They formed  Driftwood Designs [1] back in 2012  and since then the company has grown into a successful and thriving Welsh publisher, design house and retailer.

Eureka Moment

I don't think I had a eureka moment as such. More a slowly growing realisation that I could create things that people wanted to give me money for and, that by creating more, I could stop working for other people and start to build a business around my young children. 

When Becky Barratt , an old school friend of mine, who understood what I was creating and enjoyed selling it, got on board, the notion of working for ourselves and building a brand and a business grew and developed alongside our families. 

Finance

Part of the evolving, organic nature of our business growth was the need for it to self-fund.  We've never sought finance from outside sources and instead started selling our wares on local markets, then through our e-commerce website before moving on to having our own stores and supplying trade customers.

Regrets

I don't think I have any real regrets as it's been a fabulous journey, but we have definitely had regrets in terms of our day to day decision making - not proofing things properly and being very bad at measuring things with any accuracy has resulted in some right messes.  But we usually find our ways out of them in one way or another.

What would you have changed?

I would like us to take more control of our manufacturing and, given the chance, I'd like to have invested in machinery and manufacturing expertise as our new product ranges emerged.  It seems a daunting task now that we're so busy, but it would be fantastic to have control of our processes.