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Genevieve and Alex Smart of fashion brand Ginger &amp; Smart relive their early years, and reflect on how they built their business

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They launched Ginger &amp; Smart in 2002 with a small collection of scented candles and leather accessories. Today, their fashion business spans seven stores and 30 stockists across Australia, and their luxury clothing brand has emerged as a leader in the <a href="https://www.afterpay.com/en-AU/business/access/exploring-sustainability/sustainability-innovations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sustainability</a> space.&nbsp;We launched Ginger &amp; Smart partly because we wanted some control over our own destiny. We wanted to create something together that allowed us to have autonomy in our we run our lives and to leave a legacy for our family and kids –&nbsp;Alex.We had quite different skill sets&nbsp;and wanted to come together to create something exciting. My background was magazine publishing. I have a journalism background and a Master’s in business –&nbsp;Alex.&nbsp;My background was always in Fashion. I studied at the Design School in East Sydney and spent 10 years as a designer for other Australian and international brands before taking the leap and co-founding Ginger &amp; Smart –&nbsp;Genevieve.&nbsp;

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We started with a really small candle and accessories collection. It was very grassroots!&nbsp;&nbsp;There weren’t many scented candles in the market back then, but ours had a textural fashion angle and were wrapped with feathers and leather. These earliest designs of silk printed scarves, oversized hats and luxe leather weekender bags were simple but had the same quality and design essence that underpins the collection today –&nbsp;Genevieve.It was really daunting.&nbsp;I remember going into Orson &amp; Blake, which was a really beautifully curated store, and showing them the candles and being very nervous. I remember thinking, ‘Would they ever buy from us?’ And then even before we got home, there was an order on the fax machine. It was a real confidence booster because it meant that what we were doing resonated with stores that we wanted to be in –&nbsp;Alex.The candles got us into stores.&nbsp;We knew we eventually wanted to get into fashion, but candles were something we could pull together with a very small budget and they allowed us to go to market and get us into the stores we wanted to be in –&nbsp;Alex.

One early memory that stands out&nbsp;for me was selling the first fashion collection – which was five dresses and a collection of accessories - into Browns Focus in London. [Buyer] Yasmin Sewell saw the collection and she chose every piece. That was 2005, and David Jones hadn’t even discovered us yet, so for her to love the collection felt good. We began to get a lot of momentum from that point –&nbsp;Genevieve.We built a really robust wholesale business before launching into retail stores,&nbsp;and that always underpinned everything else. The wholesale market has changed hugely over the past 20 years, but we’ve always kept good relationships –&nbsp;Alex.

It was very hands on.&nbsp;We were producing, dispatching, and selling at the same time – doing it all ourselves. We were just running for dear life to get as much scale and traction as we could. For the first three years, we used my home as head office… and we took the collection to trade fairs and gained more retailers through that model until we felt comfortable opening our own store [in William St] in 2006. Now we have seven stores, and 30 stockists –&nbsp;Alex.Learning to delegate is key.&nbsp;Wearing all the hats every day and doing everything in the business, from packing orders to cutting samples and doing sales appointments, was hard but important.&nbsp;Making the shift from doing to leading - and learning to delegate well - is an important skill to master early on –&nbsp;Genevieve.&nbsp;We were really well-supported by the media early on&nbsp;and we relied on them to get the message out. But that was pre-internet. Now, Instagram and digital marketing have become such a big part of everybody’s marketing budget –&nbsp;Alex.

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“Surprising proportions, new colours combinations or innovative fabrications can be calculated risks that bring excitement to the brand.”

You need to know your customer.&nbsp;We have spent a lot of time getting to know our customer – speaking to her and growing with her. We’re lucky to have boutiques where we can strike up a relationship with our customers, and learn about their lives. Online, we’re having more two-way conservations, through digital platforms or social media platforms. We also have a Ginger &amp; Smart VIP club and events where we’re able to have a two-way conversation –&nbsp;Alex.Listen carefully to buyers and customers but always create some pieces they don’t know they needuntil you design it for them. Surprising proportions, new colours combinations or innovative fabrications can be calculated risks that bring excitement to the brand. Always keep evolving and stay relevant ­–&nbsp;Genevieve.

