Keeping it in the Family: the mother and daughter team behind The Indytute on the highs and lows of running a business together

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

A close family is a wonderful thing…but what happens when you also work together? Calypso Rose and Clare Hastings run The Indytute, an online business that offers unusual and imaginative gift experiences. The experiential company, set up in 2013, is their second business together — the first, Clippykit, was set up when Calypso was 21 — leading to her nomination as an everywoman Artemis Award finalist in 2005. We talked to the mother and daughter team to find out about the highs and lows of working with a family member — and what makes their partnership tick. 

 

How did you become business partners?  

 

Clare — I worked on Harpers and Queen, before going freelance in the ‘70s. By the time I was 50, I was mainly doing commercials, and it was a dreary time for advertising. Calypso had been whittling on about making this Clippy plastic bag with pockets inside that you could put mementos in, and one day I thought, ‘oh come on then, we’ll make this bag.’ She took it out on the King’s Road…and it was an instant success. After a year I had to decide whether I was going to continue styling or throw in my lot with her. I thought, ‘I’m fed up with standing in a field with someone looking at some frozen peas’ and really, why wouldn’t you work with Calypso? She was still living at home at the time, so I was very much part of the business too because I couldn’t escape it — there was a point where my partner said, ‘This has got to change, you’re moving out,’ because we couldn’t see the television for boxes.  

 

Calypso — Clare was a stylist, nifty with a sewing machine and helped me make the first Clippy bag, sitting at the kitchen table, I went out wearing it with ‘STOP ME AND BUY ONE’ written in one of the pockets — and so many people did stop me that we put it into production. That first run cost £2,000, which was an investment by mum, and we sold 2,000 bags in the first month, turning over £180,000 in the first year. I was also working in TV at the time and when I was on a shoot mum would ring up and say, ‘Someone wants a bag by the end of the day!’ and rush around to deliver it. So, it was a partnership from the beginning. 

 

Why did you create The Indytute and go into business together a second time? 

 

Calypso — Clippykit ran for 10 years, and by 2013 I had had a thirties crisis, got rid of all the ’stuff’ in my life because I wanted to feel freer and moved onto a boat. With Clippykit I wanted to be a millionaire and in The Indytute I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice time. I’ve got a really nice work/life balance now, which was one of my values, and I also love coming up with new ideas, something that having a small business allows you to do. 

 

Clare – I remember Calypso saying one day, ‘We’ve got 20,000 makeup bags coming from China, I can’t be dealing with this anymore!’ And I thought that it was probably the end, and I was going to have to start looking for something else to do. I was a bit sad. And then one day when were in a pub she said, ‘I’ve had this idea, we’ve got to do experiences’, and by the time we’d finished our drinks that was it, we’d found the name and The Indytute was born. 

 

How does your dynamic work in the business? 

 

Calypso — My mum is someone to chat to, who’s on my team and that I trust implicitly, and she is a lot of fun. I couldn’t do it without her. 

 

Clare — I’m always excited when we’ve achieved something, and excited for Calypso. We share each other’s successes and have each other’s backs and that’s important in a business. It can be very lonely otherwise. In terms of our working dynamic, Clippykit was her company from the start, and I made that clear, but obviously because I was older and had had a lot of time in business, I could help steer her through things. Now, in The Indytute I am very much the junior partner. 

 

What skills do you bring as entrepreneurs, and have they changed? 

 

Clare — I’m the wordsmith for The Indytute — having written three books over the past few years. I’ll write anything that turns up on the website and because I know Calypso so well I can ‘Clippy’ the tone. Neither of us like sales, and probably if one of us had been much better at selling that would have been a good thing in the beginning… 

 

Calypso – …We’d both say, ‘You get on the frontline, you call them!’ ‘No, you call them!’ And then both just throw ourselves into packing! We ended up doing a lot of trade shows with Clippykit as a result, because when we see people face-to-face, we can chat and then happen to sell a bag. It would also have been helpful in the beginning if we’d had someone in the business that was better at figures — both of us were good at marketing and design. But I think I’ve become better at that as we’ve gone along. 

 

Have you had any challenges in your working relationship? 

 

Calypso — I suppose the challenge was when I finished Clippykit and not wanting to let my mum down. We probably should have ended the company about two years earlier. I also find it very difficult calling her Clare, but it doesn’t feel very professional calling her ‘mum’ in a business context. Although mum does sometimes talk quite a lot and I’ve accidently said ‘Mum!’ on occasions in meetings.  

 

Clare – If people don’t know us, they will ask whether we’re related, because we have a similar look and the same mannerisms. In meetings, we always talk as ‘Clare and Calypso’, though, otherwise it would be bonkers!  

 

What advice would you give to somebody going into business with a family member? 

 

Calypso — Make sure you’ve got the same values. And if there’s money involved make sure there’s a plan on how it’s going to be repaid and a plan if it can’t be repaid. Lastly, running a business is a rollercoaster with long hours, but remember that they are your family member too, not just your business partner, so make time to have fun together. 

 

Clare — Working with a family member can be tricky, but I think you know whether you can do it or not just by how much time you spend together naturally. You should know the family member very well, and they should bring something unique to the party. And remember, most of the time it’s just hard graft, not, ‘Let’s all be jolly together’. 

 

What have you discovered about yourself and each other through this journey together? 

 

Clare – I’ve discovered a lot more about Calypso, than myself, because I knew the things I could do. What surprises me is how incredibly focused she is. I think I’ve discovered that I’m better than I thought I was, though, and that I can do more than I thought I could. I was brought up with a very ambitious and successful peer group and I never thought I was quite as good as they were. I’ve actually realised I am and that’s rather cheering. 

 

Calypso — What have I learned about myself? That when things go wrong, I can stand up to the challenge and coming up with new ideas and solutions really excites me — and it actually helped to save the business by pivoting our events online this year. What have I discovered about my mum? She is a legend, but then I knew that…