Husband and wife and joint business partners, Paul and Sarah set up Faith Ventures Ltd in January 2005. Paul from an accountancy background and Sarah having worked in the toy industry for many years.
In 2004 Sarah had seen the Brainy Baby product line and had been completely fascinated by the entire concept behind it.
‘It was amazing to watch my friends children, I put one of the dvd’s on and the children would be enchanted by the real life images.
As Christians Paul and Sarah felt that they were really well and truly led to be part of Brainy Baby and it was then that the couple spoke with the guys in the USA and the deal was done to become distributors for the UK and Ireland.
They had complete belief in the brand and new first hand how it could benefit children.
During the first year of their new venture Sarah and Paul had a little girl, Esther-Ruth. Not only were they running a business but also adapting to being new parents!
‘Esther-Ruth was five weeks old and we were at the Baby Show at Olympia in London trying to build brand awareness, Sarah with babe in arms talking to mums about Brainy Baby, it was something else. Sleepless nights and then on our feet all day – looking back a year on I don't know how we managed it!’ says Paul. ‘We have had a great deal of family support, with Esther-Ruth and the business, which we are really grateful for’.
Over the past eighteen months the Brainy Baby range has been awarded many awards. Gold Good Toy award 2005 for the DVD’s, Practical Pre-School Gold 2006 for DVD’s and Silver Good toy 2006 for the Games and Puzzles – to name but a few.
Sarah says, ‘The past eighteen months have been hard, having to juggle a business and trying to make ends meet but they have also been very exciting. One of the first biggest tasks was to have everything anglicised in order to change all the American accents and spellings- a lot more work involved in this than I ever realised. Before I had people within the companies that I worked for doing different things like advertising, customer satisfaction, just the mundane day to day running tasks…….. and now it was up to Paul and myself to do everything with help on occasions from my Mum and Sister! To top the lot I had terrible morning sickness! It’s amazing what you can do if you really put your mind to it.
More importantly now I really do have first hand experience of using the products. Esther-Ruths favourite DVD is the Animals………..actually I love it too and I have learnt so much from it! She also loves the alpha blocks – particularly putting things inside them. Don’t get me wrong we don’t watch the DVD’s all the time but when we do, we watch them together and to be honest I get so much out of watching them with her and seeing her expression. Having recently turned 1, Esther-Ruth points at the screen and says ‘baby’, every time she sees a child, she also loves dancing to all the songs – it really is amazing!'
‘Our aim is to help parents have the right tools to teach their children – after all being a parent is one of the hardest jobs that we will ever do so having the support and right learning aids has to be a good thing. Sarah and I develop the games and puzzles together and work with our educational psychologist, Carolyn Skilling on a regular basis to make sure that we have got it just right!’ explains Paul.
Paul and Sarah hope that you enjoy the Brainy Baby products, as they do and they would invite you to email your comments after having seen or used any of the Brainy Baby products.
Based in the Midlands our address and contacts are:
Faith Ventures Limited, PO Box 7865, Sutton Bonington, Loughborough. LE12 5WW Fax: 01509 672 505
email: sales@faithventures.co.uk
WHSmith • Boots.com • Selfridges • Hamleys • Bentalls • selected Boots Stores • www.Bitz4Kids.com