Despite the way it may look, fashion is not glamorous.&nbsp;It’s about product, people and supply chains – and it’s about relationships. Honesty and integrity really are everything -&nbsp;Alex.

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Genevieve and Alex Smart of fashion brand Ginger & Smart relive their early years, and reflect on how they built their business.

Ginger Smart started out offering candles and leather accessories Now they re an Australian fashion fixture Discover how on Afterpay Access

Ginger & Smart's First Year in Business | Afterpay Access

My first year in business: Ginger & Smart

Bailey Nelson CEO Peter Winkle on launching a global business from a Bondi market stall

The eyewear industry was ripe for a shake-up when Bailey Nelson CEO Peter Winkle began selling glasses at a stall at the Bondi markets with his business partner Nick Perry in 2012. They set out with a clear purpose: to produce beautiful, quality eyewear frames at reasonable prices, and their product quickly struck a chord with consumers. Today, they have 72 stores and employ 600 staff globally.&nbsp;

We started Bailey Nelson at the Bondi markets. My business partner Nick Perry and I had both been in corporate careers – Nick had worked as part of the early team at THE ICONIC. We saw an opportunity to provide really high-quality glasses at a great price point.

We wanted people to look at glasses more like a wardrobe purchase&nbsp;where you can have multiple pairs for different events – a pair for at work, a pair for at home and a pair for going out. Nick wears glasses and found that, as a uni student, his options were [to choose between] his socialising money for a month or [buying] a new pair of glasses.&nbsp;

We funded the business ourselves. We put all of our savings into it, each contributing about $80,000. For the first six months we both had day jobs as well, and we worked on the business at nights, on weekends and in any spare moment we had. It was certainly a stressful time. Putting all your eggs in one basket and committing everything to it is a big deal. But we had a lot of conviction in the business.&nbsp;

We made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. Recently we found some boxes of old stock that we thought would be great sellers but just didn’t work. It’s easy to look back and see why they didn’t work – the wrong style or the wrong colour – but it’s always very hard [at the time]. We had some early test runs where the product quality wasn’t good enough [so] we started working with the world’s best acetate supplier, Mazzucchelli 1849. They helped to identify the right factories to work with and set that up in a much better way.&nbsp;

At first, all our energy went into an online store, which we launched in July 2012. But we quickly found that it’s really difficult for someone to know what glasses are going to look like [when buying] online, and people who ordered online wanted to come into our little office and pick them up. So, two weeks after launching online, we went back to the Bondi markets every Sunday just to let people feel the product and get feedback on it. Then, in September, we moved to our first store.

Our first location was really tiny&nbsp;– about 20sqm in Sydney’s Paddington. We had one jewellery cabinet to display glasses and we did the fit-out with one trip to IKEA. I remember we had to make a very hard decision around whether to spend $300 on a sign out the front.&nbsp;

We knew we were onto something in October 2012.&nbsp;That was our first really big day of sales – at the William Street Festival. We had a line-up of 20 people all day and there was real excitement about what we were doing. It was a really great day. We always looked at the William Street Festival each year as the birthday of knowing the business was going to work.

“We had one jewellery cabinet to display glasses and we did the fit-out with one trip to IKEA.”

A real inflection point for the business&nbsp;was moving from just selling frames and lenses to having optometry as well. In 2014, we began offering full-service optometry and now see ourselves as a full-service optometry business. That same year, we expanded into New Zealand, and have since opened stores in the UK and Canada.&nbsp;

Neither Nick nor I came from a marketing background,&nbsp;and for the first five years of the business we really didn’t do much marketing at all. We relied on word of mouth and from having stores in really great locations that had good footfall. They were fitted out beautifully and people could get a sense of who we were and what we stood for. Now, we’re about to launch our first TV campaign.

