Tikiboo Ltd was created in May 2014 by the team of newly-wed husband and wife, Faye and Daniel Jobbins. Wanting to work on a project together shortly after their wedding, Faye, coming from a sales and marketing background (as well being a fitness instructor and an electronics engineer) combined her skills with Daniel (a Creative Digital Developer and technical web guru) to create Tikiboo.
The concept originally came from Faye’s frustration of never being able to find fun and exciting gym wear. Being a fitness fanatic, Faye found that she was living in gym clothes more often than standard clothes and wanted something that stood out from the crowd.
Bored of the traditional pink and black combos dominating the gyms and struggling to find any colourful activewear clothes within the UK at affordable prices, Faye looked further afield and started importing bright clothing from Brazil and Australia. This soon became an expensive habit with the addition of high shipping charges and import duties.
Faye then had an idea and decided to work with Daniel to create their own range of wild, colourful leggings to sell in the UK.
The idea for the name of the brand was quite random.
“We needed something quirky, something silly but punchy enough to be remembered.
We originally wanted the brand to be a small boutique and while trying to think of words which work alongside ‘boutique’, the name itself accidentally appeared when we rearranged the word ‘Bou-tique’ to ‘Tique-bou’. After a few hours of playing around with that idea, Tikiboo was born!”
Daniel created the brand logo shortly after and then began building the website.
“We soon found manufacturers to bring our designs to life and after a few refinements, we were happy with the products”.
After months of hard work, the website finally launched in February 2015 and the initial demand took Faye and Daniel completely by surprise: people bought (and loved) Tikiboo leggings!
Faye and Daniel were initially picking and packing all orders in their living room, juggling the Tikiboo business alongside their day jobs.
“We were doing everything in-house: all photography (Daniel took photos and Faye modelled), packing, physically taking sacks of parcels to post office, creating marketing campaigns, writing product descriptions, social media posts, SEO, customer service, managing returns...literally everything between the 2 of us! There were weeks when 3 hours sleep a night became normality. We were like Tikiboo robots.”
Their daughter wanted to be involved also.
“Our daughter loved the leggings, but they were too big for her to wear at the time. She eventually convinced us to work on a kid’s range. These soon became very popular at her school and all the girls now proudly strutted around in her creations!”
As the demand for Tikiboo increased, their home was literally overflowing with leggings.
It physically became unpractical to grow any further in those surroundings and they soon realised that the company was fast becoming much bigger than 2 people could handle.
“We had to let go of many of our initial roles for both our sanity and to be able to direct the future growth of the company. We now have several external teams involved who help us achieve our goals, including external photographers, models, marketing agencies and PR teams”.
Tikiboo eventually moved to a warehouse where a team now manage the daily picking and packing of orders to make sure they arrive with customers as smoothly as possible.
Tikiboo provides colourful activewear products which are bright, loud and fun, allowing people to stand out from the crowd while wearing something that can become an instant talking point to those around them.
“We often hear stories of people that have become friends through their love of Tikiboo as they recognise others wearing our products at events and start talking to new people!
This is what makes it so special for us: Tikiboo is no longer about us or the leggings, it’s about the community spirit and bringing like-minded, passionate people together (all with a love of fitness and bright, fun clothing).
We love our customers who contribute photos of themselves wearing Tikiboo to our social media channels and we try to repost as many as possible. Seeing how much excitement our products bring to people is what drives us and keeps us focused to continue growing the brand.”
If you have any questions we are always happy to help and welcome all feedback to help us improve our services and develop better products.
Please contact us here.