Brightplaybox was founded by Lisa to help parents receive the information and tips they need to know about their child’s development at the right time.  

We met Lisa for a perfect blend of caffeine and sugar to keep energized.

ParentVille: Can you tell us a bit about your business and how it all started?
Lisa: brightplaybox is all about making playtime hassle-free for parents and developmentally beneficial for their children. Like most new parents, I felt completely exhausted and pretty clueless after my son was born. My husband and I completely missed that a baby’s vision can be best stimulated by high contrast black and white books and toys in the first months. That got us thinking about what else we were missing that would help our son get the best start in life.  We couldn’t find any great development information that was packaged in a useful way and we felt completely overwhelmed with the choice of toys and which ones were best for what age. For example, if you search for a toy for a 1 year old on amazon, there are over 25,000 hits of which over 2,500 have 4 or more stars.  As a tired and time-poor mum I simply didn’t have the energy and buying the right toy felt like a bit of a lottery!

P: How would you describe brightplaybox?
L: brightplaybox helps you encourage your child’s development by delivering the right toys, books and activities at the right time. What makes us different is that we build everything from ‘development first’ principles – each box is created based on the key development milestones for a child’s age and we carefully select only quality toys, books and activities that help encourage meeting these. This is all captured in our brightplaybox development guide, which gives parents the information and tips they need to know about their child’s development at the right time.

P: How did you actually start?
L: At home around the kitchen table! I had been speaking to parents about my idea for some months and kept getting really positive feedback and people telling me they wanted a box so one day I just decided to give it a go!

P: How did you manage to balance being a mum and being the co-founder of a company?
L: It’s hard.  I’m still working on this and by no means have it perfect yet. I assign different times during the week for different activities and try not to let them overlap, though it’s hard not to read emails on my phone when I’m with my son.  I also write a lot of lists to make the different aspects of my life a bit simpler!

P: What is your biggest achievement so far?
L: Every time we get a new customer & then get positive feedback I think of that as an achievement.

P: What advice can you give to a young parent starting a business?
L: Just do it! It’s so easy to overthink things and let all the doubts creep in but I think if you have an idea you’re really passionate about you should give it a go.  I also think you should speak to as many people as you can to get some early feedback as to whether other people think it’s as good an idea as you do.  But even if they don’t that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t do it!

P: Why is work so important to you?
L: I enjoy the sense of achievement I get through work. I get excited when I see my ideas become a reality.  I also love that I can have my own identity through my work.

P: What are your favourite hangout places / activities as a family?
L: At the moment our son loves animals so we’ve been visiting the zoo, farms and lots of parks to see them.  I can often be seen making lots of animal noises and silly gestures but I’ve been stumped by giraffes, camels and penguins!

P: What are your future plans?
L: I plan to keep working on brightplaybox and growing the company.

P: Your funniest parenting moment!
L: My son’s going through a bit of a phase where he walks up to most men he sees, points right at them and calls them Daddy.  The other week when I was out, he managed to approach 8 different men!

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