Marcus Richards
We make blackout blinds for people who need complete darkness to sleep well – we achieve this by making sure our blinds don’t leave any gaps for light to enter.
Tell us about yourself?
My background is quite varied – my career began in radio engineering with the BBC, then I worked in training for the offshore industry, followed by involvement in a training business before a spell as a stay-at-home Mum. It was whilst at home with my very young children that I had the idea for easyblinds – basically easyblinds was the solution to a problem I encountered.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Delegate the areas that are not your strong points, where possible – it saves a lot of time!
What problem does your business solve?
Our blackout blinds help anyone whose sleep is disturbed by outside light. Most blackout curtains and blinds have gaps at the edges, and it is surprising how much light comes in through even a tiny gap.
Our blinds close all the gaps, so you can create a beautifully dark environment even in the middle of the day.
This really helps people who work night shifts, and is great for babies and young children who nap during the day. Of course it also means they don’t wake with the dawn, and makes bedtime easier when the days are long in summer.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
When she was a tiny baby, my daughter struggled to sleep if there was any light. A friend suggested using a blackout blind, so as an experiment I taped heavy duty black bin liners to her bedroom window to cut out light from outside.
This worked a treat, so I popped to the local haberdashery shop to find materials to make a blackout blind – the first easyblind. It was such a success, that friends asked me for easyblinds for their own children, and before long, I was receiving requests from friends of friends and further afield, and began to wonder if it might work as a business.
My initial thoughts were that this would be for babies and toddlers, but soon realised that this is a widespread problem and helps a great many people – night shift workers, anyone with street lighting outside the bedroom, anyone who is a light sleeper… It is a long list!
What is your magic sauce?
Our blinds really do what they promise, and are relatively inexpensive.
Without using brackets or shutters, or causing damage to window frames, our blinds cut out all outside light using removable self-adhesive attachments on the window frame. We also have a suction cup version for travelling or nights away from home.
And we pride ourselves on our customer service – we genuinely want every customer to find the perfect blackout blind for them and reap the benefits.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We are constantly developing our blinds and bringing out new innovations, and have some new ideas in the pipeline. We will also continue to expand overseas. We have done much of this through Amazon and will continue to add new countries in this way. We also have distributors in Australia and New Zealand, and hope to grow and expand our range in those countries.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
The perfect storm of Brexit and COVID was difficult! We experienced increased demand during this period, and the challenge was to meet that demand despite the difficulties these two challenges brought, both at home and overseas. Staffing was difficult with all of the issues around COVID, and international logistics were fraught with difficulties and increased expense. It is good to see the growing light at the end of that tunnel.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We want to work with more sleep trainers and organisations concerned with sleep and quality of sleep. We are also very interested in the growing Paleo movement – our blackout blinds fit well with that and we would love more involvement with groups in this area. Covid has made many of us re-evaluate how we live our lives, and appreciate the value of sleep for our general health – we would love to work with anyone concerned with getting better sleep!
