Revisited: Transformative partnerships, taking a brand to the next level, and living fearlessly with Bon Tot

This episode was brought to you by Rebecca, Elaine and Natalie who have kindly pledged their support for the show through Patreon! Hello to you all - you have my eternal gratitude and are helping keep this show on the road!

This week we have the first of our Revisited episodes, where a guest from a previous series joins us once again to update us on their business journey. This week we're joined by Edinburgh-based childrenswear brand Bon Tot - who has seen an enormous amount of change in the past year - a shop move, a new brand and the establishment of a new business partnership between Kris, who started the company and Cara, her new business partner. 

We talk about evolving a brand, being tenacious, working through insecurities, reminding yourself of Beyonce, the joy of finding someone in business who just completely understands you and so. Much. More. Enjoy!

https://www.bon-tot.com/

Transcript

Independent Thinking  0:09  
Hello and welcome to independent thinking the podcast exploring a new era for the high street. We celebrate independent business and bricks and mortar retail across the UK, those who are shaking things up on their local high street, and who believe that the potential of retirement city centres. I'm your host, Alexandra, welcome along

Hello, and welcome back to the show. lovely to have you join us. This episode was brought to you by Rebecca, Elaine and Natalie who have kindly pledged their support for the show through Patreon. Hello to you all, you have my eternal gratitude and are helping keeping this short on the road. So thank you, if you're curious to know how you could support us that hate the show notes now. This week, we have the first of our revisited episodes, where a guest from a previous series joins us once again to update us on their business journey. And that guest this week is bond Todd, who has seen an enormous amount of change in the last year, a sharp move and new brand. A new partnership between Chris who started the brand and Kara her new business partner. We talk about evolution being tenacious working through insecurity, reminding yourself of Beyonce, the joy of finding someone in business who just completely understands you and so much more. You're going to love it enjoy

Welcome to independent thinking, revisited it Chris bash for the first time, Kara. So welcome to the show.

Kris, Bon Tot  1:59  
Thank you so much.

Cara, Bon Tot  2:00  
Thank you for having us,

Independent Thinking  2:01  
Tom, it's so good to have you. So for those of you who are perhaps newer to the series than others have a flick back to series one in Episode Six, we talked to Kris, about a your journey so far in business and how you started a bond taught and how your whole kind of stories of the Lord to delve into there. And we'll be talking about some similar themes. But I really recommend if you've clicked this, and you haven't looked at that one, flick back, but a light so let's pick up where we left off. A tremendously exciting year for you. A so far and so much has changed. I'm just like thinking about all the things you've done so far. So we've moved to location. So no longer since Stephen Street, you've got a new warehouse location, you've launched a new clothing brand and new business partner. What a year. So talk us talk us through it and what has How has the past year been for you? It feels like a huge amount of what we're looking at renewal and, and, and change in the series. And I feel like that sums up where you're where you're at.

Kris, Bon Tot  3:06  
Yeah, I think this is Kris talking. I would start by saying that. I don't think you could choose a better business to start this series from starting the series. But to revisit because it is absolutely true. So much has changed in a year. I mean, I don't think I could have really foreseen just how much and like how different my personal life is as well. But I think it's almost like for me, all my business dreams have come true in the last year, which is a super amazing space to be in. But I don't know that's gonna happen. You don't know how it's gonna unfold and to be here, like one year later, sitting with every single thing that I personally wanted from the business. It's happened is it's an amazing space to be in for me.

Independent Thinking  3:56  
Oh, that's so wonderful. All the dreams coming true. Such a wonderful thing to and Kara, it seems like a you Are you the enabler? I mean, how

Cara, Bon Tot  4:08  
responsible I guess and a lot of some of my dreams have come true as well here. I've been part of this. So yeah, it's been a really exciting journey. And I've been part of it for quite a while now. I mean, especially since me. But we were working together before for about 10 months, actually. So I think

Kris, Bon Tot  4:29  
our business partnership story is a really good place to start because that is is what's led into none of this would have happened if Kara hadn't kind of come into my life and then come into the to the business. So the warehouse, the brand, all the changes at Bontoc. All of that is only happening because of Cara because of our partnership. So I think it's a really good place to

Independent Thinking  4:54  
lead. I mean, it's Oh, wonderful. So yeah, just how did you get together? How did this all begin? And then

Cara, Bon Tot  5:02  
well, so I was head of marketing for Schuh who are national retailer, and you might know them. They sell a lot of shoes. A lot of stores about 120 Odd stores in the UK. And so I headed up the marketing team there. And I loved it, it was a great place to work. And I had been there for seven years. And I had a really big team and looked after various verticals within photography, content creation, graphic design, visual merchandising, store, display, all of these things came in like you under my remit. And I had a large team of really talented people. But what I noticed was, I wasn't doing any of the creative stuff anymore. You know, when you get to that level, it just becomes about numbers and people management and reporting. And yeah, I wasn't actually enjoying or getting to produce anything anymore. So I was just signing off and approving things. And I really felt that that had completely changed how I felt about the job, the DTD I was working like mad, I'd had my second baby. Or I was pregnant with my second child. And so I've got a five year old and a nearly two year old. And when I was I knew I was going to be returning to work. I just started to really re evaluate. Is this what I want? Because the job was massive. And I was doing a full time role in four days.

