The Rookie Story - How it all Began

An old belt, a piece of fabric and a stapler...

The idea of the Rookie was born with our first baby. We were absolute rookies ourselves and had no idea what was coming. But it did not stop us from travelling the world with our 7-week-old baby. We carried her through jungles and cities, always looking for the perfect baby carrier. But we never found it. When we became professionals in baby carrying after 1.5 years and 100,000 kilometres, we decided to develop our own perfect baby carrier.

So we started with a piece of fabric, that we cut freehand into the shape of a "baby carrier" and attached it with a stapler. We then sewed this something to an old belt. And so we created our first prototype.

Totally unaware of textile production and how to turn a prototype into a product, we went to our trusted alteration tailor in Prenzelberg, Berlin. The lady who normally cuts our trousers looked at us with big eyes. Was it really that difficult to sew a real one out of our stapled baby carrier? We did not give up. A few days later we held our first sewn prototype in our hands.

How did it look? Well...

We had been going through fabrics, buckles and stuff at a bunch of stores. We never opened and closed so many buckles in a row in our life in order to find the best one: does it close gently? Is it safe? How does the buckle lock in place? What is the sound?

Never satisfied and lots of hurdles - giving up?

We tried thousands of combinations of fabrics, buckles and velcro, but never came to a final decision. We were just never satisfied; there was always something that was bothering us. For a while we threw our carrier into the corner - it didn't make sense that way. We wanted to give up.

The children's birthday party

One day we were invited to a children's birthday party. In the chaos of the day we were desperately looking for a quick solution to take our sleeping daughter with us. Our "baby carrier" caught our eye and we grabbed it. Our little Lana fell asleep right in it as usual.

Arriving at the birthday party, one of the mothers said: "Nice baby carrier! Was she serious? Yes, she was. She thought that what we had put together was really a "real" baby carrier and that it was beautiful too! So we took heart and started to develop the Rookie.

Producing can't be that difficult...

...we thought. Because now we had the perfect rookie and it was finally about to be produced. But we got a lot of cancellations or no response from a lot of productions. After long, long discussions we had finally found a local production that wanted to support us.

But what about packaging, deliveries, etc.? In sleepless nights we packed packages, hand-labeled them and took them to the post office.

Rookie as a brand

After the first sale of the Rookie carrier we were under constant adrenaline: how many returns come back? Can we continue producing or do we not have enough money? How do people like the Rookie?

We could hardly believe how positive the feedback was: people loved the Rookie and shared their happiness on social media.

Today we equip stars, VIPs and the coolest parents with our exclusive baby carriers. Meanwhile Rookie has established itself as a well-known brand on many channels and is one of the most functional and stylish baby carriers on the market.

Thanks for all your support and loyalty. Every day we do our best to make Rookie even better.

Your founder,

Ben