From Rock Bottom to Harrods: Toks Aroture on Luxury, Resilience and Technology - ep 36
What happens when the business you built is caught in a financial crisis — and you have to begin again? In this episode of Talking Tech with Creatives, I speak with Toks Aroture, founder of The Baby Cot Shop, a luxury nursery and children’s interiors brand whose journey has taken her from Atlanta to London’s King’s Road, Harrods and international clients. Toks shares how she survived the 2008 financial crisis, returned to the UK having lost almost everything, and rebuilt from the ground up — teaching herself web design and SEO, finding European craftspeople and eventually developing her own furniture collections. We also talk about luxury, expertise in business, mentorship, resilience, entrepreneurship and her belief that there are many forms of currency beyond money. And we get into technology: Toks explains how she is now using AI and digital tools across the business, from nursery design and marketing to HR, project management and productivity. A conversation about losing, rebuilding, luxury and using technology to imagine what comes next. Subscribe to Talking Tech with Creatives wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit talkingtechwithcreatives.com. Reach to Toks on social media @toksaroture W: thebabycotshop.com Showroom: 408 King’s Road, Chelsea, London SW10 0LJ Harrods, 4th Floor, Knightsbridge, London Stella Oni — Author | Speaker | Lecturer | Podcast Host 🌐 Website: StellaOni.com 🎤 Speaking: Speaking engagements 💼 LinkedIn: [Stella Oni on LinkedIn] 📸 Instagram: [@stellaoni_official] 🎵 TikTok: [@stellaoni_official] X: [@soni_official2] TRANSCRIPTION Stella Oni in Conversation with Toks Aroture, Founder of The Baby Cot Shop STELLA ONI: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives, the podcast where we talk about the intersection of technology and creativity. I always like to have different guests on the podcast, and you’ve seen quite a few from all kinds of backgrounds. I’m quite excited about my guest today. I’ve got Toks Aroture of The Baby Cot Shop. She’s a founder working in an area that fascinates me and that I really want to delve into: the luxury nursery space. The Baby Cot Shop creates bespoke nurseries for high-end clients. I deliberately didn’t want to know too much beforehand because I wanted to come to this fresh. I got the barest minimum, so we’re going to discover Toks and what she does together. The Baby Cot Shop serves high-end customers from a beautiful part of London, has a presence in Harrods, and has also worked on the Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital. For those who follow the Royal Family, the Lindo Wing is where several members of the Royal Family have had their babies. So we’re in for a treat. This is a bit of a departure from some of my filmmakers and writers, because we’re looking at luxury spaces, which I love, particularly because I’ve got my own fiction series coming that is very much about luxury. Toks, welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives. First of all, tell us about yourself and your background, and then we’ll start delving deeper. TOKS AROTURE: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Stella. I am super excited. It has been such a long time coming. STELLA: It has been. TOKS: Our schedules just haven’t aligned, but here we are finally. I was born in Scotland, but I didn’t grow up there. I grew up in Nigeria, specifically Benin City. STELLA: Like me. TOKS: Yes. We share that in common. I had the most wonderful childhood in Benin. Compared with somewhere like Lagos, which is more cosmopolitan, Benin is quieter even though it’s a city. I had this peaceful, beautiful, warm childhood surrounded by a lot of love, familiar faces and trust. I think that formed the foundation for who I am today because I was raised by parents who were very confident in their children. Whether they actually felt confident or not, they certainly told us they did. My dad would brag about me. He would say, “My daughter is going to win Miss Nigeria.” Then my mum would say, “Not my daughter. She’s not going to parade in anything she shouldn’t be wearing.” They’d go back and forth. But more importantly, it was always, “You’re so intelligent. You can do anything.” When you hear that often enough, you eventually believe it. So I genuinely believed I could do anything. I grew up in Benin and then went to school in northern Nigeria, in Kaduna. STELLA: How did you end up going from Benin to Kaduna? TOKS: Boarding school. It was a military school. My dad was in the military, so I didn’t really have a choice. STELLA: Secondary school? TOKS: Yes, secondary school. That’s where the discipline came from, although sometimes I think the discipline stayed within the gates of the school and didn’t follow me outside. But I learned a lot of lessons there. I remember my mum coming to see me during the middle of my first term. Benin and Kaduna are very far apart, almost like London to Scotland. We stayed in a guest house for the weekend and she asked how school was going. I said, “Mum, it’s horrible. The seniors are wicked. This senior slapped me. The food is terrible.” I went on and on about the seniors. She asked what I wanted to do. I said, “I want to go to school in Benin or Lagos. I want to be closer to home.” She said, “The problem is, no matter what school you go to, you’re still going to face this problem. You’re going to face seniors. They’ll have different names and be in a different location, but the experience will be the same.” That lesson has served me throughout my business journey. Whenever I’ve been tempted to quit, I think: And then what? No matter what I do, I’m going to face challenges in business. I could sell second-hand clothes or spare tyres. The mindset required to run a business is the same. I naturally tend to pull lessons out of my experiences. Later my family moved to Lagos, and not long after that there was a kind of mass exodus of young Nigerians. The economy wasn’t doing so well and people were seeking better opportunities. A lot of Nigerians had been born in the diaspora but raised in Nigeria because their parents preferred that upbringing. Many of our parents weren’t immigrants in the sense of intending to settle permanently. Some had gone abroad to study and then returned. So at some point it became, “You’re British. You were born there. Just go back.” That’s how I came to England. But I took the whole “You’re so smart, you can be anything” thing a little too seriously. I came to do A-levels and really wanted to become a doctor. Everyone said, “You’d make a great doctor,” especially my dad. Then I came to England and didn’t study properly for my A-levels because I thought I was so smart I