Kris, Bon Tot  6:26  
And was this was paid for days? Yeah, yeah, I was

Independent Thinking  6:29  
the space in Scotland, are you cuz I imagined it being in London. But you

Cara, Bon Tot  6:33  
know, no business got into companies up here. I didn't know. Yeah, so I was based here. And obviously, because of lockdown. I ended up working a lot from home. But yes, I was getting paid for four days for doing a full time job. And it was really stressful. You know, I was working late every night, I was rushing about doing all the drop offs and pickups and it was hard, you know, you know, back to back zoom calls. But even if we rewind to before I went on maternity I just knew like I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. And Chris and I laugh about this because we both love Taco Bell when I was when I was a bit 99 Deadly seriously researched, bringing a Taco Bell franchise to the UK, this was before there was any here. And I discovered you had to like you needed about 200,000 investments. So I knew I couldn't do that, you know, I've always wanted to.

Kris, Bon Tot  7:28  
So we bonded over Taco Bell quite early.

Cara, Bon Tot  7:33  
And so I knew I wanted to do something. And I started kind of dabbling with writing a business plan for a few different things. And then I realised when I was on mat leave, like, I definitely want to do something for myself, I want more work life balance, I want more freedom to do things on my own. So that's when I started writing a business plan. And I was planning to open a kind of Italian daily stroke piadina my husband's Italian and that's his family background. So I was going to do something like that. And then well then Chris and I mean the story is quite long winded actually,

Kris, Bon Tot  8:09  
where we are actually neighbours and my and we and we knew each other but like, through friends her friend group, she's got this really cool close knit friend group and I really, I always admire their friendship. It's a really tight group, you know, and they're Bontoc customers but I knew care the least of that group. So we definitely knew each other but we did not socialise or we didn't know each other really, I remember we had a picnic once you know something like that, but then we became neighbours and and during lockdown that it absolutely solidified this relationship. Once lockdown came and she was my neighbour. We bubbled once you could enter People's Garden Oh, and so she and her daughter and baby would come onto my deck. And that is where this relationship came from 100% Without that time, you know, she was on mat leave. I was only working from home I was going to the shop a little bit. Like there was nowhere else to go, you know, life drew us to this space. And it that's honestly, you know, lactone for all the dreadful things that have happened for me in my life. I'm really grateful because some really great things happened to me. Caribbean absolutely, you know, the the best thing that could have happened to me in my business, our business now, which is a group at the time it was my business. So we started spending this time together on the deck in the deep depths of lockdown, you know?

Cara, Bon Tot  9:38  
Yeah. And I asked Chris one day if I could run this my new business plan by her so I wanted her advice. I just wanted to chat through with her so I suggested like oh, can I can I talk you through this? Would you give me your

Kris, Bon Tot  9:51  
but she asked me for a meeting it was like a formal request for a meeting.

Independent Thinking  9:55  
My people will call you people at school.

Cara, Bon Tot  10:00  
Obviously, we are delivering news pizza to the deck. And we had a bottle of Chrome apps. I started taking into this business plan. And then she started asking me questions, which is what Chris is so good at, like getting into the depths of something. So she was asking me questions about why, why do you want to do this? And why is it right for you? And I had been questioning this when when you write a business plan, you have to fill in a section about what you're, what you're bringing to this, what your experiences and all of my background in my career has been retail and marketing and beauty and PR, and it's all nothing to do with a daily or a coffee shop. So she was unpacking that. And then she said, What would you consider Bontoc? Uh huh.

Kris, Bon Tot  10:42  
And so from my side of this is it Kara was like, That is my dream, and I never would have asked, that's how I remember her responding. Yeah. And I never have asked anybody to be my business partner, before, I had long been advised I should have won, or maybe it was time in my brain would draw an absolute blank. Of what would what do I need? Who would it be, I could never, ever come up with anything that made even like a little bit of sense, it was never connect for me. And as soon as this happens, I mean, it was like a switch. It was like electric. You know, it just was, you know, as soon as I opened my mind to, to Oh, my God, Kara wants to leave. She's an entrepreneur, I can see that. Kara has sick style. That's what she's not saying as well. So like, I knew Kara had like the best style of anybody she knows, she knows what she likes, which is what we have in common. We we started uncovering all these things that we had, and there's this, there's this thing, I think, in relationships where you have this baseline, that's just the same, it can grow. And it can have different branches, right, but like, your baseline is the same. And I think we knew that about each other really fast, like our quirky likes, our dislikes, our wise, every all that stuff was very, very similar. And I personally felt too because we didn't have a huge friendship, history, it was not difficult to come into business together. We didn't have all but what are you gonna think if I do this? What do you think if I do this, like, none of that, like no BS? No history? No, we just were. And so we were showing our true selves to each other, I think from the start, and we had pure acceptance of that right away.

Cara, Bon Tot  12:27  
Yeah, would you say I would absolutely agree with that. We also have a lot of sort of similar skills, but then also completely opposite end of the skill areas that we like to focus on as well. And I think that is another reason why it works. So well. Yeah. And I'm trying to think of some example, I can tell you some example.

Kris, Bon Tot  12:46  
Definitely shout out my failure failure as a business owner. So also, I another side of this is I really felt like I had plateaued. I felt like I had taken Bon Tot as far as I could. That's how I was feeling the growth was there. But I knew I was holding myself back because I can't I don't have like strategy skills. I'm not a planner. I my long term thinking is not amazing. I'm very, in the moment, I'm very reactive, more of a hustler by nature. So it's quite short sighted. And in one sense, I've you know, I always knew the business was long term. My actions are quite short term. And I'm not very organised. I'm not very tech driven. And I'm not like, you know, that that's not who I am. And I could see how much I was holding myself back and I was really afraid. Like, I'm not afraid of a lot of stuff but I was very afraid to try to make those changes.

