The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
I spent a lot of time designing my products, choosing my materials and working with the manufacturers to ensure every item was perfect, but a week out from my website launch, a competing company launched a product essentially identical to one of mine that wasn’t previously in the NZ market. I felt very defeated by this but it taught me how important constantly evolving is as a small business.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
The biggest pro would have to be flexibility. I make my own hours and can work around whatever’s happening. In terms of cons, I think it’s really easy in a work environment to fall into a pattern where everyone’s so busy being busy that they’re not doing things in a constructive way, which overall is detrimental to the business. So, it’s been important to us to bring together a small team of people who are all on the same page and meet as a team to run through what’s going on, and what our goals and priorities are.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
I’m loving where we are at and growing a business from the start. I would love to keep growing our online store and wholesale side so that one day we are stocked in baby boutiques all over NZ.
Visit the Mimi & Beau website to shop their range of products. You can also join their communities on Facebook and Instagram.
