Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How Intuition & Obsession Led This Founder to $8M+ a Year Selling Lockers, with Mustard Made Co-Founder Becca Stern (Part 1)

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How Intuition & Obsession Led This Founder to $8M+ a Year Selling Lockers, with Mustard Made Co-Founder Becca Stern (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Let's take this show on the road. Imagine a world where gender equality is the norm and women have equal access to the same financial opportunities regardless of our personal circumstances. Hi, I'm Dune, founder of Female Startup Club and your personal hype girl. This is the pod for you. If you're starting a side hustle,
• 0:20
  scaling your biz or looking for inspo. We cover venture capital, personal finance, selling your biz and keeping your mental health in check from entrepreneurs like Refinery29's co-founder Piera Gelati and Ju Ru, who sold Hero Cosmetics for $650 million. Slide into my DMs if there's a question you want answered and let's get into today's episode.
• 0:58
  Becca, hi, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Oh, it is so good to be here. I'm so honored. Thank you for inviting me. I am so excited. Where is your accent from?
• 1:10
  I'm from London. I have lived in Australia for about 13 years and married an Australian. So it's a little bit mash up of both these days. Okay. And were you London based? Where do you come from in London? What area? So I'm from North London, High Barnet, end of the Northern Line. And then I also lived in Brighton for a couple of years for uni and then moved to Newcastle in Australia.
• 1:35
  Wow. What took you to Newcastle? It's a good question. I married an Australian, followed him to Australia. We had a little boy together in the UK. That didn't really work out. So yeah, the short story is I ended up a single mum for a bunch of years. Met my now husband, had two more kids, started a business and hopefully lived happily ever after. Yeah.
• 2:02
  Oh wow that's got a nice turn of events there. My mum is a single mum. I'm just I'm the fan of single mums. Yeah I feel like we dive straight in. Super women. It's always funny when people ask me that question I'm like do I just say you know yeah I just you know fell in love but yeah sometimes life has has a few twists and turns before you figure it out. Yes just like business.
• 2:27
  which I'm excited to get into those twists and turns and hear all about it. I usually love to start every episode just kind of rewinding and going back to the very beginning and where you like to start telling the story.
• 2:41
  Yeah, so I think it really goes back to those times as a single parent. I studied conceptual art in Brighton University, so I never really was chasing a high earning career path. I always was very much about following me.
• 2:59
  my passions and what I, you know, what I felt was the next best move rather than having a kind of long life, like life plan as such. Then I moved to Australia. I found myself single with a little boy and a very, you know, not practical degree and wondered what I was supposed to do next. So I started doing different kind of casual jobs. I had a pretty bad experience where I was kind of strung along for a few months and, you
• 3:28
  The workplace were just really inflexible and trying to make me work at 7 a.m. when I couldn't and things like that. So it was this really kind of peculiar like time where I was trying to figure out how am I going to make this work? But during that time, I started an Etsy store.
• 3:44
  selling jewelry. So it turned out to be this kind of crazy turn of events that I just could never have predicted that that disappointment would actually turn into the best decision of my life really was to start a business on my own and realize that I didn't feel employable by somebody else at that time.
• 4:03
  But I could make that work. I could employ myself and I could be flexible for myself and give myself what I needed. So I really learned a lot over the next five years running a small jewelry business. And then I started an event. It was like a monthly market where I invited other small businesses in every month. And from that, I got to meet so many more people and understand more about their businesses and
• 4:28
  Yeah, that kind of kept me going for five years. And then when I had my second son, Ellis, I decided that I didn't want to make jewelry for the rest of my life. I had kind of reached a point where I didn't really want to scale that business and lose everything that I loved about it. But I also didn't want to carry it on as a really tiny business.
• 4:48
  you know, Etsy level business either. And the market was great, but it was tiring me out trying to kind of turn it on every month. And, you know, I'd get to the Monday after and just be like, oh my God, I've got to do it again. So I knew that both of those things were not what I wanted to do next. I just didn't have any idea what that was going to be.
• 5:08
  So I'll pause here before you keep going, because I find like what you've said so interesting on a few different levels. And I really resonate with you about your first point, you know, not feeling employable. That's something that I am just...
• 5:24
  so the same. I mean, I love to have that kind of freedom and flexibility. And I think that's a common trait among entrepreneurs and people who have their own businesses who kind of fit less into this. I mean, you can always come from a corporate background, but like a lot of people I know, they fit less into this corporate nine to five structure. And so when you're in those
• 5:48
  you're not able to adapt to that because you need to color outside the boxes. And then the second thing that you said that resonates with me is the jewelry story. Because before I started Female Startup Club, I also had a jewelry brand and, you know, it was a small business. It was doing six figures. It was cool and fun and sparkly, but I had that same feeling of, you
• 6:11
  this isn't what I want to do long term and it's not the thing and I needed to find out what the thing was. And I think that whole notion of kind of
• 6:22
  not putting the pressure on yourself to start a business and have it be the thing straight away, because you've got to try things and figure out what you don't like and what you do like. And we all evolve kind of over time. It's such an interesting learning curve to build businesses and then pivot. And so I'd love to kind of, I know you said, you know, you were kind of burnt out from the events and the jewelry brand was amazing.
• 6:44
  interesting, but I'd love to kind of like pause here a little bit and understand like, how were you evaluating what was next and how were you thinking about, you know, okay, what do I do and don't like from this business? Because I think there could be a lot of people listening who...
• 7:00
  And I don't know if you feel like this, and I actually didn't feel like this, but I know a lot of people do. It's like you feel like there's a failure in giving up on something that you've put so much energy into. But, you know, you get into a state of inertia and you carry on. But sometimes it's just the best thing ever to just stop and be like, nope, I'm fully kind of taking a hard left here. And so I'd love to understand your process or framework in hindsight to be like, nope, no longer serving me. I am going to shift in a different direction and then evaluate what was next.
• 7:30
  I feel like I just talked a lot at you. No, I love that. I really, yeah, really love that you kind of related to some of those ideas too. Yeah.
