Books and beats - meet the cool, calm and 'Collected' Emma

Introducing Emma Hamlett, the founder of Collected in Durham - an independent bookshop and cafe bar, specialising in work by women

Team Transmit interviewed Emma as part of our Female Founders series for International Women's Day 2023.

Emma was featured by the British Business Bank as one of their Start Up Loans Ambassadors.

When did you start your current business?
I started trading in April 2022, but Collected was incorporated a bit earlier than that. For various reasons I didn't actually start trading straight away.

Have you ever started a business before this one?
No. Never, I’ve always worked in the public sector. Up until COVID I was a museum curator.

Is Collected your main source of income, a side-hustle, or one of several income streams?
This business is my only income stream - it’s everything!

What’s different about your business?
Collected is more than just a bookshop, it's becoming a community hub. We're open from early 'til late everyday, including going until 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays. We do coffees and we're also licenced to serve alcohol. On the last Friday of the month, we host Books and Beats where we have a young, local, female DJ play live in the shop!

Do you employ any staff? If yes, how many are female?
I have two members of staff, both are female. It's just kind of worked out that way. I wouldn't not have male employees!

How did Transmit Startups support your business?
Transmit very generously gave us a big loan to move the business from a mobile and online bookshop into a bricks and mortar shop in September.

"The Start Up Loan was the thing that enabled the shift. Moving into a shop was obviously a massive game-changer."

What Transmit did was enable me to take on premises and also enabled us to push our uniqueness. We're there all the time, offering books and coffee and wine from daybreak to sunset!

Have you personally experienced gender inequality in your working life?
Throughout my working life I’ve been aware of structural inequalities, that were going to potentially make my progression difficult.

When I worked in museums, that workforce is completely female dominated, but the directorships are all held by men. It's completely disproportionate.

In a profession that is overwhelmingly female, hardly any women are directors of national museums or even your local museum services.

When you work with lots of brilliant women but none of them are progressing to those higher ranks, it does make it difficult to have faith that you will be able to go all the way. That was a big motivator for me in moving out of that sector and starting up something on my own.

I do think there are perceptions about women: what you will and won't be able to do and where your capabilities lie. In my career, I was very lucky and I progressed quite quickly in my 20s, but with that came the issues of being a woman in their 20s who was managing men in their 40s. That was a tricky dynamic.

You end up feeling like you have to over-perform in order to meet what people expect.

What other factors motivated you to start your own business?

I'd never had any time when I hadn't worked. I went straight from school, to college, to university to a job, and I haven't had any children of my own, so I've never had any parental leaves. Then COVID came and I was furloughed on 31st March 2020.

I was able to stop and think, for the first time in ages, what I actually wanted to do, not what I thought I ought to do or what I thought the world expected me to do.

I went through quite a long process of change. I did another job where I worked in startup social enterprise for 12 months and that was really formative. I'd never worked in a business before and social enterprises still have to be commercially viable.

Another really important part of starting a business, for me, is to contribute something to our local community. Book shops are great places for communities and I feel like that is happening with our shop already.

Have you faced challenges in running your business which you think are less common for male entrepreneurs?

The principal challenge I face is my own [lack of] confidence. I just worry about stuff. I worry about the success of the business. I'm worried that I'm not doing enough. When I think about it objectively, I know that I really couldn't be doing any more. The shop has been really well-received and we've got loads of loyal customers. Twice this week I've been brought flowers by customers!

You have to make decisions that are based on confidence. They're not based on fact because no one can know what's going to happen.

You have to take leaps of faith and I think that is a real challenge because as women we are kind of pre-conditioned not to.  I think that those things that I find challenging about myself are probably behaviours and perceptions that have been drilled into me over time.

Since starting your business, have you felt supported by other women?

My parents have been, amazing but my mum especially - she's really embraced what we're doing with the bookshop. My sister is one of my employees so that's really cool as well, it kind of feels like a family affair.

My designer, Denise, who I met on a career change coaching course. Her business is called Gingerfish.

I really love my suppliers as well.  I have this amazing supplier of hot chocolate: Studio 28 Patisserie in Newcastle. Naomi supplies the best chocolate in the world! Whenever I order something, she always sends me a little note to ask how I'm getting on and asked how the shop is doing.

There's a woman who has a few independent bookshops in the North East, including one in Corbridge - she's been amazing with advice - and another one in Stockton as well. 

I feel cradled by these people.

Although it's not formal support, I feel like I have this network of people who are interested in the success of the business and care about what we're doing. I know that if I got stuck, there's people I could ask.

Are you planning to do anything to recognise International Women's Day on 8th March 2023?

Every day is International Women's Day at Collected! We are celebrating how brilliant women are and promoting the great stuff that women do every day of the year.

We have an event on the eighth of March: for our monthly book club we are reading Saltwater by Jessica Andrews and she is coming to the book club! She grew up in the North East of England and is a huge advocate for working-class voices in contemporary literature.

What do women in the UK need so that more of them are able to start their own business?

More confidence and more community. I think that we need to work together to give each other the confidence to do the things that we're totally capable of doing, but maybe the structures of the world make us feel like we can't.

And I think maybe we need different perceptions of business or different kinds of ways of thinking about what success means. I think it should be possible to be commercial, but also be kind.

What do you think are the key reasons why a woman with a brilliant business idea would lack the confidence to actually get it started?

I think a lot of it is about that idea of: When's the right time? When's a good time? When's the right time to have a baby or sell a house? There's never a right time.

It's never easy, is it? It's always hard work. And I think that I think what is particularly difficult for women is that you feel like you're responsible for a lot of other stuff as well, so you feel that it's selfish to start your own business.

If you had one wish for the next generation of female entrepreneurs, what would it be?

Just do it. Because you can!

Do what is right for you. Don't do what you think other people think you should do.