How to make a baby business boom
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Loading... - BLANCA CORDOVA
- 10 Mar 2020
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Take a good look at the person sitting next to you, even if they’re a complete stranger, because in five years’ time you might find yourself running a global brand with them.
Julie Wilson and Amy Livingstone founded their Edinburgh-based company Cheeky Chompers while on maternity leave with their first children but their initial connection took place in the doctor’s waiting room during an antenatal class. “We just clicked,” says Ms Wilson, “and we obviously had the babies in common too. Both of ours were chewy and teethy babies so we bonded over that.”
She has a daughter, Grace, and Ms Livingstone has a son, Dawson, and now a daughter, Darcy. Ms Livingstone had been working for Scottish Enterprise and Ms Wilson was working in sales and marketing.
When their babies were around four months old, the pair hit on the idea of attaching a teether to a dribble bib to avoid the need for constant sanitisation, and so the Neckerchew was born. “It was a bit of a eureka moment,” says Ms Wilson. “We were sick of losing or constantly picking up and sanitising dirty teethers.”
And while the business has grown beyond expectations, Ms Wilson says they always intended to do things properly: “We didn’t want just to be two mums working from a back room,” she says. “We wanted something that had the capacity to grow. So we did a lot of research into good materials to make an absorbent, stylish and washable product.”