• 7:39
  I think the first thing, kind of how, like the way that I was able to stop without feeling like a failure was that my mom always used to say, you have to leave spaces in your life. And for me, like, I didn't know what that, what was going to be in that space. I didn't know what it would look like and whether that's relationships or jobs or, you know, businesses, whatever it is.
• 8:01
  Sometimes I think the only way that you can kind of figure out what you want to put in your life is by leaving a space. So, yeah, I mean, I also had just had a baby, so I wasn't going to be hammering metal, you know, initially, like at least for the first few months. I was always going to have a little bit of time off. But the commitment I made was that I was going to take a year off.
• 8:23
  And with my first son, I had him when I was 21 and I went straight back to uni. So I never really had a maternity leave the first time around. So I'm going to have a year off. It's going to be really relaxed and chilled and I'm not going to work. And by the end of that year, I'll know what I'm going to do next. So that was my space that I allowed. And then I think what I really learned from my first kind of dive into business was that
• 8:48
  I love coming up with ideas, but I don't necessarily want to be the person that is doing that every day, day in, day out. And I had come up with this quite unique concept for a jewelry business, but then I found myself pretty much in a sweatshop making the jewelry every day. And that was kind of the cap of how much I could scale this business. And I had tied it so much to being handmade by me that I would either have to give that up or...
• 9:15
  Or I would always have to stay that size. And I think knowing that I was getting bored and I was feeling trapped by this kind of business that I built around my skills and my interests was really interesting to me. And so realizing that I'm an ideas person and I.
• 9:33
  if I wanted to have a business that I could scale, I needed to not be the person making the thing that I sold. So that was kind of my number one driver was that I couldn't be the person making what I sold. I also learned, I had kind of a range of products from higher to lower end pricing.
• 9:51
  And I knew that I wanted pricing where all the work that goes into a single sale would feel worth it. And when I was selling things for $15 and it took as much work as selling something for $200, I know which one I'd rather be selling time and time again. So that was also, I wanted a higher price point product. Yeah. And then I think it was about...
• 10:16
  connecting with my sister. So that's kind of the next part of the story was that I had had a baby. My sister had come over from England to meet him and spend some time with me. And we went for this walk on the beach that turned out to completely change our lives, where we started talking about starting a business together. And we had always kind of dreamed of doing something. We actually always wanted to start a bra company.
• 10:38
  for big busts and small backs, but never quite committed to making it happen. It's a very technical thing. And in the end, I'm very glad. I'll leave that to other people. But we always had this dream of working together. But she lives in London and I live in Australia. So you can see how it didn't just happen.
• 10:58
  But on this walk, we were kind of throwing around ideas and I suggested lockers because I had a bunch of lockers in my studio where I made jewelry and in my home that I found on the side of the road in antique stores. And to me, they were so beautiful.
• 11:15
  They just weren't particularly functional. They were like rusty and old and missing keys and not enough shelves inside and things like that. But I just, I just connected with them in a way that I assumed that nobody else ever had. So I love that. I had read this article that really kind of had like stuck in my mind at that period about this concept of like whisper ideas where
• 11:40
  there are these ideas that they're so timely and of the moment that you have to whisper them because somebody else could take them and run with them and steal your idea. And often the businesses that come out of those ideas are not the ones that last because someone can come along and take that idea and, you know, copy it. So something like MySpace turning into Facebook is,
• 12:05
  it's not necessarily about being the first. And this kind of art, this article went on to say that it's really about finding an idea that only you could do and that you don't have to whisper it. You could shout about it, but nobody else could do it the way you do. And so it was kind of connecting all of those requirements for what I wanted in a business, a way that I could work with my sister, and then...
• 12:30
  being able to kind of channel this kind of slightly quirky, unique passion of mine in a way that only I could do. And that was how we landed with Lockers. Oh, my God. I love this so much. And again, I feel like you and I, we've had so many similar moments because for me, when I had the jewellery business, the thing that I also didn't like. So we were sourcing, but we were also making. So I was making myself and I was finding like, yeah.
• 12:57
  Again, I was spending too much time working in the business versus on the business and that whole concept. But something else that I struggled with was when you're thinking about jewelry and fashion, it's very on trend. And I was constantly going for newness and trends and things like that. And we had built the model in the early days around new drops monthly, which was just like...
• 13:18
  Such a shame because you can't stack your marketing, right? Like everything needs to be new marketing, new assets, new everything all the time. And so I basically had that on a list of like, okay, this is what I don't want. And why I think this is cool that we're talking about this is like, and maybe you do this too, but over time I have this list like in a Trello board where I'll just drop something in there if it happens to me. And I kind of think about it as in like,
• 13:44
  Any business that I ever do, it needs to either do this or not do this. And I have this kind of...
• 13:50
  ever-evolving work-in-progress list of how I evaluate things and, like, my kind of dream situation for anything that I do. Like criteria. It's a criteria. It's a checklist. Yeah, like knowing what to say yes to. Exactly. It's like those tiny little things that lodge in my brain of, like, yeah, I just hate that it was, like, all based on newness and constantly new products too frequently. That had to go in...
• 14:18
  And so I love everything that you're saying about these things that you had, this criteria, this checklist that you were building with your sister to kind of determine where you would land and then wrapping it in this unique lens of idea that you had kind of tucked into your back pocket that you could shout about and use your magic on. I feel like we should do lists like that more often. Like everyone needs their personal criteria checklist of do's and don'ts in businesses.
• 14:48
  Yeah, and I think those things, like, you learn them the hard way. You know, you have to learn through trial and error. Like, that sounds like a great idea to drop every month until you're doing it every month and then you realise it's not or you realise, like, the knock-on effects of these things. So for me, in Mustard, we...
• 15:07
  launch products very infrequently. And that's because for me, it's really important that everything I put into the world is really considered and is, you know, a beautiful, positive addition to the world. And that means I can't do it all the time. So last year, we literally launched nothing new. This year, we've done a couple of launches and have a few more to go. But it's very, very considered. And every product takes...
• 15:35
  months and months to kind of go from idea to market. Like I think our recent launches will be 18 months of work.
• 15:45
  So, yeah, that's kind of my criteria is that it needs to be a positive addition to the world. Yeah, I love that. And also I think like when it's a slower timeline like that, it is really considered and there's no rush or rash thinking that kind of like you launch something and then you're like, oh, shit, jump the gun with that one, you know.
• 16:06
  Yeah, and there's definitely times where, you know, one of our design principles is timelessness, which it is so tempting to chase the trends. You know, in interior space, it's not quite as fast paced as fashion, but there's definitely these kind of trends that we see and we want to jump on. But...
• 16:24
  For us, it's really about staying true to our product range being kind of timeless and something that people will want to buy in five years time, not just, you know, this season. So, yeah, having those like really strict rules and principles or criteria definitely is something that I'm, yeah, I'm also learning through my journey with mustard.
• 16:45
  Okay, so you're on this walk, you kind of land on lockers and storage. Your sister lives in the UK, you live in Newcastle, you've been building the business yourself in the jewellery brand. How do you then actually get this to launch? Like what is that next piece of like manufacturing, you know, investing in product, getting yourself ready to bring this business to life?
• 17:11
  Yeah, so the first part was really convincing Jess that lockers was a good idea. So Jess is my sister. When I initially suggested lockers, her first reaction was, I'm not really sure I get it. Like I would not have one of those in my home. And that was pretty much the response I got from everybody that I kind of asked in those early days was like just a bit of confusion.
• 17:34
  So I said to Jess, look, I've got time. I've got, you know, I'm on the sofa breastfeeding. I'm like watching crappy TV. Just leave it with me. I'm going to just do some research and we'll see how we go. And very quickly, that research kind of led me to finding...
• 17:50
  finding out like how products like these could be made, finding factories that made similar types of products. And I kind of had the idea that if I could find someone that makes something similar, then maybe they could make what I have in my mind. But yeah,
• 18:06
  It was very much all in my mind. I didn't have any drawings. So I then spent a few weeks learning how to use SketchUp so that I can draw some 3D versions of these, you know, very abstract concepts that I had in my head. And then I started just reaching out to different manufacturers. Jess was a fashion buyer at the time, so she had a lot of experience working with factories.
• 18:31
  So together, we just started asking a lot of questions. And I think for me, a little bit like the criteria, design is all about constraints. So it was very much about trying to find out what is possible, what are the boundaries of what can be done? And once I understand how they're made, then I could start designing within those constraints.
• 18:53
  So the next thing that we did was hop on a plane and met up halfway around the world in China. I took a six-month-old little baby Alice and my sister bought our dad because he didn't want to be left out. So he came too. Cute. Love that. The four of us went around different factories that we had found and some of them had made samples for us. We saw some really big ones that make for
• 19:20
  Walmart and, you know, big, big corporations down to some really tiny kind of family run factories. And we ended up settling for one that was a kind of medium sized family business. And we have been with them for six years now.
• 19:35
  we have grown alongside them. So yeah, it was a really incredible trip. I still picture that first moment when I saw our very first samples and they like pulled up this big roller door and they were just bursting with light, like all the sunlight was shining on them. And I was like, oh my God, this is what I live for. It's the idea of, it's like those moments when you come up with an idea
• 20:03
  that doesn't exist and then somehow you know with all your hard work and creativity and perseverance somehow it now exists and you get to see it and touch it and feel it and that is that for me is is my kind of biggest yeah that's that's what I live for I think a lot of creative people would relate to that that it's it's taking you know that blank canvas and turning into a painting
• 20:27
  That was how we began. I love that. Do you think you're the only person in the world who has such a love for lockers?
• 20:39
  I don't know if I've ever heard anyone talk about lockers the way that you're talking about them. It's fascinating. Yeah, it's quite possible. And I think because I love that they're versatile, they're vintage, you know, they've got history, they've got story, but they're also really utilitarian. They're very practical and down to earth and interesting.
• 21:00
  They have all these kind of like emotional connections to them. But then I think what I like so much about metal furniture is that it can get bashed up and dinged and scratched and it will still work and function. Adds charm. Yeah. And one day, you know, in 50 years time, it might be rusty, you know, and that's OK. Like that's the story. Whereas I think a lot of like, you know, cheap.
• 21:23
  wood it just stops working you know it just has a has a point where it can't it can't be functional anymore and anything made of metal can be recycled so it's you know got this really great kind of life cycle so yeah all of those things I am incredibly passionate about
• 21:40
  After this, I'm going to add on my list, my criteria list, that anything I ever do in life, I need to make sure that I find the same amount of passion and love that you have for lockers and that like enthusiasm and way to articulate why. It's so great because when you explain it, I'm like, yep, it makes so much sense. I love that. I want a locker. I love it.
• 22:02
  Okay, I want to ask you quickly, though, about the validation piece here, because usually like, you know, standard kind of business, early days, you're told and the, you know, the blueprint is go and ask people for their feedback. And will they buy your products and da da da da da. But it sounds like you were telling people about your idea and your sister and the people that you were talking to were saying, I don't get it. I don't get it. But you persevered. And you were like, no, I see something, but you don't see it yet. And you were utterly convinced that
• 22:32
  it was going to work out. How did you kind of get over that hurdle of being like, no, you're wrong and I'm right? You know what I mean? Because I think like standard procedure in building a business is that customer feedback piece and validating your idea and your assumptions and your hypothesis before you move forward into that next piece. Yeah, it really was an important part of that year actually was –
• 22:59
  I think it was about the responsibility that I felt. So my little sister, who I love and adore, was working full-time in a career that had great opportunity. And I was tempting her to leave her career, to come and work in a business that we were gonna build together.
• 23:16
  And I took that responsibility really seriously. I also at the time had two children. I had a husband who was, you know, working full time to pay so that I, you know, I could have this time off and build this business. So for all of those reasons, I really wasn't diving in headfirst. What I did was I started a small business course with a local business center and
• 23:40
  And I built a business plan, a two-year business plan as part of that. And even though I'd been running a business for five years before that, I was so nervous that I would, you know, I didn't want to take any unnecessary risk. So I really wanted to start this business off with strong foundations. And part of that, I did a survey of 50 different people and I got all this feedback about pricing. And I think all the prices that people suggested were about a third of what I was looking.
