The Snugglebundl Story
The Birth of the Snugglebundls!
Dave, Heidi and Mike
The idea for the Snugglebundl baby lifting baby wrap came from necessity for David Solomons when his daughter was first born. His wife had some serious complications during the birth, which resulted in her being very limited in her movement and unable to bend or lift without extreme discomfort.
At the same time David’s back problem meant that he struggled to bend and lift as well! Between the two of them they found lifting up, laying down and manoeuvring their new baby in and out of pushchairs and car seats extremely awkward.
THE EUREKA MOMENT !
To help the problem David would lay his daughter on a blanket and gather it up in a bundle around her and then simply pick her up! That was for him the “Eureka” moment. And from that point he began to think about the concept of a safe lifting idea for babies.
THE BIRTH OF THE PRODUCT (pardon the pun)
In the New Year (2011) Dave teamed up with Mike Edwards, his good friend, neighbour, fellow Father and designer and his lovely, ever-optimistic, enthusiastic,hard-working wife Heidi. Together they worked out the best way to fully support the baby’s head,neck and safely protect the crown.The strength of the handles was of course paramount, but it also had to look good ,be functional and durable too. In the months that followed they made hundreds of prototypes in different sizes, lengths and materials.
To ensure it worked in reality we gathered a team of new parents to trial these, and from those results the baby-lifting baby wrap was finally born (originally called the Bundl for short!). The feedback was amazing and we knew we were on to a good thing when parents wouldn’t give them up! From this excellent feedback we decided to put the product on the market and renamed the product the Snugglebundl.
This began the start of a long road ahead in bringing to market a product based on our original concept. We wanted to ensure our Snugglebundls were primarily safe, practical and cosy with all the intended benefits for new parents we knew it could provide.
At this same time in 2011 before we could afford to pursue any of the above, we entered the Barclays Take One Small Step Competition. This was the opportunity to win a set up of £50,000 as a new and innovative project. Well we won it ….yaay! This was also the first of many awards our Snugglebundls won from thereon.
Having been awarded the £50,000 meant we could then invest heartily in rigorous safety product testing ( see separate details on all our safety FAQs ) as well as ethical sourcing, ethical manufacturing and packaging. This all sounds simple but it really isn’t!! The time and attention needed for every intricate detail of the product and business set up was “ interesting” and arduous at times but we have learnt so much along the way.
We finally launched with a website and attendance at an event in October 2011 where we felt so encouraged by the response of customers.
It’s fair to say that the events we did in the early days were are amazing for having that so important face to face contact and live demonstration with customers. It affords a real understanding of the Snugglebundls whilst we learn from so much from direct conversations with customers too. It was so exciting to bring a totally new concept to expectant parents and see our first purchases looking very pleased when they took their Snugglebundls home. It wasn't long before there were wonderful photos and reviews of happy babies in their Snugglebundls.
The events over the years, both nationally and internationally, have been and continue to be so valuable to us. Above all having direct contact with new parents to be is wonderful and we have been blessed with many years of sharing this space and creating cosy relationships with our customers. This has all gone such a long way in creating our trusted family brand that we are so proud to have created.
So from humble beginnings we have grown from strength to strength exporting all over the world and have had many TV and Radio appearances including Loose Women, Radio 2’s Simon Mayo innovation slot, BBCs The One Show and then of course our appearance on Dragons Den in 2014. We so nearly got investment from Kelly Hoppen and Deborah Meadon but in the event all worked out well as a private investor was itching to join us and offered a cracking deal just the day after our Dragon Den appearance. This enabled us to extend our product range and secure a patent on our designs.
The Snugglebundl Team is very much a family affair and Dave, our co inventor, remains a big part of the events team.
Our little Snugglebundls have given so much help and fun to parents with their little ones.
We continue to have so many wonderful reviews and this just fully endorses our concept that all babies have a favourite blanket but this one makes all the difference !
