We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melinda Frandsen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Melinda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
When my fourth child was born I was desperate to go on adventures with my little family. Camping was all we could afford, so we camped! But there was so much gear involved and no great way to pack it all with four little people. Packing and accounting for everything made me a total stress case. I hated toting multiple bags along with all my babies, so I dreamt of having one bag that could carry all the essentials for me and my four children. When I went searching for our family dream bag, nothing on the market met my needs. So I drew it up and over the course of a couple of years, hired designers and found the best team over seas to help me develop it.
Before I began testing my design, I would lug around a separate bag (or two) for each of my four children–each containing extra clothes, extra coloring books, extra diapers, etc. And it was all so…extra! TBH, so was my attitude. Carrying around all those spare outfits felt like carrying boulders in my bag, especially when my kid insisted on simply repeating his favorite t-shirt day after day. Then came the blessed moment when I finally cracked the code: less stuff=less stress! I wanted one bag that could help me simplify and organize all the family’s gear on the go. Two years and about a dozen prototypes later, along came the TOBIQ travel bag. And I haven’t looked back! It’s sectional multi compartment design is one of a kind, with a utility patent pending in the U.S. I was influenced to sell this bag because I believe it can help families travel better.
I make bags designed to help parents simplify and streamline their family packing experience. Toss your black-hole style bags and packing cubes! They weren’t designed with families in mind and don’t serve your travel experience. TOBIQ travel bags are built with the energy of families who crave experiences together in the world. We want to give care-givers the tools they need to organize and simplify their adventures together. We understand, traveling with children is hard enough! Creating TOBIQ bags is so exciting because I get to see my design lighten the heavy load of parents and care-givers.
Melinda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a mom of four who loves to travel with her kids. Family adventures, however, can get complicated. I created TOBIQ, the family duffel bag, to help me simplify family travel. It is a patent pending design, improving the utility of standard soft-sided luggage with the needs of care-givers in mind. Rather than enduring the “packing soup” experience of a one-giant-pocket duffel bag, TOBIQ bags offer users four separate compartments. Each compartment is individually accessed along the top of the bag and contains interior organizational bungees and zippers. It is like having four bags in one! And for parents, who always have more than enough to carry, TOBIQ offers a simplified packing solution for group travel. It replaces diaper bags, clothing bags, toiletry bags, and packing cubes because it’s deliberate design has a separate and stable space for everything. It even has stowable backpack straps that pop out when you need your arms available to carry your little people.
I am very proud of this business I’ve built with my family. I’m proud that I saw an unmet need in the market for duffel bags designed for groups like mine. I’m proud that I’m a mom whose kids help her package products in her basement. I’m proud that I represent and speak to a community of care givers who need better tools to help them have courage to travel with their little people. Nothing makes me happier than seeing TOBIQ bags out in the world, helping groups have incredible adventures together. On a personal level, this business means that I found inspiration in my own challenging circumstances. And its success means that we need more solutions coming from the care givers of the world.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Four months after we launched online sales for TOBIQ, my husband had a massive heart attack. It was the eve of our daughter’s 4th birthday in 2020. The kids were asleep, we were putting up streamers when he grabbed his chest and fell unconscious on our living room floor. I called 911, performed CPR for 11 minutes and prayed with everything I had that my efforts would be enough. At the hospital the ER doc told me he had suffered a “widow maker” clot as they were performing surgery. They placed a stint, put him in a hypothermic coma, and our world stopped for three days. Angel family and friends rallied around us and he awoke with full use of his brain and body. The effect of this event has rippled into every detail of my life. The trauma is still teaching me. The memory still haunts me. But the healing we have all experienced has empowered us. It was slow and steady for a long time after the event, but it gave us an excuse to shift gears and reevaluate where we are going and what we want most. Working together on the business was a beautiful mental escape in those months when we exhausted our emotions and unanswered questions about his health. It also gave us empathy, and beautiful personal connection with patients battling life threatening diseases. My husband, Jonny, is a cancer doctor who understands what it means to wade through medical mysteries, and frustrations. We also know the importance of finding help and hope.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
We manufacture our products through a small, family owned factory in Vietnam. I connected with them after months and months of cold calls and random connections. Not many people are forthcoming when it comes to their supply chain. I spoke with a handful of bag designers who ultimately helped me find the right people to produce our high quality, custom design. However, launching a duffel bag company right before travel shut downs in 2020 was a bit of a doozy…not to mention navigating the after math of my husband’s heart attack just a few months later. Once we all survived 2020, the aftershock in our supply chain lasted all through 2021. We sold out again and again, without a lot of certainty about when our next shipment would arrive. But I kept the brand development alive and well, constantly making new connections and building trust through our Instagram and Facebook communities. Working with suppliers is a long, hard road with many curve balls and pot holes along the way. Consistent communication is key. I tried to pivot to other suppliers, but I had no connections and other factories that sampled for me were rather pathetic and reproducing the quality product I was proud of. Ultimately, I stuck with our high-quality, small supplier. We drew up contracts and created forecasts for our orders that motivated their production timelines.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tobiqtravel.com
- Instagram: @tobiqtravel
- Facebook: @tobiqtravel
- Youtube: @tobiqtravel
Image Credits
Nicole Maxfield Photography