A STRESSED out mum came up with a DIY hack involving a black bin bag to help her child sleep during the day - and has now turned it into a thriving £1.3million business.
Audrey Buck, 57, wanted to be there for her kids when they were young, so she was determined to become a stay-at-home mum and get her own business of the ground to accommodate looking after them.
The stressed mum-of-three from Southwold, Suffolk was tired of her middle child (then aged just 4-months old) not being able to sleep during the day.
She complained to a friend over coffee about her struggles, who suggested she kept her daughter's room pitch black to help her drift off.
She said: "It just hadn't occurred to me before, I sellotaped heavy duty bin bags to the window and there was an instant improvement in her sleep in daylight hours - It worked a treat, but I knew I couldn't have bin bags on my window."
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Audrey wanted a more practical solution and took matters into her own hands creating her own blackout blinds from scratch.
She said: "I went to the haberdashery shop and I bought some black out lining fabric and fastener tape.
"We removed the blinds and I could just put them up and down in seconds."
It worked so well her friends facing similar issues had asked her to make them for them too, which then created a snowball effect resulting in further word of mouth requests from friends of friends with children.
It grew organically from there and led to her making her own website for Easy Blinds officially in 2002.
She says: "I had several friends who had children around the same time and word just spread.
"I was getting more and more requests. I sat down with my husband, and asked if this could work as a business.
"I wanted to be at home with the kids, to do the school runs and be with them if they were unwell and during the school holidays, but still generate an income. And so that is how it began.
"I went to WHSmith and I got a build your own website and html book and built my own website and put some ads in baby magazines.
"Orders started coming in and it just took off from there."
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Her husband Richard, 56, left his job as a broadcast engineer last year to work for the company.
Audrey says that despite black out blinds being on the market at the time, she found that they always had gaps at the side which would let light in, whereas the blinds she made sealed on to the window frame on all our sides.
She says there were complete black out blinds available but they were very expensive because of the fiddly mechanisms used in the design.
But Audrey was able to get the same results with self-adhesive attachments, making them not only easier to fit but cheaper too.
She says: "That's how we found our niche."
Starting the business with just a few hundred pounds spent on initial stock, along with the website building book, adverts in baby magazines and being well-placed in Google Search results helped get the ball rolling.
Audrey says the brand really began to excel when they joined Amazon in 2008 which grew their brand awareness and was instrumental in helping expand into different markets.
She says: "After a few years I had a couple of staff and was fairly busy but we decided to give Amazon a try and straight away it became 50% of our sales."
Audrey says they made the most of SME seller university resources and their account manager to guide them through.
But transitioning to Fulfillment By Amazon, which lets businesses outsource fulfilling the orders rather than doing it themselves, was the gamechanger, taking weight off their hands and enabling them to make 80% to 90% of their sales through Amazon.
In 2023, their turnover was a staggering £1.3 million.
The "pivotal turning point" came in 2018 after joining the Amazon 360 program, which is a personalised consultancy for rapid growth.
She says: "Amazon has been an invaluable partner on our journey, especially during the challenging transition period of Brexit.
"Without it, expanding our overseas presence in Europe and the USA wouldn't have been nearly as seamless or successful.
The scheme offers one-to-one guidance for small businesses. There's a monthly charge for the 360 program, based on a fixed fee plus a small percentage of previous month’s sales, says Audrey.
How much that is depends on the business and the support package you choose.
"It’s safe to say we wouldn’t be a million-pound business without Amazon,” she says.
The entrepreneur is not stopping there either.
Her profits, which average around 15% over the last three years, are being invested to grow the business further
This year, Audrey says she is looking at building the business in the States and has found that websites in other parts of the world want to stock the blinds.
She says: "We have recently had a request to stock goods in Iceland, we sell to a website in France and we also have distributors in Australia and New Zealand."
Audrey says she is delighted with how what started out as a product to help parents with children has now diversified to help many more people- from night shift workers to people who have bright street lamps outside their bedroom or are near busy roads.
She says: "I am thrilled and I feel incredibly lucky. I came into the business with no expertise or specific knowledge so it has been a steep learning curve all the way.
"I have now seen my kids off to university while being at home all the time. That was the main thing for me, it was what I wanted from day one and I feel very fortunate that it all worked out."