Toy designer, Karen Wattleworth, talks about inspiration and her family’s favourite toys.
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Karen runs the ZooBooKoo family business with her husband Stephen. Zoo
Why did you start your business?
I wanted to spend as much time as possible with the boys when they were little but I also wanted to work. Starting our own business gave me that opportunity. We came across the idea of the folding cube when we were travelling. The original cube concept dates back to Victorian times. And we felt we could design and adapt it to make a really cool educational toy.
What is the secret to your success?
Hard work, organization, perseverance, loads of support and inspiration from Stephen and the boys and a dose of good luck now and again.
How to you come up with ideas for your new products?
The boys have been inspirational. They will soon tell you if a game is fun to play, or not. Our younger son is dyslexic and that took us down a path we knew nothing about but it added a lot of value in many ways, especially perhaps in terms of new product ideas even though ZooBooKoo products are fun educational toys and games for all children (and many adults play too!).
What toys were favourites when the boys were toddlers?
The wooden garage and wee cars stick out in my mind and a cute wooden multi-coloured pull-a-long fish. Mega blocks were cool. And the original posting home activity block with the sqeezy shapes. And we still have the little wooden trolley with the wooden blocks (the grand-kids will love it)!
And their favourite toys when they were at primary school?
Well of course, they loved our Cube Books and Secret Scholars – those were the ranges we had during that time. But they also loved their GameBoys, Bionicles, Monopoly, jigsaws and of course we played a lot of Uno.
The boys are older now. Do they still play games?
We are into darts (great for brain-training). The younger one plays on Xbox live and we love Dude Dice when we’re in restaurants or on holidays.
Do you think the boys will follow in your footsteps with the business?
Oh gosh, no! They think it’s far too much like hard work. But who knows, maybe they will come round to the idea.
What is your greatest achievement in your business?
That’s tough. Depending on where your business is at a certain time, different things may seem incredible. But I think selling into a major book store multiple was a significant achievement. And developing our international distributors has brought good rewards.
And what has been the worst moment, professionally?
That’s easy! A competitor threatened us with legal action. It turned out to be a wholly empty threat but it sucked up a huge amount of financial (up to five figures) and emotional resources. I could have given up then but Stephen wasn’t having any of it. In the end, we threatened to counter-sue and the competitor went into liquidation. But we lost out on significant export opportunities.
And finally, is there ever any ‘me’ time for you?
I have greatly improved the work-life balance in the last couple of years. I jog a couple of times a week and I do yoga once a week. But my favourite ‘me’ time is time with the family whether it’s watching the boys play football or rugby matches or run cross country races, playing darts, a family movie night, watching X-Factor or going out.
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