didn’t need to. I failed woefully. STELLA: And the systems are different. TOKS: They are different, but I was also trying to get away with cramming. STELLA: In Nigeria you can cram. TOKS: Exactly. And in boarding school, one advantage is that you’re almost in an incubator. You have no choice but to breathe the air that’s around you, and the air is study and success. You must come first. You mustn’t be last. You have to work. That environment helped me thrive academically. Then I came to England and it was completely different. Open-book tests. Calling lecturers by their first names. If you don’t show up to class, nobody chases you. I don’t think I handled that freedom particularly well. I thought, “I’m free as a bird.” I eventually went to university to study pharmacology. When I was a child, I used to read my father’s medical books. I’ve always had an interest in the human body and medicine, and I still do. The plan was to study pharmacology and then go into medicine afterwards. But in my second year I married my best friend. STELLA: Aw. TOKS: And I found myself spending more and more time doing up our apartment in London and less time at lectures. Eventually I had to admit to myself that I had dropped out. I said, “Madam, let’s be honest. You haven’t been to lectures in how long? You’re painting in the middle of the night. You’re spending your working days at B&Q and Homebase. You’ve dropped out.” And I was okay. Even though education is such a holy grail in Nigeria, I believed I would be all right. I got a job as a medical representative for a pharmaceutical company, which paid really well. Those jobs came with a company car, an expense account and all of that. Then the children started arriving. When I had my third son, I asked my employers for reduced hours. They said no. This was more than 20 years ago, and maternity and workplace entitlements were not what they are today. Around that time I happened to be reading a book in which the author said, “Your gift is that thing you do so effortlessly. Everyone thinks it’s a big deal except you.” And I thought, everybody loves my home. I don’t think putting it together is a big deal. It feels easy. STELLA: That’s why you dropped out of school! You were decorating and going to B&Q. That was your passion. TOKS: Exactly. When you’re gifted in something or really passionate about it, it often feels easy to you. When we were students and broke, I would go to B&Q and buy wallpaper from the bargain bucket. I’d lay it across the floor and cut it into strips to create borders. I wanted every room to be a different colour, but coloured paint was more expensive than white paint. So I bought white paint and coloured dyes and mixed my own colours until I got exactly what I wanted. STELLA: Really? I was doing that with my writing. That was what I was obsessed with. TOKS: Writing is a beautiful gift. So I decided to go to design school. I enrolled on interior design courses and then set up a small interior design business from home. I was about 27. STELLA: You were such a baby, and you already had three children? TOKS: Yes. At one point I had three children aged three and under. I thought it was over for me. I was so enthusiastic about this little company. I printed fridge magnets. I was excited that I had my own business. I think the company was called Spaces, and I had this idea that everybody should have a room tailored to their personality. I handed out the magnets and literally ran home thinking the phone would be ringing off the hook. Nothing happened. Firstly, I hadn’t realised that business doesn’t work like that. Secondly, I had forgotten to put the phone number on the magnet. My best friend still has that fridge magnet on her fridge today. Then, only a few months into running the company, my husband came home one day and said, “Why don’t we move to the United States?” We loved America. We used to go every year, usually to different states. We’d have the time of our lives, spend two or three weeks there and then come home depressed. STELLA: That sounds like me. TOKS: We once flew back from Florida, landed at Gatwick, took the train to Victoria and came out of Victoria Station. All I could see was chewing gum stuck to the pavement. We’d just come from somewhere like Orlando, which can look almost unreal because everything is so picturesque and polished. Then you come back to London and it’s grey and raining. So when my husband said, “Why don’t we just move to the US?” I said, “Yes, let’s go.” We sold our home, packed up our three boys, moved to America and acquired a baby furniture store. For immigration purposes, we needed a business, so we were looking at different possibilities. STELLA: You actually bought a business there? TOKS: Yes. STELLA: Where did you go? TOKS: Georgia. Atlanta. STELLA: My brother lives in Atlanta. TOKS: Really? We had the time of our lives there. The way I describe Atlanta is almost like Nigeria with excellent infrastructure. It’s very Black. The weather is hot. The people are warm and friendly. We loved the food, the schools, the houses. Our boys settled into school very quickly. Life felt perfect. The business was thriving. It was my first experience with what I considered a real business. I didn’t really consider my original interior design company a business. It was more like a hobby. STELLA: What was the business you bought? TOKS: Luxury baby furniture. It wasn’t something I had intentionally gone looking for. We were just trying to find a business with strong cash flow. I had looked at sandwich shops. I looked at a dry cleaner. STELLA: You were very business-minded. TOKS: Maybe adventurous more than business-minded. We had advice from an immigration lawyer who explained the different routes available to us. I also had a business lawyer in the US. Sometimes, rather than me flying over to inspect a business, he would go and look at it for me. I remember seeing a dry-cleaning business with great figures and thinking, “How hard can it be?” It had staff. I imagined I wouldn’t even need to be there. My lawyer went to see it and told me the machinery was about 20 years old. If I had gone myself, I would probably have thought, “Well, it’s working.” That taught me the importance of having the right experts involved in your business. He also made the point that the dry-cleaning market in that area was strongly associated with Korean-owned businesses. We started talking about how certain communities become strongly associated with particular trades or industries. STELLA: So it’s really about perception. Being accepted as experts. TOKS: Yes. Maybe “accepted as experts” is the better phrase. There are industries where certain communities have built up a strong reputation because they have been doing that work for a long