So you had £1,000 and three months. What steps did you take next?

M: We had to apply to the market, set a trial date, register with the local council, register ourselves as a business and buy all the stock and equipment, plus get the gas and electric safety checked. Then we worked out who our suppliers would be and how our stall would look.

Was it easy to establish your brand?

S: We stumbled a bit in the beginning and it didn’t work as smoothly as we thought straight away. No one knows who you are when you’re starting out and we had created something completely new that didn’t exist. People would come to the market looking for pizza, pasta and falafel, so we were a bit different.

M: Very few people wake up in the morning and think, ‘I really want a shrimp burger!’ When people go to markets they have a specific idea of what they want so when you do something a bit different you have to change that idea in their head.

Did you make any sacrifices?

M: We lost some of our friends because everyone was going out all the time and we couldn’t afford to go with them. We spent a good year just working and then going home to watch TV, and that was it.

S: We don’t live for the weekend anymore: we work seven days a week. We don’t have any spare time. But when it starts working and you figure out how to make it run, it’s great.

How to launch a successful pop up business for less than £1,000