Dannii Minogue, Denise van Outen, model Lisa B — and Holly Willoughby all have them. What exactly? A selection of Daniel Price and Jonny Sitton’s unique new personalised baby gifts.
The London-based entrepreneurs are the founders of My 1st Years, an online baby gift company enabling customers to personalise the products — namely shoes, blankets and teddies — they want to buy. Since the launch in January, they have sent such gifts to every celebrity baby that was born.
The X Factor’s Dannii Minogue received a baby blanket saying: “Ethan’s got the X Factor”, which she has been frequently tweeting about. Her sister Kylie described them as: “Way cute”. Vogue included the firm in their “top 10 baby gifts” list in the April edition.
Mr Sitton, 23, tells People: “It’s unbelievable how quickly it’s taken off. It started as an idea about a personalised shoe and it’s all escalated. It’s been great.” Mr Price, 23, came up with the idea for the company after struggling to find a baby gift for his nephew. “There was nothing personal enough. In the past few years personalisation has become a huge part of the worldwide gift industry and I wanted to have a part of it. My father passed away 10 years ago but I have always wanted to make him proud and run my own business empire.”
He approached close friend Mr Sitton — the duo studied together at JFS and Leeds University — and the firm was born.
The company was recently confirmed as the sole provider for personalised baby gifts for Interflora in the UK.
Mr Price says: “It was weird to see our products on Twitter but we love seeing it in the media and need to get it to as many people as we can.”
They are planning to send expecting-father David Cameron a personalised gift saying: “Daddy runs the country”. Shouldn’t that be co-runs?