Independent Thinking  13:38  
What were you afraid of

Kris, Bon Tot  13:40  
there? Oh, that I would not be good at it. Okay, I wouldn't do it. I won't be able to that Kara Caesar sent me like every day still like Oh, but I don't. But you have the comms planner but am I really going to like put an image in so like very gentle with me for like a very long time gently pushing me to grow and change and run things in a new better way. So like carrot is I mean carrot is a strategy based like it's just like who you are inside and out I feel like your brain and another thing care is does not take no for an answer here is a problem solver. Like there is not a problem care is not going to solve what is do you have some big names surrounding Cara is a it doesn't take no for an answer was I easily take no and just I'll be like, alright, and I'll just move and do something different. No, okay. I've never seen like any one operate like this where care is going to solve it. Or why don't they have it like dad or mom and to find that out in that capacity have that in me. She is so tenacious. And honestly like, that is something I didn't know I was missing I think I didn't know I was kind of backing away from things if they weren't, you know, opening up to me straight away. So

Independent Thinking  14:59  
life So the interesting there is that it's when you know, for me to talk about business partnerships, it's that one person does this and the other person does that. But actually, what it sounds like, that might be the case, but what it sounds more like, it's like Kelly, you're actually drawing this out of Chris, are, are and you probably do that for for each other rather than like, oh, it's not that, you know, the strategy. You don't do that anymore. It's like, no, actually, you've got it within you, and I'm gonna help you. And I think that's much more of a partnership, isn't it? That's really interesting.

Cara, Bon Tot  15:28  
Absolutely. You know, we do I feel like we actually share things quite equally. You know, we both paint the walls, we both clean the kitchen, we do the buying, we will see, yeah, we do everything together. And there's definitely things that I would shy away from, or I would put off doing and Chris would lead on, but you're kind of encouraging me to do more of that as well.

Kris, Bon Tot  15:47  
I mean, the only thing I would say about Kara she's not a numbers person. Oh, no. But I love the numbers. And it's an area I didn't have enough time for or couldn't really get into. But I actually really enjoy that side. But I'm because of my lack of organisation. It wasn't really something I was executing very well. But it's almost like having her there. It's like allows me to be be better at that and tell her Oh, it's not that hard, actually. Or maybe you just haven't had to do this before. So you can do this. It's just different from what you're used to. Yeah,

Cara, Bon Tot  16:20  
we're definitely teaching each other things along the way, all the time.

Kris, Bon Tot  16:23  
And also that we hype each other constantly, right? Yeah. So like, don't even like if she's coming in saying, Oh, I can't do this, right. And I'm not gonna do this, or I don't like, I don't fit. Like we're always hyping each other. And so I think there's but there's also room to air however, we're really feeling. So it's not like relentless positivity. It's like real this is real talk. Yeah, oh, I don't even get started on how our mornings usually start, like we are sharing every day. But that's cool. Air it all out. We hype each other up, then we get to work. You know,

Independent Thinking  16:53  
I love this. Yeah. And it's so wonderful to see two women who are like, who are kind of working that way. And in a really honest, and actually the one word that really screams out from our original chat, Chris is authenticity. And that was always so important to you into the heart of the business that it was, it was just, I was gonna use the word seeped. So it's horrible. It's like a like, it permeated through all areas of business. And I love that that's it's such a core value. So tell us so you've, you've had that really amazing chat. And you know, I could just see you on the deck of the pizza on the commodity. It's just so magical. And so how did you go from this kind of initial conversation to having this extraordinarily warehouse? So yeah, we didn't

Kris, Bon Tot  17:39  
even too long. But let's go back in at the end at this meeting, when I'm like, What about Bonton? She's like, it's my dream. Yes, I didn't, I wouldn't want. I was like, get your let's get our wet Tucson paddleboard out and we took I think another bottle of fish to the beach. And we paddled into the sunset, this is no joke. into the sunset, pulled the the paddle board on shore sat on it, finished this bottle until midnight, talking about all of our plans and all of our wants, drunk the thing back home. And then like from the next day, we were like, This is what we're doing. Yeah. And then we started a series of meetings. And like, really, we really seriously went through like our relationship and what we bring to the table and what we wanted. And so that was Injil. Why, yeah, till 2020. And then we work together behind the scenes until we signed the shares over and joined in May. So we lay here. And we felt that that was very cautious. And it was the right way, even though we had this switch. And we knew we were right for each other. We wanted to make sure it was both of us wanted, so nobody got into anything that they weren't sure about. So we really took our time. And I do recommend if people can do that, I think it was a very smart move

for us. I was also still work while I was on maternity. And then I went back to work and I kind of it was like a side hustle or so we weren't in the evenings, every single week, one or two nights a week, we would be working till 11 o'clock, because it was our only time together because my job was so busy during the day that I couldn't really do anything. So yeah, we worked at night for months, like 10 months, basically. And we knew and it was it was a really good way to see how the partnership would would feel and how it evolved and how it grew. And and then it was such a celebratory moment when we finally got to kind of announce it and really kind of Yeah, be like be together properly. So yeah,

Independent Thinking  19:33  
I love that. I also love character tics to share that you did it in the evenings and because I think that that's often the trickiest part in in starting something when when you are working full time and thinking Well, where am I going to find the hours but it's like you just have to dig deep and actually just work along Yeah, uh huh. Exactly and find that time but did you find that that the the initial passion that you had and when you spoke that was like keep P going when it was because it must be difficult.

