Success
- Author:
- Fiona Cruickshank
- Business:
- The Specials Laboratory
- Published:
- 10/11/2008 11:14:00
We’ve recently diversified the business and got into manufacturing of early stage products for clinical trials. It’s a developing business that will ultimately lead to registration of medicines.
I knew the opportunity was there, knew there was a market, and I wanted to do some more interesting things, and expand what the company was doing.
In terms of investment, the first business had all been done on bank loans. With certain types of investment you’ve got to invite people into your organisation, which means a shorter return rate. The pressure’s on and you can’t do things like having a birthday party every month because it’s time consuming and you have to justify it. With a bank loan, the company was doing very nicely and generating cash.
I made the decision to take every last pound of profit out of the existing business and invest in a new one. We were prepared to shoulder the risk to allow us to have a success.