I crowdfunded 400k for my ice cream company in just two weeks and now its set to make 1m

AS a child, Cecily Mills got her first taste of business when she and her sister would sell free perfume samples at school for 50p each.

Thirty years later, the Cornwall-based businesswoman is the founder of Coconuts Organic - a rapidly-growing dairy-free ice cream brand which is set to turn over £1m next year.

Cecily spoke to Fabulous Digital for our #BOSSINGIT series devoted to ordinary women who have launched incredible businesses.

In 2013, Cecily was commuting up to London everyday from her home in Brighton when she found herself daydreaming about one day working for herself.

Knowing that she'd like to start a family with her husband Robert Martin in the next few years, Cecily started experimenting with coconut ice cream recipes - having already made some drastic changes to her diet.

The 36-year-old said: "In order to handle my commute, I would start off with black coffee and sugar to keep me going - but there came a point where that just wasn't cutting it anymore.

"I went to a plant-based diet - which involved lots of smoothies and juices - and I felt amazing. I was using lots of coconut products for everything anyway and I began making ice cream because I wanted something sweet.

"I would mix coconut cream, coconut sugar, raw cacao in my Nutribullet and then put it in the freezer but it was always really hard. So I would have to scrape it every few minutes to try and make it soft. It was so rudimental but it still tasted damn good."

After a year spent experimenting with different recipes from her kitchen table, Cecily quit her job in Oliver Bonas' head office and made the decision to take her side-hustle full-time.

"It was around the time when Rebel Coconut water had just launched and I thought, ‘there’s something in this’," Cecily said. "I had a really strong feeling that the timing of this was right. I also wanted to move back to Cornwall so it all just aligned."

In 2015, Cecily and her husband (who works remotely as an AA hotel inspector) moved back into her family home in Cornwall to allow her to set up the business.

Cecily managed to secure £80k of investment from friends and family (as well as investing all her own savings and maxing out her credit cards) and then began taking her ice cream to health food shows around the country.

"We just worked furiously. I started selling it to as many places as I could," Cecily recalled. "We got a listing of distributers who took it all over the UK for us and into health food shops. We got a listing on Ocado and with Morrisons. It was a really exciting time."

On top of this, Cecily became a mum to Lara, four, and Hero, two, when she moved to Cornwall to set up the business - but didn't let motherhood stop her from wanting to turn Coconuts Organic into a household name.

It was at this point that she made the brave decision to apply for Dragon's Den with aim of securing a further £75,000 investment - and after several rounds of interviews and screen tests, she appeared on the hit BBC show in 2018.

Needless to say, Dragon's Den proved to be amazing exposure for the brand - thanks to notoriously hard-to-impress Peter Jones declaring it the "best ice cream" he's ever had - and Cecily walked away with a £75k investment from Jenny Campbell in exchange for a 30 per cent stake in the business.

However, shortly after filming wrapped Cecily had a second meeting with Tesco and was delighted when they wanted to stock the brand in 600 of their stores.

Cecily said: "What became pretty clear pretty quickly was Emily's £75,000 of capital wasn’t going to be enough to launch Tesco because it involved doing a whole rebrand, bringing on two new flavours, finding a new manufacturer, and then creating the stock to fulfil the orders."

In total, Cecily needed just short of half a million pounds to secure the deal - and so was left with no choice but to walk away from Jenny's offer and start crowd-funding.

She explained: "I spoke to Jenny about it and she wanted to stick with her offer which is completely understandable and we left on very good terms.

"Four months after Dragon's Den, we launched our first crowdfunding push and raised just over £400k in two weeks."

Cecily used equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs to connect with investors, which allows people to put as little as £9 into your business - but it's those people with a smaller stake who have been instrumental in Coconuts Organic's success.

She said: "If you’re a £9 investor in a company of something you can then see on the shelves in Tesco, you can tell your friends ‘I’M part of this company’.

"It’s great for us because we’ve got all these hundreds of ordinary people saying this to their friends and family. Even if it’s £9 or £900, they have this affinity with the brand - they literally invested in us. They’ve got a real interest in what we do."

But without a doubt, the biggest challenge Cecily has faced was when her Cornwall manufacturer pulled out of production two weeks before her ice cream was set to make its Tesco debut.

She explained: "I went from one morning talking to the manufacturer and she was saying ‘it’s amazing, it’s better than ever, you’re going to love it Cecily’ to her saying to me 12 hours later in an email ‘Cecily, I’m ceasing all production of coconuts organic. It’s taking longer than we thought, we can’t manage the allergens, we’re not happy using the coconut sugar.’

"I remember it so well because I was at the dentist with my daughter which was so random. All my peripheral vision just went white.

"At that moment, it felt like the whole company could just slip through my fingers and all we’ve been working on for the past year - and more than a year for me - could fall through over one email."

Thankfully, Tesco gave the company a three-month extension which gave Cecily time to find two new manufacturers - something which she now considers a blessing in disguise.

And with the inevitable lows of business come the enormous highs - and Cecily finds her daughters seeing her ice cream in the supermarket by far the most rewarding thing.

She said: "The biggest highlight is when my daughters see the ice cream in Tescos. It’s really cool. She’s like, ‘mummy that’s your ice cream!'"

This year, Coconuts Organic has sold over 150,000 pots of ice cream and boasts seven flavours - but their Double Caramel and Mint Choc Chip have remained their two best-sellers.

Cecily's top tips for aspiring businesswomen

Believe in yourself. You need to believe you can do it, that you can go all the way. It absolutely starts with this, because when it gets tough, and you hear ’no’ from what seems like everyone, your belief will be tested. It needs to be strong!

Ask for help. Ask anyone, don’t be scared. Not once has anyone I’ve ever asked for help said no! You need to learn from people who have done it themselves, people who are further ahead than you.

Find joy in the small things, and focus only on the great results you are seeking. It is very easy to let your business get on top of you, to rule you life. If you’re having a bad week at work it can cloud everything. Try as best as you can to switch off, even just for one hour a day, and always always dwell on the great things, the end goal, the grand vision. Dwelling on the bad things is a sure fire way to demotivate and incite fear and worry into you life.

With a turnover of £600k, Coconuts Organics is forecasted to make £1m next year.

Describing how she balances her demanding career with two young daughters, Cecily said: "Life is very busy that’s for sure and I have permanent guilt for being on my phone and I won’t pretend I don’t have stress over my to-do list.

"That said, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love doing what I do, to be able to come to work, to build the company. And you get back home to them and they just help you switch off. Kids are very grounding."

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For more inspiring Bossing It stories, Fabulous Digital spoke to Tasha Harris - who founded her coffee body scrub business with £450 and has now made £15m and Maisie Smith is a fan.

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