time. For example, when it comes to certain types of woodwork or flooring, I’ve had excellent experiences with Eastern European craftspeople. That doesn’t mean others aren’t capable. It is about reputation, skill, price and customer perception. I also started looking at Hallmark Gold Crown stores. In the US, there were standard Hallmark card shops and Hallmark Gold Crown stores, which could sell some other products alongside Hallmark goods. I went to see one and absolutely fell in love with it because of the aesthetics. STELLA: I knew that was going to be why. TOKS: It was beautiful. I could see myself there. We had been using census information to look at different areas of Atlanta because we didn’t know many people there. We looked at demographics, education levels, safety and schools. We wanted to live somewhere with a diverse mix of people rather than somewhere overwhelmingly white, Black or any other single group. We wanted our children to grow up with a broad view of the world. This Hallmark store was close to the area we had identified. In the end the sale didn’t go through because the owners wanted us to put a large amount of money into escrow with a clause saying we could lose it if the deal failed for any reason. We weren’t prepared to do that. But by then I had become obsessed with the idea of buying a Gold Crown store. I met a business broker who had several for sale. He asked about my situation. I told him I was married with three young children and that we wanted to relocate. He said the particular store I was looking at was profitable but not in an area he would recommend for a young family. Then he said, “I have another business that hasn’t even gone on the market yet.” It was a beautiful baby furniture store. At first I wasn’t interested. I already had babies. I didn’t want to be surrounded by more baby things. But my husband encouraged me to go and see it. So I flew back to Atlanta and met the owners. I arrived before they did and looked through the window. I thought, “Oh my goodness. This is amazing.” I had never seen furniture so beautiful. It was whimsical but the quality was obvious: solid wood, beautiful finishes, everything beautifully made. We went to a trade show together and these women were treated almost like celebrities because everyone wanted them to stock their products. I thought, “You must know something I don’t.” That’s how we ended up buying the business. Under my ownership, it grew. STELLA: Who were the customers? TOKS: Affluent expectant mothers. We were in Buckhead. STELLA: I know Buckhead! Your store was in Buckhead? TOKS: Yes. STELLA: Toks! You are a bold woman. TOKS: It was a prime location. Everything was going beautifully. The business was thriving. Then we started hearing rumours of a recession. This was 2008. We called it the bloodbath. Long-established stores started closing. There were businesses that had been around for 30 or 40 years, almost heritage institutions, and suddenly they were gone. We were in a strip mall and it became a domino effect. One shop closed, then the shop next to it, then another. People stopped buying because they were losing homes and jobs. Banks and companies were failing. We watched this wave moving towards us and knew we were going to be hit. One of my neighbours sold beautiful high-end shoes. They disappeared almost overnight. One day the store was there. The next day it was completely empty. Suppliers were collapsing too. You would send an order and suddenly the email bounced back. Then you would check the website and find they had ceased trading. It was horrific. For many of us, it was our first real experience of major financial loss. We had no idea how long it would last or how to navigate it. Eventually we moved back to England. The plan was to come back temporarily, weather the storm, then return to America. Instead, I came back pregnant with my fourth son. I call that season of my life “the perfect storm.” Everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to be happening at the same time. We came back from the US and I called my friend Suzy. She was a very good friend, although at the time I wouldn’t necessarily have described her as my best friend. When I told her what was happening, she said, “Come straight to my house from the airport.” When we arrived she had turned her dining room into a bedroom for us. She had mattresses there. She had made breakfast. We stayed in her home for months until shortly before the baby was born. She never took a penny from us. More importantly, she never made us feel small. She never made us feel like failures. She constantly said, “It’s going to be fine.” I had left Britain previously with everyone celebrating us at the airport. Now I had returned feeling empty-handed and covered in shame. I thought when people looked at me, shame was all they saw. Suzy didn’t see shame. She saw me. She was one of the few people who could still see me as I was. I spent weeks waking up crying and going to sleep crying. I was pregnant and worried about whether that level of sorrow would somehow affect the baby. Then one day my mother-in-law said something to me. She said, “People lose everything all the time and start again.” It was the most intelligent thing I had heard. STELLA: People do. TOKS: I had never thought of it that way. At some point I also realised that I had to accept that we had lost everything. Until then, all our energy and resources had gone into trying to stop what was happening. We were trying to reverse the recession. Once I accepted, “We really have lost everything,” I suddenly got this surge of energy. I thought, “Okay. I can start again.” To this day I say that rock bottom is the best place to build from because you have nothing to lose. STELLA: Nothing. TOKS: I couldn’t fail any further. I had already lost everything. So I started researching the UK baby furniture market. I thought, “They don’t have anything like what we had. They don’t have beautiful baby furniture. They don’t have interiors like this.” I approached UK brands and said I wanted to build a website and sell their products. The answer was usually no. In 2008, e-commerce was still almost a dirty word in parts of the British retail market. When people heard “e-commerce”, they thought of Amazon selling books and eBay selling second-hand goods. Some brands were basically saying, “You want to put our products on the internet alongside second-hand goods?” They wanted physical stores and substantial stock commitments. I had no money. Before we lost the US business, I had also been trying to build an e-commerce website with a web designer. He created something beautiful that didn’t actually work. We fell out because he wanted the balance of his payment and I said, “Fix the website first.” But that