As the proud owner of The Mylk Society, Rikki is passionate about helping new mums navigate breastfeeding life, while celebrating their new body and feeling fabulous. Thanks to invisible two-way zips, their high quality, stylish pieces give you easy access for breastfeeding wherever you are. Thoughtfully designed in Australia by breastfeeding mums and featuring buttery soft, easy-care fabrics, each piece has been specially made for mum-life. Here Rikki talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about why she took over the business, her biggest breakthrough, the challenges she has overcome along the way, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
The start of my own breastfeeding journey was anything but simple and I ended up with a severe undersupply of milk. For months I was chained to a pump around the clock and did everything from meditation, to eating my body weight in oats, to taking a medication that ‘could’ help increase my milk but definitely had a negative effect on my mental health.
And through all of that new mum trauma, the simple act of getting dressed in the morning became yet another impossible task.
My pre-baby wardrobe simply wasn’t up to the task of a hungry baby and the logistics of pumping. Even the clothes I had bought in preparation for breastfeeding all had fiddly buttons or didn’t fit my pumping bra set up. I was constantly frustrated, feeling extremely frumpy and often just plain cold!
And then I came across The Mylk Society and discovered how easy breastfeeding and pumping could be with something as simple as a hidden, two-way zip! It was so liberating having cute clothing options that I could just throw on, knowing that I’d have easy boob access no matter what.
Then, during yet another midnight pumping session, I saw an Instagram post about The Mylk Society closing down and I immediately emailed to discuss purchasing it, taking ownership in July 2023.
While I didn’t found the business myself, it aligns so completely with my values of supporting women, my background in marketing, and my interest in fashion that it was simply the perfect fit!
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I was still on parental leave when I took over The Mylk Society. My son was about 8 months old, and I was just starting to feel like I had the hang of everything.
My partner and I considered every angle of where the business would fit into our lives, schedules, and finances. I already had skills and experience in about 80% of what we’d need to know. We also made all sorts of plans that considered where the learning curves would be. Overall, I was fairly confident I knew what I’d be getting into.
Looking back now, just over a year after our re-opening, I realise how naive I was!
In most ways, running The Mylk Society has been what I expected. But what I didn’t anticipate was the changes in myself and how that would impact how I would run a business. Motherhood changes you in such a fundamental way. It really is true that you don’t know who you’ll be after you have your first baby.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
The biggest breakthrough so far has been learning to create community at every level of the business. Obviously our customers are the backbone of the brand and everything we design is to make breastfeeding easier and help mums feel great. But community has been so essential in every other area of the business too.
I have a network of businesswomen and e-commerce specialists I can learn from. I have a brains-trust of fashion-minded friends I can bounce ideas around with. I have a fantastic group of breastfeeding mums creating content and sharing their experiences of motherhood with our audience. I have mothers’ groups and chats for general parenting support and laughs.
All these different people in my life are here when I need a sounding board, or advice, or even just a hug. Find your people; you’ll be so much stronger with a community behind you.
