Irish start-up children’s clothing business BabyBoo.ie, is celebrating following the sale of their one millionth bandana bib. The drool-busting ‘DribbleBoo’ was the company’s first product to launch when they started out 8-years ago. Now the most popular item in their organic cotton clothing range, the bandana bib has reached stratospheric success from just a few hundred sold in their first year of business.
Founded by two Cork mums in 2014, the best friends never dreamed they would reach such a significant milestone in just eight short years. The children's clothing brand BabyBoo.ie was set-up by Vicki O’Callaghan and Michelle O’Riordan, following inspiration from their own parenting journeys. Their vision was to create unique, functional, and sustainable products to make life more comfortable for their little customers. Vicki’s daughter Ruby suffered terribly from reflux and eczema, which is where the idea for their first product, the ‘DribbleBoo’ bandana bib came from.
BabyBoo has won many industry awards for the product quality, innovation, and design of their organic cotton products. In fact, the ‘DribbleBoo’ bandana bib itself has won first place in many of these, including a gold ‘Made for Mums’ award and a gold NPPA - National Parenting Product Award.
Commenting on BabyBoo’s business success, co-founder Vicki O’Callaghan said:
“You put these kinds of goals on your vision board, it feels surreal now that we have achieved the success that we have worked so hard for. As an entrepreneur you have to believe in yourself and your product, which is not easy with so many women in business suffering from imposter syndrome. It takes hard work, creativity, resilience, integrity and being kind to others, in order to make a successful business where customers stay loyal, other businesses want to collaborate with you, and where people want to work for you.”
Her business partner Michelle O’Riordan agrees; “We set our objectives every year, we try to push ourselves to the next level, to move outside of our comfort zone. The first year in business, you just want to break even and know that you have a good product that people like. It was our second year, when we started to do some blue-sky thinking, we were more confident in our abilities and our expanding product range. Selling one million bibs seemed like a big number at the time, but we knew we could do it. We believed in the unique benefits that our product offered parents over every other bib on the market, worldwide.”
While selling one million ‘DribbleBoo’ bibs was the first sales target to go on the BabyBoo 10-year vision board, not all of their goals were business-focused. Michelle and Vicki both wanted to reach a point where they could rely on the business to provide a stable income for their families, spend more time with their children, and to even create a legacy that they may one day takeover and run the business.
Already, Vicki and Michelle’s children are involved in the creative side of the business. Each of them has seen their own print designs brought to life over the years on bibs, sleepwear, and casual daywear within the BabyBoo range of clothing.
BabyBoo boasts a sizable loyal following on social media, with new mums and repeat mums who just love the quality and practicality of the organic cotton products. With everything from hospital bag essentials for newborns, to clothing gift choices for children from newborn up to age 10. Such is the popularity of the BabyBoo brand that they have daily shipments going to destinations all over the world.
“We always wanted BabyBoo to become a global brand. It’s always been our vision for the business. A lot of our worldwide sales come through our website and the social media sharing of tagged products. It also helps that we have quite a few high-profile celebrity fans who do their bit to give us credit when wearing our products,” said Vicki.
BabyBoo don’t just sell online though, a selection of their products are also stocked in iconic Irish department stores like Brown Thomas, Arnotts and Kilkenny Design. Other retail outlets include gift shops, children’s boutiques, and pharmacies nationwide.
“Starting and running your own business is not easy, particularly in the last two years through a worldwide pandemic. Our warehouse team are phenomenal, they work so hard and we have great fun together too. It’s so nice to be all back working together where we can share ideas and laughs, the pod system and rotating shifts was difficult on us all when we were following Covid government guidance. Our success is thanks to the team we have in the office, and the support of our families at home. We couldn’t do it without them,” conclude Vicki and Michelle.