Born and bred in Halstead, cat lover Becky White got in touch with Let’s Do Business Finance and gained a Start Up Loan to combine her hospitality experience and her love of animals to create her own business, Meow Cat Café, which is already bringing in visitors from miles around.

It had always been Becky’s dream to work with animals and to eventually have her own business. After leaving school and working in a small country kitchen in Sudbury, gaining valuable experience in hospitality, Becky then studied BTEC Business Management and gained an AAT qualification in accounting, leading to her career focussing on lettings and property management before having children – the first in 2020, and her second child being born in 2022.

Whilst on maternity leave and away from full time employment, Becky had the time and resource to think about taking the leap and starting her own business – realising her potential.

Now a mother of two small children, Becky realised how difficult it was to find both child and adult friendly activities to do in her local area. A cat-mum to her own furry friends at home, she’d frequently visited cat cafes across the UK and Europe, and wished for something local that would provide a similar experience.

Start Up Loan recipient - Meow Cat Cafe, Essex

Cat café’s first originated in Taiwan, and quickly spread across Asia before making their way to the UK, Europe and North America. People enjoyed the ability to spend time with cats when they may not be able to own their own pets at home, and many cat café’s provided an ability to also support local rescue and adoption organisations for the cats – creating a feeling of positive impact in communities.

Fur-real

With cat café’s popping up all over the country, Becky started to dream of having her own in or near her hometown of Halstead – where there was definitely a gap in the market. There were a few reasons why she thought this endeavour would be a success locally – with the cost of living crisis and house prices increasing, not many people are able to own pets in their homes, or afford to care for them. A cat café in the community would help to support local shelters, too, giving them more exposure to promote adoptions, and socialisation for the cats themselves.

Becky began to outline her plans for Meow Cat Café – seeking out partnerships with local rescues, and potential spaces for her business. She wanted to create a space that would provide an enriching and safe environment for the cats, while remaining cosy and appealing for people to come for coffee and to socialise. Drawing on her previous experience, she would take a managerial position and help with the day-to-day running of the café with hopes to recruit staff to make coffee, educate guests, and clean the space in between customers’ pre-booked slots. The over-arching aim of her café would be to help rehome and adopt cats, and provide a great avenue to support more animals – and her café operations would reflect that.

Making it paw-sible

To make Meow Cat Café a reality, Becky sought out local support and options to get her idea off the ground. After searching for available funding for new businesses, she found Let’s Do Business Finance and started putting together her plan for her application to the Start Up Loan scheme.

As an official delivery partner of The Start Up Loans Company, Let’s Do Business Finance can deliver Start Up Loans of up to £25,000 to aspiring entrepreneurs and businesses under three years old to support the launch of their business, and aims to support businesses both starting up and already established with financial services spanning from Start Up Loans and Business Loans, to brokerage. With the ability to deliver finance under the Start Up Loan scheme, the team at Let’s Do Business Finance have enabled countless entrepreneurs and new businesses to launch their ideas all over the South East and East of England.

After working out what her running costs would be, as well as her initial start up costs, Becky applied for £25,000 under the Start Up Loan scheme from Let’s Do Business Finance. After her application was approved, she was able to secure the deposit and rent for her premises on Halstead high street, as well as fund the re-fit of the premises to convert it from a once-florist into the café she had envisioned. After fitting the premises with comfy furniture, plenty of toys for the resident cats and a fully functional kitchen for serving top quality coffee and cakes, she was prepared to open in the first week of June 2023.

So fur, so good

Prior to opening the café, Becky secured a partnership with a local animal rescue, Friends of Felines. This was crucial in fulfilling Becky’s dream of helping more animals find happy homes – and enabled MEOW Cat Café to help more cats become adopted. In the two months since opening their doors, MEOW Cat Café has facilitated the adoption of 50 cats and kittens, and welcomed guests from miles around to visit them – putting Halstead on the map!