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The Founder's Notes

Founder index · Jellycat · 1999–present

William and Thomas Gatacre

The lesson that travels

“Scarcity is not something you add when demand arrives. The Gatacres built the habit of retiring bestsellers when nobody was queuing, so that when people did, the company already knew how to say no.”

There is less on the public record about the Gatacre brothers than about any other founders in this library, and that is itself a fact about the company. They started Jellycat in London in 1999 — the name, by the company's account, came from a child who liked jellies and cats — and they have given almost no interviews since. Even the founding is slightly contested: some accounts credit Thomas alone, the company's own history names both brothers, and William is the one listed as co-founder and managing director in recent years, with a professional chief executive, Mandy Pugh, running the operation. What is not contested is the ownership. Jellycat Limited belongs to the family, files full accounts at Companies House, carries no debt, and paid its owners around £58 million in dividends for 2023 and planned around £110 million for 2024.

The business they built looks, from the outside, like a gift company that got lucky with TikTok, and that reading is wrong. The two mechanisms that produced a pre-tax margin above forty percent — retiring designs every year and never reissuing them, and selling at one price through stockists the company chooses — were in place long before adults started collecting Amuseables. The Amuseables line itself dates from 2008 and sold modestly for a decade. The brothers ran a nursery-gift brand with a luxury house's habits, and when the wave arrived in 2020 the habits were the reason the company did not drown in it. Turnover went from about £146 million in 2022 to £333 million in 2024, and the margin widened rather than narrowed, which only happens when a company declines to chase volume.

The part I would push on is 2025. In June the company stopped supplying around a hundred independent British shops, many of which had carried the brand for years, at short notice and with an explanation that amounted to a phrase — brand elevation. The principle is consistent with everything the Gatacres have ever done; the execution treated the company's first believers as surplus. A family that has managed to run a soft-toy company with the discipline of Hermès for a quarter of a century has earned the benefit of the doubt on strategy. It has not yet earned it on manners, and in a brand whose whole appeal is kindness that is not a small thing.

§01 — The hard calls

  1. 1999

    Start a soft-toy company in London with a small, consistent design language rather than a licence or a character.

    Twenty-five years later a Jellycat is recognisable across a room without a logo, which is the asset every other decision depends on.

  2. 2008

    Launch Amuseables — everyday objects with faces — into a range built for nurseries.

    Sold quietly for a decade, then became the engine of growth from 2020, bought by teenagers and adults for themselves. The customer the company ended up with was not the one it started with.

  3. 2010s

    Retire designs on a published schedule and never reissue them, forgoing the revenue on proven bestsellers.

    Created a secondary market at two to four times retail and turned every toy into a limited edition by default. The moat, in one recurring decision.

  4. 2023

    Open a diner inside FAO Schwarz and a chip shop inside Selfridges rather than a store estate of their own.

    Extraordinary content per pound and no leases. The counters are shops designed for the customer's camera, and they did the job that advertising would otherwise have done.

  5. 2025

    Stop supplying around 100 independent UK stockists to concentrate the brand in fewer, larger doors.

    Consistent with the strategy and badly received. Whether the department stores and direct channel absorb the volume at full price is the question the 2025 accounts will answer.

One of these is set up as a tutorial — you make the call before you find out what William did.

Face the decision

§02 — Around this founder