She dove into research on early childhood development, trying to understand exactly how the flashing lights and sounds of baby toys affected her young son’s neural pathways, but she couldn’t find any answers.
That experience led her and her friend Roderick Morris to co-found Boise, Idaho-based Lovevery in 2015. The company makes developmentally-focused toys, play equipment, and learning guides for parents for children ages 0-5.
The company made $226 million in revenue last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, and Rolf said the company aims to reach profitability this year.
Loveberry’s toys were inspired by the toys Rolf handcrafted for her son, each designed to foster a specific developmental stage. She recalls, for example, having her husband buy a piece of PVC pipe from the hardware store, sawing through a section, and watching her son thread something through the pipe. The goal was to help him further grasp the concept of items being contained within other items.
“It was so empowering, and it was so exciting to see him just light up when I gave him these experiences,” Rolf said.
Here’s how she and Morris got started.
Before launching Loveberry, Rolf was co-founder of organic baby food company Happy Family, which was founded in 2005. She had been friends with Morris for more than a decade, who has experience helping grow technology startups, including serving as marketing and operations director at energy company Opower.
“We never thought [Lovevery] “We thought of this as just a toy company,” says Morris, 52. “We thought of it as a platform to help parents and kids engage in early childhood activities together.”
Lovevery products are designed in Boise, Idaho and manufactured in Asia.
Zach Voss | CNBC Make It
They decided to start simple, with just one product: a play gym. It was the most popular item on most people’s baby gift lists, but many of the existing options were “cheap,” says Rolf. “We wanted it to be beautiful and fit into the home’s aesthetic, and of course we wanted it to be developmentally appropriate, and based around these subtle stages of the first 12 weeks.”
They spent nearly two years developing Loveberry Play Gym with $2 million in seed funding, finally launching it in 2017. At $140, it was roughly three times the price of the most expensive play mats on the market at the time, Rolf says, but the play gym came with soft cotton forms to grab onto, a teething ring to keep your baby entertained from the time he first crawls on his tummy until his first birthday, and a guidebook for each stage of brain development.
A Loveberry spokesperson said that within a year of its launch, the product had sold more toys than any other play gym on Amazon.
“I thought, if it’s worth that much, I’m willing to give it a go and people will want it,” Rolf says. “It was a big risk, but it paid off.”
In 2018, Lovevery offered a subscription play kit for babies aged 0-12 months for $80 every two months. The goal was to build an ongoing relationship with families, and we’re always up to date on the latest research, so you can rest assured. We regularly send out toys that are appropriate for your child’s current developmental stage.
Loveberry currently sells subscription kits for kids up to age 5, each priced at an average of $40 per month, and has more than 350,000 subscribers in 34 countries, accounting for 86% of the company’s revenue, according to a spokesperson.
Morris added that the high price is a byproduct of quality: Loveberry’s cost-cutting efforts range from seeking out low-cost manufacturers to tweaking how the wood is cut for each product.
“When we first started, we were under a lot of pressure from investors to find ways to make our product cheaper in order to increase our margins and make the business more profitable,” Morris says. “Instead, we focused on finding ways to remove costs from our structure that had no impact on the product whatsoever.”
Lovevery’s first product, Play Gym, was launched in 2017.
Rafi Paul | CNBC Make It
Customers don’t seem to be fazed: A Bloomberg Second Measure report published in 2021 found that buyers were more likely to return repeatedly over the next two years than competitors Kiwico and Little Passport.
With loyalty comes praise and money: Loveberry was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024 in March. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and NFL star Patrick Mahomes, whose company is funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, have shared photos of their children using Loveberry’s products.
Morris said the company’s total funding has reached $132 million, including a $100 million raise led by private equity firm Chernin Group. A Loveberry spokesperson noted that the co-founders hold a controlling stake in the company.
While increasing customer numbers is paramount (Loveberry needs economies of scale to be profitable, Rolf says), the company is not rushing any decisions at the moment.
“We can’t rush the process,” Morris says. “We need to be as thoughtful and obsessive as we need to be to make something that people will love and that kids will enjoy playing with.”
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