Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
The girls are in daycare 2 and 3 days a week. Every Monday is our day in the office together where we chat through everything and set our tasks for the week and then we work in our own time to achieve those, with the idea of completing them by the following Monday. And yes, things happen and we don’t always achieve what we set out to do, but we refuse to stress ourselves out about it as long as we are always moving forward. We are only 3 months in and we aren’t quite where we want to be just yet and we have made a lot of mistakes, but we have to remind ourselves that we started this business with just $1k capital in the middle of a global pandemic, we have done everything ourselves with no outside help (apart from our wonderful logo designer) and we are learning new skills every single day. We are proud of ourselves so far!
The girls regularly come out on deliveries with us and are our guinea pigs on some products. We pay them when they do – we want them to learn from a young age that working = money and money has a value, just as your time does. We want them to be proud of us and we want to teach them every day and enjoy the business we have built. One day we hope to be handing this business over to our girls and that is something that drives us every single day.
The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
Some of the challenges we have overcome have been launching in a global pandemic, having minimal capital, lack of experience, lack of confidence, tonnes of self-doubt and cashflow management.
There are so many challenges when starting a business and nothing hinders you more than self-doubt. We have both struggled immensely and there have been many tears, but we are so thankful for one another. When one of us is down, we pick the other one up. We can’t imagine how hard it would be to start a business by yourself, but having that second person to keep you focused and motivated is huge!
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
The pros are building something you are truly proud of and receiving great feedback from others about it. Being your own boss on your own time and not having to answer to anyone has been a big positive too. We are constantly learning so much and genuinely love sitting at a desk and working.
In terms of cons, not paying yourself a wage is a big one. It’s sometimes so hard to keep going when you are working so bloody hard for free and you have no idea when you might be able to pay yourself your first $50. A steady income is definitely a lot more appealing sometimes. It’s hard to be patient. We have to remind ourselves we are a start-up and we have a huge mountain to climb to be where we want to be and it’s just not going to happen quickly.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
On a personal level, we recently set out our 15-year goal plan. Yes, 15 years seems a bit crazy, but we have so many hopes and dreams and that can feel so daunting sometimes, so we decided to allocate one dream per year and then each year our monthly short-term achievable goals will strive towards our Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
This year is all about trial and error for us. We want to be able to pay ourselves a wage by next year so we need to strive towards that but we also have other goals like one day being on The Project and chatting away to the beautiful Carrie all about how the work we are doing really is making our children’s generation a lot kinder haha.
On a business level, our dream for this business is ultimately to revolutionise the way we educate our kids and how we think about raising our children. Every single human being is so unique, their experiences, their thoughts, their lifestyle and what makes them tick, but as a society, (and we are seeing this right now in what’s happening in the world), we keep trying to get them to conform to a tiny little irrelevant and unimportant box. At the moment, it feels as though we are all supposed to think, feel, and experience things the same way and that’s just unproductive to society. How will we ever learn anything, how will we evolve, survive, and find solutions to problems if we all think and act the same way? And why does it even matter?
What if from a young age we accepted, respected, and fully embraced the idea that:
- You can think differently to others
- You can be different
- You can look different
- You can have a different sense of humour
- You can have different beliefs
- You can like different things
- You can have a healthy debate
- You can be driven by different agendas and motivations
But at your very core:
- You are conscious of others
- You are empathetic to others
- You are kind to yourself
- You are kind to others
- You respect your environment
- You respect others’ differences and accept them
- You are always honest and fair
- You know your values and are content with them
That’s honestly our dream for this business. We might not know how we are going to get there yet, but everything we are doing is striving to really make a difference in this world and for our kids and their kids to enjoy later on.
Visit the Mini Minds Project website to find out more and follow their journey on Facebook and Instagram.
