'We've been bootstrapped to this point' - How two Kingswingford teachers started a successful eco-friendly cleaning products business

Composty was founded by Kingswinford-based couple Matt and Helen Guest in 2021 and makes a range of fully compostable and eco-friendly cleaning products. 

The firm has since taken two prestigious awards at the Clean and Tidy Home Show, bagging the 'Contribution to the environment' category for the last two years in a row, and is now hoping for investment in order to build on its initial success and take the business to the next level.

Co-Founder Matt quit his teaching job to go full-time on the business this year, having combined the enterprise with his work in school for the first four years.

But the roots of the company go back to 2016 when Matt and Helen decided to start making changes following the birth of their daughter.

"We started to want to live a bit more sustainably, and I think when you have a family you start to reflect on your choices a bit more, and how its going to impact the world you're leaving behind," said Matt. 

"I think a lot of people have the same feelings but they maybe fall into the trap of trying to do too much and think we're going to have solar panels, electric cars, we're going to walk everywhere we can, that kind of thing.

"We decided we wanted to make small changes - we thought 'we aren't made of money, but what we can do is make cheap changes', and sponges were one of those things.

"We found out that plastic sponges you buy in the supermarket can take up to 500 years to bio-degrade at landfill, so to put it into perspective if Henry the eighth had used one of those sponges it would still exist on this planet.

"All of the cleaning products we make are made from nature - we like to say we've borrowed it from nature, so we use it and then we can turn it back to compost at the end and we can say we've given it back to nature which is our ethos on our products and materials."

The firm started off in 2021 with it's 'magic pop-up sponge', which is made from fully bio-degradeable materials and is compressed in order to reduce its carbon footprint during transportation. The company now has a range of 14 different products available for sale, all made with the same eco-friendly principles.

Founder Matt quit his full-time teaching job to go full-time on the business this year, having combined the enterprise with his work in school for the first four years, and admitted giving up teaching had resulted in a change of pace. 

The firm is now pitching for the investment it now needs to elevate its marketing efforts to the next level, and scale up operations.

"I worked as a secondary teacher and I loved it. I'd have 200 kids going through my classroom every day, it's all about relationships and having contact with people all day, and now I work on my own so it's very diferrent. But I've got a busy house, I have four kids, so I get plenty of background noise anyway!" added Matt.

"I never imagined it would become a full-time thing, I didn't feel that the market was there for it yet but I think it's still growing. 

"My aim for the next 12 months is get investors on board and have the ability then to scale with some money behind us because we've been bootstrapped to this point."