Propé and Danex - "In a family business, everyone helps"

Margareta became a toy supplier when she noticed a gap in the market

In 1988, Margareta set up her company Propé to supply Montessori materials to schools in Sweden and the Nordic countries. At first, it was just a side business that she ran alongside her full-time job at the telecommunications company. Hence, all purchases, deliveries and packaging to customers were handled from her garage in Kungälv. As a self-employed person, everyone in the family had to help out as best they could. So both her children and husband have helped over the years. They have helped with everything from modeling product images to unpacking, bundling paper, stamping mailings and packaging to customers. Although the family worked together sometimes in their spare time, there are only positive memories of the children. They always had fun during the time so it has led to many fun moments together and a close-knit family. It has also sparked an early interest in entrepreneurship in the children. Although the business was run at home in their garage, Margareta often received visits from her customers who were curious about her business.

Given that she was the only supplier in the Nordics, the business grew quite quickly and running e-commerce as a sideline was no longer sustainable. Without much hesitation, she quit her job at Televerket and started running her e-commerce business full-time. To keep up with the business, she also left the garage in Kungälv and instead rented premises in Borås, where the business is still located today.

Margareta herself went around and found subcontractors for her company and the focus on the products has always been to fit into Montessori's way of thinking and to find products of high quality. Propé has several subcontractors but 2010 was a valuable year when Nienhuis Montessori, the world-leading manufacturer of Montessori materials, chose Propé as an agency in Sweden and still today they are the only agency on the Swedish market.

Her son Anders, who has been involved in the company from an early age, showed great interest in the business as a teenager. When Anders wanted to start working in the family business, the owners of a subcontractor to Propé were going to sell. Danex, as the company was called, sold flags and pins in various formats. As Propé needed their range and it was a smaller business than Propé, Margareta thought it was a good idea to buy the company. This gave Propé access to the materials she had previously ordered from them and she thought it was a good idea for Anders to learn how to run an e-commerce on a smaller scale.

" Ina family business, everyone gets to help, and as a kid I helped with a little bit of everything. Packing, bundling paper, stamping mailings and I can guess that the sweaters we sold for a while were popular considering the models... Today it's me who gets help from my daughters in the office and I would have loved to have both them and Mom here at the same time... But unfortunately it never happened."

Of course, they have encountered setbacks over the years, but most of them have been small, such as a wrong purchase or a wrong delivery, but they have not affected the business much. However, the biggest setback for the family and the company was in 2014 when Margareta sadly passed away after a period of illness. It has of course affected the whole family and the company a lot, but her son Anders drives her work forward. This year, Propé, which Margareta started, has been around for 34 years and it`s still going strong. Anders has also further developed the business in recent years by also offering his products to private individuals where the flag store has received a boost in the past year.