process had exposed me to some of the components involved. So when I got back to the UK, I thought, “I need a website.” I called a friend, who referred me to someone else. Back then, if you knew someone in IT, you assumed they could build websites. The person I spoke to explained what he could do and then quoted me £1,000 because I was his friend’s friend. I said, “Fine, I’ll come back to you.” But I didn’t even have £100. If he had said £10, I wouldn’t have had £10. I had nappies to buy and we had no income. After I got off the phone, something occurred to me. The people I had worked with on websites had one thing in common: none of them was born knowing how to build websites. They had learned. And I could learn. So I went onto Google and typed, “How to build a website.” I started learning all the components. Back then you had the front end, the back end, payment processing, connectors to the bank. I went shopping for the cheapest versions of everything. I found a template. I learned a little coding so I could change colours, create paragraphs and make alterations. I had the site up and running within about 26 days. I had originally built it with the US business in mind, but then thought: I’m in the UK. I can replicate this here and sell in Britain too. The UK brands still weren’t interested. So I went into Europe. I found people making beautiful furniture, bedding and decorative pieces for babies and children that weren’t known outside their local markets. Those became my targets because I wanted to sell things nobody else had in the UK. STELLA: How did the supply side work when you had the US shop? TOKS: We worked with different brands. We didn’t have our own furniture line then. We sold a curated assortment of well-made products. Most of the furniture was made to order. We would take a deposit from the client, order the furniture, collect the balance and pay the supplier. STELLA: So going to European artisans must have opened up so many possibilities. TOKS: Yes. At that time it wasn’t actually Eastern Europe. A lot of the people I worked with were in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. They made beautiful things and had already mastered their craft, but many of them had very little visibility outside their local markets. At the time, British retailers generally seemed to sell their own brands, often manufactured in China, or British brands. There weren’t many people curating unusual pieces from Europe. STELLA: In America, because you bought an existing business and physical location, it would have been easier to access clients. But in the UK, what gave you the confidence that you could find people willing to pay for this furniture? TOKS: I was so confident because there was nothing like what we had. I had tunnel vision. I genuinely believed, “These things are beautiful. There’s no way people won’t want them.” I also knew exactly who my customer was. I wasn’t trying to sell to everybody. My first customer was a lady called Caroline, who bought a rug from me. I think I met her through a networking event. She had a directory and offered to list the business. Then she said, “You need to do SEO on your website.” I said, “What’s SEO?” She explained that it was about getting found on Google when people searched for your products. She introduced me to someone who said he could do the SEO for £1,000. Again, I didn’t have £1,000. So we negotiated. He said, “I’ll teach you how to do it yourself. I’ll charge you £100 an hour.” That’s how I learned SEO. And I could see why people charged so much for it in 2008 and 2009. There was a lot of manual work: keywords, link-building, directories. He taught me generously. Some people hold things back when they teach you. He didn’t. I implemented what he taught me and it started working. Then I began reaching out to magazines and publications. They were interested because they hadn’t seen products like ours before. Eventually I took a risk and hired a PR agency. That helped us get into magazines and newspapers. For several years, The Sunday Times would run its children’s gift lists and our products appeared there. We were also in The Telegraph, Vogue and other publications and blogs. I’m writing my book now, and I recently got to a part that made me cringe because I remembered my first furniture order. A man somewhere outside London ordered a wardrobe. I had figured out everything except how to get a wardrobe from the Netherlands to a customer in Britain. I had met this English businessman completely by chance. I wasn’t surrounded by people doing anything remotely similar to what I was doing, so I had no one to ask basic questions like: Who do you use for logistics? How do I move furniture? Who processes your card payments? I called this man in a panic and said, “Someone has ordered a wardrobe. I don’t know how to get it here.” He said, “Don’t worry. I know a guy.” So I called the guy. He quoted something like £70 or £100, which seemed very cheap. I thought, “Fantastic.” My supplier then called me, trying to explain that these people were attempting to collect the wardrobe in a people carrier. I said, “No, you don’t understand. He’s a delivery man. He has a van.” But nobody had actually told me he had a van. In my head, “I know a guy” automatically meant a man with a white van. I had created the whole image. In reality, they strapped the wardrobe to the top of a people carrier and drove it from the Netherlands to the UK. The customer sent me a message saying, “I love what you’re trying to build, but these are not the people you want delivering for you.” Thankfully the wardrobe wasn’t damaged. That was one of many lessons. STELLA: The fact that you were even doing all of this is extraordinary. Do you mentor younger people now? TOKS: I do. And I do think there is something about the Nigerian spirit. Nigerians are go-getters. We believe we can do things. STELLA: We do, but I also know there’s a difference between having that adventurous spirit and having the money behind you. When I was about 24, my friend’s father wanted to invest in the UK. My friend was an accountant and somehow we decided we were going to open a boutique on Oxford Street. We did virtually no business research. We bought a business from someone who was closing her boutique. She had the most beautiful clothes. We stocked this shop and waited for customers to come. Only later did we realise we were at the wrong end of Oxford Street. The area near Tottenham Court Road was very different from the Selfridges end in terms of demographics, price points and customers. I was even travelling to Paris to buy stock around Rue Saint-Denis, where at the time there were lots of clothing manufacturers and wholesalers. Eventually the business closed, but it was an adventure. My