Destined to be an entrepreneur

Rob’s parents are both entrepreneurial and gave him financial and practical help from the beginning.

Early signs

His mum said “from the time Rob started studying design at A level and began making furniture to his own design it was obvious that he saw his future as a product designer and was expecting to take his own ideas to market. Gaining experience working in a design practice, Rob built up the knowledge he needed to start his own business.”

His dad said “We had lived with the idea of him being an entrepreneur from the age of 16 and were keen to encourage him to that end. His first furniture design during an Art Foundation course was a coffee table and then I commissioned him to design and make my office desk and chair.”

The idea

Carol says “Rob’s idea that eventually became ‘Trunki’ was his winning solution for a University competition. The brief was to design a piece of luggage and Rob used his enquiring mind to find a solution to a problem which he became aware of when travelling with his own family.’

“Rob first licensed the ‘ride on suitcase’ idea to a toy manufacturing company which had some small success in marketing it in the Middle East. After a while Rob discovered the company was about to go into receivership so the challenge was to recover ownership of his idea and the only way forward was to form his own company to develop the market in the UK and then worldwide.’

“Learning that the first factory he was using to manufacture ‘Trunki’ in China was about to go into receivership and that somehow he had to get the tooling out before it closed down was definitely our worst moment.”

John says “we both supported him with loans to enable him to set up his own business and go from full time to part time employment with his employer at the time. We helped at the first trade show to exhibit ‘Trunki’ in the UK.  I even did the all book keeping for the company for the first two years, allowing Rob to keep his costs down.”

Support

Clare said “we had both seen how well the market had accepted the product so when things went wrong we were keen to encourage him to continue because we know the market for ‘Trunki’ was there. We were worried that starting his own business was a great challenge, but we had confidence in Rob as he had already shown us that he was determined to succeed in anything he did.’

“Helping Rob at his very first consumer baby & toddler show was a great moment for us. Watching the formation of a queue of children waiting to ride on ‘Trunki’ was really encouraging. Experiencing the amazing enthusiasm for the product from parents and families at the show was a real measure of the success we had been waiting to see.”

Our business

Rob has been fortunate in benefitting from the extensive knowledge his parents have gained through their own successes.

John says “In 1975 I went into partnership with a friend to form an Architectural and Interior Design practice. This became a limited company named Northwest Design Associates Limited in 1987, and then in 2006 we sold the company to two members of staff ready for our retirement in 2007. The company is still doing well even in the current economic climate.”

His mum has great experience too and says “as a photographer I set up and operated a photographic studio for a small company in Hull.”

Rob is a Make Your Mark Ambassador. Read his inspiring story.

Becoming an entrepreneur is not always a career choice that parents encourage their children to take but we have been collecting inspiring stories from parents who have supported their children to make their mark. We’re sharing their experiences - good and bad! To find out more, visit our page for parents.