Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
I am a full-time stay-(and work)-at-home mum, and as a mum, my twins come first. It can be a juggling game at times but my children are at an age now where they are developing and learning so much and they need as much stimulation and nurturing as possible. As such, I tend to work on my business at night, packing orders when my kids have gone to bed. As soon as they’re asleep, I head into my little store room and do whatever needs to be done for the day. I try and plan out my social media content and organise a few posts for a few days at a time. My husband takes all the packed orders to work and posts them for me.
The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
I had my business in the works, stock from various brands had been ordered and some on the shelves, the website ready and launched just days before the Covid-19 Pandemic was announced. We live in Melbourne and had countless lockdowns which affected a lot of local businesses, ours included. There were times I couldn’t go 5km from my home so we had to adapt to ensure our customers could still rely on us to receive their orders. We had to reduce postal visits, follow social distancing guidelines and we implemented a contactless collection service for customers within the 5km radius. Starting a business during a pandemic has definitely had its challenges.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
Being a new business only 12 months in, the biggest con is the financial hit you take whilst setting up the business, especially in releasing products such as ours. It can also be time intensive trying to build brand awareness to get our name out there.
That said, there are far more pros. I’ve learned so much over the past year and having my own business means I can begin to see my dreams become a reality. There’s so much work in planning and organising products for our store and seeing customers receiving the products and loving them is such a great and rewarding feeling. It is very pleasing to see when someone is having success using these products (especially cloth nappies) after helping them troubleshoot issues. It is also feels good to know that we are helping customers reduce their landfill and help set a better example for future generations.
I’ve also gained many valued friendships and have had the opportunity to engage with customers on a personal level through our VIP group. Our latest product release has also featured artists from Australia and New Zealand. It has been such a joy to bring art to life in our products and to support other businesses through our own.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
I will continue to build our range and to continue to engage with my lovely customers in our wonderful cloth community we’ve created.
I have some dream products I am planning out but whether they’re for 2021 or 2022 is yet to be decided.
In the works, we have two more cloth nappy releases and reusable swim nappies on the way, with change mats likely to join our range as well before the end of the year.
Browse their full range of products on the Wren & Myrtle website and join their communities on Facebook and Instagram.