point is, yes, we had the spirit, but my friend’s father’s money enabled us to do it. You had sheer grit. TOKS: One thing I realised was that the amount of time it takes to sell a £30 table isn’t necessarily that different from the amount of time it takes to sell a £300 table. My lawyer in America once made a point about low-margin businesses. He basically said, “Do you want to serve a million customers for a dollar each?” It wasn’t literal, but I understood the principle. You can deal with 1,000 customers paying you £10 each, or 10 customers paying £1,000. It’s easier to deal with 10 people than 1,000. I already had some experience in the luxury space. I knew there was a gap in the UK. I was convinced people could search high and low and not find anything like what we were selling. And I had nothing left to lose. At the same time, the experience of losing everything had left me feeling very vulnerable. I took rejection personally. If I approached a craftsman or company and they said no, even for perfectly logical reasons, I experienced it almost like another attack after everything we had already been through. I was carrying the scars of loss even though the event itself was behind me. At one point I was breastfeeding the baby and constantly researching online, looking for interiors, artwork, rugs, lighting and furniture. I found beautiful chandeliers in the US and started importing them. Then I discovered the voltage was different. STELLA: Oh my goodness. TOKS: I hadn’t thought of that. So I called the manufacturer and tried to work out how we could adapt them for Britain. Eventually I found someone in the UK who rewired chandeliers. Then there were different bulb fittings too, so I found a company selling unusual bulbs. We started selling the chandeliers with the correct bulbs. You learn as you go along. Experiences like that give you enormous confidence because you start seeing that seemingly impossible problems can be solved. Eventually your brain starts to think, “There is a solution to every problem.” You stop being afraid of problems. They become inconveniences rather than catastrophes. Eventually I reached a stage where I knew I needed a mentor. The products were good. The website was beautiful. We were selling, but not at the level I wanted. Around that time, one evening I suddenly started receiving emails from suppliers. They all said essentially the same thing: “Dear Toks, please remove our products from your website. We can’t do business with you anymore.” There was no explanation. I went for a run because I didn’t know what else to do, and I didn’t want my children to see me crying. I thought: If I don’t have products, I don’t have a business. I was running and praying at the same time. I said, “God, before I get to that M&S down the road, I need an answer. You have to tell me what to do.” I reached the M&S, turned around to come home, thinking I had no answer. Then the answer came to me: Design your own furniture. Design your own bedding and interiors. Then nobody can tell you where to sell it, how much to sell it for or what to do with it. It’s yours. By the time I got home, I was laughing. I thought, “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to build my own collection.” A couple of days later, one of the suppliers emailed again and explained that they had signed an exclusivity agreement with another company. One supplier accidentally forwarded an email which revealed who the competitor was. It was another woman I knew. She had approached several of my suppliers and negotiated exclusivity. Some agreed, some didn’t. I was deeply hurt because some of these suppliers were people I had gone through the recession with. We had encouraged each other and survived together. But I decided I wasn’t going to let it stop me. My revenge would be to create my own products. That’s what I started doing. It took time because I was frightened. I would start, stop and wonder whether I really knew what I was doing. I eventually met a very knowledgeable craftsman who helped me. One thing I would tell young business owners is never burn your bridges. Even when you are justified in ending a relationship, remain polite and treat people well. Every relationship is valuable. I’ve had craftspeople tell me competitors’ secrets simply because those competitors treated them badly and destroyed the relationship. Around this time I was also praying for a mentor. I felt I had reached the limit of what I could do alone. I needed someone who had gone further. I also decided that one way to attract customers would be to approach maternity and baby shops and offer talks about how to design nursery rooms. There was a shop on King’s Road I had been emailing. Eventually I thought, “Let me just go there physically.” The owner wasn’t there. I came out, looked around and suddenly realised: I’m on King’s Road. About a year earlier I had created a vision board. I wanted a physical location on an affluent London high street. I had searched Google Images for “affluent high street London”, and an image of the King’s Road sign came up. I had cut it out and put it on my board. So now I was actually standing on King’s Road. I decided to walk around. I found myself standing outside Reiss. I don’t know why, but I just stood there staring at the sign. I didn’t wear their clothes. I wasn’t particularly interested in the brand. But something was stopping me from walking away. I was rebuilding my website at the time, so I thought perhaps God wanted me to look at the font or branding. Eventually I walked on. When I got home that evening, I received a message from someone I had met at a networking event years earlier. He used to invite me to events all the time and I would barely even respond because I was shy and embarrassed about my story. I hadn’t heard from him in about two years. The message said, “I’d like to invite you to a networking event at the home of the founder of Reiss.” I thought, “I was literally standing outside Reiss today. I’m going.” I went to the event. It was in a private home in Holland Park with only eight or nine people. I quickly Googled the founder of Reiss and found the name David Reiss. Nobody in the room was called David, so I thought perhaps he wasn’t actually there. There was an older English gentleman who kept contributing really interesting insights during the conversation. At the end, possibly helped by some red wine, I walked up to him and said, “I need a mentor, and I want it to be you.” He laughed and gave me his card. I went home, Googled him and discovered he was a former CEO of Hugo Boss. He went on to mentor me consistently for around three years. One day, about six or eight months into that relationship, I was mentoring someone else. I had this wonderful session with my