76. Weekend Box Club

Founder: Andy Stephenson
Founded: April 2013
Website: www.weekendboxclub.com

The idea for Weekend Box Club stemmed from boredom. At 24, software engineering graduate Andy Stephenson was bored – so he quit his job at a tech start-up and started his own project. Yes really.

Inspired by his niece and nephew’s birthdays, he turned his bedroom into a craft hub, distribution centre and customer service point all rolled into one, making and selling an early version of Weekend Box. Three years later, this project has evolved into an activity box membership for children, designed to help parents improve the time they have with their offspring at the weekend through a number of themes: make, bake, explore and more.

The boxes, which include materials and instructions needed for themed activities, as well as collectible stickers for each of the characters, are available for £4.95 for a fortnightly mini box, or £7.50 for a fortnightly or monthly bumper box. Weekend Box Club claims to already be delivering 10’s of thousands of boxes every month and graduated from Stephenson’s bedroom to a warehouse, and then to an even bigger warehouse in just two weeks.

Over the next year the entrepreneur is targeting rapid growth across the UK, with the somewhat abstract, but nevertheless noble, ambition of delivering one million hours of quality time to children and parents by the end of the year.