Cara, Bon Tot  20:02  
Yes, it was difficult. You know, the job itself was difficult enough with two kids. I really knew like this, this is for me, this is what I want to do. And we were so passionate about it straight from the get go. We had all these ideas, which we still do. Every single day, there's something new coming up. So that wasn't hard. Like physically Yeah, I suppose you know, working late at night, every night and or a few nights a week and still having kids and then the day job. Yeah, and I can't tell anyone. So that was tricky. But it was driving me insane. Because I knew this is what I wanted. And

Kris, Bon Tot  20:38  
in Cara was pushing me at that time, you know, it's not like I was like, Oh, are you available? Like you've been working all day? Your kids aren't in bed? It's no, a lot of that came from Kara. Like she was writing this thing. And it was amazing. And I would say to like, when you take on a business partner, I worked alone for like six or seven years. You know, it does bring out insecurities. And I think it's also it's like, disingenuous to say we both have not had insecurities come up through this mind being Oh, like, Is this good enough for her? Like, you know, financially, it's a very different situation, like small business owners kind of know that, like, I've never had another full time an employee, we've had lots of part time employees. But like, for me, I felt like this deep responsibility to her life. You know, like, this was very real for me. But I got over this feeling like, oh, it's gonna be entirely up to me to provide her with this, like, no, because I'm not, I never had a partner to let us know, in the freedom that I have felt like, I can't praise care enough. I mean, she knows how I feel. But like, what it has given me professionally and personally is like it's not measurable. And so I do encourage people like to not let the insecurity and fear stop you from taking a step that is like very powerful, I could have absolutely frozen and shied away, because I didn't really want to reveal everything about how I really felt or maybe where I was, or my own feeling that I'm not taking this any further. Am I doing this? Right, you know, so brought that out of me. But we face that, and I vocalise that, you know, we're just honesty is absolutely the only way.

Cara, Bon Tot  22:08  
Yeah, we had a really good chat about that, didn't we, and I made it really clear like I was going to do, I was going to do something anyway, I was going to leave my job regardless like to set up whatever on my own, because I knew that I wanted out of that. And it wasn't like I was relying on Chris to provide that this just came together. And it sounds really cheesy, but it was fate, you know, like, it's perfect. Yeah, it was, it worked out so well for us. And I made it clear that it wasn't you. Chris wasn't responsible for me. You know, this was gonna be a team effort. We're in this together. So,

Independent Thinking  22:38  
so inspiring. But I think that is a shift in mindset, though, Chris is like, that's a big shift I can imagine as then. Yeah, it actually shading something that you've grown from the beginning. And that's also must be tricky.

Kris, Bon Tot  22:52  
Well, I actually found found to be honest with you, I find that really easy. So I'm not super sentimental. And I think that works in my favour. And this, like, I don't look at this history. And I was honest about that straightaway, wasn't I, I'm more than happy. This isn't mine. I want you to have half. It was like, but it is like revealing, it's like dating. And then after a year, you're like, oh, I have to show like it was more for me. I think, financially being responsible or being not being responsible for someone but actually sharing that because that's, I think the part of a business, you tend to keep quiet to yourself, like what's actually going on, or here's where my stresses are. Here's where here's what we're doing really well. Like, I hadn't shared that with anybody ever. So running a business is like running another home. And so I think it wasn't handing it over. And it wasn't like sharing it. I was so happy. I was so ready. It didn't like that was just that just clicked and I was done. I was like this is this is the best thing ever. I think it's like, it's insecurity. It's like it's just showing your whole the whole thing all done on paper. You know, you do that with your accountant, and your bank, you know, I gotta like really bring somebody in every single level. And I'm used to doing that myself. But then other things come up. Like I didn't even know how used to working alone. It was until we started like shooting content has been this like thing that we're changing the way we do everything. We're building this photography studio. And Kara's only ever worked in a team. I've only ever worked alone. And suddenly we were like, Oh, something doesn't feel right. Each of us Oh, she's like, No, we need to do this together. And I'm like, I need to do this alone. But we say that to each other. And then we and then we just keep trying new ways to make it work for both of us. And we're both learning and I think that's what's really critical. isn't like I'm in. I know everything and everything has changed. Everything has changed. So we're both it feels to me like a new business. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I

Cara, Bon Tot  24:44  
would agree. Yeah.

Independent Thinking  24:45  
Yeah. Did you discuss that? Or did you discuss the keeping the name did you think about changing something different to reflect that change? Or was it always going to be Was it because you built such a brand? Was it the strong branding around Bontoc? Was that really key to keep

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Yes, definitely I really admired what Chris had done and starting panto and growing that brand, you know, she's done an amazing job. And I learned so much from Chris everyday. And she's bigging me up I'm not really bigging her up! I know, for real, you know, I learned so much from her every day and really appreciate the that she gave me this opportunity, because my life's completely changed. And I just feel so energised and passionate about what we do.

Kris, Bon Tot  25:25  
I mean, who would you eat vegan hotdogs with.

