What started out as an initiative for her family to lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle, soon flourished into something meaningful for both the planet and other families around the world. Meet Karen Villard, the founder of Cubo Toys – and all things fun and sustainable!
We love entrepreneurs and small business owners at Honeycombers, which is why we’ve created Launchpad, a comprehensive digital networking platform (with IRL benefits, too) that encourages connection, business support, and community. It is a privilege and pleasure to learn from so many talented and inspiring folks, so we’ve decided to share the love by interviewing some of the lovely Launchpad members. Looking for inspiration? Check out how Karen Villard, Chief of Play at Cubo Toys, gets it done!
How I get it done: Karen Villard
What is your backstory and why did you decide to launch your business?
We’re young parents who started a sustainable living journey for our family. While living in Australia, we discovered and bought wooden toys for our children. However, they are mostly close-ended toys that we’ll no longer need once our children achieves a particular skill or is no longer challenged by its purpose. While wooden toys are eco-friendly, we’ve asked ourselves what we can do more to make our impact minimal. We envision a playroom that is both minimal and sustainable, where parents can help their children meet their learning goals while leading an eco-conscious lifestyle.
I’m the preschool co-founder of our family kindergarten in the Philippines, worked as an early years educator in Australia and Hong Kong, a play advocate for a US non-profit organisation (Genius of Play) promoting play-based learning, and a mum of two young children – a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. So, it made sense for me to develop educational toys for the planet, the children, and our homes.
I think my journey is unique because of my personal and professional backgrounds that I’m sensitive to our impact on our planet. I’ve also based my company’s name to the Filipino term “kubo”, which is a native hut made of wood and dry leaves. What’s great about this hut, unlike the others, is that it’s modular or multi-usable, in the sense that we can change the parts (say, add a kitchen or remove a toilet) or move it to other locations (which says a lot about our bayanihan culture – the sense of community – which gets everyone in the village to help make this “move” possible). I’m proud that I can represent these Filipino concepts and bring them to our toy range, thereby helping conscious families around the world.
What has been your biggest challenge so far and how did you overcome it?
One of my biggest challenges is being 100% eco-friendly in all the materials we use for our products. There aren’t a lot of suppliers that offer eco-friendly resources to begin with. Even if there are, they are usually beyond for our budget and are unable to meet required cost efficiencies. Or, we need to be big players in the toy industry to run higher production quantities to even start talking to these eco-factories. It took us seven months to finally nail our inner packaging solution and move away from single-use plastic toys. We still have a long way to go to be completely eco-friendly!
How do you deal with self-doubt or criticism?
I think it’s important to bring myself back to centre and assert myself when I’m in doubt. I try to recall my accomplishments and recognise myself for achieving them. Each journey is unique and I know the battles I fought have got me to where I am now.
There’ll always be people coming in and out of our lives and say things we don’t want to hear. As a mumtrepreneur, I have received that type of feedback. Sometimes, I get unwanted feedback being dropped like a bomb or, other times, it feels like I’m in a minefield. The first time is always the hardest, but I do find myself fighting back the second time around, then the third and the fourth…
Facing rejection after rejection, I don’t dwell too long on them anymore. I find myself swimming into a list of inspiring things to do, so that I’m always raring to go to the next idea I have, and background noises never get to me. I do take constructive criticisms though, because they work for my vision. I also do believe that after 100 rejections, I’ll eventually be able to find my way.
How I get it done with Karen Villard: Rapid fire
Favourite place(s) to work? My new find is our residential club’s study or lounge area. There’s hot coffee, warm seats, bright lights, and of course – toilets nearby! Most cafes don’t have one.
Favourite business tool or can you share a work “mantra” that you use? I’m not big on social media right now, but I love using Planable. I can create one social media post and just seamlessly transfer the same post to other social media platforms. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it! As a one-woman marketing team, it helps to get things out there while I focus on my other job as a product developer – also a one-woman band.
One thing you can keep talking about for hours? I’m an early years educator and mum, so I’m your next door play advocate who loves talking about engaging play spaces at home, school, or at the park and playground.
Your go-to self-care activity? I love what I call a “Muay Thai” massage that literally exhausts me after a session. I also do aerial yoga to challenge my upper body strength.
One piece of advice to your younger self? You already had the signs that you’re on this path of entrepreneurship! Brace yourself for a bigger challenge and rise up earlier to it. YOU GOT THIS!
Find out more about Cubo Toys and get in touch with Karen Villard on LinkedIn.
Launchpad is a comprehensive digital networking platform (with IRL benefits, too) that encourages connection, business support and community. It is designed to make the entrepreneurial journey not only easier, and more successful, but also a whole lot more fun. We offer almost daily activities for members to connect, along with weekly masterclasses, member networking roulette, small-business mentoring and media profiles on Honeycombers. Check it out and join us!
