A bed manufacturer has overcome obstacles ranging from a warehouse fire, Brexit shortages and Covid-19 to pass its 10 year anniversary with sales expected to grow 30 per cent this year.
Get Laid Beds was founded by co-owners Jonny Haskins and Jean Lombard after they became friends at De Montfort University in Leicester.
They started out designing and creating wooden beds from their garage as students for their own use.
From there they created a company employing a team of carpenters making handmade beds to order, and today they ship them out across the UK and worldwide.
The business faced a huge setback in 2019 when a warehouse fire left them with nothing but a hard-drive.
The customer service team spent a month working from Jean’s living room until a new temporary location was found.
Since then, the business has returned to full capacity, with 105 staff and a modern warehouse in Glen Parva, on the outskirts of Leicester. They said even Brexit and Covid-19 hadn’t held them back.
Jean said: “The impact of the fire on March 6, 2019 (Ash Wednesday – no joke) was profound.
“We lost everything but luckily no one was injured. We recovered a hard drive with our accounts data on it and a USB stick in a safety box with some machinery cutting data on it. That was it.
“So we had to build the factory from the ground up and start again. We lost no staff, everyone was incredibly supportive, and we became closer as a team.
“Customers were also very understanding and we only lost 4 per cent of customer orders. Due to us actively moving quickly on getting a temporary factory setup within four weeks.
“It took four months to see the first insurance pay-out so we took on a big risk financially to get it back online ASAP and make beds before all customers wanted refunding.
“The insurers and loss adjusters said we were the fastest recovery they'd seen in 30 years as usually it takes up to two years to rebuild.”
Jonny said on top of 25 per cent year on year growth the for past three years they expected to hit 30 per cent growth this year and were investing heavily in employees and equipment.
In January they broke their monthly sales record selling several thousand beds, he said, and international expansion is the next goal and is already doing well.
He said: “We are so proud to be where we are today.
“When we look back at our journey leading up to our 10-year anniversary and considering the hurdles we’ve had to overcome, it makes us even more ambitious and more motivated to continue growing and seeing where we can take the company.
“It’s our story as well as the beds we produce that makes us so unique.
“It would have been all too easy to start making lower quality beds, but the fact that we haven’t compromised what we set out to do all those years ago, I think really shines through, and is one of the reasons why we are experiencing the success we are right now.”
