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Louise Tanguay: Sleep Store co-founder and director on the company turning 20 · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. Now.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The Sleep Store is turning twenty. If you've had kids
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: in the last twenty years, but definitely if you've had
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: kids in the last ten years, you know exactly what
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about when I say the Sleep Store. It's
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  Speaker 2: one of the go to retailers for parents to get
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: sleep gear for babies and toddlers. The co founder and
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the director, Louise Tangy, is with us now.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Hi Louise, Hi, Heather, thank you for having me.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the congratulations. Does it feel like a childhead in twenty.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, it does.
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  Speaker 4: My fifth child head between number two and three. Lord,
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's pretty wild.
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  Speaker 2: That must have been a mental time for you.
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  Speaker 3: It was a mental time.
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  Speaker 4: I was reflecting on it just this morning and thinking
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  Speaker 4: I started the business the same month I started at
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: play Center, both of which were pretty wild.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So why did you do that? Why did you have
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  Speaker 2: two children and then start a business?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I had talked about starting a business for a while.
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  Speaker 4: I'd worked in retail always right through school, finished at university,
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  Speaker 4: carried on working in retail, and my husband and I
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  Speaker 4: had talked about it, and I kept talking about it,
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  Speaker 4: and finally he had said, we're you.
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  Speaker 3: Just stop talking about it and get on with it
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  Speaker 3: kind of words, but probably a bit blunter than that.
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  Speaker 4: And I had been working in the city between number
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  Speaker 4: child number one and two, and just the cost of daycare,
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  Speaker 4: the long commute, you know, morning and night with two
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  Speaker 4: screaming kids in the car didn't really appeal. And we
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  Speaker 4: live out way out west and so it was a
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  Speaker 4: long you know, a long drive without a great road,
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  Speaker 4: and so it was just the opportunity to you know,
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  Speaker 4: use my career experience really and give it a shot
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  Speaker 4: setting up something small from home. It was right when
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: e commerce was really new, and I didn't know anybody
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  Speaker 4: else who had done anything like it. But I thought,
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  Speaker 4: what the heck, how badly can it go?
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  Speaker 2: So were you one of the first retailers in New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand that was doing online with baby stuff?
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  Speaker 3: I believe I was. Yeah, there were there were quite soon.
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  Speaker 4: There were a few other small ones, But when I
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  Speaker 4: started my kind of concept of the sleep store, there
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  Speaker 4: was nothing like it in the world. There was nobody
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  Speaker 4: kind of gathering together really specialist products and useful information
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  Speaker 4: and kind of support and sort of packaging that up
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  Speaker 4: to make life easier for new parents. And yeah, really
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  Speaker 4: there was not a lot of online shopping then, it was.
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  Speaker 4: It was kind of yeah. I didn't actually do any
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  Speaker 4: really online shopping myself at that point, so I was.
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  Speaker 2: Pretty cureous to be fair.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: No, okay, what do you reckon?
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  Speaker 2: Is your most popular product at the moment by far?
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  Speaker 3: And most popular product is our war baby sleeping pig.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I've got a thousand of them. How
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  Speaker 2: good are they?
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  Speaker 3: Well? I thank you very much for your shopping with us.
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  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they they just every year, they just continue to
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  Speaker 4: be popular. People just love them because they just last
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  Speaker 4: so well and they're so cozy, and you don't have
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  Speaker 4: to worry about all the complicated togs and charts and
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  Speaker 4: you know, measuring everything exactly. That just kind of use
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  Speaker 4: common sense and good judgment, which is important for parenting.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's nice to know the kids are safe,
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  Speaker 2: although because you know, with the blankets. But my one,
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  Speaker 2: because you know how girls are genius babies, My one
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  Speaker 2: has figured.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Out how safe are She's figured out how.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: To unzip her sleep her sleepsack, So we have to
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  Speaker 2: zip her in backwards now, so she can't let herself
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  Speaker 2: out all the time.
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  Speaker 3: Yep, that sounds like the technique. Definitely put it on backwards.
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  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, they so well put something pop something
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  Speaker 4: over the top.
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  Speaker 3: Just put a T shirt or something over the top.
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  Speaker 2: Idea as well.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now, but then she gets in because then like it
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  Speaker 2: starts an idea, So then she starts at the bottom,
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  Speaker 2: gets her legs out. Then she just done up all
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the clothes. Like she doesn't undress herself any other time
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  Speaker 2: other than when she like anyway, what can you do backwards?
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  Speaker 3: You could?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could maybe.
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  Speaker 4: Try her in a suit, so he legs it out
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  Speaker 4: to start with, so a little feet are sticking out
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  Speaker 4: at the bottom, and maybe that'll be a new novelty.
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  Speaker 3: She can pull her socks off instead.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, great, because I want her to stay awake
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  Speaker 2: for ages. Hey, what do you reckon? I think part
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  Speaker 2: of why your business works really well is that, And
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  Speaker 2: people don't really talk about this a lot, but mums
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  Speaker 2: get like overloaded with anxiety when they first have kids,
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  Speaker 2: and I think your business takes a lot of that
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  Speaker 2: anxiety out of the out of the just out of
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  Speaker 2: the frame altogether, don't you think.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's really nice of you to say that, and
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  Speaker 3: I'm really glad that that was your experience with it.
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  Speaker 4: Like that was one of the aims from day one
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  Speaker 4: to just you know, sift through all the vast amount
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  Speaker 4: of information. You know, back when I started it, it was
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  Speaker 4: actually mostly books. You know, I actually had to read
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  Speaker 4: loads and loads of books about baby's sleep, some of
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  Speaker 4: which I threw across the room because they were hideous.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, actually just.
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  Speaker 4: Trying to distill it down to what are the most
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  Speaker 4: useful things and not not be judging about it. Just
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  Speaker 4: here's some practical things that work. They might work for you,
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  Speaker 4: something else might work for you. But I do think,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I think now things have been made very
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  Speaker 4: complicated for parents, with loads of apps and people tracking everything,
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  Speaker 4: almost measuring everything.
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  Speaker 3: It's more complicated than the West.
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  Speaker 2: Did you go for the sleep training yourself.
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  Speaker 3: With my own children? Yeah, I didn't need to in
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  Speaker 3: the way of like leaving them crying or any of that.
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  Speaker 4: Most my children will had dummies from little Remember my
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  Speaker 4: mom's saying, what do you mean they're not going to
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  Speaker 4: have a dummy.
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  Speaker 3: He's a dummy. She just produced twin for me, which
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  Speaker 3: is useful. And then I just taught them.
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  Speaker 4: To put the dummy back in for themselves, put lots
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  Speaker 4: of them in the cot, made sure they were warm
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  Speaker 4: and fed, and then just popped the dummy in. And
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  Speaker 4: then eventually they figured that out. So, you know, people
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  Speaker 4: need to do what's right for their family. That's different,
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  Speaker 4: you know, in different households, and that's why our website
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  Speaker 4: covers information on lots of different techniques. You know, gently,
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  Speaker 4: gently or do nothing or if you're you know, suffering
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  Speaker 4: from horrendous sleep deprivation and nearly crushed your car because
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: you can't think straight, then we've got its technique to
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  Speaker 4: you know, get some sleep for everybody.
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  Speaker 2: You're good on your Louise, Hey, thank you very much
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  Speaker 2: for just doing such a great job for us all,
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  Speaker 2: and good luck with the next twenty years. It's Louis Tangay,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: who is the Sleep Store co founder and director.
• 6:32
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