• 24:09
  planning to sell them for and the feedback just didn't you know it was excitement and people's you know maybe kind of understood it but not really I hadn't they didn't see the vision that I had because it just wasn't it wasn't in reality yet it was an idea so it definitely like kind of gave me like a little nudge of confidence than that surveyed.
• 24:31
  But I'm a big believer that there's a quote that I think it was Henry Ford that like if I asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses. And I think that sums up that time. Like people didn't know what I was, what I knew. You know, they didn't see the whole picture. They didn't see the brand. They didn't connect all the dots. They didn't have the passion I did. And so yeah.
• 24:54
  I think it was, yeah, it was a kind of weird time of like, I need to know that I'm on the right path because I care so much about this, but also I need to trust my instincts. And I think that maybe if there is one thing that I am good at, it's putting meaning into things. And I could put meaning into these lockers in a way that no one else could understand yet. And I kind of had this inkling
• 25:19
  of understanding that magic spark that wasn't yet visible to anyone else. Oh, love that. And then from there we went, we actually signed up to a trade show. So that gave us a deadline. So that was February. And my son had been born in February the year before. So that was pretty much 11 months after we had had this first walk on the beach. We had this deadline to get our products to a trade show. And yeah.
• 25:47
  That was really my big test or my majestic big test was like, are we on to something? We had a kind of idea that we had a certain amount of money we could invest. And if it didn't work out, you know what? Life would go on. We haven't remortgaged our house. You know, we haven't borrowed any money from anyone. We had this kind of pot of money that was all our savings. So it's kind of like go to the trade show, see if we can pick up some retailers and pursuing that avenue over kind of going all in on D2C first.
• 26:17
  And that's the, yeah, that's the kind of the real validation piece basically. Yeah. Got it. So it was kind of about like, what was I willing to lose? I was willing to lose a year of time and all my savings, which wasn't, you know, a great deal, but it was, it was what I had. And I was, wasn't willing for Jess to quit her career yet. So she worked full time that year and she had a very long commute. So we would talk on her way to work for an hour and on the way home for an hour and
• 26:46
  And then she would go home and work in the evening. So that was all, it all needed to kind of work out at this trade show. And so we went to the trade show. We hadn't even started registering the business. We didn't have a bank account. We, all we had was samples, a bit of a teaser, Instagram campaign and some audit forms. And we, yeah, took these, the first ever samples that we'd made to the trade show.
• 27:14
  And we took orders off the back of those. And we had this kind of idea that we'd done the maths that if we could order enough to fill half of a 20-foot container, we knew that this was going to at least justify the second container. And then from there, it would kind of roll on. If we didn't make that amount of sales, then we would have to go and find that money from somewhere or change our business model. And maybe if, you know,
• 27:40
  maybe that just wasn't going to work out. So it was half of a 20-foot container was the absolute baseline. And by the end of the four days, we had sold enough to order two 40-foot HQ containers. So they're the extra large ones.
• 27:54
  And this is crazy. Oh my gosh. That was the proof that we needed when people walked up to the stand and said, I've never seen anything like this. This is, this is something so different and new. And they placed an order. Unique gap in the market. Oh my gosh. I love this. I have so many questions. First of all,
• 28:16
  I just love knowing like the math behind things. So because I'm a sticky beak. So how much did you have to invest to get you kind of up to the trade show in your savings? And then how much was the trade show? Because I just want to understand that breakdown of like, what was the investment that you were willing to lose?
• 28:33
  Yeah, I think all up it was around $25,000 Australian dollars. And that was, that kind of cuts, I think the trade show was around $8,000 from memory. Was it in Australia, the trade show? Yeah, it was Life and Style in Sydney. So we just recently went back there and it was so nice to kind of think this is where it all began. But, you know, $8,000 was a lot to me at that time. And...
• 28:59
  it was a big risk, you know, if we'd come out there with no orders, that's, you know, that's that money gone. But better to cut your losses at that point though, right? Like it's a really, and I've been also in this position where I've invested around 20,000 and then realized it's not sustainable and it doesn't work at the model. And I cut my losses instead of going further and further and getting into debt to try and see if something works. And I think that's something that we can often forget. It's like, it needs to be proven upfront.
• 29:26
  And I mean, yes, it's a year in, but it takes a year of getting it together. Yeah. And I think you can't, if I had trusted those, you know, very first answers, I never would have started this business. So I think it's a balance of like...
• 29:41
  There's an amount of risk, but it doesn't have to be kind of all, you know, complete chaos. It doesn't have to be completely unregulated risk. It's like knowing what your comfort zones are and giving it enough of a chance to kind of have enough strength to...
• 29:59
  for other people to get on board, you know? And so that first year was really about getting our logo, getting our branding based, you know, basic branding so that I could sell the dream of what, you know, what I could see, but no one else could see. I was making it tangible and then getting the samples and going to China and a trade show. And that was, that was pretty much, yeah. And a photo shoot as well. So that was, yeah, pretty much what we spent that budget on.
• 30:24
  Do you think in hindsight, if someone's listening in right now and, you know, maybe they have a different business model, maybe it's more D to C versus, you know, a trade show heavy kind of situation. But how would you kind of put together a framework or just a simple kind of like equation for yourself to validate a future business?
• 30:42
  Because like, what is the trade show moment for someone that's listening in being like, well, I'm not doing the trade show thing, but what could they be doing to being like, okay, cool. I've got this window of time. Like, how would they come up with that, you know, framework for themselves? I mean, I would say having done a lot of markets over the years,
• 31:03
  that's a really great testing ground where you don't have to spend that much, you know, whether it's like something like finders keepers or like a local market, even like when I first moved to Australia, I did one, you know, it cost me like $15 and I made about $20, but I learned something and, and the risk was really low. It's, you know, a one day thing. If you can work up to that, get some feedback. I think that's a really small scale way of testing things.
