Meet Melinda Frandsen | CEO of Tobiq Family Bags

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melinda Frandsen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melinda, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I honestly saw a gap in the market. I’m the mother of four young kids and I never have enough hands to carry all our people and their things. When we would travel, packing a bag for each kid just wasn’t working for me. We carried more than we needed and could rarely find what we wanted. I went looking for a bag to help me simplify and organize our travel experience. When I discovered a surprising lack of options for family travel bags, I went to work making one.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My maternal roots run deep in the Tobique river valley in Eastern Canada. I grew up traveling there with my mom and siblings every summer. It nurtured my worldview and helped me appreciate our diverse planet and its people. Helping my own kids develop a wise, compassionate perspective is top on my parenting priority list. I hoped travel could help me to this end, but instead, I was schooled in how difficult it can be to travel with a family. By the time I had my third baby, I began searching for helpful tools and methods for traveling families. This is when the TOBIQ bag was born.

I’m proud of the TOBIQ bag and The Family Duffel company because we share a method of traveling, not just a product for it. Our method simplifies packing for families; it’s one bag with four individual compartments, each with interior organizers. Not easy to build! But I am so proud of our product because it encourages an essentialist mindset–which has decreased my stress load tremendously. It’s a “less, but better” approach to packing. The bag helps me examine what I really need, and there is plenty of space for those items (nothing shifts or gets tangled in other people’s things within the bag). I believe in it so much, I have a patent pending on the design.

Through years of development, there have been many defeating moments. A few factories flat-out refused to prototype with me. As my spouse, Jonathan, was completing his medical residency, I was deep in development with multiple factories. We camped with our kids in our pop-up trailer on the weekends. Every trip we wished we had the bag to help us pack our crazy crew. That kept us going. We also launched our first big sales campaign just as covid shut-downs began! But I persisted with the encouragement of my family and incredible friends. Along the way we learned how important it is to surround ourselves with good people, to be patient with the process and never give up on our vision. Building this business with my family has been a bonding experience and a creative outlet like no other.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We love hosting friends in Grand Junction, CO. Assuming our visitors are lucky enough to be here with perfect weather in early October, we would take them mountain biking in the Kokopelli trails, then to Hot Tomato for stromboli afterwards. If our friends love biking, we’d be content to do that everyday. But if people need a little variety, we’d make a day trip to Glenwood Springs to soak in the mineral pools, then binge on tacos from Slope and Hatch. We’d spend a day eating peach ice cream in Palisade and touring the farms and vinyards. Antique shopping in downtown Grand Junction is always a lot of fun, especially when you fill your bag with chocolates and toffee from Enstroms along the way. A final “must-do” around here is exploring the Colorado National Monument. The Monument holds a wealth of trails with awe-inspiring Redrock views. Come and see for yourself!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My business partner and life partner, Jonny Frandsen deserves major credit. He believes in me relentlessly.

Website: https://tobiqtravel.com

Instagram: @tobiqtravel

Facebook: TOBIQ

Other: thefamilyduffel@gmail.com

Image Credits
Jonathan Frandsen