Toys backed by science firm expands into New Zealand
Entrepreneur Jessica Rolph has a soft spot for New Zealand. She studied Māori at university as part of her anthropology major. Now, almost 30 years on, the Idaho-based founder tells of how taking her business to New Zealand shores feels different to the market launches in 34 countries Lovevery has ticked off to date.
What has your venture set out to achieve?
Lovevery was founded after a journey of self-discovery as a parent. I had all of these toys and pediatrician appointments and some development information that I came across now and then, but I didn’t have a holistic or thoughtful plan for how to engage with my child in meaningful ways at each developmental stage. I came across a doctoral thesis that was a study on brain development from birth to 18 months and it inspired and changed everything for me.
I found that there were micro development windows that open in my child’s brain. For example, when all my baby wanted to do was put and watch a ball fall through a clear tube, or were really interested in putting things in containers or, at when age 2, pour into different containers. There were all these nuanced things that were happening with my child’s development and I felt so empowered knowing this information I set out to start Lovevery, a subscription-based holistic support system for parents and children that provides tools and toys based on children’s development stages.
I had co-founded organic baby food company Happy Family before co-founding Lovevery, and I felt so confident about what I was feeding my children but not what was happening with their brain development. When I had my first child 13 years ago I started experimenting with play things, and making my own toys, and about seven years ago Lovevery launched its first product. About 40 million play things have been shipped since launch and so far we have 350,000 customers.
What’s the opportunity for your business?
We launched into Europe in 2021, and now we’re also in the UK, and we launched into Australia at the beginning of 2023. As soon as we launched into Australia, taking the product to New Zealand became a more feasible.
We launched into New Zealand two weeks ago and have invested in a shipping facility partner in Auckland. The big opportunity is to make a difference and help parents feel confident and supported, and help with better outcomes for children. The more you can help with that early childhood experience with the right tools and information, and toys at the right time, the more you can help a child grow and develop. So much development happens naturally but there is an interplay between a child’s environment and their genes. Neuroscientists say it is roughly half environment and half genes. There’s a huge amount of brain growth and development that happens between birth and five that we can assist with - there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when a child plays.
How much time and money have you invested?
Ten or 11 years has been spent thinking, working and then building Lovevery, and we have invested close to US$1 million into the business. We’ve had outside financing. We bootstrapped the business in the very beginning, my co-founder and I both invested, and then we raised a seed round of outside funding. We raised our series around 2½ years ago, so we have now raised $132 million in the business. It’s an expensive business and the direct-to-consumer model we have can be a challenge.
What’s next for Lovevery?
We’re dreaming about continuing to serve families in new markets. We’re so excited to be in New Zealand. Children are children everywhere, and they go through the same predictable interests. Even though cultures are different, all children like to do similar things at roughly the same stages. We want to serve families as their children age so we’re continuing to develop our programme and toys for older children.
Right now the learning programme in New Zealand covers birth to age 3, so we’re working on launching a product for 4-yearolds at some point soon, and continue to evolve the product range with the children. We want to grow up with the children we are with.
In three years’ time you will be ...
We don’t have any other new market launches slated for this year, but within the next year we’re looking to expand further into the APAC region. New Zealand is our 34th market. The next three years will be centred around aging up and to be of more service to families that we have in our current age bands. We’re thinking about what else parents need and enter new markets.
What’s one thing you wish you’d known before starting?
The tech and digital component of building a company that is direct to consumer is really important. We knew it would be, but what we’ve realised is that both the physical product development and digital development are equally important. Building a robust business that can scale internationally and really know and serve your customer well in a direct to consumer business requires significant tech investment.
Most helpful piece of advice you have received?
If you can, have a partnership when building a company, it can be so much stronger with two people leading than just one. I have a phenomenal co-founder and a co-founder in my previous business, so I really believe in partnerships. Often people will get nervous about inviting a partner in, but I think there is a place for shared ownership and responsibility, it can be very powerful. The Small Business Project is a weekly series that shines the spotlight on small businesses doing interesting and unusual things. If you would like your business to feature in The Small Business Project, email Aimee Shaw at aimee.shaw@stuff.co.nz