Show notes
What happens when you spot a problem in your own life, create a solution at home, and gradually discover there could be a much bigger business hiding inside it?
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent talks to Carole Duck, founder of Duxanall Dogbedz, about building a product-led business from the kitchen table, bootstrapping its growth and finding opportunities to move from a handmade product towards a more scalable and potentially higher-margin business.
Carole’s original product came from a very practical problem: a puppy that kept chewing expensive dog beds.
Her solution was a raised, slot-together wooden bed with a machine-washable hammock-style fabric base. It can be flat-packed for travelling or storage and comes with what Carole calls her “fur-ever” guarantee, including replacement parts for chew damage.
Seven years in, she says nobody has yet needed to claim against that guarantee.
But this conversation goes well beyond dog beds.
Carole talks openly about starting small, receiving a £500 grant that helped her increase production, moving from her kitchen into a dedicated garden workshop and experimenting with different routes to market, from markets and social media to online sales and retail.
One particularly interesting part of the discussion is pricing.
Carole’s approach has been deliberately simple: material cost multiplied by two, plus £20 for her own wage. The logic behind the multiplier was to generate enough money from one sale to fund materials for two more beds.
As the business develops, however, there is an interesting strategic question around where the greatest value lies.
That can be seen in the development of the Barlow Bed for very large breeds.
The idea emerged after a standard bed bowed under the weight of a St Bernard. Rather than simply seeing a product failure, Carole spotted a different customer need.
The resulting design uses much heavier 4x4 timber, steel crossbars and specialist wicking fabric designed to improve airflow. Carole says owners of breeds such as St Bernards can spend between £400 and £800 on suitable orthopaedic beds.
That creates the potential for a very different premium niche from the original product.
Perhaps the most striking part of Carole’s story, though, is what she ultimately wants the business to achieve.
Her ambition is to create a factory in Little Hulton, Salford, providing flexible employment for women returning to work who may otherwise struggle because of childcare, health or other barriers.
Her vision includes a flexible “timeshare” approach to working hours and even an on-site crèche.
It is a useful reminder that scaling a business does not necessarily have to be about size for its own sake. A clearer purpose can help determine what you want the business to become and therefore what needs to change to get there.
In the conversation
We explore how Carole turned a personal frustration into a commercial product, why demonstrating the product face-to-face has been so valuable, what a £500 grant meant at an early stage, the realities of pricing a handmade product, using useful content rather than constant selling to build engagement, identifying a premium niche, and the challenges of moving from founder-led production towards a genuinely scalable operation.
We also discuss Carole’s much bigger ambition to use the business to create flexible employment opportunities in her local community.
The standout message
A problem can become an opportunity when you stop treating it simply as something that went wrong.
The Barlow Bed is a great example. A standard product struggling under the weight of a St Bernard exposed an underserved customer with a very different need and potentially a much higher willingness to pay.
The one key thing
The one key thing to take away from this episode is to look closely at where your customers are stretching the limits of what you currently offer. That may be where your next, and potentially more valuable, market is hiding.
Before you get into the episode
Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they are frustrated that they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions.
Here’s what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it.
That’s what the G90 Summit is for.
It is a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do.
From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done.
Quarterly, virtual, £97 a seat.
Smart90.co.uk/summit
Carole can be found here: