Aimee Connolly

I think there's like purchasing, if you're in the product business, inventory is a huge cost.

Office, you can generally, you know, people work from their back rooms or whatever for years.

I think the people is really the next biggest significant bucket.

Not only just financially, it adds an entire other layer to it.

So I got into a stage where thankfully...

the business was getting bigger and it was just unsustainable to try and run all the accounts like I was doing I was up at like all hours with Korea overnight then on home time here with buyers and it was just like you know it wasn't working for someone who loves to be busy and he'll pack all the hours in it was you know to a level where I was like okay this is the right time to hire

But it's funny, like often, and I'm sure a lot of business owners can relate to this.

Your first few hires need to be so broad because they have to do so many things.

So it's like you can kind of have a job spec, but like, good luck.

You're not really, you know, unless you've got investment in or you have this amazing capital to go and hire a full team to start with.

And it was definitely that bit of messy middle.

But it was great.

And it added an extra, I suppose, layer of confidence to me that actually this is happening.

And then, you know, with that, you get a bit more headspace to focus on the next chapter.

You know, buyers are asking me, OK, what's the next product launch?

And I was kind of, oh, God, I'm just so focused on this.

So it forced me to kind of think ahead.

And then slowly but surely, it just grows legs.

Like, I remember going from my first kind of one or two members, actually my second

employee is uh her name is carol she's my commercial director she's been with me six years wow so she's been totally along for the full journey and she's just phenomenal um and we've been so lucky like to really have like i said at the start like a very caring passionate team yeah because honestly i think it would be extremely hard to work in a startup if you didn't actually care yeah it's so fast-paced it's chaotic you're figuring things out as you go it's made for some people and totally not for others and that's okay yeah it's not