Quality, pride centre pieces in retail puzzle Hobbry grows from hobby to global business, calls Winnipeg home once more Made in Manitoba
By: Aaron Epp Posted: 5:54 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024 Last Modified: 12:27 PM CDT Monday, Oct. 28, 2024 Updates

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Bryanne Hobson has a lot of work to do and it’s all because 10 years ago, she tried to relax.

In 2014, Hobson was living in Toronto and working a demanding job as a buyer for TJX Canada, the company that operates the HomeSense, Marshalls and Winners retail chains.

She realized one day she didn’t have any hobbies, so Hobson decided to give painting with watercolours a shot. Soon, she was selling her work at local markets and via online marketplace Etsy.

A friend who worked at the Indigo books chain bought one of the pieces and displayed it on his desk. One thing led to another and the company licensed the artwork for a notebook and a paperweight it sold in stores.

Nine months into her new hobby, Hobson quit her job to focus on painting full-time. Her friend at Indigo suggested she start making products under her own brand instead of licensing her art to other companies.

So, she started Hobbry. (The name combines the first three letters of her surname with the first three letters of her first name.)

Today, the company creates products in a range of categories, including stationery, desk accessories, office supplies, party decorations and indoor and outdoor games. Hobson, her husband Ian Beveridge, and their staff of eight full-time employees work with established retailers around the world to develop private label and Hobbry-branded products.

“We design beautiful products that we hope will brighten people’s day,” Hobson says.

From sourcing and product development, to design and illustration, Hobbry brings products to life from start to finish. The company’s clients include Indigo, Winners, Marshalls, HomeSense, Staples, Anthropologie and Target.

Hobson hasn’t done any painting in years. These days, the company’s three full-time illustrators handle the image-making, allowing Hobson to work with clients and focus on the company’s creative direction. In his role as chief operating officer, Beveridge handles the company’s logistics and liaises with manufacturers.

Hobbry may have started in the Big Smoke, but Hobson and Beveridge were born and raised in Winnipeg.

The 38-year-olds met while studying at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business. After graduation, Hobson moved to Toronto and took a job in planning at Indigo, while Beveridge went to work at an investment firm in Winnipeg. After dating long distance for three years, Beveridge arranged to work remotely and moved to Toronto in 2014.

“We design beautiful products that we hope will brighten people’s day.”–Bryanne Hobson

In 2017, the couple married. Two years after that, Beveridge quit his job to work at Hobbry full-time.

By that point, the company had established an office on the Esplanade in downtown Toronto, just a 10-minute walk from where the couple lived.

When their son Jackson was born in 2019, the couple started thinking about moving back to Winnipeg so they could be close to family. Hobson was hesitant — they had a growing business with a team based entirely in Toronto, after all.

As luck would have it, four weeks before COVID-19 reached their city, the couple happened to set their employees up for remote work. They moved back to Winnipeg in May 2021, and their daughter Halle was born the next year.

Hobson calls returning to Manitoba one of the silver linings of the pandemic.

“There was no world where I honestly thought we would be able to get back to Winnipeg,” she says. “With COVID, we were working remotely and (thought), maybe we can move back. So that’s the reason we came back — because we had the trust and the knowledge that we could be remote. And it’s worked out.”

Hobson works in an office space on Grosvenor Avenue, while Beveridge and Hobbry’s other Winnipeg employee work from home. Seven employees are still in the Toronto office.

The company recently acquired warehouse space in Winnipeg and its products are manufactured in 10 factories in Vietnam and China.

Since 2014, the company has sold more than 5,000 unique products and designs to retailers in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia under the Hobbry brand and its clients’ brands.

“We’d like our brand to continue to be associated with quality, beautiful products.”–Ian Beveridge

The company sells to more than 4,300 stores in North America and 750 stores in Europe and Australia. Its bestselling products are its puzzles — Hobbry has designed more than 75 puzzles since 2020, with artwork from in-house and freelance illustrators.

“Bryanne gets an interest and then turns it into business,” Beveridge says. “Painting turned into the start of the business. COVID happens, she starts puzzling and then she starts going, well, hey, we could make puzzles. And next thing you know, we’re selling puzzles.”

Hobson and Beveridge are thankful for the support of their family and friends, many of whom tell them whenever they see Hobbry products in stores. (Some friends even take it upon themselves to reorganize store displays so Hobbry items are front and centre.)

It’s also thrilling whenever the couple sees Hobbry products in unexpected places. When they were in the hospital for their son’s birth, Beveridge noticed a nurse using a pen made by Hobbry.

“It’s cool when you see things that we’ve made out in the wild,” he says.

The couple is pleased they can offer meaningful employment to their team and appreciate they get to work on the business together.

“I love the product that we make and it’s cool to see it in stores, but it’s not the same as the pride I feel that our family is being built (and) is thriving on what we’ve built together,” Hobson says.

The couple’s goal moving forward is to grow the business and to keep making items that meet the Hobbry standard. “We’d like our brand to continue to be associated with quality, beautiful products,” Beveridge says.

Hobson is always looking ahead.

“I love figuring out what’s new, what’s trending from an art perspective, from a product category perspective, from a design (perspective),” she says. “I love uncovering what’s going to work well for my clients.”

So something that was supposed to be a leisure activity launched a successful business. Hobson says she never had much fun painting anyway.

“I turned the hobby into a business and I’ve never touched a paintbrush since,” she says. “And I couldn’t be happier about it.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca