If you’ve had a look around the 3 Donkeys website recently, you might have noticed something a little different appearing alongside our own products.
And no, before anyone asks, I haven’t suddenly decided to start selling random bits and pieces. 😂
There is actually a bit of a plan behind it.
For a while now, I’ve wanted 3 Donkeys to be more than simply a place where you can buy our 2to1® coveralls, jackets and the rest of the collection. I’d also like it to become somewhere you can discover other genuinely useful products from small UK businesses — particularly the sort of things we actually use ourselves and can properly recommend.
Because running a small business is hard.
Anyone who has built one will know that it isn’t just about having a good idea. There’s the manufacturing, websites, packaging, marketing, social media, events, stock, cash flow and approximately 427 other jobs nobody mentions when you start.
And getting your product in front of the right people can sometimes be the hardest bit of all.
So, why SealStop?
SealStop is actually the perfect place to start because it is something we already use here on the farm.
With calves, cattle, water troughs and buckets constantly needing filling, there have been plenty of occasions when somebody has turned the hose on, walked away to do something else and then remembered it rather later than they probably should have.
I’ll leave you to imagine the resulting lake.
SealStop is brilliantly simple.
It attaches to the hose and automatically shuts the water supply off once the required level has been reached.
That’s it.
No complicated technology. No app. No faffing.
Just one of those products that makes you wonder why someone didn’t invent it years ago.
SealStop has also been featured on BBC Dragons’ Den, but the reason I wanted it at 3 Donkeys isn’t simply because it has been on television.
It’s because it is useful.
We use it.
And I think plenty of our customers — whether they have horses, livestock, gardens, yards or just a habit of forgetting they’ve left the hose running — will find it useful too.
The beginning of something a little bigger
SealStop is also the start of something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while.
You may have noticed a new Accessories section appearing on the website.
The idea is to bring together a small, carefully chosen collection of products from other independent UK businesses.
Not hundreds of products.
Not things added simply to fill a website.
Just genuinely good ideas and products that fit naturally alongside 3 Donkeys.
Things for country life, outdoor life, farms, yards, horses, dogs and all the slightly chaotic everyday jobs that seem to come with them.
If I wouldn’t use it, buy it or recommend it myself, it probably won’t make it onto the website.
Simple as that.
Why supporting small businesses matters
I’ve been incredibly lucky over the years to have support from other small business owners.
People have shared posts, made introductions, given advice, recommended 3 Donkeys to customers, helped at events and sometimes just been there for a conversation when things haven’t quite gone to plan.
Small businesses are very good at doing that for each other.
And I think there is room for more of it.
The reality is that none of us has the marketing budget of a huge company.
But what we do have is a community.
If 3 Donkeys can introduce one of our customers to another brilliant small UK business, that matters.
And equally, if another business introduces somebody to us who had never heard of 3 Donkeys or the 2to1® before, that matters too.
It doesn’t always have to be competition.
Sometimes it can simply be businesses helping businesses.
Keeping it very 3 Donkeys
This isn’t about turning 3 Donkeys into a marketplace.
Our own products and, of course, the 2to1® will always be at the heart of what we do.
But 3 Donkeys has always grown fairly organically.
Usually through solving a problem, discovering something useful or somebody saying, “Have you seen this?”
So adding a small collection of products we genuinely like feels like a natural next step.
You’ll still find the same practical, slightly muddy, country-proof approach behind everything.
If it helps make life easier, solves an annoying problem or is simply a really good product from a small UK business, then there is every chance I’ll be interested.
Small businesses supporting small businesses
There are some amazing products being designed and made by independent businesses around the UK.
Often by somebody sitting at a kitchen table, working from a farm office, packing orders after the children have gone to bed or trying to answer emails while also dealing with whatever disaster the day has decided to throw at them.
I know that world rather well.
So if 3 Donkeys can use the audience we’ve built to give a few of those businesses a little more visibility too, then I think that’s a very good thing.
SealStop is the first.
There will be more.
But, as always, they’ll have to pass the most important 3 Donkeys test first:
Would we actually use it ourselves?
If the answer is yes, you may well see it appearing on our website and socials.
Because small businesses supporting small businesses makes a lot of sense to me.
And if we can find a few brilliantly useful things along the way, even better.