From Head Office to Kitchen Table – Meet Vicky Labinger
I’m a business owner who came late to business. At 21, I walked into a London agency and landed a head office retail role, which started more than 30 years in retail. For the last ten, I was Customer Success Director at a retail data software company, working with retailers across the UK, Europe and the USA, including H&M. My job was getting people to actually use what we’d built: try an action, see the result, take the next step.
Then lockdown, turning 50 and my role ending all arrived at once. Working from the garden shed, I asked myself what I wanted from the next ten years. The answer was a business of my own. I trained in interior design, started My Claybrick Home alongside my job in 2020, and went full time on 1 January 2021, at 51, in an industry I knew nothing about.
I learned fast. Networking taught me the power of one simple, clear offer. Working evenings and weekends taught me (the hard way) about boundaries. And about nine months in, I realised how much I missed business itself. I started mentoring interior designers who were brilliant at design but less so at running a business, and in 2023 I set up Vicky Labinger Limited to help solopreneurs of every kind.
Today, I help small business owners with 101 ideas work out their right next step, not someone else’s formula, and then stay alongside them while they build momentum. You don’t need a six-figure target or a guru. You need a business that makes the money you want, for the life you want. And you’re never too old to start.