Ette Tete

Children like to climb things. It might be a tree, a climbing frame, the stairs. In the case of Linda Riekstiņa-Šnore it was a wooden ladder leading to the loft of a tiny wooden house in the countryside beyond the city of Alūksne.

Now Linda has two children of her own, and it is they who have provided not only the name of Ette Tete, the children's furniture business she runs with her husband Krišjānis, but the very reason for its existence. 

Though some competitors offer similar products, it is Ette Tete's sleek, safe and attractive form that is a major selling point, along with a hard-won reputation for using high quality materials. It says something that even in a market as demanding as the United States, customers are willing to wait up to 2 months from order to delivery.

According to Linda, dropping manufacturing quality or outsourcing in order to fulfil more orders is not a road the company wants to travel and while it is frustrating to miss out on some potential orders, those who do want an Ette Tete product will go to extraodinary lengths to get one.

Ette Tete employs 13 people and has exported to 42 different countries, reaching as far afield as French Polynesia whose population of just 280,000 has placed three Ette Tete orders, making it something of a hotspot. A more different environment to early March in northern Latvia is hard to imagine.

Ette Tete continues to climb ever higher, too. The next product they have planned? An adaptable wooden climbing frame.