About Us & Our Brand
Better Bounce Direct is one of the UK's leading manufacturers of quality play inflatables, bouncy castles, inflatables & play structure equipment. The Betterbounce brand was originally established over 30 years ago making it one of the longest established names in the industry. The Betterbounce brand has sold over 10,000 products shipped to countries on every continent around the world and have a famous 1,2,3 guarantee on all of our products.
Our staff have gained an enormous wealth of knowledge over the years and are some of the country’s top machinists. Our longest established staff members have worked for Better Bounce for over 20 years each ensuring an unbeatable skill level in the inflatable industry that we're extremely proud of.
All of our weird and wonderful inflatables are manufactured under our full control. We take full control of the design, manufacture, sales & dispatch process within our huge 22,000 sqft factory right in the heart of Leeds, West Yorkshire in the UK. Customers are always welcome to visit our factory for an informal chat and to see the production process for themselves.
Please take the time to browse through our extensive website and see if there's anything that tickles your fancy and remember, if you don't find anything you like, please feel free to Contact us or view our Custom Designs & Bespoke Inflatables section where we can help bring your inflatable dreams to life.
The company is run by Myself (Lee), The mother of my 2 beautiful children (Samantha) and our 2 small business partners Sophie & George. Despite Sophie & George only being only 7 & 8 years old they certainly don't mind telling me what to do on a day to day basis and they certainly know what products are hot and what's not so it kind of makes us a really good team!
The Start...
I started a small inflatable hire company back in 2003 at the age of 17 whilst I worked on an apprenticeship scheme with Leeds City Council, attended Leeds University and worked part time at the local pub to help fund my education.
The formation of Funbounce was a complete accident. I was set the task of organising a bouncy castle for the pub In which I worked. The bouncy castle was to be placed in the beer garden for the long summer 8 week holidays and I was told she had a budget of only £500, which after ringing around for prices I soon realised was an impossible task as many hire companies were either fully booked or wouldn't entertain the idea.
So later that evening by pure chance, I was reading the local paper were I saw an advert that simply stated "Bouncy castle for sale £600 ONO" Well I couldn't believe my luck and 2 or 3 phone calls and a bit of negotiation later I had my very own bouncy castle and my very first customer. The Pub!
After the holidays passed and it was time for me to take the bouncy castle home I couldn't help but think... what the heck have I bought this thing for and what am I going to do with it? but after a few days and a few laughs and jokes from members of my family & friends, one of them decided to hire it for a birthday, a few weeks later a 2nd member hired one, then a 3rd, 4th ,5th & 6th and before long they were all arguing about who was to have it & when so I bought another.. and another.. and another and before long my friends heard about it, then friends of friends heard about it and then the business grew and grew until I had around 5 or 6.
By this time, 3 years had passed I had finished my apprenticeship at Leeds City council, Qualified as an Engineer from Leeds University and the pub job was long gone so I had a bit of time again and turned back to the hire company and worked out a plan.
This plan was simple.. Expand!!!! and expand I did ensuring Funbounce Entertainments as it was now named have evolved to be one of the largest & most competitively priced company’s to supply bouncy castles, Rodeo bulls, Bungee runs, Sumo suits, Gladiator duels, Inflatable bouncy slides, Inflatable bouncy assault courses, event management, promotional services and many other entertainment services in Leeds, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Halifax, York & the rest of the UK for both private and corporate occasions.
The Middle...
Over the years, Funbounce Entertainments grew from strength to strength and using the skills and knowledge acquired from my 10 years at Leeds City Council, Designing Roads & Bridges I turned to the design and manufacture of bouncy castles themselves. 18 months later we we building inflatables from a hire companies point of view as opposed to a commercial operation and thats where things really got interesting!
After the 3rd year of manufacture we realised that we'd accidentally build inflatables that were far superior, Stronger and robust than they ever needed to be. We designed, redesigned & redesigned the inflatables constantly to keep our products evolving and to iron out any kinks that were hindering us as a hire company regardless of costs. In year 4 we realised that the annual replacement saga was completely unnecessary we'd accidentally built some of the most strongest, robust and vibrant inflatables in the UK.
So in year 4, One of our staff members suggested that we try and sell our inflatables brand new as opposed to just rotating stock. In just a short space of time business was booming and everybody loved our products so much that we were drastically running out of space and the old inefficiencies that didn't matter before began to cause bottlenecks in our work.
At the same time we had attracted attention from one of our old suppliers Martin at Betterbounce. I often joked with Martin about buying him out one day but was always in jest and the only year I didn't ask was the year he asked me. He's heard about the success we were having and decided that if we did to the manufacturing game what we did to the hire game then his time was up.
3 months later, a deal was struck and I took over as director of one of the most respected manufacturing companies in the UK Betterbounce Direct.
The next chapter...
After purchasing the relatively small company in 2009, We have invested heavily in sophisticated 3D Computer-Aided Design Software and a new computer controlled flat bed cutting machine over the years which gives unrivalled accuracy in the production process which really is worth a visit to see it in action.
Our CNC cutting machine and industrial printers are the largest most efficient bouncy castle & inflatable cutting machine currently operating in Europe, which allows us to drastically speed up the production process without compromising on quality and allows us to offer unbeatable products at unbeatable prices all year round.
Combine this with the masses of knowledge inherited with the takeover and the awesome skill of the staff we really were set to go big! and big we went!
Better Bounce Direct has evolved to become one of Europe's leading manufacturers of quality bouncy castles, inflatables & play structure equipment. We have sold over 10,000 products shipped to countries on every continent around the world and have a famous 1,2,3 guarantee on all of our products. We now operate from a 22,000 sqft 3 Story manufacturing facility that we purchased in 2017. The purchase allowed us to expand once again and really set the pace for our future and helped smooth everything out. The building also housed are whopping 1,500 stock items from many of our worldwide factories.
We still to this day stick to our original motto and refuse to be beaten on quality. Everything is designed BY a hire company, FOR a hire company. As as much as doing things above and beyond is amazing, it makes it impossible to compete on price, However, we can ensure that you get a dam good product for a dam good price that will see you returning year on year and we still give out tonnes of free hire advice every day.
We now stock over 1,000 bouncy castles ready for next day delivery, making us one of the largest manufacturers and distributors in Europe but we have never forgotten our roots. The company is still run by Myself, Samantha, My head machinist from day 1 and his other half ensuring a really down to earth feel and not a faceless giant.
The End?
Well for a man who's always had a plan, I really don't know where we will go from here. We really are at the top of our game and we really are so humbled to be here. We still all love what we do and have a real passion for the industry, However, during a major restructuring exercise, I formally left the company in 2019 to pursue other business interests, having little or no involvement since around 2017. The company is now run extremely well by my partner Samantha and her assistant Paige who do a fantastic job (Arguably better then myself) with a real passion for what they do.
The company has grown from strength to strength since my leaving and is set to grow yet again next year.
2019 saw me join the PIPA panel who work closely with the RPII, British Standards & the HSE to help regulate and raise standards within the industry where I hope to make a change and put something back into the industry which is interesting and certainly keeps me on the ball.
We're still quite a few years from handing anything over to our children and we still learn something new every day. As long as this continues we will be here doing what we love!
Well I think that's just about enough from me and I'm sorry if I bored you along the way but hopefully, you have a better insight into our company and they way in which we operate and I hope this helps you make an informed decision.
Best wishes
Lee, Samantha, Sophie, George & the team x
We hope this helps for now and if you need to ask any questions, simply send us an email to info@better-bounce.co.uk via the Contact us page or give one of our technical team a call on : 0113 8878264
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