The management of inventory&nbsp;is always a big challenge. On the one hand, if we bought too much stock and couldn’t sell through it, that would be problematic, and, on the flip side, running out of stock is always a huge problem for any retailer.&nbsp;

Afterpay has been a really important driver of sales for us. We were one of the first optometry businesses to offer Afterpay both in-store and online, and at various times, up to 50 per cent of online sales have been paid for using Afterpay.

We’re excited about what the next five years looks like. While online hasn’t been as big a part of the business [so far], we do see it as a really important part of the business going forward based on some of the trends we’ve seen through COVID. We’re launching a new virtual try-on experience in about a month, and we see that really will start to change what’s possible for people to feel comfortable purchasing glasses online.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Discover how Peter Winkle, CEO & co-founder of the optometry business Bailey Nelson started out and managed a challenging first year on the way to global success.

Discover how Peter Winkle, CEO co founder of the optometry business Bailey Nelson started out and managed a challenging first year on the way to global success

Market Stall to Global Business: Bailey Nelson's First Year | Afterpay

My first year in business: Pete Winkle

The founder of national removal company Two Men And A Truck, Richard Kuipers, on how the business took off.

“I wasn't planning to start a removal company,” insists Richard Kuipers. Yet fate apparently had other ideas.&nbsp;Two Men And A Truck has evolved from a backyard operation run from a ramshackle caravan into a national success story. Today, the business includes a network of 150 removalists with 82 trucks, and the company handles 15,000 moves a year while&nbsp;maintaining a 4.5-star Google rating in each state – not easy in a profession where breakages and mishaps are rife.&nbsp;Here, Kuipers looks back on his accidental business empire and reveals how he engineered its dynamic growth.

I didn’t wake up one&nbsp;morning and decide to become a removalist.&nbsp;But I’d moved to Australia from Holland with no money at all, got married and had three children.&nbsp;Suddenly,&nbsp;I had to take whatever I could to support them. So, 38 years ago, I started doing part-time removals.

It was never planned.&nbsp;My wife had bought a bookcase from the local furniture shop [owner] and I just started doing the deliveries for him.&nbsp;When it was a bigger job, I’d get the next-door neighbour's 14-year-old son to help out. Soon other shops started ringing and I bought a second-hand truck. Gradually, I started doing&nbsp;house moves, too.

It was chaotic at&nbsp;first and a big learning curve. I knew nothing about removals. Someone would ring me saying they had a small move and nothing heavy. When I got there, they’d have a huge snooker table and a grand piano!&nbsp;

You also have to&nbsp;learn to become very good with people. For a short while, removalists become the meat in the sandwich in people's lives. You might have to help people move who are divorcing or going through a family dispute. You might have to deal with hoarders or an old lady moving into a nursing home who doesn’t want to go.

Things were growing gradually, but then I thought, “Let’s see how far we can really take this.” So I changed the name to&nbsp;Two Men And A Truck in 1993.&nbsp;It’s a catchy name and people know what they're getting –&nbsp;in fact, today it's the second most searched-for term for people looking for a removalist.&nbsp;&nbsp;Truth be told, sometimes we need more than two men for a big job, but “six men and a truck” isn’t so catchy.&nbsp;

At first,&nbsp;I was&nbsp;running things from my lounge room&nbsp;and then from a caravan in the backyard. Finally, we got an office and everything slowly began to become more formalised and structured.&nbsp;

“At first I was running things from my lounge room, and then from a caravan in the backyard.”