Independent Thinking  25:31  
single handedly keeping that business, you know, a single vegan hotdogs, we might be the

Kris, Bon Tot  25:36  
only people by

Cara, Bon Tot  25:38  
and but yeah, on the Bontoc front, it's it's such a strong brand, it's got a really good customer base. But there's also still so much room to grow and do so much with it. And we knew straight away that that's what we wanted to do. So we're probably jumping ahead here. But we've got some like big strategy projects around Bontoc. And what the future looks like for the brand and how you know, at the moment we're continuing to grow at, and it does what it does best, which is sorry, it continues to do what it does best, which is providing very well researched products. So I've just lost my train. So

Kris, Bon Tot  26:13  
we knew we knew we were sticking with like the brand. But you know what, we still aren't entirely sure. Or we're not ready to reveal or say, this is exactly where Bonton is going. Because that's Fanta is a longer term project. For us. It feels like yes, it exists. And it is. But like we're in the process of a rebrand. We've just had to hit pause on that. Because we have to we actually have too much going on. And we're we need to be in the business right now not working on the business, which we've had the luxury of actually working on the business for quite a long time. So we've paused that. But we know where we're going with that. And yeah, like we knew Bontoc would stay but but I knew deep down chain, there were also big changes that are needed and going to happen. And it's just a longer term project for us.

Cara, Bon Tot  26:58  
Yeah, we're definitely working on a brand refresh. But the logo, the name is gonna stay the same. But we'll be refreshing kind of the who the brand new,

Kris, Bon Tot  27:07  
probably this actually what you're trying to ask us about about 15 minutes ago, but we can't stop talking about how much we love each other. You actually were trying to get us to talk about how we got to the warehouse. Like, what's

Independent Thinking  27:19  
up? I'm curious. I'm just I'm curious. I'd love to go. Because I'm so sorry, no, especially like PS like a warehouse. I mean, it feels like I mean, I just kind of love to know how you get to let's let's let's go with that.

Kris, Bon Tot  27:36  
I can quickly say I knew I wanted to close the shop and Stockbridge that I've had been a lingering feeling from before Kara came around, I had had a feeling of dissatisfaction. Mostly because of commuting. My daughter, I needed more time with my daughter, and I was sick the commute, it takes an hour, you know, 15 minutes there and back it was was really getting to me. And I was finding, being customer facing every day. Really draining my creativity. And I just wasn't growing, you know, there, there wasn't room for growth for me anymore in that space, both both in the physical space and being customer facing. And we'd grown our buyback programmes so large, our Bon Voyage secondhand clothing, it just did not work in that space, we needed to process that. And that that was that's when Kara and I were really getting serious about the conversation of like, we want to be in our home tat like portabello we both want to be close to home for our lifestyle, it was so important to us. And so that conversation started heavy with her. Like I said right away, like I don't want to keep the shop. That's my memory. But I'm not sure how

Cara, Bon Tot  28:44  
I dabbled with potentially like looking at, you know, on the high street, but then we felt like portabello portabello. But we don't want to commit to we didn't want to commit to kind of standard retail hours. And we didn't want to have to be because it takes so much of your time. Like it's lovely to chat to customers. And we love it when they come and pop in and see us in the warehouse. When you're nine to five, six days a week. It's a lot of customer interaction and not enough time to do the rest. And that's one big thing, really, and coming into this role as you do everything as a small business owner. Whereas in my previous role, I had the luxury of you know, someone else at the bank, someone else did the merchandising someone else built the website. No, we do everything. It's intense. So the time it takes is enormous. And this way we get the flexibility to set our own opening times and our own events. And we'll get

Kris, Bon Tot  29:33  
we knew we didn't want to be open like five or six days a week, right? But we didn't know. What does it look like if we're not on the high street in a shop? What are we doing? Like what what's it gonna be? And because it's scary, you're a retailer, like we you know, and also because Bontoc really thrived on like this interpersonal relationship, like that's been a huge part of the brand. So that's fear for me. I don't want to lose the relationship. People love bringing their kids in And like the big thing is I always love to hold people's babies like and shot like that was always like a big part of it. So losing that I knew was like risky. But also deep down. I knew it was just, it was just time. And obviously lockdown showed you, you don't need to you don't need to like, basically hurt your own self to keep those hours it doesn't that we don't need to do that anymore. Yeah, you're not. You're not failing. Yeah, you're not none of that's real. So we don't need that, like, hard to do not need that. I would encourage people I was hurting my own life, I felt like by keeping the hours up and you know, all that stuff. So it's not that negative about that. It's just a reality. I think of like having a complex life and a full life. It's it was just too it's just too much.

Cara, Bon Tot  30:46  
The shop wasn't big enough for it wasn't fit for purpose, refreshing content from processing the buyback.

Kris, Bon Tot  30:52  
And that's what that took, though you coming in to show me how, like, how should a system look? How can What could this be? I was getting there very stuck in it's only when Kara came in that we started playing around with like, creating a photo studio taking up some of the shop floor space like on say Stephen street. But I couldn't get there myself like that. It's a really good point to make that I wasn't opening my mind enough to understand what was part I don't know, it just to me just didn't feel right. This very feel right and cares like well, because ABCD you know, you can do these things here. So as soon as that's like highlighted, that helped us understand what we did need. And a warehouse was like the dream.

