Lucie was still at university when she founded Hair Syrup.

While on maternity leave and spending time with her child at a local swimming pool, Caroline Gowing, 52, from Cheshire, met a woman that would change her life. 

Vicky Matthews was there swimming with her child on maternity leave, too.

They were both in their 30s, became very close friends, realised they had plenty in common, revelled in both being ‘organisers’ in their social circles, and eventually lamented at how their skills weren’t being utilised as best as they could in the workplace – being a working mother is no easy feat when flexibility feels like a dirty word. And so, they began talking about a business idea together.

On a drunken New Year’s Eve, the pair started plotting possible ideas.

Fresh into 2009 – with Caroline newly out of a six month contract, and Vicky on the verge of taking voluntary redundancy – they went away and started researching for what would go on to be an award winning virtual assistant company, Pink Spaghetti.

‘We had the same vision,’ Caroline tells Metro.co.uk. Once decided, they both put in £2,000 each – yes, as little as that – and used it for their website set up and logo costs. They didn’t take any loans or grants, and started the business working out of a play barn answering emails on their personal phones. 

Today, the business is worth £3million and has 50 franchises across the UK.

‘We wanted to be there to bring up our children, but we’re also really capable people who wanted a career and starting a business gave us that opportunity,’ Caroline says. 

As their business started to grow, they decided to see a business coach and realised their working styles were completely different – and they hadn’t spotted that before. Vicky loved the networking, marketing and people side of the business, and Caroline was much more comfortable with a spreadsheet in a dark room. The coach called her a ‘mushroom’. 

This then informed how they went about work – previously, they both would do a bit of everything, but after this call they divided duties up. When they started playing to these strengths, the business took off.

Playing to personal skills and getting complimentary people together is how Caroline likes all of her franchises to work. Alongside the extreme effort that went into growing the business, she also says it was partly down to ‘luck’.

But things changed. In 2023, Vicky tragically died from a brain tumour.

The lead up to her death was sudden – she and Caroline were on holiday together, and seemingly out of nowhere, Vicky was struggling to speak.

After going to A&E, thinking she might be having a stroke, she was given the devastating news that she had brain cancer. Less than two years later she had passed away.

‘It has been the biggest challenge of my life,’ Caroline says.

Not only was there the personal grief and loss to process, Caroline now had to be the face of the company and take on the work Vicky had previously excelled at. A self-professed photo-hater, Caroline recognised she needed to embrace change in order for the business to continue.

‘The face of the brand was Vicky. To come out of that in grief has been hard. But, I have developed as a person, I look at things differently, I answer things differently,’ she says. Personal and professional had been very much blended. ‘We walked a lot to talk about business. I’d talk to her about my husband, my family, and what’s going on. Everything was turned upside down.’

Caroline says she wouldn’t have ever started her business if she’d gone into it alone. Three months after Vicky’s death, she even contemplated giving it up. But legacy, responsibility and finances kept her going – to Vicky, staff, and herself. 

‘I can’t afford to give up work. And I love doing this, so if I give it up, what do I do?’, Caroline remembers thinking. 

‘I’m a business owner through and through nowadays, so the thought of going and working for someone else… I don’t know if I could do that.’ She also believes it’s never wise to make a big decision while in a state of grief. 

‘Our business model is all about playing to people’s strengths. We work with a lot of small businesses, and for people to outsource the tasks they don’t like doing or have time for. This helps them grow a business. 

‘By doing that within our own business it’s helped us grow ours, and we always said we would never start on our own so that’s why the franchise model works really well for us as no one has to do it on their own.’

Caroline is passionate about her staff being supported and working with what they’re good at, just as she and Vicky had done. 

She’s relieved she continued their hard work – and that today the business keeps on growing.

While on maternity leave and spending time with her child at a local swimming pool, Caroline Gowing, 52, from Cheshire, met a woman that would change her life. 

Vicky Matthews was there swimming with her child on maternity leave, too.

