Rachel Watkyn, founder of the Tiny Box Company, is no stranger to adversity. The Crowborough local tells Natalie Li how trauma has led to triumph
To say Rachel Watkyn has been through the wringer is an understatement. A brief read through her biography – childhood trauma, battling cancer, floods, fire – it’s the stuff of nightmares.
I can’t begin to imagine how anyone could survive these knocks. But this wildly successful 50-year-old eco-entrepreneur, who now lives in a six-bedroom mansion in Crowborough, Sussex, has created a company with a £10million turnover and 100 staff. Survival is seemingly Watkyn’s modus operandi. “It was all about survival,” she nods. “As a child whenever I got home, I never knew whether my dad was going to be drunk or if my mum was going to kick off – there was constant instability.”
Watkyn, who was born in Devon, was taken into care when she was just eight months old. “I had three parents,” she says. “I was the result of an affair – I lived with my mum and stepdad, and it became apparent that I wasn’t my stepdad’s. It all came out and I was put into care.”
After two years, her parents asked for Watkyn and her siblings to be returned from care and relocated the family to Suffolk. “I had a nomad childhood, educated in nine schools and on the move a lot. It was so extreme – one minute we were living in a caravan, and next in a great mansion that we couldn’t afford. It was all an illusion,” Watkyn explains.
“I was a fiercely independent child because I had to be. When I was five-years-old, I was given a chessboard, but I had no idea how to play and no-one to play with, but I remember lining up the pieces like they were employees and telling them what to do. By the age of seven, I was picking strawberries and working all day long because I wanted the money.”
Undeterred, Watkyn completed her A-levels and went to university to read Business Studies. She started her career on a graduate scheme at John Lewis, but left to join a large software company selling financial systems. It was this job that took her to war-torn Sierra Leone where she spent weeks implementing a high-tech payroll system for the national government.
Moved by the poverty she had witnessed, Watkyn began a fairtrade business selling jewellery made by women there. But finding sturdy recycled packaging to house the jewellery was impossible and so the rest is history – Tiny Box Company was born in 2007.
With £60,000 investment from Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis, who backed her during an appearance on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den in 2008, her world was about to change for good. “I was living back home after I lost everything; I was bedridden for nine months after a failed routine appendix operation. I set up Tiny Box Company from my parents’ back bedroom, eventually ending up with offices outside East Grinstead. Over the years we seem to have followed the Bluebell Railway – today we have a warehouse in Sheffield Park.”
Recalling her nerve-racking time in the Den, Watkyn begins to laugh: “Peter and Theo must have invested in me because they felt sorry for me. They didn’t see me as a slow running horse, but as a broken donkey! It shook me a bit when they became silent partners. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought they would be around to tell me what to do.”
Jones and Paphitis are still on hand for advice. “When our website was hacked in 2019 and I didn’t know what was wrong, I panicked and cried. After five minutes I rang Theo’s head of e-commerce, and we were up and running in five hours.”
Despite the adversity she has experienced in her business and personal life, Watkyn bounces back with every blow. “The way I deal with it is by focusing on a problem bigger than myself. Once I focus on the outside it takes away my insecurities – it’s about solving that bigger problem.
“I was talking to a psychologist recently and discovered that my thinking process isn’t the same as other people’s,” she adds “Throughout childhood I visualised all the possibilities of what could happen and all the outcomes – how I would survive it. In business I do the same. Some people are taken up with stuff like ‘are people going to like me’. I never had the headspace to develop those insecurities. When I had lung cancer that started to tip me over the edge as I didn’t know whether I would survive. I had responsibility for 100 employees. I had to get on with it. My childhood taught me to be resilient.”
Her early experiences have spurred Watkyn to write a book with her eldest sister about their formative years. “My sister, unfortunately, was more affected than me. She was left to live with her dad, my stepdad, who later decided to become a woman. It has been cathartic experience for her.”
Today, life is good. Watkyn, who won the NatWest Everywoman Award in 2020, works with her husband Steve, whom she met nine years ago, and her three stepchildren Vicki, Mikey and David have since joined the business. Imparting her knowledge and experiences remains a passion. “I have been so lucky to have had some fantastic opportunities and experiences. I love helping other people succeed through my weekly business clinics. Brainstorming and sparking ideas are what I love most.”
Watkyn shows no plans of slowing down. “I would like to reach £30million turnover in the next five years and focus on Chief and Turtle, my sustainable activewear brand, which is less about profits and more about raising awareness.
“You learn a lot as a business owner and my only regret is that I should have had more confidence. We spend so much time talking ourselves out of stuff. If I had been more ballsy, I could have grown the business a lot faster, but I went for safe, stable growth.”
If slow and steady is the way to go it’s been a winning formula in Watkyn’s story – we can only imagine where her journey will take her next.
tinyboxcompany.co.uk / chiefandturtle.co.uk
Rachel Watkyn’s Sussex favourites
Ashdown Forest
Celebrated as the home of Winnie-the-Pooh, Ashdown Forest is situated within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is one of our favourite spots. It’s so beautiful here. You can walk for miles and not see anyone; getting head space from work is important to me.
Beachy Head
Beachy Head is the highest chalk sea cliff in England. You can enjoy magnificent views on a clear blue day – it’s stunning.
Red Lion Chelwood Gate
There’s nothing better than walking to Ashdown Forest first, burning some calories and enjoying some lovely pub grub!
