Trilogy
Our father arrived chainsaw in hand to carve a great hole in the wall between our two offices! Trilogy headquarters had become 'open-plan'

Just doing it

Our first office, with its make-shift walls and tin roof,
was freezing in winter and unbearably hot in summer. About as far from the glamorous cosmetics world as you could imagine.

We had a strong vision and we wanted to spend our meager budget on quality product, design, sales service and innovative ways to market and grow our brand. So we were grateful when one day, our father arrived chainsaw in hand to carve a great hole in the wall between our two offices! Trilogy headquarters had become 'open-plan'.

Catherine and I began to take on the cosmetics industry in the spirit of our father's renovations.

With a small launch budget, we figured we could just cover the cost of our first production run and its packaging. So we set about finding the people we'd need to help us.

We divvied up the jobs; I would use my business skills to concentrate on developing the business plan and establish channels to market via distributors and retailers; Catherine would use her experience to drive product development and branding.

With grand ambitions but limited contacts we started picking up the phone. Hundreds of conversations and meetings later we'd assembled a great team including the cosmetic chemists, a fragrance expert, designers, packaging experts and a sales team we work with to this day to get our products to market around the world.

That first year was an absolute rollercoaster. We'd paid ourselves a pittance but by the end of it our first range of products had rolled off the production line, several hundred stores were stocking our range, we'd made a profit and had great fun working together.

Sarah Gibbs.