• 31:32
  from that DTC perspective. I think for us, again, going back to my jewellery business, I couldn't really wholesale my products and I hadn't really priced them for wholesale. And that was always a bit of a frustration that when I was hand making these products and then giving them away at wholesale price or selling them at wholesale price, it was quite a painful sort of transaction and it never really...
• 31:56
  the maths never really add up for me. So I think when I started Mustard, I was very clear that we were going to make wholesale work. And I think with a product that was a little bit unusual, the people don't really understand until they see it or hear me talking about it. Wholesale for us was a way to get people to understand what we were doing and the brand alignment of being in these beautiful stores alongside brands that were really
• 32:24
  you know, well matched our products was a big part of our marketing as well. So that was kind of why we went wholesale first, but as over the years we've launched in different regions and we've done it a little bit differently in each. So I wouldn't say it was a, it's a hard and fast rule that that would be how I would start a business, but for a product our size, they're big and bulky and we have to order them in,
• 32:45
  in bulk containers. So it worked for us. It kind of like, it just made sense. Like for what you were doing, that was like the no brainer way to get started. When you were at the trade show, did you have like a strategy of like how we're going to stand out or was it very much like we got there, we had great product and like the reality is like people saw it and it just all stemmed down to that? Oh, great question.
• 33:10
  I think for us as a brand, colour is really what makes us stand out. And so we knew that if we could make our products like have this kind of colour story, then people would kind of buy into that. So hence our name being a colour as well, Mustard.
• 33:31
  So I think one of the things that we did was color coordinated all our props. So when you opened a locker, it might have been like a gym, like kind of your gym gear and some weights and a yoga mat, but everything matched the locker. Or the next one might have been like a little kid's, you know, toys and things like that and little tiny shoes and they all matched the locker. So it was this kind of. So fun. Yeah.
• 34:01
  letting our products really shine, but then there's these kind of layers that you opened up as you open the doors. And it might sound small, but just standing there with smiles on our faces, ready to talk to people, being open and connecting with people on a deeper level, that's,
• 34:21
  You go to so many events where people are sitting there staring at their phones and we have this rule that you can never have a chair when you're on a trade show or an event. You have to stand up. Oh my God. Yes, totally. If you're tired, you go somewhere else. That's fine. It's not like you can't rest, but you don't rest on the stand. And I think we, you know, being sisters, we had this like this kind of cute dynamic. We could finish each other's sentences. Yeah.
• 34:47
  Yeah, I mean, you want your stand to stand out, but when somebody gets to the stand and walks up to you, it's also about building that connection and taking them deeper into that story as well.
• 34:59
  Oh my gosh. I love that. I love that. So cool. Okay. So this is kind of your well and truly validated moment. You get all these orders, you fill two 40 foot containers, you're off to the races. What is that first journey from there? You know, that kind of zero to a hundred grand or zero to first million kind of like scaling moment. Where are you focusing your efforts on? What is that next phase of the business?
• 35:29
  Yeah, so it was, we're in our sixth year now. And I feel like at the time, Instagram was, you know, in its real heyday from a small business perspective. So a lot of our energy was spent on Instagram. It was about building up our catalogue of images, doing as many photo shoots as we could, but, you know, on a really tight budget. So everything was very shoestring-like.
• 35:53
  And, yeah, really building that kind of network of stockists that we had. So from launching in February, our stock then arrived about six months later in Australia. And then in September, we did a trade show in London. And that was kind of how we launched our UK business as well.
• 36:13
  So then I had kind of all the stores in Australia, Jess had all the stores to manage in the UK. And then our, I mean, our DTC sales were incredible to us. They were probably very small when I look back now, but they were enough to really keep us busy and keep us on our toes. One of the really big challenges that we had in the early days, particularly in the UK, was learning the really hard way that we needed better packaging.
• 36:44
  Our ambitions to use as little packaging as possible ended up with a lot of damages to our products when they started going through careers procedures and arriving at our customers' doors just completely, you know, earth-shatteringly, like, bashed up. Oh, no. Battered. Yeah, they're completely battered. And we, you know, we'd done kind of, we thought we understood how they were going to ship because we'd shipped them to ourselves, but we had not prepared for what it was like.
• 37:13
  So Jess very quickly hopped on a plane to China and did a whole load of tests, throwing them off forklifts and jumping on them and, you know, putting them through like, yeah, all these kind of crazy drop test experiments to try and find better solutions that would keep the product safe. Because ultimately our goal had been to be more sustainable, but we had ended up with a load of waste products that, you know, the metal can be recycled, but that's not really the point. It was...
• 37:40
  It wasn't how we wanted to run our business. So yeah, my sister, her husband, my brother, and his wife basically spent weeks of weekends driving around the UK, replacing parts individually for customers, helping them assemble their lockers.
• 37:57
  And just fixing it from, you know, on a really small scale, like we were going to be there for our customers. And that kind of attitude is, you know, I'm really proud to say that's what everyone in our team has. It's like the first question we ask if someone has a problem is where do they live? Is it near one of our offices? Can we go there? Oh, my God. I love that. You know, often the answer is no.
• 38:21
  But we, you know, can we pick up the phone? Can we FaceTime them? You know, what resources can we build so that we can help our customers? So thankfully now our damage rate is really under control and we found a balance of packaging that felt like a good environmental choice.
• 38:37
  protected them. So yeah, it was a tough year. You know, we, as you said, we felt like we were really off to the races and then everything kind of very quickly felt like it had been swept from under our feet. And then, yeah, but in a way, those were the times that really built the culture that we now share with our customer service team and beyond. Who was your first hire, like outside of you and Jess? Yeah, it was customer service. And I think that
• 39:04
  We talk about that a lot, that our customer service comes first. And one of our core values is being helpful. So we're always trying to provide the answers for our customers so that they don't have to ask for them or support them through any part of the process that they need, whether that's they're stuck on building the lockers because they are flat-packed. We invest a lot in our build-it videos.