mentee and was excited about what she was going to do. Then I realised I was on my way to see my own mentor and thought, “What has actually changed in my business?” I had been meeting this man for months and nothing seemed different. He was generous with his knowledge, so he clearly wasn’t the problem. The problem had to be me. I sat down and asked myself what was really happening during those meetings. I realised that whenever I was with him, I felt insignificant. I looked at his achievements, experience, money and status and compared all of it with myself. I felt small. STELLA: Like imposter syndrome? TOKS: Definitely. And the way I handled that discomfort was by only telling him about my wins. I would say, “A footballer ordered from us the other day.” I didn’t have many wins, but I would present the few I had. So of course he would say, “Well done. You seem to be doing really well. Keep doing what you’re doing.” But if I kept doing what I was doing, I was going to keep getting the same results. My ego was under siege. Instead of humbling myself and saying, “I need help. I don’t know how to do this,” I was afraid he might look down on me. When I finally admitted what was happening and changed the way I spoke to him, things began to shift. Not long afterwards we got onto the House of Fraser online concession. I think we sold one item during the entire period we were there. But it was still a huge success because of what it did for my confidence. There are levels you look at from a distance and think are impossible. Then you get there and think, “I’m here.” One of the biggest lessons I learned during that season was this: There are many currencies besides cash. I might not have had money, but I could be kind to people. I could be generous. I could give my time. I could learn. My ability to build a website was a currency. My ability to walk up to a stranger and ask him to mentor me was a currency. My friendships were currency. My best friend Suzy was a currency. My husband’s support was a currency. A peaceful home is a currency. My faith is a huge currency for me. I lean on God for peace, joy and direction. Reading the Bible uplifts me. I stopped thinking that everything of value had to be tangible or countable. People ask, “How did you get where you are? How did you end up in Harrods?” I had many opportunities to quit, and quitting would often have been completely logical. But I had these intangible currencies. Resilience takes you from point A to point B. Resilience is inside you. We’re often more gifted and resourced than we realise. Just because the gift doesn’t come in the form you would prefer doesn’t mean it is absent. In business, cash is king. But if you understand that cash isn’t the only form of currency, you may discover that you have more to work with than you thought. STELLA: You’ve now built this luxury brand in Britain and have over 20 years of experience in the luxury space. Did you ever feel that, as a Black British-Nigerian woman, you had to prove yourself differently? TOKS: I did go through a period where I didn’t put my face on the website or social media. I thought that because Britain is majority white and I was targeting the wider market, customers might see a Black woman and not want to buy from me. So for years I hid my face. I thought it might repel business. Eventually I realised that when you produce something people genuinely want, something beautiful, they want the product. That’s not to say I haven’t experienced discrimination. But I have always tried not to allow an external source to become the explanation for everything going wrong in my life. If I believe somebody outside of me controls everything, then I’m in trouble. STELLA: Why do you think there are relatively few wealthy Black women who are visible in Britain’s luxury business space? TOKS: I don’t really know. There are Black women in luxury, but perhaps they aren’t always visible. There is also the issue of generational wealth. In many cases, people enter certain spaces because luxury is already part of their environment and lifestyle. A lot of Black families in Britain are only one or two generations into establishing themselves financially. In business, there may also be gatekeeping in certain industries. My own industry is relatively straightforward in one sense because I make beautiful things and sell them. In a service industry, the barriers could be higher. But I don’t want to speculate too much. STELLA: What about funding? Is there an issue with funding for Black female entrepreneurs? TOKS: Yes. There are funding issues for women, and there are funding issues for Black entrepreneurs. So when you are both Black and female, you’re dealing with both. At the same time, I still believe the drive and ability inside you can be more powerful than any external resource. One thing that helped me was being very selective about whose stories I consumed. I focused on entrepreneurs whose journeys resembled mine. I didn’t focus on people who had inherited wealth or received huge investments. I looked at people such as Sara Blakely, who started with very little and built something. Those were the stories that inspired me. STELLA: Looking forward, where would you ideally like the business to go? TOKS: I want us to become the number one luxury baby furniture house globally. And I believe it’s possible. Much of my journey has been about building roots rather than growing a huge tree. Now I feel as though the stem is beginning to break through the ground. STELLA: You already have clients in places like the Middle East and Africa? TOKS: Yes. Being in Harrods has opened us up even more to Middle Eastern clients. STELLA: What practical skills would you say Black women need if they want to enter premium or luxury industries? TOKS: First, have a very clear vision of what you want. Be very clear about the quality, the aesthetics and, if it’s a service, the experience you want to deliver. You need to see the detail. I once watched Beyoncé’s Homecoming documentary. There was a part where she spoke about being able to see everything she wanted for the performance in minute detail. She could see the stitching on the costumes. She knew what she wanted before it existed. When it came time to create it, she was assembling something she had already seen in her mind. I think businesses need that level of clarity. See the stitching. Don’t be afraid to imagine what it could look like. Practically, work with the best people you possibly can. Personally, pay attention to your conduct and your relationships. And do the internal work. If you have a chip on your shoulder or unprocessed pain, be honest enough to recognise how it is influencing your decisions. My experience of losing everything followed me for years and sometimes