Cara, Bon Tot  31:37  
We used to talk about, oh, when we've got a big space, we can do this, this and this. And we used to get really excited about it. And then it just so happened as the first place we viewed we had a wonderful property agent. What's up James? Yeah, what's up do the best. Phaedra for free? Yeah. So. And he, we chatted to him about our brief and what we wanted, and he got in touch with me and probably won't be at guys, but do you want to see it? So we went along and I actually didn't, I thought this is gonna be too big for us. And as soon as we viewed it,

Kris, Bon Tot  32:07  
we were like, Yeah, this is the warehouse space is pretty hard to come by. It's more what people are after. We didn't know, I didn't know anything about certainly that side of like commercial real estate or, you know, it wasn't something I had any experience with. I have had quite a lot of experience with more like the small, standard retail units. But this this was unknown to me. And I didn't really understand it. So James helped us a lot like our agent helped us understand kind of, you know, the usage, first of all, and the location and the cost and what is possible in here and um, I think we went from I don't know, we're like ballers I mean, we want what we want so like, you know, we're like it's a huge risk. Obviously, it's a massive units, we have an 1800 square foot warehouse now. And we're like we like you know, we like sunbathing in the parking lot, we pull our desk because we're like Renegades of the guys doing

Independent Thinking  33:08  
nobody knows Rosie going around. There's

Kris, Bon Tot  33:11  
dogs like that, like decks and records of we're like a sound system. And people are just like what time, but we we knew that. We knew we had enough ideas in this vision that we needed to like if you build it, they will come kind of thing like if we got it space, we would figure it out. Because we just are bursting with ideas.

Independent Thinking  33:35  
And when did the decision then to come about about launching that new brand that you've got together? So that can and then actually going into manufacturing? Because was that again from the very beginning? Was that an idea that you talked about on the on the deck?

Cara, Bon Tot  33:50  
Yes, Nike came about really early. And we are maybe not right at the beginning. But we knew very early on that this was something that we wanted to do. And it was kind of a slow burner that we were working on on top. But we were also discussing like names and kind of IDT and what this would look like and what we wanted to create and why you know, what was this gap in the market that we wanted to film. So that was definitely something that I would see. We worked alongside. The bigger one Tazza for the duration of that

Kris, Bon Tot  34:20  
it was really COVID gave us an opportunity to do that because we had time. So when this the other lockdown happened right after Christmas, January is really the month that we spent almost all of our time on neck neck, I feel like we really started that's when the name might have come around that time, the branding, the product development, we had time. And I think, again, like it's a COVID blessing. You weren't you didn't have to do anything because things were shut down again. So shop was closed. Things were ticking over. You know, we had space and that again was like a dream of mine to have more Mental creative space, I personally was going through a lot of changes at that time, too. So I had kind of like checked out of Bon taught, and like Kara needed to lead, you know, care was totally there for me. And she kind of kept that going and drove nicknack you know, mind you while working and having two kids. So I think we were just I feel so grateful like knowing how difficult business is and how the last six or seven years had never given me the time to develop an own brand range. We dabbled with a few little projects, but it was not serious. It wasn't really serious. And, you know, this, this was a major opportunity. And we took it, you know, even though I personally wasn't bringing a lot table, we're really pillars. For me, we have our other amazing part of our team. She's called Zoe. And she worked for us part time in the shop, but then became our graphic designer. And really, the three of us just had a really thriving creative relationship. So he's going back to New Zealand soon. So we're we're really missing her. But like, really, the three of us had such magnetism together. And we had such a good time. But we just knew that story is really important to us. We know UK manufacturing was really important to us. Brexit kind of again, it was like another twist on Brexit was that well, okay, this is all so messy now and so expensive and impossible. And like, What a headache to do things right. We couldn't really do it anymore. So just I saw that as an opportunity. So somebody I know about me is like, Well, I think like, crunch time is like a real go time for me. So like, cool. Let's fake let's sort it out. Well, then there she is Kara to like, actually then do the work to sort it out. I might be like, yeah, and then Kara does the work. So we just were very focused on UK. So we knew there were manufacturers here. But we yeah, we did. We knew there were Yeah, but we weren't sure what the capabilities were so Cara, Miss does not take no for an answer. found us. A UK based hatmaker.

Cara, Bon Tot  37:07  
Yeah, that was really difficult. Actually, it's, you know, there's a lot of UKB manufacturers actually manufacture? And

Kris, Bon Tot  37:15  
I don't know, I would like you to slow down and say that again, because I don't know how many people are aware of this. We've uncovered this.

Cara, Bon Tot  37:22  
Yeah, so a lot of UK manufacturers that well, they are based in the UK, but they don't actually make the bulk of their products here. So they might make a really small range here. But 90% of their products are made in Portugal or turkey or elsewhere.

Kris, Bon Tot  37:37  
And it's not always super transparent. You know, like it isn't, yeah.

Independent Thinking  37:41  
Gosh,

Cara, Bon Tot  37:43  
so that took a lot of conversations. Yeah.

Independent Thinking  37:47  
To get to the bottom of Yes. I mean, I mean, I feel like that could be its own spin off podcast about kind of the ethics are in that and about kind of the the how difficult it is to get the bottom of stuff we've

Kris, Bon Tot  37:57  
been burned by that like spending like five months on a product and getting to the very end and finding out that they hadn't really disclosed fully if it would be in the UK factory or factory. So it's it's definitely a tricky space. And it was unknown to me. So I didn't know that.

