The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
I’ve lost count of the number of brick walls I faced. I was told a number of times it wasn’t going to happen, but I wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It turns out I’m rather stubborn but I felt confident that I had an idea that was better than all of the other alternatives on the market.
As I mentioned earlier, getting my products into production and finding the right manufacturer enabled me to start the business and seeing the reaction from parents was phenomenal. The number of emails I received from parents who told me how much their babies loved ‘My Friend Goo’ blew me away. I knew I had found a gap in the market, but hearing how much parents felt our toys had helped them in their day-to-day lives made all the hard work worth it.
I feel I can’t ignore the pandemic when thinking about the challenges that I’ve had to overcome. Business was booming in that first year because everyone was shopping online, but it wasn’t long before the schools decided to close and I had to homeschool my two daughters. I remember trying to fulfil orders in the early hours of the morning and then waking up a few hours later to print off the school work they had to do that day. It was far from the ‘slowing down’ that I think most people experienced.
The knock-on effect from this was that I had to just focus on the day-to-day operations of Cloud & Cuckoo. Ideas of how to grow the business were put on the back burner. When the kids went back to school and I tried to pick up where I left off, everything had changed. Social media was all about videos and I really felt like the business had lost its momentum; it felt like I was starting from scratch.
I think this is where my determination kicked in again, but I had to have a complete mindset shift and rethink how I wanted to move forward. I knew I had amazing products and realised that the potential to sell worldwide was at my fingertips, so decided to redirect some of my time into wholesale and distribution.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
I love what I do! As a creative I have a tendency of wanting to try new things and I don’t like having to do things that don’t make sense just because that’s the way it’s been done before. When you work for someone else, you very rarely get the opportunity to explore new ways of doing things, but when it’s your own business you can do whatever you want. The flip side of that is that it’s your responsibility when things don’t go as planned.
Making sure I have the cash flow to pay the mortgage and reinvest in the business is probably the hardest thing. Things change all the time and so what is working one minute may not work a few months down the line. I think you have to really want to make it work and be prepared to put a lot of yourself into making sure you know what you’re doing.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
As a designer and creative I am constantly coming up with new ideas for products and I have a LOT of plans for expanding the Cloud & Cuckoo product range. There is more and more research coming out highlighting the issues with plastic and micro-plastics in particular, yet most of the baby products sold on the market today contain plastic in one way or another. It’s time for us as a society to invest in the alternatives, for the sake of our children’s health and the future of our planet.
Head over to the Cloud & Cuckoo website to shop their gorgeous range of natural teething toys. You can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