• 39:34
  You know, our instructions are, I cannot tell you how much love and care goes into every single step of our instructions. Every word, every illustration is, you know, is so tenderly creative with our customers in mind. So, yeah, I think hiring customer service first for us was so important from that perspective. But it was also about freeing up our capacity because, yeah.
• 39:59
  as anyone with a business online knows, like you can really drown in those DMs and emails. And it also got to the point, I think, where it was very emotionally draining because we were so close to our product. As you can probably tell, you know, we took every issue really to heart. And I think as soon as we could kind of separate that and say, look, these are our values, these are how we want you to treat our customers,
• 40:28
  it just took the edge off the kind of overwhelm of running a business. It's so funny how the brain works because you could get a hundred glowing five-star emails that are like, you're the best. I love you so much. But then the one email out of a hundred that's like, you suck, basically eliminates like hundreds of positive emails. And like your brain only focuses in on that one thing. And like, yeah.
• 40:56
  You make me think of this time with my jewelry business. I got this one email. It's the only email I can remember getting the whole time when I think back. And it was literally like, you should be ashamed of yourself for like your shipping or something like that. You know, where is my order? But like, you should be ashamed of yourself about it. And I was like,
• 41:17
  Oh my God. And we looked at the tracking and like, it had been delivered. It had been like sent the next day delivered. Like it was just somewhere else. Like, you know, it was next door or at the post office or something like that. And then of course they were like, oh, so sorry. Like great. Amazing. But that is what I remember. My brain only remembers that one line from that email and like that whole thing. And it's like, it is so important to separate that customer service bit because it can really get to your soul. Yeah.
• 41:46
  Oh, I completely know what you mean. Yeah, I could recite a bunch of emails that, you know, have really stuck in my mind. Yeah, it's burnt in there.
• 41:57
  Yeah, and I'd like to think that that's because, you know, we do care really deeply about our customers' experiences and we don't take it for granted that they've spent their hard-earned money on our products. And I think we'll never not get upset when things don't go into plan. But yeah, it's really about building the resources and capabilities of our team to answer those questions and...
• 42:21
  yeah, not always having to do it ourselves. Although occasionally I do, do jump into the DMs and help, help people out over the weekend. You know, sometimes people just make a, miss a step in the instructions and they'll send a photo and like, I can't do this. I'm like, well, here's a photo. This is what you need to do. So yeah, occasionally when I want to, I can jump in, but love that. Otherwise we have people to do that. Love.
• 42:46
  Okay, so you kind of move through this challenging period. You get all your systems and workflows and processes kind of sorted. You've started bringing on people. What are the kind of core pivotal moments when you think back over the last six years? What are those moments where you're like, that was big? That was a big one. Definitely for me, hiring is always a big one.
• 43:13
  have a feeling you might relate to this also, but being somebody that is probably like, I'm very much a perfectionist. I'm very much an I'll do it, put it on my plate kind of person. I would rather do it myself, in fact.
• 43:27
  You know, I'll do it better because it also saves me having to like communicate my thinking and I'm not always able to delegate very well. Totally. Sometimes it's hard when it's something that's so organic to you and so natural. So like building the step by step for it.
• 43:44
  And getting it across properly is impossible. And when it hasn't been done before. So I don't know exactly what I'm asking for. I'm kind of feeling my way through it. And I think that sums up a lot of my business journey is, you know, feeling my way. And I have to have that time and space to feel things. So hiring was certainly not my comfort zone. And it always felt scary. It always felt hard. Yeah.
• 44:10
  On the flip side, Jess has always worked in a team. It's always been, you know, there's been kind of seniors and juniors and she's really comfortable. So I am a very slow hirer. And those are my really big moments when I've kind of overcome all of those fears and doubts. And then it always turns out wonderfully. And I kind of joke about it being like,
• 44:32
  like cutting off a limb and then like, you know, it's like painful, but then like, you know, it's like I'm losing something is how it feels at first.
• 44:43
  But then actually it turns out that it wasn't cutting off a limb at all. Like it was a job and they're doing it amazingly. And they've turned something that I maybe was putting 5% of my time into, into an entire full-time role. And they're doing it so much better. And I just get to do the parts of that that I love and enjoy, but I'm not having to spend all my time on it.
• 45:03
  And then they flourish. And then I'm like, wow, I wish I'd done that sooner. So I think a lot of my my big wins have really come from overcoming that natural tendency to want to do everything myself. What for you has been like the force function or the trigger point to being like, OK, we're ready to now hire for this. Like there's enough work to put this into a full time role.
• 45:27
  versus like kind of hiring, you know, it's often a problem to hear that people can hire too soon or, you know, kind of hire something that they don't 100% need. And then, you know, those kind of mistakes that can happen throughout the journey. So for you, what has been that kind of trigger or moment that you're like, yeah, okay, we're ready for this. We're ready for a new hire. I think it's often in the early days, it was about doing the things that I was no longer the best
• 45:57
  at doing, like that customer service. Like I couldn't keep growing the business if I was always in the inbox answering emails. And then realising that somebody else could actually do better than me kept happening every time I hired. So that kind of boosted my confidence that that was amazing.
• 46:17
  Yeah, that was really important to know that I'm actually not the best everything. Not that I think I am, but, you know, you have that kind of, I'll do it myself, attitude. It can be hard to imagine how you would teach somebody else. Yeah.
• 46:30
  And I guess it's when that area of the business starts holding me back or it has this sort of untapped potential. So actually one of our very early hires was now head of PR and communications. And that was because I was starting to get kind of requests for samples to be loaned or interviews or photographs for the media. And I wasn't really able to keep up with it.
• 47:00
  very early on, but one day a week. And she had a four-month-old baby, so that suited her really well. She brought baby Riley into the office every week. And honestly, her baby was like a dream. She was so much better behaved than any of my kids. She'd just sit there and smile all day long and just be so content. Best friends with everyone. Oh, she was amazing. So that worked really well. And then over time, that role grew into two days and it's now...