made decisions for me. You have to practise introspection and recognise what might trip you up. STELLA: What would you say to a 15-year-old girl who already has an idea of what she wants, but her circumstances make it difficult for her to imagine that it could ever happen? Imagine she might become another Toks one day, but she doesn’t know it yet. TOKS: Flood your mind with stories of people who have been in circumstances similar to yours and succeeded. Every piece of content and information we consume becomes a seed. When we look at our lives, we are often seeing the result of things we consumed and believed a long time ago. Be mindful about what you’re consuming. Choose the seeds you want to plant. And journal. Journalling is one of my go-to tools because it exposes the contents of your mind on paper, where you can examine them fairly. We have thoughts all the time without actually being conscious of what we’re thinking. Writing helps you see them. My realisation that I felt insignificant around my mentor didn’t come while I was riding on a bus. It came because I deliberately sat down and asked myself, “What is going on inside my mind?” STELLA: Let’s segue into technology. How are you using technology in the business now? TOKS: I’ve built about six different apps and I am so proud of them. The first is our Nursery Edit, which is trademarked. It’s a proprietary tool designed to help customers design their nursery. As we grew, we started getting more interior design projects. I have another interior designer working with me, but she has her style and I have mine. I wanted to find a way to translate the way I approach nursery design. So I built a logic-based system. You answer questions such as: What is the height of your ceiling? How much natural light comes into the room? What are your personal tastes? At the end it produces a breakdown of what your nursery could look like. It recommends our furniture, of course, but it also guides you on pieces, curtains, colours and patterns. Then the customer receives the results by email. That one is customer-facing. The others are mainly internal. We have a marketing platform where our marketing is consolidated. We have People OS for HR. We have a bespoke project-management tool for interior design projects. There is also a tool for running the boutique so that if there is a leak, or we need to order wrapping tissue or bags, all the information is there. And I built one for myself. As a founder, I can feel overwhelmed because I have so much happening at once. I’m moving more into leadership, but sometimes I still feel I need to do everything. So I created a tool that scores my to-do list and arranges things by importance. It also takes into account my energy level, focus and mindset. I might say, “Today I have high energy, I’m very focused and I’m feeling strategic.” It will pull tasks from the list and tell me, “These are the three things you should do today because they require high energy and focus.” So yes, we definitely use AI. STELLA: Does all of this save you time? TOKS: It does. Although what tends to happen is that we take the time we’ve saved and fill it with more work. So I’m not necessarily sitting around relaxing. What AI has done is allow us to implement things that I previously didn’t have time for. I’m still busy, but I’m not busy with the same small things I used to be busy with. STELLA: What are some of the biggest operational challenges you still have? TOKS: Logistics is still a challenge. A lot of our products are made in the EU. After Brexit, importing from Europe became more expensive and complicated. Before Brexit, we could work with small delivery companies that would collect directly from the manufacturer and bring the furniture straight to us. The furniture might not change hands at all. That reduces the risk of damage. With a large logistics company, the furniture might go from the supplier to a central warehouse, onto another vehicle, across to the UK, into another hub and then onto a local van. Every time you move furniture, the risk of damage increases. I would particularly like to improve logistics for our Middle Eastern clients and make shipping more efficient and less expensive. STELLA: If you built a big enough customer base in a market such as Saudi Arabia, could you eventually source artisans locally? TOKS: Possibly, although there are questions around quality control, craftsmanship and raw materials. People make furniture differently around the world. But it is something we could explore. STELLA: It could even become part of the proposition: locally sourced wood and local craftsmanship. TOKS: Absolutely. It is worth looking into. STELLA: When you think about the future of luxury design, technology and entrepreneurship, what excites you most? TOKS: Technology makes my face light up. One of my best friends said recently, “Toks, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing, you would be in tech.” I’m excited about AI. I’m so thankful that I was born in an era where I get to experience what feels like the beginning of this major transformation and grow with it. I’m also fascinated by the younger generation and how they interpret luxury. When we were younger, luxury could feel very stuffy and inaccessible. It wasn’t just about money. It involved class, aesthetics, craftsmanship and social position. The younger generation sees luxury differently. Their lives are often much more open. They are on TikTok sharing everything. It will be fascinating to see how they interact with luxury and how the industry changes around them. STELLA: How do you relax? TOKS: I’ve been relaxing by building apps. STELLA: Building apps is your relaxation? TOKS: Yes, which is terrible. The word “workaholic” popped into my mind recently and I felt that was God warning me that this is not a sustainable lifestyle. I genuinely enjoy what I do. I enjoy being a business owner. But when I really relax, I spend time with friends, go out for a meal, watch Nollywood, spend time with my children. I’m a homebody. I love it when everyone is home, everybody is accounted for, and there’s good food in the house. I also read and write. STELLA: Which Black women do you particularly admire? TOKS: Beyond my mum? STELLA: Beyond your mum. TOKS: There are several. I love Valorie Burton. She’s an author and coach in the United States and has really shaped some of my thinking. I remember her saying you don’t say, “I hate smoke-filled air.” You say, “I prefer clean air.” Lead with the positive. I also love Michelle Obama. STELLA: I love how down to earth she is. TOKS: Exactly. She seems able to look beyond all the pomp and pageantry. And of course, the late Dr Maya Angelou. STELLA: She’s my favourite author. TOKS: Her writing transports you. There is