked alongside some amazing people including Vivienne Hayman. My passion for selecting individual items for specific places, people, or reasons really blossomed over the last 10 years. I love things that are real and remind me of nature, trees, moss, grasses, ferns. I see no point in using fake plants: either get a real plant or pick something else. My Granny always used to say, ‘we’re too poor to buy cheap stuff’: it’s better to wait an extra month and buy something of better quality than to buy something cheap that will break.

1.     You run a very successful restaurant in Leeds called Fettle yet you have embarked on a new business, what was the reason behind starting your business? What drove you to branch out into homewares?

In Fettle we wanted to create somewhere with a relaxed atmosphere with great food and friendly service. We had to build it ourselves as we couldn’t get enough funding so the benches, tables, wood panelling on the walls, and bar area including casting and pouring concrete worktops, were all built by us. We had to learn a lot very quickly. 

I’ve always been in love with well-designed, timeless objects. Creating Fettle lead me to get good crockery. When people started to ask if they can buy the crockery from us, I had the urge to say yes, since not many places do that. We set up a small area to show off a few pieces and it grew from there.

North home products showcased in my home-GWTGS

2.     How did you start up? You have both a physical and online presence, how are those managed?

When guests asked if they could buy our crockery I started with taking individual orders. In time we set up some shelves for POS. After a while,  I thought this business may be able to stand by itself so decided to create North Home.

I’m there in the shop all the time, speaking to customers about the uniqueness of the products on the North Home shelves. Most of our Fettle customers look for a special experience in dining, which means that the North Home vision suits them well since everything is handpicked for our customer profile, regardless of the high number of items in the designer collections.

Online was never my thing but I have two friends in Barcelona with art and IT backgrounds, who created the website and graphic design for Fettle and convinced me to go online with North Home. These discussions happened the month before the COVID19 situation, which then hit and made online the only options since the space in Fettle wasn’t open any more. This encouraged me to understand and pursue the North Home website to match the vibes and aesthetic of the physical shop with online. 

3.     How did you fund your business?

We have always reinvested our income into making Fettle even better. As we didn’t have the funds to create what we wanted to in the first place we’ve been making changes over the years to bring it up to the spec we originally envisioned. Although Fettle is yet to get the point we want it to get to, we decided to divert some funds from Fettle into building North Home especially as we were and are still unsure about the future survival of our restaurant. Ultimately though, as with all businesses, the biggest investment we’ve had to make is our time whether that is in finding suppliers, designing the website and branding, or of course packaging items for delivery.

4.     What influences your product choices?

My Scandinavian background is definitely the major influence. It’s a matter of taste and style, and a lot of it matches the style of Fettle. I’ve always been a fan of Japandi which is a combination of the Japanese and Scandinavian styles. The timeless simplicity in objects of character has become the main style of North Home. We have handpicked, especially for our brand image and customer profile. Each piece on North Home is one we have selected very carefully for the North Home customer.

5.     What was the most difficult part of starting up your business? Access to money, advice, finding people to buy, marketing etc?

Having sought funding in the past for Fettle we know of a few routes to start a business: anyone looking to start a business should always look to a Start-Up Loan as they are government backed and the support you get in setting up is invaluable. Because I had friends with the knowledge needed to create an online shop we decided we would go into business together: we’re all investing so much time and effort to get this going that if we had to pay for it North Home would’ve been a non-starter without significant funding. We did need to buy items so we had something to sell and between us we were able to scrape together to fund this. Over the last couple of months that we’ve been trading, although we’re new, every time we sell something either online or in Fettle, that has added to the funds available to restock those items and add something new to our range which has been fun. It meant our range at the beginning was very very small because it had to fit on a few shelves in Fettle and when we took it online it didn’t take very long to upload everything but we’ve managed to branch out a bit more now.

Our next hurdle is going to be getting people to know about North Home and to look at our site.

6.     Where do you see your business in 3 years’ time?

Definitely with a physical shop and warehouse, with a team supporting me. Online shop should be more popular. My dream is creating a North Home collection, ranging from home scents to crockery, designed by me and created by the most meticulous local manufacturers.

7.     What help was missing for you, if any?

Having been through the start-up process before with Fettle and having a best friend that does web design professionally, thankfully I’ve had a lot of support. I’ve got the support of my partner and friends in Barcelona and the UK. This isn’t my first venture and we’re taking time to build it. We will of course need help in the future as we can already see gaps in our knowledge moving forward, especially as we seek a physical shop or start to scale up North Home beyond what our spare room can cope with. We aren’t looking forward to Brexit as that’s a hurdle that will I’m having to learn a lot about in regard imports: how it works, the costs, paperwork etc

8.     What have you learnt?

Over the years… so very much. We’re lucky that our errors haven’t caused complete failure but if you don’t try things you never know. Having been through the last few years with Fettle there are definitely a million things we hadn’t done or had been told for example, as a business, there is no ‘cooling off period’. This is huge. With so much consumer protection in the UK/EU you forget that as a business you don’t have this and we had our fingers burnt when we didn’t realise that we couldn’t change our mind a few days later once we’d properly thought about it. If you go into business, read the contract and DON’T take their word for it.. 

Also, when you post something online, you think millions are going to see it, so you strive for perfection. However, I learnt to be calmer because not much will be different if there is a missing photo for the website, or the write up isn’t quite perfect. Learn from the mistake. Figure out alternatives. Just try it.                                                                      

North Home products showcased in my home-GWTGS

9.     What is the most important piece of advice that you could give others thinking about starting a business?

The business Fettle is today is NOT the business that we planned on opening nearly 4 years ago. You have to allow your business to develop, change, go in different directions, try something new and unusual: this is what keeps your customers interested and frankly, will help keep you interested too as you won’t just be doing the same old same old every day.

You need to take a risk and believe in your idea and project to the point where it is part of your being. Also, Start-Up Loans which are government backed are great, low cost, and come with a host of support. Just try it. We started with nothing and figured if it doesn’t work we won’t have lost anything but will have learned a lot setting us up to try again. Yes, it would be devastating to lose a business and that feeling of having let down your team but you that can’t be your forever focus because that holds you back from trying something new, something innovative, something different. Your business can’t stay the same, it has to develop.

10.     And what do you enjoy the most?

I enjoy seeing customer reviews, and their feedback on their physical and online shopping experience. It makes me happy to see the extent to which customers appreciate the experience that our products provide.

11.  On a scale of 1-10 how hard do you find it to run your own business?

I would say it’s a five because there is a balance between the hard work you put into running the business and the pleasure that comes out of its success. Yes, it’s easier to work for someone else, but there wouldn’t be as much passion or surprises [both positive and not so]