Features / If I Knew Then
If I Knew Then: Rob Law
Rob Law MBE is the founder and director of Trunki, the brand behind the much-loved children’s ride-on suitcase. He initially thought of the Trunki concept while studying a BA (Hons) in Industrial Design at the University of Northumbria, and won a national luggage design competition in 1998 followed by a Prince’s Trust Business Start-up Award in 2003.
Since Trunki launched in May 2006 the company have followed it with a range of other products. There are now 33 team members based at Trunki’s headquarters, a converted chapel in The Dings. Famously rejected on Dragons’ Den, just over nine years after officially launching to the retail community, Trunki has received 100 industry and consumer accolades. More than 2.8 million units have now been sold, with distribution secured in more than 100 countries.
In 2012 manufacture for the UK and Europe markets was brought back to the UK, in the firm’s new Plymouth plant.
How did you start Trunki?
The idea came to me up in university up in Newcastle in 1997: after failed licence deals, manufacturers not interested, couldn’t decide if it was a toy or luggage, we started trading in 2006. That’s when the first container of Trunkis arrived at Avonmouth docks.
If you knew then what you know now, what mistakes might you have avoided?
I think you learn a lot from your mistakes and if you don’t make them early on, you’ll make much bigger ones further down the road. A lot of people tell me bringing manufacture back to the UK was a mistake but I don’t believe so. We’ve created a completely new category called children’s travel and historically in department stores there isn’t a section for children’s travel so you have to sell our products across multiple different departments. For example in John Lewis, the suitcases and luggage and booster seat are in nursery and they won’t list any of our other products as there isn’t anywhere for them to sit. So we struggle getting all our products together and it’s taken 8 years for us to get them all focused in Mothercare, so they have a display unit with all our products on them. We’re still trying to get through that. All our distributors will have to try and do the same in their country, so the biggest challenge is trying to create a whole new category. If we’d stuck to making suitcases it would have been a bit easier.
What advice would you have given yourself when starting out?
Probably the same advice I give to anyone starting up a business and that’s it really isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it. Becoming an entrepreneur requires a huge amount of determination. You’ll get major setbacks along the way and it’s facing up to those quickly and getting past them rather than procrastinating and running away from them that’s been one of our major keys to success.
If you knew then what you know now, would you still be sitting there?
Absolutely. The highs have been much higher than the lows. The lows have been pretty bad too, but there have been a lot more highs.
What do you know now that you didn’t know then?
One key learning is a good business is all about the people in it. You can have the best product or service in the world, but without a top team of passionate people who believe in it, you won’t get far.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received so far?
Business is not rocket science; decision making is often just common sense.
Why did you crowdfund your new product, Jurni?
If crowdfunding had been popular in the days of Dragons’ Den I would have done that instead. We created a completely new product that was targeted at older kids that had to be strong enough for Dad to sit on and we all loved it. We wanted to test whether that was just us being big Trunki fans or whether there was a market for this kind of solution for adults. The best way to test it seemed to put it on Indiegogo. We put it out there and sold about 1,500 units and surveyed all contributors, and 80% are adults buying them for themselves. That’s been quite a surprise. Another product is likely…
What is your business highlight?
It’s always great to see photos coming in internationally of Trunkis all over the world, from the Middle East to China and Japan. But it’s the most rewarding thing to see them being used for their original purpose, which is tired tots getting off the red-eye from China or America and you see them being put to good use.
What is your business low point?
Copycats. I always expected that there would be copies but I never expected the UK law system to be so slow and backwards. We spotted a copy three years ago, we had an expedited hearing at the High Court and they were found to be copies, they appealed and won the appeal and we had to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. It’s cost well over half a million and we still don’t have an answer. It can really hurt your brand.
What keeps you awake?
I’ve got a pretty good team now so I’ve managed to delegate quite a lot, so I think my they stay awake: I get to sleep.
What’s changed from when you started out?
Everything. We’re now on the fifth version of Trunki. The team’s changed and grown massively. We now have our own manufacturing facility in Plymouth. It’s all unrecognisable. The biggest change is online. We realised a few years ago that consumers are quite happy to buy from the brand direct and with all our struggles with the retail channels, it makes a lot of sense if you can put all the products together under one banner. Online sales are a huge part of our business. We launched last year a French, German and US website to go alongside our UK one. The UK are pretty much world leaders in e-commerce so it’s a great opportunity. Fulfilment costs are now coming down; couriers are pushing great rates for shipping products around the world.
What’s still on your to-do list?
We’re busy planning for our tenth birthday. We’re selling really well in China so there’s lots of work to do there. Europe is still a huge opportunity. Launch Jurni and launch another version. We’ve learnt a lot from this product and there are opportunities above and below it.
What’s next for Trunki?
Hopefully as many Jurnis being spotted in airports as Trunkis and becoming recognised as a family travel solutions brand.