Cara, Bon Tot  38:17  
Oh, no, I didn't either, you know, but know that I have spent many, many hours like researching emailing, fooling chatting to people. There is a there is a desire for people to make things here but the the factories don't have the capabilities, you know, the to have the right machines to knit kid socks, for example. So that's why the organism Portugal or, or turkey. It's not impossible, but it's very, very, very close

Kris, Bon Tot  38:42  
to impossible to type. And so we will be honest, we've got this sock range coming from neck neck, but we wanted a very specific one a varsity sock, and we had this total vision. And like it can't, we're not like nobody can make this sock here. And they told us exactly why there's a piece of equipment that's missing, you know, like, blah, blah, blah. Everybody has the same story. But I think we found it quite shocking. And again, there's just like, Yeah, but let's figure this out. Like let's but yeah, but yeah, but like she wants to get it done. Then I'm like, well,

Cara, Bon Tot  39:09  
we've got this big warehouse list we can't really do that yet. But you know,

Independent Thinking  39:20  
Empire Builder because I think it's like people that this is not we don't have the answer to what we're looking for. So then we're just gonna create it and that's that is your intrapreneurial spirit within you. So actually, very briefly, Casper the name Kinbote?

Kris, Bon Tot  39:35  
Sure. Oh, yeah. So we we workshopped about quite a we did a lot of work on this. But ultimately neck neck is the name of our children. It's Nico Ari Clements

Cara, Bon Tot  39:47  
nobody knows this. This is top secret it's a big reveal right here we can reveal it Yeah.

Independent Thinking  39:55  
Oh my god. Exclusive. That's very exciting. I mean, I could I can we can you know, like Good, I could take this boat if you really don't want to, because I don't know happy to hear first. Oh my god. Okay, right. Okay, so we've got this kind of real picture of this really exciting feature of what you're building feels like a really immersive space that you're building. But if you don't want to work there kind of as an if you don't want to have that rigidity of the time being in the, you know, opening up the shop word, how would you? What does that look like for you in terms of how people can visit you? And that kind of thing? What would you think about that?

Cara, Bon Tot  40:32  
Well, we both have kids at school here. And we like to be flexible around that and other thing in other parts of our lives. So that warehouse gives us that flexibility to kind of set our own hours. So we do click and collect, I mean, I'm getting quite specific here. But customers can come in and collect during the day set times brilliant. But what we're really gearing up for, and we're really ready to do this is to open for kind of shopping events or shopping experiences. Okay? The plan will be Yeah, from November we're going to be opening it will be more frequently during the Christmas period. But normally, it'll be kind of one long weekend, a month that we plan to open, we're gonna see how it goes. And that will be our fill shopping event where you can shop everything Bonton acna, we'll have music, we might have drinks, we might have other people pop up

Kris, Bon Tot  41:15  
so far as photo opportunities against our cool like, our bespoke walls that we're painting. Like, it's like a space for everybody to enjoy.

Independent Thinking  41:24  
I love that. I love that cuz I think we talked about this before Chris about you were really, but we have spent a wee bit time actually because I'm so fascinated about it about that quality of what a good retail space can bring to the customer and how wonderful that is. And I just I love that you're doing it on your terms, you're doing it in a way that is flexible around your family life, but also that people can just take it in a new direction. I think that's really interesting.

Kris, Bon Tot  41:48  
You know, I don't often get a chance to say this, but I really remind myself of Beyonce right now, when behind the scenes of her girls run the world video, she talks extense I don't know what I watch. So documentary, she talks extensively about why do I do this to myself? Why do I always have to like top what I did before, this is so stressful. So she was in the process of like developing the video, which is amazing. And she's like, she was freaking out, like, why do I do this? This is so difficult, I can't do it. It's not gonna be better. Why do I put this pressure on myself, I feel similar. It's our Beyonce moment of like, wow, we're the ones who said, this isn't good enough, we're gonna do it different. But, you know, we're in the process of the final stages of actually executing that. And that is a lot of pressure, let's be real, we are obsessed with what we're doing. We are loving life there, right. And now it's time to show that and, and open it up and let people into our world. And we're putting a lot of pressure on herself. We wanted to be part we wanted to be perfect. And we're like, you know, we're so into it. But, you know, we realised we had like a word with her with each other, like, we just have to do like, we just have to get this thing open. It's like Beyonce wrap up the video. Like, oh, let's do it. So, we're, I think we just like to, we like what we like, you know, we like a vibe, we want to feel good there, why wouldn't we want our shopping space in our workspace to be like, amazing and suit us to the ground and like we want to hang out there. That's the whole we're creating a space we want to be in. And I think that's what we are like almost best at and like creating the things we want. That's where net net came from? Well, we just want to put out what we want in the world. And so that takes balls, and like grit and determination and belief and like time and we're that's what we've done. And I'm like I'm happy to pick that up because I think it's been an amazing step. And we just want it to be cool and we want families to enjoy their time there and I think that's exactly what it's gonna be.

Independent Thinking  43:48  
I love that also sure that just because you have children doesn't mean you can't like just because you're you're selling I feel like it's a really interesting idea to actually bring the whole family life and actually what you are as parents and individuals to show that you've run Do you know what I mean?

Kris, Bon Tot  44:05  
Totally watch I don't like the term watch the space but I mean do we have ideas on this whole thing? Yes do are we already like we need a bigger warehouse yes

Independent Thinking  44:16  
I love it got

Kris, Bon Tot  44:16  
more ideas with Cara was like this huh? Yes warehouse is pretty big but I think twice the size for like our next idea. I don't think you should shy away like To me that's how Bonton started was like well, I want the things for my kid that reflects who I am. And I think we're just in the next phase of that now of like lifestyle. Yeah, there's no reason to separate those to us like you should be enjoying yourself. The village school, or sorry, a rogue village and they own the village school as well. That was their idea. Well, like you're adults with your friends without kids should also be able to come to the space and have a good time. That is

Cara, Bon Tot  44:54  
very much that is exactly what we're creating. Yeah.