• 47:27
  It's now four days. So over the years, that's, yeah, that was kind of, I guess, a way to hire without, I didn't need somebody full-time, but I did need somebody. So, yeah, I guess it doesn't always have to be a full-time role. And that's okay too. And as the business grows, people's roles will grow and expand and change as well. So it's sort of like solving your problems that you have at the time and not necessarily...
• 47:57
  thinking too far ahead, trusting that what will follow will make sense. Totally. I love that. And it makes me think of like, I read this thing the other day, who said it? I think it was Reid Hoffman who was saying that by the time we hit 2030,
• 48:12
  A regular full-time job as we know it won't exist and people will be much more, you know, fractional and it'll be fractional roles really focusing in just on their zone of genius and kind of doing that for different companies. And that...
• 48:27
  And I know it's not exactly what you're saying because you're saying from one to five days and things like that, but that kind of notion of like, cool, you just go and put in all you can for what that company can afford, especially a small business who might not be able to afford a full-time role. And being like, yep, cool, I've got you for one day and then they've got three days somewhere else or whatever it might be. Yeah.
• 48:48
  Instead of thinking, oh, my God, I need to have a full-time CTO or a full-time whatever it might be, kind of having those fractional people come in and just do their zone of genius but for one day instead of five. Love it.
• 49:02
  So you are fast approaching 10 million annual revenue. You are obviously doing so well. You're a global brand. You are doing cool campaigns. You've got a lot going on. What is the kind of main growth for the business? Like, is it D2C? Is it retail? What are the kind of main channels? Is it still Instagram? If you had to kind of just summarize, like, marketing sales, where the business is today and why it's growing,
• 49:32
  What do you think? For us, it's been expansion into new regions. So that was, I guess, quite a natural flow on from having Jess in London and me in Australia. We started in year one with these two businesses in two completely different regions, you know, on other sides of the world. So once...
• 49:55
  that was established, it seemed kind of less scary to move on to other regions, but it did take us quite a few years. And then during COVID was when we launched our US business. So before then, we'd been just shipping on a really small scale as customers inquired to the US and it was, you know, very expensive shipping. Our products are very big and bulky. So it
• 50:18
  It wasn't ideal, but it had kind of trickled along and we were monitoring that interest. But during COVID, we actually full launched into the US. I remember doing like a press conference at 2am in lockdown. I put on makeup, throw on some lights and just like wide awake in the middle of the night in Australia because we couldn't go there. You know, we couldn't meet any of these people face to face. We didn't know.
• 50:46
  We had never met the people that ran the warehouse or anything like that. So it was all very remote. But having those different regions...
• 50:54
  has really kind of allowed us to spread the risk a little bit. So as economic situations have changed in each region, one might go up a bit and one might go down. And because we're producing all in one place, we can then allocate our stock accordingly. So it gives us a little bit less risk in certain areas. And now our two newer markets, which is the US and Europe are,
• 51:20
  absolutely like smashing it. US is just about our biggest region now over the last few months. That's really grown. And we've got an incredible wholesale network in Europe that's, yeah, now our best region for wholesale. So those risks have really paid off. How have you financed the growth of the business? And are you still bootstrapped? Have you fundraised? Have you taken on debt? What's kind of been the money blueprint for you?
• 51:50
  So the only money we ever borrowed was for those, that second container that I talked about in the beginning, we borrowed, I think it was $50,000 from our dad. And I swear it would have been easier to go to any bank or any venture capitalist. My dad required more proof than, than anybody, but it was also a, you know, slightly scarier, like less scary, um, avenue to go down. So it
• 52:17
  He paid, like gave us the money so that we could purchase that second container because we saw and had proved at that trade show that there was, you know, a business case for it. So we paid him back. Not yet, not that long after, which was, that was also a great day for us was, was being completely debt free. And since then we've never borrowed any money. We've always just reinvested from the business. We very much feel like,
• 52:45
  our growth should be sustainable for us. And we want a business that we want to work in. And that means that it's not completely like stressful every day that we're not answering to other people based on, you know, purely financial issues.
• 53:04
  drivers like we want to be able to make decisions we want to be able to do fun things we want to be able to donate to charities we want to be able to gift lockers to you know good causes or you know treat our team to fun things so all of those things like we we have a saying that a profitable business is the most fun kind of business.
• 53:24
  I love that. Now that both our husbands also work for the business, so the four of us are running Mustard. Yeah. It's even more important. Like we definitely haven't ruled out ever taking investment and the way that we're kind of approaching it is that one day, if we ever wanted to, we want to have the kind of business that we could either sell or get investment for because the kind of business that somebody wants to invest or buy
• 53:53
  is a healthy business. We don't have any plans to do that. We, you know, it's not, it's not a next step, but I think building a business that has good processes, good systems, good products, good people, all of those things are just going to make our business better. And, you know, should, should life take a different turn or we decide we have some other ideas in life, like that option will be there rather than kind of trying to fill that in, in hindsight, you know, five years down
• 54:23
  Something's gone wrong and we need to sell it or, you know, who knows what happens. So, yeah, it's always been bootstrapped. Totally. And this goes back to the goddamn checklist. I feel like this is my theme for this episode is like that self-audit moment of the kind of life that you want, especially on a day-to-day basis. Yeah.
• 54:43
  it can be really easy to get trapped in this comparison, thief of joy stuff when you see all these headlines and people raising and this being this big shiny moment. But what that looks like on a day-to-day basis is very different to this amazing lifestyle, profitable business where you call all the shots and do everything that you want and get to do cool things. So,
• 55:09
  Tell me about the charity donation. I read somewhere that you just donated $51,000 to charity and that is so freaking awesome. Tell me more. Yeah. So that was US dollars as well. So it was even more in Australian dollars. Holy moly. Yeah, so we did a main rainbow locker for Pride. So every year for the last few years, we've been doing a different Pride campaign campaign.
