Jen’s journey with Etta Loves began with muslins, something that she knew was in every nursery. The business has since grown rapidly and features an entire product line including playmats, flash cards, bath toys, and a grasp ball, which Jen says has been a big hit both in the UK and the US when it launched earlier in the year. Another area the brand has explored is artist collaborations. In 2023, they announced that they had partnered with Keith Haring, whose pop art was influenced by New York’s graffiti scene. Haring’s ethos is that art is for everyone, which Jen felt was a natural fit for the message behind Etta Loves. As a mother-to-be myself, I was present at the intimate gathering in Shoreditch where Jen sat on a panel with acclaimed artist Camille Walala and moderated by Anna Whitehouse—commonly known as Mother Pukka—to reveal the Etta Loves x Walala Studio collection. The ladies discussed the natural alignment in their values and the excitement around the new launch. Camille Walala’s lively patterns and bold colours can now be found in a variety of Etta Loves products, such as playmats and hanging squares for prams and car seats.
In this edition of Women Who Launch, The Sybarite speaks with Jen Fuller on the challenges of being a solo founder and why she continues to be spellbound by science.
Do you believe your background in Marketing helped once you made the leap to becoming a business owner?
It certainly helped me to build the foundations of a strong brand from day one and to carefully consider and determine our vision, value, and tone of voice. It also gave me the confidence to plan and create content and grow our social channels. What I didn’t have, though, unlike many product business founders, was any manufacturing know-how, so I found the process of bringing a physical product to market extremely challenging and made many mistakes along the way.
What is one of the hardest things about being a solo founder?
It’s both the over-confidence and the self-doubt at the same time. There have been things that I felt instinctively were right and there was no one to slow me down and question them more—and they turned out to be bad decisions. So I really miss having someone who brings another point of view and way of looking at things.
Why was it so important for you to work with scientific experts in the field of infant vision when building your Etta Loves products?
I’m a strong believer that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. So I wasn’t going to take the lazy route and just put random black and white patterns onto our range knowing that there was so much research about infant vision we could employ. I went out to my friends and acquaintances to help find an expert to accompany me on the journey and input into the design from day one. That’s where I found our orthoptist, Laura, who provides critical input into our design process. We then bolstered this further with a scientific partnership with The University of Sussex Baby Lab, which enabled us to test and optimise patterns with babies in the lab, as well as keep on top of, and generate, novel research in the field.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
I always give the same advice: Make sure that what you’re going to make or offer meets a genuine need and is better than anything out there already. If you have something original or better, you’ll have a far greater chance at cutting through and creating a successful business.
Could you walk me through your design process and how you map out new collections?
The first part is always a range review, looking at where we are strong in sales and margin, what customers are asking for, any moments that we can make easier with a better-designed, scientific-led product, and what the market trends are across fashion, interiors, and baby. From there, I create a mood board of inspiration for the prints and products and simultaneously brief our pattern designer Shruti and our orthoptist Laura. The next stage is feedback, making any amends, and then off they go into sampling with one of our incredible factory partners.
Your new Etta Loves x Camille Walala collection is fabulous! How did you first approach Camille to discuss this collaboration?
I boldly emailed Camille and her Studio Director Julia showing them who we were and what makes us different—specifically highlighting our Keith Haring collaboration, knowing that he is an inspiration for Camille’s work—and asking if they would be interested in discussing how we might collaborate. They replied very quickly with a yes, so we met and around 10 months later, the collection launched and has been very well-received. It was a dream of a process from start to finish, to be honest.
Could you share some B2B best practices for getting distribution for your brand at key retailers?
I think the key is consistency and patience. Buyers at bigger retailers need to know that there is a proven and consistent market for your product, that you can scale your manufacturing, and that you are offering something interesting and unique for their customers. It has taken several years from the first conversation to our brand bein on the shelves for some retailers, and patience is not one of my natural strengths. But showing up, pushing forward, and staying on brand and true to our values has meant we’ve stayed on their radar until the time has been right to bring us onboard.
Tell me more about your NICU donation programme
I noticed that we were being tagged in lots of people’s photos of their babies in NICU, and customer reviews were highlighting how our sensory prints were both supporting the babies whilst in their incubators and during tests and observation. But they were also making the parents feel like their babies had something special amongst the sterile medical environment. This really touched me and gave me the idea to create a specific NICU print. So I asked our community if anyone had a child who started life in a NICU and might draw some hearts for us. That’s how I created our ‘Heartists’ whose beautiful hearts were correctly scaled and turned into a pattern, with our expert’s input, to make them visible for even the smallest of babies and provide that extra hope and support to parents going through such an incredibly difficult start with their babies. We printed these muslins in a new size for us, having consulted with a NICU ward sister on how they would use them and what size would be most useful for the babies, and produced them to gift. We now receive nominations from customers through our website and social channels for NICUs to donate to and send them out every month on behalf of those families who benefited from that NICU’s exceptional care and support.
What’s next for Etta Loves?
We have some big expansion plans in the US with an exciting new retail partner coming onboard imminently and are lining up our next brand and product collaborations for 2025 and 2026. Product-wise, we have two new toys launching in mid-November as part of the Walala Studio collaboration. This is going to be an especially interesting launch as the success of those products will help determine what else we will plan into our range for slightly older babies from 2025 onwards. The beauty of being a small business is that we can be agile and pivot towards new insight and opportunities. It might not be an easy road ahead as a retailer in turbulent trading times, but it’s certainly going to be an exciting one.
Etta Loves
Website: https://www.ettaloves.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ettaloves