Kris, Bon Tot  44:57  
Like our pals want to come hang out. I mean shop warehouse, you know, that is great. That's is great.

Independent Thinking  45:03  
You know, I literally can't wait to visit, I'm obviously you're gonna try and keep me away. So we're coming to where South Dakota the entire time together, but I want to just touch upon well as some of touched upon some of the things that people can look forward to the space. But you've also got some really interesting collaborations one of them is with other local business at Duke. And I thought that's really is that really important to you to work with other kind of independents who are a yes flag fly the flag for portabella, but also for other people doing their own thing?

Cara, Bon Tot  45:33  
Yes, yeah, absolutely. And we are so excited about our collaborations. Yeah, first and foremost, the deck one. And it was a brilliant experience to work with Halo and she's amazing. And her product is so beautiful. It's just a lovely chance to kind of come together with brands that we feel like we have kind of affinity with. So

Kris, Bon Tot  45:53  
yeah, and you know, the the Duke collab was really I would say, led by Kara, I approached Helen at the basically at chipset slice where everything life surrounds and portabello obviously happens. It's like, I had been like, hey, we want to make a soap with you. And like, honestly, that and she was like, oh, okay, we didn't know each other very well. And I'm just like, Yeah, let's, let's have a meeting. And then so I kind of told her, I'm like, oh, yeah, I asked Helen, because we've been talking about it. And then and then it just went and Cara drove this thing. This collab. I mean, Kira is used to working with these big teams, right? So she doesn't get it how hard this is, and how long it usually takes and like, how cautious you usually have to be. So she's like, bulldoze this colab Wait, how many weeks this has been like, four weeks, four weeks, during the time of like the worst supply chain time we've all known. Like, the the like the chemist that has to approve the packaging. Everything was bespoke care insisted that like this was going to be a level that we were proud of. We're not going to like go Oh, no, we don't have time because we had to release it obviously, really soon. And I was like, oh, but we don't Oh, we don't have time and time no care would not take no. And she I can't tell you how beautiful this packaging is. And the final product is so glorious, like so glorious. I've never been so proud. And like without Kara this never would have it never would have happened. I keep saying like she doesn't know, though, the challenges that she pushes through and how much she like how much she pulls me along with that energy and that drive. So that that's for me, the Duke collab has been amazing, because it's the first time Kara and I got to work together in that way. It was it's a Grand Slam. It's like an out of the park. It's It's amazing. And that I mean, she drove the whole the whole thing. And Helen is extraordinarily organised, and time conscious. And Helen does what she says she's going to do and so that that's really important as well. But I like to reveal the second collab. Yes.

Independent Thinking  47:51  
So this is another exclusive. This is so fun. I love this.

Cara, Bon Tot  47:57  
Our second collab is a candle with summer morning studios, is a beast, candle brand. They're amazing. Gorgeous. Julian Robbie from someone wanting to deals. Yes. So show it to them. So that's going to be another product. Launch as

Kris, Bon Tot  48:10  
a neck, neck, neck. So Duke is a mon taco lab. summer morning is neck neck.

Independent Thinking  48:16  
Oh, I see. Oh, I

Kris, Bon Tot  48:18  
love magic candle neck neck would make and you're going to get a good idea of what's coming.

Independent Thinking  48:23  
Oh my gosh, I love it. So when when can people expect that it's launched.

Cara, Bon Tot  48:28  
So that the must be launching in time for Christmas. So our soaps will be launching fresh week in November, the candles will not be far behind that.

Independent Thinking  48:36  
So exciting. So so get on the socials like follow you. That's where everything's gonna be dropping. And yeah, get a link to that in the show notes. And when can people When will there be a Christmas party at the warehouse

Kris, Bon Tot  48:50  
where we're shopping the idea of having like a Point Break style Santa. He knows who he is. We want like point breaks. And we want to have Yeah, we want to have a Christmas party. We gotta we gotta get our stuff together and we will be open we will be open like in November and December. For people we just have to like our newsletters the best place to find out all this and really keep up with like our opening times and stuff obviously on social but like the newsletters gonna always point you definitely to the right, you know the right place at the right time. Brilliant. Yeah. Hey,

Independent Thinking  49:30  
I love that. And I mean, this is gonna be out of date, but the time I say this, but given the recent outage on Instagram, in email can be often more reliable in terms of getting information out there in a way that feels like you can control. So yeah, that's really ballsy put a link to that too. So thank you. It's been honestly been such a joy to speak to both and you're both such brilliant. I was gonna say like poster girls, or for what collaborative, true class operations all about. And actually, that is what partnership is and big each other up and supporting each other. And it just feels like such an exciting time. And I'm just so delighted that we can get to be with this be with you on this journey is like such an exciting thing.

Cara, Bon Tot  50:16  
Thank you so much, Tom. Not

Independent Thinking  50:19  
at all. And yeah, so you might actually do you know, I might just bring you back periodically to talk about where it would be like when you're when you're next warehouse

if you're somebody who loves independent business, just like you, or perhaps is thinking about starting their own business, why not share this episode with this could be their first step to their furniture store. And if you'd like some behind the scenes content, access to member events, and more, you can head to our show notes now to find out how you can support the show for as little as the price for coffee a month, and help keep us ad free. Join us next week when we speak to Dr. Sarah Montano again, from the University of Birmingham. We'll be speaking at retail trends, digital innovation, sustainability, and Christmas in retail. You're not gonna want to miss it. Until then, have a wonderful week. And I'll see you then bye for now.