The story of David and Louise Rundle shows how love, ingenuity and hard work can overcome a lack of teenage educational success.
The St Andrews couple both had unfinished business academically in their early days: David dropped out of university after just one year while Louise “skived” and “messed around” at school in Crail.
Fast forward to the modern day and the Rundles, still in their 30s, pay the wages of 23 staff and oversee almost 200 customers as the owners of Blue Star St Andrews.
Yet every day they consistently turn down the chance to make much bigger profits.
“We didn’t come into this business to become millionaires and don’t want to dilute our service by becoming too big,” says David.
“We could take on 20 new staff tomorrow and start turning over millions of pounds a year but customers would just become a number and we don’t want that environment.”
This feature looks at how David and Louise have worked their way up to become a local success story while raising three children and still “adoring each other”.
The couple also reveal that they have become foster parents.
The feature is split into the following sections:
- Dropping out early
- Climbing the ladder
- Forming the business
- Expansion and awards
- Becoming foster parents
- Planning an organic future
Dropping out early
David Rundle comes from a family of carers. His mother Ann looked after disabled adults, father Brian helped at The Boys’ Brigade and gran Jean Govans was a carer in a care home.
“All around there were people who cared for others,” he says. “We didn’t have much but we still helped other people.”
Given he was brought up by those at the coalface it is perhaps not surprising that David, now 38, found the university of life a more valuable experience than the academic version.
Almost two decades ago he left after just one year of a business management and hospitality degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.
“I realised it was not for me,” says David, who grew up in the Kilmarnock area. “I was also working as a manager at the Pizza Hut in Kilmarnock and I felt I was learning more in real life.”
Louise, meanwhile, was 17 and navigating life in her hometown of Crail as a single mother to Chloe. Two years earlier Louise, now 37, had left Wade Academy, Anstruther, with a B in English but little else.
“I didn’t try – I just messed around,” she admits. “To be honest I used to skive off school. I was more interested in having fun.”
Climbing up the ladder
The couple met when Louise was 18. David went to Fife to visit his brother, who was going out with Louise’s cousin at the time. The rest is history.
They soon had son Max, enabling Louise to dedicate her time to bringing up two young children. “I loved doing it and had so much fun.”
Once they were older she got a job as a home carer for Elite Care Scotland – now Prestige Care, where she soon became a team leader.
Louise also undertook an on-the-job SVQ qualification, where she was inspired by educator Carolyn Livesley.
“She gave me a lot of confidence because I had never before applied myself to any education at all,” Louise says. “But she said ‘you can do this’ and it then came easily.”
Not only did Louise now have the belief to do an HNC at SRUC Elmwood in Cupar but she excelled, winning the carer of the year award.
On a roll, Louise took on a placement at Strathmartine Hospital while completing a three-year degree in mental health nursing at Dundee University. She continued her work at Elite Care on weekends.
Came home and said ‘I quit’
The Rundles’ working life crossed over 15 years ago when David, armed with vocational experience at Pizza Hut, began working as a coordinator at Elite Care.
He earned a promotion to the role of business manager while also achieving two on-the-job SVQ qualifications.
This presented a challenge to their relationship. “What made it hard,” David says, “was in management meetings decisions were being made that might have an influence on Louise’s job but I couldn’t say to her ‘this is what they’re looking at’.”
“Elite was an amazing company when we arrived,” Louise says. “It was small but as it grew its culture changed, which made us want to get out. Our roles were changing.”
Louise was doing less and less frontline care while David was asked to take on a “prominent role that was about making money which ethically didn’t seem right”.
In February 2014 he came home one day and said to Louise “I quit”.
Forming the business
David applied for several jobs in the care industry but had no luck because he was considered over-qualified.
But his father-in-law, John Spink, had an idea. “He suggested I open up my own cleaning business because I was a clean freak!” David says.
And so it began. Louise’s third child and the couple’s second, Ellie, was only three years old at the time but she coined the name of the company.
David was drawing up logos along the theme of the five-star service he hoped to provide. Overhearing, Ellie suggested ‘Blue Star’ and the name stuck.
David and Louise delivered leaflets about the new company around Crail, Anstruther and other parts of the East Neuk. They stayed away from St Andrews because Louise was still working there for Elite.
“I started off with two jobs a week, and then I got a commercial customer,” says David. “Before long, I needed to take on another member of staff and then another one. Within 18 months I had 15 staff.”
Once she had finished her degree, Louise left Elite for a job in the acute admissions ward at the Carseview Centre. She stayed here for three years before working for Fife Council’s addiction services department.
Expansion and awards
Blue Star St Andrews was only a year old when it moved into the home-help sector.
By 2017, three years since starting the business, David decided to register as a care-at-home provider as so many clients were also requesting care.
The full circle – caring to cleaning to caring – was completed on April 1 2018, when the first carer was taken on. Louise was also on board, making it a true family-owned business.
More than three years later the company has 15 staff serving 170 cleaning clients and eight home carers looking after about 24 care customers.
In 2020 it was recognised with Best Service Business and the Consumer Award at the Fife Retail Business Awards.
In 2021 Blue Star St Andrews was named Family Business Entrepreneur of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards for the Scotland & Northern Ireland region.
‘The quality we give would be diluted’
David and Louise could generate bigger profits by accepting more clients and taking on more staff but they don’t want to harm their service.
“We want a company where customers and staff are treated well and taken care of,” Louise says.
“It is difficult to get good quality carers who have the same ethos and qualities we want as a company.
“If we took on loads more clients the quality we give would be diluted.”
‘We are not sitting in an office in a suit’
David has remained in the cleaning side of the business while Louise looks after the caring element. The home-help falls in-between.
Louise says: “We are learning to delegate but we are sometimes both out covering staff absence.
“It’s a good thing for staff that we are not sitting in an office in a suit and it is important for us to experience what the staff are dealing with.”
Becoming foster parents
David and Louise continue to run a thriving business and have parental duties to Chloe, 19, Max, 16, and Ellie, 11.
Yet they have been willing to take on the additional responsibility of fostering.
For 18 months they fostered a young girl and were due to have another child in December 2021.
“We are lucky to have lovely family and friends and enough space in our house, so we thought ‘why not share that’?” Louise says.
“We have also got the experience to provide the support they need. I am immensely proud of how our kids have been helping us.”
Planning an organic future
Going forward, the only business growth the couple can foresee is a type that takes place “organically”.
“We have always worked well together and make a good team and adore each other,” Louise says.
“Neither of us had much money when we were young, which encouraged us to work hard and having our own business gives us the flexibility to take time off and see school plays and we want that for our staff.
“We want to be flexible so they can be flexible to spend time with their families.”
Not ‘to become millionaires’
David adds: “We didn’t come into this business to become millionaires and don’t want to dilute our service by becoming too big.
“For every cleaning customer I know what is in their house.
“We don’t just sit in an office and we know every decision we make has an impact on the staff because we have done the job ourselves.
“We could take on 20 new staff tomorrow and start turning over millions of pounds a year but customers would just become a number and we don’t want that environment.
“We just want to have enough money to support the staff and ensure they are well paid.”
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