They were both in their 30s, became very close friends, realised they had plenty in common, revelled in both being ‘organisers’ in their social circles, and eventually lamented at how their skills weren’t being utilised as best as they could in the workplace – being a working mother is no easy feat when flexibility feels like a dirty word. And so, they began talking about a business idea together.

On a drunken New Year’s Eve, the pair started plotting possible ideas.

Fresh into 2009 – with Caroline newly out of a six month contract, and Vicky on the verge of taking voluntary redundancy – they went away and started researching for what would go on to be an award winning virtual assistant company, Pink Spaghetti.

‘We had the same vision,’ Caroline tells Metro.co.uk. Once decided, they both put in £2,000 each – yes, as little as that – and used it for their website set up and logo costs. They didn’t take any loans or grants, and started the business working out of a play barn answering emails on their personal phones. 

Today, the business is worth £3million and has 50 franchises across the UK.

‘We wanted to be there to bring up our children, but we’re also really capable people who wanted a career and starting a business gave us that opportunity,’ Caroline says. 

As their business started to grow, they decided to see a business coach and realised their working styles were completely different – and they hadn’t spotted that before. Vicky loved the networking, marketing and people side of the business, and Caroline was much more comfortable with a spreadsheet in a dark room. The coach called her a ‘mushroom’. 

This then informed how they went about work – previously, they both would do a bit of everything, but after this call they divided duties up. When they started playing to these strengths, the business took off.

Playing to personal skills and getting complimentary people together is how Caroline likes all of her franchises to work. Alongside the extreme effort that went into growing the business, she also says it was partly down to ‘luck’.

But things changed. In 2023, Vicky tragically died from a brain tumour.

The lead up to her death was sudden – she and Caroline were on holiday together, and seemingly out of nowhere, Vicky was struggling to speak.

After going to A&E, thinking she might be having a stroke, she was given the devastating news that she had brain cancer. Less than two years later she had passed away.

‘It has been the biggest challenge of my life,’ Caroline says.

Not only was there the personal grief and loss to process, Caroline now had to be the face of the company and take on the work Vicky had previously excelled at. A self-professed photo-hater, Caroline recognised she needed to embrace change in order for the business to continue.

‘The face of the brand was Vicky. To come out of that in grief has been hard. But, I have developed as a person, I look at things differently, I answer things differently,’ she says. Personal and professional had been very much blended. ‘We walked a lot to talk about business. I’d talk to her about my husband, my family, and what’s going on. Everything was turned upside down.’

Caroline says she wouldn’t have ever started her business if she’d gone into it alone. Three months after Vicky’s death, she even contemplated giving it up. But legacy, responsibility and finances kept her going – to Vicky, staff, and herself. 

‘I can’t afford to give up work. And I love doing this, so if I give it up, what do I do?’, Caroline remembers thinking. 

‘I’m a business owner through and through nowadays, so the thought of going and working for someone else… I don’t know if I could do that.’ She also believes it’s never wise to make a big decision while in a state of grief. 

‘Our business model is all about playing to people’s strengths. We work with a lot of small businesses, and for people to outsource the tasks they don’t like doing or have time for. This helps them grow a business. 

‘By doing that within our own business it’s helped us grow ours, and we always said we would never start on our own so that’s why the franchise model works really well for us as no one has to do it on their own.’

Caroline is passionate about her staff being supported and working with what they’re good at, just as she and Vicky had done. 

She’s relieved she continued their hard work – and that today the business keeps on growing.

The news comes in contrast to the latest house price figures (Picture: Getty Images)

A surge of American investment into the UK is expected to breathe new life into London’s property scene, according to new analysis from financial brokerag…

Ashley Walters and Romesh Ranganathan are Batch LDN customers.

When Kenny Ho, a freelance film stylist by day, started to think about building a side hustle, he went stright to his favourite hobby: playingDungeons & Dragons.

Now, by night, he and three friends, Shaan Jivan, 28, Sam Lawes, 37, and Josh Saco, 49, all work on their collective side hustle, RPG Taverns – a south London pub specifically built for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) players.

