“At the start of 2010, my husband was doing his regular evening´s internet browsing when he stumbled across a sales advertisement for a small knitting company. On closer examination, this turned out to be a knitting company that produced work mittens. 
Before we knew it, we had bought it and founded our own company Vanda ehf (https://vanda.is).
We knew little or nothing about this kind of knitting, and the knitting machines were not easy to use, use, not exactly designed with amateurs in mind.
In our first year we learned on the job by making mistakes and correcting them and doing repairs of the machines. We sold about 600 pairs of mittens and were happy and exhausted. We asked ourselves regularly if we should continue or give up. We decided to continue and in 2013 we applied for a grant to develop our marketing, design a logo and improve the labelling on the product. We started promotional campaigns for potential customers and after 3-4 years we had sold 6000 pairs and the machines started working with us. Since then, sales have increased. We have made ourselves sustainable and learned how to operate a small family business.

A lot of work has gone into this adventure that started with a little evening´s internet browsing on the part of my husband, but it has also given us fun times together. Our children have grown up with the family working together on this project and everyone played a part in it.”