• 55:37
  And this year we really wanted to take it up a notch. So we had a new product launch and we decided to create one where every panel is a different colour from our rainbow. It was really hard to make that because there's so many different colour combinations. It was a really big choice and we surveyed all our team and let them have an input. And the one that we came up with was amazing. It was so beautiful and worked really well. So we...
• 56:04
  Yeah, we bought a certain number of them for all the regions and we committed to donating 50% of the sale price to Outright International, which is an LGBTQI human rights organization that operates around the world. And they work really closely with the UN. So they do these like really fundamental groundwork.
• 56:28
  around the whole world in, you know, in so many different countries as well. So being a global business, it was really important that we found an organisation to support that wasn't just particular to one of our regions and really, you know, was really having a global impact as well. And the work that they do is so foundational that it was...
• 56:48
  It was such a joy, such a joy to send them that money. We just got the most beautiful email back this week and I was bawling my eyes out. Oh my God, I bet. Sharing it with my team yesterday. And just to know that...
• 57:01
  What it really made me think about was that there was a time in my life going back to our very start of our conversation where my biggest goal was to earn $1,000 a week. I had figured out that if I had $1,000 a week, I can support my son. I could just about get by. And that felt really hard to achieve at that point in time. And this year, our business has donated money.
• 57:26
  I think it's like $78,000 that we could spare, you know, we could gift that to do something good. So when I think about my journey and I think about how far I've come and that there's still money to pay our team, like I'm supporting a whole team of mostly women, I, I,
• 57:44
  it is hard to put into words how amazing that is. That is so cool. The absolute joy was working with Josh and Matt, who are these amazing, completely like maximalist influencers who, yeah, have a crazy cool home and we flew them from Melbourne to be part of our campaign and,
• 58:05
  You know, like the kind of people where you're just like, I'm so glad that you're successful. You deserve all the joys in the world. I could not have loved them more. They were such a joy to work with. And the day all came together even more perfectly than I could have imagined. And they were, yeah, they're just so adorable together, bouncing off each other. And the video that we made, we all...
• 58:26
  just go down in, you know, Becca's history of life as one of the best days of my whole life. It was, yeah, it was so much fun. And so I'm so proud, you know, like we had this idea and we did it. And, and the result was, was, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to doing something meaningful. So, oh my God. Yeah. That's the kind of, kind of cool stuff we get to do. I love that. What's that saying that people say? And it's like,
• 58:52
  You overestimate what you can do in a year, but you really underestimate what you can do in like five or ten years because...
• 58:59
  you kind of like think that you can achieve so much straight away, but actually, you know, starting a business and getting it off the ground and this kind of thing, it ends up taking two, three years, whatever. But then when you look back in hindsight and you're like, I have come so far from that person who was really struggling and wanting to make $1,000 a week to then somehow at some point it just shifts and it's there. And you're like, wait a second, when did this happen? What?
• 59:25
  And all the other things that have happened, you know, obviously now you have three beautiful children. You are doing all these different things. That's, it's, yeah, it's really cool to look back. And I think we, again, the brain is so weird. We need to do that more often. Yeah. Yeah. We have a little jar at work. So we have one empty jar and then we have a jar of marbles and we have these marble moments. So when you do something good, you write it in a little book and you drop a marble in and...
• 59:52
  Oh, I love that. A marble moment. Yeah. My instinct is just, I would say, you know, not that long ago, realised that a perfectionist is a very good description of me. I didn't really, my first reaction was, I'm not a perfectionist. I never do anything perfectly, which was about the moment where I realised...
• 1:00:15
  That's why I'm a perfectionist. And so I think, I think for me in the business, I've really had to kind of put frameworks around celebrating those moments because otherwise I won't. I will just keep going. I will just look for the next thing. And I see that in the team. Like I want everyone to come to work and think they did a good job. Yeah. You know, if you can't think of something you've done good lately.
• 1:00:38
  Like, how is that going to make you feel? Like, are you going to feel proud of yourself if you can't even remember something good? And it's really, it's really hard for us to do that. And you see people kind of coil up and...
• 1:00:51
  And find that difficult. So that's a big kind of mission that I have within the team is to try and make people be able to say, you know, I did something good and I'm proud of it. And drop the marble in, you know, write it down and share it with the team if you want to. But it's also you have to write your own marbles. That's kind of the rule.
• 1:01:09
  someone else can't write it for you. It's funny. I'm laughing because I feel like when you were saying that, I was like, oh yeah, you're actually out loud saying like me, you know, me being like, oh, I'm not a perfectionist. I just do everything and blah, blah, blah. But I bet if you asked Josephine who works for me, if I'm a perfectionist, she would probably be like, uh, yes. Yes. Yes, you are. And that's why nothing is ever perfect as in, in my view.
• 1:01:39
  Oh my gosh. If someone was listening to this and they're kind of in that early stage of building a business and you were thinking about, you know, your lessons and your learnings over trying multiple things and now getting to Mustard, you know, being this hugely successful company, what would you do and not do differently if you were starting again tomorrow that you can kind of share for anyone else in that early phase?
• 1:02:09
  This is a hard one to answer because my honest answer is I wouldn't do anything differently because one thing, you don't know where the path is taking you. You just have to keep walking one step at a time. And I have made what might seem like mistakes on paper, but they've led me to where I am now. So I really find, like I don't really feel regrets about things.
• 1:02:35
  Even my biggest, scariest things like marrying the wrong person and moving to Australia with them. And that hasn't been great. I could definitely say it wasn't great, but it's really shaped me as a person, as a mother, as a business owner. Those experiences are so fundamental to who I am as a person today that there is no way that I would go back and undo even the most painful things. So in business, I think my advice would just be
• 1:03:03
  To really follow your instincts and, you know, to stay true to your values and do what you know you can sleep at night knowing that you did that. You know, don't have a compromise because those will be the things that you kind of have regrets over, I think. But if you always stay true to your instincts, yeah, you'll make mistakes. Yeah, you'll mess up or, you know, there are things that won't go to plan. But as long as you learn from them, they're not really mistakes after all.
• 1:03:31
  I love that. Thank you so much.
• 1:03:38
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 1:04:03
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• 1:04:25
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