In case you’re not familiar, D&D is a fantasy role-play based game. It’s known for being a game that can go on for hours, if not longer. If you’re a Stranger Things fan, it’s the game that inspires much of the show’s otherworldly happenings, and the kids play it in the Hellfire Club.

Kenny had started going to gaming bars to play D&D, and there made friends with Shaan, Josh and Sam. They all felt that other gaming bars didn’t quite cater to the needs of playing D&D, given how immersive the game is.

So, Kenny pitched the idea of running a dedicated bar together, and they decided they could offer something different to London’s community of players – a group of people they’d now immersed themselves in. 

‘I just picked up the phone — and everyone jumped at it,’ Kenny tells Metro.co.uk. ‘We all love D&D, and we all wanted something that wasn’t just about our day jobs. Between us we’ve got very different superpowers: I brought the creative vision, Shaan’s brilliant with finance and people, Sam’s a marketing whizz and Josh is the hospitality expert. So it felt like a no-brainer — the stars kind of aligned.’

A dedicated bar to D&D means it’s set up to pay the game as intended – in some generic game bars, space can be restricted, or time slots not long enough to allow for the full game. Instead,RPG Taverns offer slots for experienced players and slots for beginners who are brand new to the D&D universe and are keen to learn. In a regular bar, support for newbies on how to play wouldn’t necessarily be available. 

All four friends invested equally. ‘We dipped into our savings to get it off the ground: rent, inventory, getting the bar set up. It wasn’t millions but it was enough to make it real and make us all properly committed. The good news is the business started to wash its face pretty quickly, thanks to a strong marketing push and word of mouth,’ Kenny adds.

RPG Taverns has only been around for 18 months, but it’s already making £15-35k a month. The community has been a big part of that early success, as Shaan says the foursome had a lot of help in getting started. A friend in the community works as a set designer, for example, so donated some kit to help them deck out the venue. Helping hands like that gave the place a DIY-feel and meant D&D players were involved from the off. 

Shaan adds they’ve been repaying those who pitched in at the start, and are keen to make sure everyone involved in the business is looked after.

‘The best part is that everyone brings a different skillset, so we’re not stepping on each other’s toes,’ Kenny says. ‘We’ve also seen what works — and what doesn’t — from other places, so we could build something with a clear shared vision from day one.   

‘The biggest challenge we’re facing is that our small business is growing rather quickly, and we are trying to manage the pace of growth and make sure each of us as well as our staff and game masters look after ourselves and each other to avoid burn out.’

Last week, Kenny was dressing the venue for Halloween, putting his stylist skills to use. He says having two jobs can be stressful sometimes, especially as the bar’s popularity grows (slots are often sold out), but that it’s rewarding and he has more ambitions for the future. 

“RPG Taverns was really a test to see how well this would work and we’ve been really pleased with just how much of a success this has been that we’d love to see it as a network of ‘Taverns’ across the UK,” Shaan speaks of his hopes for the business. “I can see this model of D&D bars becoming just as prevalent as board game cafes.”

For the time being, the bar does remain a side hustle for all four owners – none of them have quit the day job yet.

The fact the owners of the bar are all enthusiastic about the game they’re catering to and play it makes all the difference – and is why D&D fans keep coming back.

A ‘lightbulb moment’ inspired the business idea.

Singer and TV presenter Fleur East, 37, and her younger sister Keshia, 33, founded a haircare business based around natural ingredients from Ghana

As Kerry Clayton, 35, from Rochester, lay in a hospital bed bored, in pain, and on strong medication, she passed the time with drawing. She began designing t-shirts and posted pictures of them to Instagram. 

Quickly, her followers wanted to know where they could buy one, and so she started using print on demand services in 2019 – and that is how her jewellery and clothing business Trend Tonic began.

Kerry was born with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a condition that means her joints can dislocate at any time. Last month she spent nine days in hospital after damaging her back while reaching for an item in her home. It can strike at any time, and it’s always made work difficult.

‘When I was employed, I had a lot of pressure to keep pushing through the pain and burnout. Then I would become even more ill and need long periods of sick leave,’ Kerry tells Metro.

