The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
Wow! There are so many that we need a bullet-pointed list!
- 2 miscarriages (one suspected ectopic) which were incredibly sad.
- Caz’s father passed away (RIP the legendary Chalky White), which meant a sabbatical in the UK to be with her family. The NZ business was temporarily put on hold and we instead sold castile soap to various stores in the South of England to give us cash for our stay.
- Having a baby!
- Making cleaning products in a house which is only half renovated whilst waiting to start building our custom workspace (we are converting a nice large shed),
- It’s hard to access finance as a young start-up. It’s only since house prices have leapt that we will have the equity to be allowed a loan secured against our property, which will allow us to grow.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
The pros are being able to take time off to be with Holly whenever we like and watch both babies – actual and business – grow!
The downsides are the lack of financial security and the hairy times before the 20th of the month when we don’t know how we’ll pay bills.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
In terms of the big picture, that dream hasn’t really changed. We want to help people weed out bullshit and keep other companies honest.
In the short term, we want to continue getting our Conscious castile and cleaning product refilleries into as many New Zealand shops as possible. We are fans of ‘shopping local’ and being able to refill your container is much cheaper for the customer and also more sustainable.
We also plan to complete the cleaning range! We have new products launching soon – a tough cleaning paste, dishwasher powder, toilet cleaner liquid, hand soap, body soap and different fragrances of liquid castile soap.
Find out more and view their full range of eco-friendly products on the Conscious website. You can also follow their journey on Facebook and Instagram.