The biggest challenge was&nbsp;always <a href="https://www.afterpay.com/en-AU/business/access/boosting-profitability/cashflow-management-tools" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cashflow</a>. Early on, it was a struggle to pay bills and wages. How did we get past that? We just struggled along and tried to get more work. I’d put ads in the local paper or visit furniture shops asking if they needed help with deliveries. When you can’t afford to fail, you have to make a go of it.&nbsp;

Two Men And A Truck&nbsp;has&nbsp;turned into a family business.&nbsp;My daughter is now the CEO and my youngest daughter does the customer service. But working with family can get extremely tricky, so we got a professional mediator who specialises in family business management. If ever we have an issue, the mediator is informed and then helps us to decide what to do. I’d recommend a mediator to any family business.&nbsp;

Our 4.5 Google star rating&nbsp;is very important. Removals involve bringing big men into your home where all your valuables and your kids are. So trust is massive and having a good online reputation goes a long way.After every move we ask people to leave a review. If they leave great feedback then we can pass it on, and if something has gone wrong then we can learn from it and make it up to the person in some way.

Afterpay has been really&nbsp;helpful for us. People need removals at a time when they have a lot of expenses – they’re buying a house or having to pay the bond for their rental. They might be short of cash and moving is quite expensive. Afterpay helps them to fill in the gaps on a temporary basis.&nbsp;

“Afterpay has been really&nbsp;helpful for us. People need removals at a time when they’re buying a house or having to pay the bond for their rental.”

I'm 74 so I&nbsp;only move small pianos now – I try not to do the big ones anymore!

<h2>Richard Kuipers' three tips for business success:</h2>

Relevancy is the single most important thing.&nbsp;Do people really need your service or product? Will people also require it in a few years’ time? While there’s always demand for removals, we also make sure we have a strong presence on Google and Facebook. We work with a digital marketing agency&nbsp;that does all of our <a href="https://www.afterpay.com/en-AU/business/access/seo-tips/ecommerce-seo-checklist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">SEO</a> and ad words.

Starting a business, you have to be frugal.&nbsp;Don't spend money on things you don't need and keep your overheads to a minimum.&nbsp;I never asked my bank manager for a single loan.&nbsp;Early on, we bootstrapped the business and reinvested all the profits. I would never buy a new car or even rent an office at first. People start a business thinking they're going to make a lot of money, but you don't. It takes a long time.&nbsp;

Persevere and keep on going. Don't give up!&nbsp;There are many, many times when I thought, “This is far too hard – it’s just ridiculous.” But if you’ve got a service that you believe in, then you just have to hang on and move forwards.&nbsp;Keep going! That's basically what you have to try and do, not just in work, but in life.

Two Men And A Truck founder opens up about his early years in business - and what he's learnt since.

On Afterpay Access, the Two Men And A Truck founder opens up about his early years in business and what he s learnt since

Backyard to Nationwide Business: Richard Kuipers Success Story

My first year in business: Richard Kuipers

The founder of The Beauty Chef on pioneering an entirely new wellness product category

When former journalist Carla Oates launched Glow Inner Beauty Essential in 2009, ingestible beauty powders didn’t exist as a category. Fast forward a decade, and&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeautychef.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Beauty Chef</a>’s products, which use natural ingredients to nourish skin from within, are stocked in 180 retailers in Australia, and more than 350 stores worldwide, including Net-A-Porter and Goop. Here’s how she built her business:The Beauty Chef stemmed from my own journey with health and skin problems.&nbsp;As a teenager I had eczema and allergies, and my mum took me to see a naturopath. She eliminated certain foods from my diet – like gluten and dairy – and introduced others, and I saw a profound change in my skin. So, from a very young age, I witnessed food as medicine.I always maintained my interest in natural medicine&nbsp;but ended up working as a beauty editor for a newspaper. At first, I was excited, but I quickly became concerned about the ingredients in skincare products. I had a column, and people would write to me from all over Australia asking for product recommendations, and I realised I couldn’t recommend any of these products. So, I quit and I became very immersed in natural skincare and wellness. I wrote books, and probably penned hundreds of articles for different publications about natural health and beauty.