‘When you’re employed by other people in a traditional work environment and you have an invisible illness, there’s a lot of misunderstanding from colleagues who see it as you’re having lots of time off.’

She was stuck in a cycle of starting a job, eventually quitting to focus on her health and recovery, then starting a new job, and repeating the process. Kerry was worried she looked unreliable to employers, but couldn’t see another way forward.

After some time away from work to be a full-time mum, she had an realisation: she could leave traditonal employment behind if she started to take her own creativity more seriously. She had the epiphany after she posted an image of earrings she’d made on Instagram and again had comments from people wanting to buy a pair.

She wanted to design jewellery that was fun but not heavy or irritating on her skin, as she has often found costume jewellery on the market to do. Through word of mouth, her business started to snowball. In the meantime, she taught herself how to code to build a website.

Within a year, she hit her target of making £500 a month.

‘I started buying £1 small samples of cork fabric, making earrings out of that, selling them, then reinvesting the money back into the business,’ she says.

‘Now we buy metres of fabric because I know we’ll go through it.’ Six years into the business, Kerry now has a team of five to support her. Scaling up felt natural and happened through social media connections. People that were customers became her team mates, and it all started when she hired a woman to be her PA after they got chatting on DMs via the brand.

‘It’s difficult to trust people to work on something I’ve worked so hard for,’ Kerry says, which is why she’s loved finding her team this way. 

Recently, her earrings appeared at London Fashion Week at the Unhidden show, which is an adaptable clothing brand for people with disabilities. But, her health almost got in the way of such a big win.

‘I was sat in a hospital bed, my phone running out of battery, trying to organise everything,’ she says, as her condition caused a major injury one day before, leading to an extended hospital stay. Her earrings hadn’t arrived in time for the show, and at the midnight hour her mum drove a new set direct to the catwalk organisers.

‘My biggest frustration is I can’t plan, and so I’ll have things planned in advance that I’m excited for – I was meant to be at London Fashion Week, and I’ve never been so excited, but to end up snapping my neck the day before… if you focus on those situations it just really gets you down,’ she says.

‘Day to day, because I work for myself, it enables me to step back if I’m having a flare up. I allow the same to everyone that works with me. We’re flexible because we know the work will get done.’

She was in hospital on one of her team member’s start dates, and had to video call them to go through the onboarding process – just a few hours after having emergency surgery. 

Flare ups happen to Kerry roughly twice a month, meaning work cannot be done. She also has regular hospital appointments. Extended hospital stays are much rarer and usually happen once every couple of years, but staying positive is important to Kerry and it reflects in her products which are colourful and joyful. She’s a big believer in dressing in colour to lift your mood.

‘If you feel nicer in yourself, everything doesn’t feel quite as bad,’ she says. ‘I don’t look back enough because I’m always pushing for the next goal, but then I do stop sometimes and think wow, within six years I’ve smashed my goals, and I do it all within school hours flexibly around my disabilities and family. I’m proud of myself and my ability to keep pushing.’

Developers were hit with ‘excessive and unfair’ charges to use the app store, judges found.

The risk definitely paid off.

Mark’s company works with Harrods, the NHS and global restaurant chains. 

Some 75 restaurants and 741 jobs are now on the line in UK branches.

Now, 75 restaurants and 741 jobs are at risk, as they weren’t part of the last-minute rescue deal.

‘I’ve got from benefits to boss.’

The potential closures mean 2,150 jobs could be at risk.

It all started as a side hustle.

Love it or hate it, you’ll have to get used to the AI Overview…

Standstill on the underground network has left businesses counting the cost.

The CEO had only been in the position for a year (Picture: Getty)

Swiss food giant Nestlé has fired its chief executive, Laurent Freixe, after an investigation into an undisclosed relationship with an employee.

The maker of Nescafé drinks…

David Hawkins was also heard yelling abuse at his son’s house.

David Hawkins was also heard yelling abuse at his son’s house.

The potential closures mean 2,150 jobs could be at risk.

The potential closures mean 2,150 jobs could be at risk.

Staff will be rewarded with bonuses and have a say on the chain’s future.