SplashRobe: Making waves with a Start Up Loan
Eleanor Ward from Chichester, West Sussex, secured £25k in funding from Let’s Do Business Finance under the Start Up Loan scheme to bring her idea for company ‘SplashRobe’ to life.
Creating a swim robe solution
After falling in love with open water swimming in 2018, Ellie also fell in love with using changing robes – and this evolved into using them when camping and in every day life.
The convenience, the comfort, and the practicality, not to mention the multiple uses - changing robes had become a staple of her new hobby, but despite this, she had bright ideas for how products from even the leading brands could be improved. Sometimes struggling with manual dexterity in her hands, she knew others might feel the same, and value an alternative – but the turning point was yet to come.
Taking the plunge
Up until 2020, Ellie had been a solicitor by trade – but after having a baby and losing her mother that year, swimming transformed into a way to process her grief and find a new identity. With fresh motivation and pushing herself further, Ellie amazingly then swam the English Channel as part of a relay team, and quit her job to pursue an otherwise unexplored course. She decided to follow her instincts with her earlier thought of creating a product that she, her fellow swimmers, and lots of other people could use and enjoy – a new, innovative type of changing robe.
“It’s been such a learning curve. You spend years getting up the ladder and then you’re at the bottom of the ladder when you go to start your own business.”
Becoming an entrepreneur was a brand new playing field for Ellie. Creating, marketing and getting a new business off the ground was something she’d never imagined, let alone designing a product. From the inkling of an idea back in 2018 to committing to the beginnings of the creation of a product that could one day be loved by swimmers everywhere in 2020, she started to learn from scratch how she could make it a reality.
Jumping in the deep end
After finding a product designer to bring her idea to life in 2020, ‘SplashRobe’ hit the ground running. Taking inspiration from products she’d already used and loved, and her ideas on how they could be improved to be even better, she began to work on patenting a design for SplashRobe.
She had ideas for a product that would be even more convenient, featuring a patented handy magnetic closure that would negate the use of zips and wasn’t anywhere else on the market. She knew focusing on a product with easy closures would be helpful with her own dexterity issues felt with the cold water, and from her market research and speaking to fellow swimmers, it could be beneficial for a range of other people too – from people that might have compromised mobility, to children too.
Another market gap identified was a product that could easily transition between the seasons. Other popular changing robe brands mainly catered to the colder weather – becoming too hot to use in the summer and warmer months. Ellie wanted to create a product that could have a removable inner section that could be worn all year round, for a range of activities – as after all, in a few short years, changing robes had branched out from being used not only by swimmers but other people interested in outdoor activities too. She noticed people wearing changing robes while camping, watching their children’s sports games, dog walking and more – and saw even more potential.
“When I started out, it was just surfers and swimmers using these types of robes. But now people wear them in supermarkets, dog walking, camping and even people who go out and watch their kids play sports at the weekend! They’ve crossed into more mainstream market.”
Her work with her UK based product designer led her to get in contact with manufacturers based in South East Asia that could bring SplashRobe to life. Passionate about creating the perfect product, she tried and tested a wide range of different textiles and materials for the robes and their hardware to ensure a high-quality finished product to be proud of. Wanting to stay true to her brand beginnings of a changing robe for sea swimming, Ellie sourced materials made from recycled and reclaimed items from the sea, such as plastics from ropes, to make a truly circular product that not only encouraged people to spend more time out in nature, but to benefit it too.
That’s a wrap
After landing on her designs and chosen materials, Ellie was ready to go. Having generated a lot of interest from the swimming community, Outdoor Swimmer magazine and even people on the local football pitch, she wanted to get ahead of the ever-changing market and get SplashRobe into production.
To do this, she began to make a plan for how much this would cost her; the actual production, the marketing, distribution, and everything in-between. Getting to grips with what her business model might look like, she got in touch with the team at Let’s Do Business Finance to see what options were available to her as a new business.
After completing her application form for a Start Up Loan, the team at Let’s Do Business Finance were able to release £25,000 of funding to Ellie to enable her to put SplashRobe into production and to patent her unique designs in the UK and in the EU.
“When I got the finance approved it finally felt real and like it was happening. It’s scary, but exciting!It’s almost impossible for the average person to start a business, and that’s why the support from Let’s Do Business has been so good. They’re helping a lot of people out there!”
As an official delivery partner of The Start Up Loans Company, Let’s Do Business Finance can deliver Start Up Loans of up to £25,000 to aspiring entrepreneurs and businesses under three years old to support the launch of their business, and aims to support businesses both starting up and already established with financial services spanning from Start Up Loans and Business Loans, to brokerage. With the ability to deliver finance under the Start Up Loan scheme, the team at Let’s Do Business Finance have enabled countless entrepreneurs and new businesses to launch their ideas all over the South East and East of England.
“Having Let’s Do Business Finance on board was incredible. We looked at re-mortgaging the house and angel investment, but I needed the initial start up capital for initial development and production of the robes.”
Now that Ellie has secured funding under the Start Up Loan scheme, she is able to put an estimate on when she’ll be able to begin selling her robes – sometime between September and October this year, just in time for the next season of outdoor swimming. Once she has her delivery date, Ellie is planning to hit the marketing hard – with a new website, increased social media activity, and reaching out to her contacts in the swimming world.
We can expect to see SplashRobe’s making waves very soon, and the team at Let’s Do Business Finance wishes Ellie the best with her new business.