an openness and fearlessness in the way she writes. She is incredibly self-aware and honest. I’m inspired both by her writing and the life she lived. STELLA: You’ve given advice to young people already, but if you had one final thing to say to them, what would it be? TOKS: Work on your mind. Don’t leave the world or other people to shape it for you. You are responsible for your mind, and your mind is the engine room of your life. Give time to discovering what is in there. Anything that shouldn’t be there, uproot it. Anything that should be there, plant it. Be intentional about your thoughts. STELLA: I’m sure you think we’re coming to the end, but I have two more questions. What advice would you give specifically to Nigerian women, wherever they happen to live in the world? TOKS: I might get crucified for this, but don’t allow culture to become your leader. We are very cultural people. But many Nigerian women bend under the weight of culture and simply accept, “This is my lot in life. This is what I have to do.” Be curious enough to see what lies beyond culture and brave enough to step outside it when you need to. STELLA: And I haven’t asked you about your TEDx experience. How did that happen? TOKS: It goes back to that vision board. I still have the board upstairs. I put everything on it that I didn’t have but wanted. There was a picture of a meal from Applebee’s because when I lived in America I loved Applebee’s. At that stage in my life I couldn’t just go out for a meal whenever I wanted. So the picture represented getting to a point where I could say, “I want to eat out today,” without needing a birthday or anniversary as a reason. I put one of my friend Shade’s outfits on there. She was a fashion designer and had designed this beautiful outfit that cost about $400. At the time I thought $400 for an outfit was incredibly expensive. So I put it on my board because I wanted to reach a point where I could afford clothes like that. I had my dream car, which at the time was a Toyota Sequoia. I had my dream home. I had a stack of books because I wanted to publish multiple books. I had an image of a Black woman standing in front of an audience holding a microphone because I wanted to become a speaker. Then I thought, “What is the pinnacle of speaking? TED.” So I put the TED logo on the board. I also had the King’s Road sign because I wanted a bricks-and-mortar shop on an affluent London high street. I had pictures relating to supporting charities and children in school. For me, a vision board captures a picture of the future and puts it somewhere your physical senses can see it repeatedly. Eventually you start noticing opportunities that align with what you’re already looking for. There’s a concept called the reticular activating system. Once something becomes important to you, you begin to notice relevant information and opportunities around you. That’s what happened with King’s Road. And because TED was on my vision board, one day I saw a call on Facebook from someone organising a TEDx event and looking for speakers. I thought, “TED is on my vision board.” So I applied. That’s how it happened. STELLA: And now, beyond The Baby Cot Shop, what else do you do? You speak, you consult? TOKS: Yes. I speak about mindset and helping people take action and see beyond where they are today. I also do business consulting, although I don’t have capacity for much of that at the moment. I have a podcast called Living Inside Out. I feel sorry for it because what was supposed to be a six-month break is getting close to a year now, but I will return to it. I also have The Authentic Edge, which is a short daily soundbite, around three minutes. And my book will be out one day. STELLA: I can’t wait. Your story is amazing and I would definitely be interested in reading it and supporting you when you launch. How can people find you? TOKS: If you’re looking for beautiful baby and children’s furniture, you can visit thebabycotshop.com. We’re also on Instagram under The Baby Cot Shop. My personal website is toksaroture.com, where I write about life lessons, inspiration and other things. I’m also on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram as Toks Aroture. STELLA: Amazing. Thank you so much, Toks, for talking to us. It has been a fantastic journey. I think you may officially be my longest interview. TOKS: I warn people that I can talk. STELLA: But none of it was wasted. There were so many nuggets of wisdom. I loved hearing your origin story. Thank you so much for coming. I really enjoyed talking to you. TOKS: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Closing STELLA: So that was Toks Aroture of The Baby Cot Shop. It was an incredible interview. She was extremely generous in sharing her origin story and talking about how she developed her business, what happened when she lost so much, and how she started all over again. There are a lot of lessons in that story, and I hope you’ve been able to take something away from it. You can also see how much she loves technology and the different ways she is now harnessing it in her business. We now have listeners in around 20 countries, including Singapore, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Spain, Nigeria, the UK, the US and many others. Wherever you’re listening from, remember to follow, review and subscribe. If you’re watching on YouTube, please subscribe. The more you support the podcast, the more it encourages me to continue bringing you interesting guests. You can also reach me at stella@stellaonithewriter.com. Talking Tech with Creatives is on Instagram as well. We’re still small there, but you can DM me. I’m at the stage where I really want to hear from listeners. Tell me what kinds of conversations you want to hear, the subjects you would like us to explore, and the questions you want me to ask. You can also visit talkingtechwithcreatives.com. The website gives you access to the podcast across platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I’m also developing a giveaway and a free digital kit that I think will be useful to listeners. There are already longer-form articles on the website, including pieces on Rob Moore and Afrobeats, and I’ll be adding more content. And yes, at least now you know I’m not AI. This is the real me tripping over my words. Talking Tech with Creatives sits at the intersection of culture, creativity and technology. We’re not simply talking about pure technology. We’re interested in what happens where technology meets people, creativity, business and culture. We’ve already had some fantastic guests, and I want that to continue. So please subscribe and support the podcast. Thank you very much for listening, wherever you are in the world. Enjoy your day, your evening or your night. Thank you.