Today we’d like to introduce you to Leigh Walden.
Leigh, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
About 15 years ago, I found out I was pregnant with our second kiddo. I had been working since I was 16, even owning my own business for a while. I decided I just wanted to raise my kids. I started looking for mother day outs for my 4 year old as I wasn’t quite sure how this whole parenting two kids was going to work out. We went to several and the one we both liked was affiliated with our church. During the tour my daughter starting running over to the swingset. Swinging was her most favorite thing to do. The director stopped her and said because of some rules, they couldn’t play on it. I thought wow! Recess must be miserable here. The teacher clamoring to keep the kids off and all the kids wanting to do is get on.
When we got in the car, my daughter said we should raise money and get them a Swingset. She suggested I decorate people’s houses to earn the money. Love that kid, I didn’t have an ounce of interior decorating skills but we had watched a lot of Trading Spaces, a Design show. I spoke to the director and she asked if my daughter with speak to the pastor with her. My daughter was delighted. She even drew out what the playground should look like. That picture is still on my website today!
Anyway, the pastor couldn’t turn my little redhead down but he also put me in charge of the project. So off I went to figure out how to get a swingset at the church. We sold a lot of candles and candy and just about anything you could think of. Somewhere in the process, I had my second child. When she was about 9 months old, we were at a chick fil a with my niece. I got a phone call from my husband, he had been laid off. Record scratch moment for me. I cried my eyes out and then had to get my self together and drive my kids back home from up north. What we’re going to do.
He had been in oil and gas and it was a bad time to be in oil and gas. We went to the point of almost missing a house payment and his unemployment was running out. So I picked up the phone and called the guy I was purchasing the swing set from for my daughter’s school. I explained I had never been in sales but I thought this was something I could do. Well, he said yes! That first Year I was awarded sales rep of the year from the manufacturing company we represented. Other manufacturers called to ask me to work for them. One of them intrigued me. It was a splashpad vendor. I thought this line would compliment our dry playgrounds. The owner I was working with didn’t want to have anything to do with wet playgrounds. He gave me an ultimatum via email the day before Thanksgiving to pick one or the other. At that moment, I knew, I was going to pick the other (splashpads). At 4 am one night I came up with the fun abounds name, started working on a logo and never looked back. My daughters are now 18 and 14. We just bought an awesome 1911 house that will be our new office. It’s been a wonderful journey so far and I can’t wait to see what is next for us as we continue to create playground memories filled with fun!
Has it been a smooth road?
Just getting started is interesting. Although we had a major line to represent, splashpads are huge endeavors and usually expensive so they take time. We did a ton of rehab work to make money the first year. Bonding was hard. We were awarded a million dollar project. It needed bonding. I thought ok, piece of cake, I know bankers etc and we were using Quickbooks so I just printed off our reports and sent them out. Well after months of rejections someone finally told me our books looked awful. I couldn’t understand this. We had money in the bank, jobs galore but since I was the one that set up the books I had made a few errors. Finally, after agreeing to sign my life away- house included- we got bonding. There are always challenges but if you work hard enough there are usually ways to still succeed.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the fun abounds story. Tell us more about the business.
Fun abounds sells and partners with an installation company to install commercial playground equipment. We sell mostly to cities, schools, churches, developers and daycares. We are passionate about what we do. Our greatest asset is our installer. He’s been with us from the beginning. He’s been a great business partner as well. Our product is amazing but if it isn’t installed properly it doesn’t matter how amazing it is. We’ve been.a part of a lot of projects. It’s so fun to see people’s dreams brought to life. Some folks, like me, when I was working on my daughter’s swing set, work for years to raise money. Seeing playgrounds built that greatly benefit communities is incredibly fulfilling.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
When the housing market declined about 8 years, that created a big shift in our market. It seemed that we all had our niches that we worked. But when the change occurred in the market, everyone was just trying to find jobs and everyone was selling everywhere and the architects had to adjust to find different markets. We’ve evened out now. I expect the market to operate the same as it is today for the next 5 years. Although the trends for playgrounds is changing tremendously so I think you will see more “outside the box” playgrounds. There is some really awesome stuff on the horizon.
Contact Info:
- Website: fabplaygrounds.com
- Phone: 855-226-8637
- Email: info@fabplaygrounds.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabplaygrounds/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/fabplaygrounds
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/funaboundstx
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fun-abounds/
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