I stumbled across research about the connection between gut bacteria and allergies and eczema&nbsp;when my daughter was about 10 – about 13 years ago - and suffering from eczema. I decided to put the whole family on a gut-healing protocol, and introduced a lot of lacto-fermented and probiotic-rich foods into our diets. There was a turnaround in her eczema, and my skin was glowing, too.I knew I was on to something&nbsp;when family and friends started asking what moisturiser I was using. I would say, “I’m just eating fermented vegetables!” I became the local “pusher” of fermented food, and friends and neighbours would report back that their skin was better, and they had more energy.I experimented for 18 months&nbsp;to make Glow. I was at an event when I met a manufacturer with a focus on making fermented foods – it was very serendipitous. We probably made 50-70 samples of the first Glow powder. My whole house was filled with iterations of Glow powder until I felt I had perfected the formula, and of course the flavour, too.

“We probably made 50-70 samples of the first Glow powder”

It was a completely new concept in the beauty world, so it was hard at first.&nbsp;There were a lot of naysayers who didn’t understand it, or thought it was too left field or not commercial enough. When you create a new category, you need lots of money to educate people. I started out with less than $3000.&nbsp;A friend did the logo and the website for me for free (I paid her later).&nbsp;We had to convince manufacturers, too.&nbsp;We wanted to order 500 units, and their minimums would be 3000. So, it was frustrating. I kept freelancing, but I was spending a disproportionate amount of time on the business.&nbsp;

We started to build a cult following.&nbsp;You can’t underestimate the power of word of mouth when your product works. People told each other about The Beauty Chef – and someone told an agent at TVSN, and he called and asked if I’d be interested in featuring on the home-shopping network. At first, I was unsure, but it worked. It resonated with people. The hardest thing was raising the money, because they put in a substantial order. So, my sister and my best friend put money into the business.&nbsp;I didn’t start paying myself for about 18 months. It was just a small amount – maybe $600 a week, and no super. I was wearing a lot of hats – I still wear a lot of hats but I love watching the business go from strength to strength around the world.PR has been really important.Vogue&nbsp;ran a story about us early on – they loved the newness of it. Then, a progressive beauty destination,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.capbeauty.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CAP Beauty</a>, in New York’s West Village called, and wanted to stock us. Their business was successful, and they were interviewed byThe New York Times&nbsp;- and said it was their bestseller. That’s when people started noticing the brand. We got calls from Selfridges and Net-A-Porter. My first hire was a part-time PR.

“You can’t underestimate the power of word of mouth when your product works.”

The [wellness supplement] market is flooded now, but back then we had centre stage.&nbsp;We benefited from being the only innovative brand. I think competition is really healthy, it opens up the category in terms of awareness. But we pioneered the fermented-food-as-medicine area, we work with microbiologists and we have our own purpose-built fermentation plant. I started my business out of a passion to educate people about gut health – not because it’s a trend – and I’ve never wavered from that.&nbsp;&nbsp;Digital media is now incredibly important for any business,&nbsp;but paid influencers haven’t been a big part of our strategy until more recently. We’ve been lucky to have such organic love from influencers.&nbsp;I don’t look back and see mistakes; I see learning curves.&nbsp;It sounds cheesy, but sometimes mistakes prompt you to make significant changes to your business, which creates a stronger platform to move forward.&nbsp;

“I don't look back and see mistakes. I see learning curves”

We could have kept growing organically&nbsp;but to scale we needed investment. We were approached by a lot of companies, but I wasn’t ready to give up control. I needed a partner that shared the same values and vision and could deliver strategic support. I was approached by Point King Capital last year and it felt really right.&nbsp;We’ve moved fast.&nbsp;Two and half years ago we had just eight staff. Now we’re at 40 (50 if you count staff worldwide). It’s challenging because taking on investment means you go from being answerable only to yourself, to having to work closely with a partner. But it’s also been great having a sounding board. Having a wonderful team working with me, and not having the responsibility of making all the decisions by myself is also quite a relief.&nbsp;

Carla Oates, the founder of The Beauty Chef, on pioneering an entirely new wellness product category.

Hear from Carla Oates, the founder of The Beauty Chef, on pioneering an entirely new wellness product category on Afterpay Access