Honu Play was founded after founder Claire Matthews pondered research that states that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. Photo / Supplied
Honu Play was founded after founder Claire Matthews pondered research that states that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. Photo / Supplied
Claire Matthews, founder of environmentally-friendly toy company Honu Play, talks starting her firm in London before moving back to New Zealand and why toys are the first of many products she has in store for her firm.
What does your business do?
Honu is a design brand that works toreduce plastic pollution through thoughtful and sustainable designed objects for the home. Our debut product is a kids' toy, Greta the Great, which is a turtle toy designed for the bath and water play and it is made out of recycled fishing nets. The toy industry is 90 per cent made of plastic still so that is an important focus area for us, but we do want to diversify and design other objects that are useful and functional for the home as well. If you think about other products around your home that are made of plastic right now; we would love to make recycled plastic alternatives.
Honu launched in 2020 during a London summer. We were free from lockdown at the time. I started the business in London but relocated back to New Zealand after running it there for about two years. I always planned to bring it back here with me, but I do have some of my logistics run out of the UK, a fulfilment centre, and I'm planning to be bringing that more back to New Zealand to have it all on the ground here.
What was the motivation for starting it?
I had heard that by 2050 we were going to have more plastic in the ocean than fish, and I had just had my first child, my daughter, and I was thinking 'Oh gosh, that is only 30 years away - I'll only be 60 and she'll still only be 30; what is the world going to look like?'. I pictured myself on the beach with my daughter and possibly my grandchildren and I thought 'I don't want to be feeling guilty that I didn't do something about the plastic crisis'.
We started with a Kickstarter campaign, which was a great way to get proof of concept. We raised £10,000, about $20,000, that wasn't enough to get our first product on to the manufacturing machine, but it was a helpful start. We got a business loan of another $20,000 to start the business.
The team is myself and then we have a design director, Tim, who is another Kiwi based in London, who has amazing experience with global design brands for interior products. It is mostly just us, but we've recently brought on a business adviser who is instrumental as well.
Day-to-day it is just me. I'm a full-time mum to a 1-year-old as well as a 3-year-old so nap times and evenings I get straight on to my computer.
What is your current focus?
At the moment I am spending a lot of time on doing a full overhaul on our strategy and looking at logistics and how we are going to move forward with that in New Zealand.
Where do you see the business in three to five years' time?
At the moment 90 per cent of toys in the market are made of plastic so really the mission is that we will help to reshape the toy industry to make it more sustainable, and to be known as a design brand that is known for making products as beautiful as they are sustainable. Hopefully next year we will launch a new product.
Wholesale and selling to other retailers is a great way to get our products out there as they already have their own communities and they can help to spread the message about plastic pollution. We are about to be stocked in Nature Baby from August which is exciting. Nature Baby is great, I would say I'm mostly interested for it to help with general exposure and hopefully sales increase will follow as well. We have no plans to have our own physical stores, we want to grow our direct-to-consumer channel on our website.
Claire Matthews founded Honu Play when she was living in London. Photo / Supplied
How are you finding being a first-time business owner?
I'm finding it great so far. My working experience is in directing so I was self-employed for about 10 years as a director making content and commercials for the fashion industry and beauty industry, so I certainly know how to manage my own time and make sure that I am getting ahead of work and so that autonomy is familiar, but Honu is a very different project that I am working on. It is really exciting and nice to have something that is a bit more tangible that I can get people's reaction to as opposed to just putting a film out on the internet and you never know what people think of it.
What advice do you give others thinking about starting their own business?
If you're launching into something new and you're not sure about it or it feels scary, take one step and then take another step if it feels good; you just don't know where you'll end up.
