Seeing a gap in the local market and inspired by her daughter with ASD, Rebecca Young set out to address the lack of available natural products designed for open-ended play. She created her business Lepeda to offer parents and caregivers a range of beautiful, sensory items for their children to enjoy and learn from.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?Â
My middle daughter Peyton – she was the inspiration to set up my business. She is on the autism spectrum and there weren’t many businesses locally who addressed open-ended play and natural based products when she was a baby.Â
I was on the hunt to expand her sensory experiences through play and for items that had no prescribed intent for use, as she is very literal and I wanted to broaden and foster her imagination.Â

As a toddler, she mirrored her older sister and was not very flexible on ideas within play scenarios; everything was very literal (it still is most of the time except when it comes to play and art projects now – it’s taken 4 years to get here). Â
My children are the cornerstone of my business – that’s how the business name came about. It is actually my three daughters names together: the first two letters of their names from youngest to oldest daughter. Â
Lexi, Peyton, Darci.
Le Pe Da =Â Lepeda.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning? Â
Small, steady, from home and online. I’m still online, however some magic things are in the works. The start up was really stressful actually: a lot of research, reaching out to businesses and brands who I adored.Â
A lot of consideration and curating went into what I envisioned for Lepeda. Approximately 3 years of research and then 8 months of aligning myself with brands and building my website before the official launch.

The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business? Â
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve got there yet.Â
I have had lots of little ‘ahhh’ moments since launching 18 months ago.Â
But I’m still in the infancy of the business. I know for some that 18 months has well and truly established things for them and they have grown a lot, but I’m on a slow and steady self-propelled progression. Â
I am business owner/operator while juggling many hats so to say. I volunteer at my daughter’s school and I still have a toddler at home with me every day. We are starting to develop a breeding program for our pure-bred Wyandotte chickens and learning to tender to our beehive which we only had 3 months now. Lots of fun and exciting things but they all take time and I’ve never been one to rush things.Â