The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
Running La Mucca has been one long lesson in figuring things out as we go. Neither of us had done this before, so the biggest challenges have been learning what we need to do: the legal side, compliance, regulations, tax, systems, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, inventory-tracking, meta ads, email marketing, customer service…there is a lot to navigate! You don’t just make a good product and that’s it. The tasks and the mental load are huge.
There are also the practical challenges that come with running a business. Suppliers delay things. Packaging arrives wrong. Couriers lose parcels. Stock sells faster than expected. You learn not to panic. There’s always an opportunity to learn when things go wrong!
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
A big pro is flexibility. I wouldn’t be able to homeschool my children if I was tied to a traditional nine-to-five, so being able to build a business that works around our family life is something I never take for granted. It means slow mornings when we need them, and having the freedom to shape our days in a way that suits this season of life.
Another huge positive is hearing from customers. We love receiving messages from people who have tried our products and tell us how much they love them, or how much they feel they have helped their skin. When someone shares that their eczema has improved, or their psoriasis has calmed, or that they finally found something gentle enough for their perioral dermatitis, it really does make our day.
It’s also been so nice connecting with other mums in small business. We are all busy and often cheering each other on from behind our screens, so it can feel like a very modern kind of friendship, but there is real understanding there. We know what it is to juggle children, homes, exhaustion and a business all at once.
As for cons, there is a constant need for marketing and social media. It never ends. It can be creative and rewarding, but it can also be draining and take a lot more time than you expect. There are moments where you feel like throwing your phone into the ocean.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
Ooh well we are working towards growing the wholesale side of La Mucca, to get our products into more retail stores around Australia. We love the idea of people being able to walk into their local shop and easily find a traditional tallow-based skincare option on the shelf. For a long time, these kinds of products have felt niche. There are still people who don’t know tallow is used as skincare. We get surprised looks from people all the time. We hope the day comes again where tallow skincare is just seen as normal, where more people return to this beautiful ancestral ingredient. There is more education and growing awareness now of some of the problematic ingredients used in mass-manufactured skincare, so who knows? It could happen sooner than we think.
Another big dream would be reaching the point where we can bring more people into the business. Small business can be really rewarding, but it can also mean wearing a lot of hats and carrying a lot of responsibility ourselves. To be able to hire staff, create jobs and free up that time to spend with our family and friends would feel like a very special milestone!
Visit the La Mucca website to find out more, and connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.
