Blacker Yarns

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*Blacker Yarns * is a British entrepreneur. Blacker started Blacker Yarns in 2005 and is based in Cornwall.^[1]

Career

Early Career

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Blacker Yarns

Blacker started Blacker Yarns in 2005. They detail the beginnings of their company in their Starter Story interview: ^[1]

Q: How did you get started on Blacker Yarns?

I originally was a customer of our Natural Fibre Company spinning service, where I had the fleeces from my pedigree Gotland sheep flock spun into yarns.

Before the sheep I had been in business and finance in the City, returning to my Cornish roots to get jobs in community, economic and environmental development. Then we ran holiday cottages, with the sheep to keep the grass down, and I had always knitted since childhood.

So I had a mix of business, farming, investment banking, public relations, secretarial work and marketing in my background and was also lucky to receive a grant to fund an MBA degree at Cambridge University in 1998.

Then one day I saw the Natural Fibre Company owners mention thinking about the future in one of their newsletters, and I had been looking for a business to own and manage for a long time, so I approached them and after a lot or research and business planning bought the name, assets and stock of the business, and the rest is History!

That is to say: history happened after persuading the retiring owners that I could do it, my family that I should do it and then doing two years of development work, market research and business planning, finding premises, learning about machines, applying for grants and, eventually, succeeding in convincing a bank to support us.

Then we were able to move in and set up from September, 2005, which was supposed to take 6 weeks but actually took around 6 months before we could actually start production. Because the business already existed, I was able to do a great deal of market research with the customers, which showed there was scope for growth, particularly with additional services.

Source ^[1]

References

Contributors

Contributors to this article:

• Pat Walls, Founder @ Starter Story
• Wiki Updater