Aimee Connolly

And the way that I managed that is when you are purchasing, say a stock order,

you'll pay a deposit you'll pay another portion generally when it's ready and then you'll pay another portion when the shipping arrives and I had sold a certain amount to buyers in advance of time right was watching that cash cycle come back and then when they would pay me I'd release a bit more of the stock that I needed so I was very measured in that first 12 months

Yeah.

So I basically had the plan where I wanted to go to the top five pharmacy buyers in Ireland at the time.

And my idea was if I can get in their shelves, then independents would look at what they're stocking and they would come to me because I was like, I am a literal one woman band here, so I can't go everywhere.

So I went to, yeah, those five meetings.

Very luckily they all took a chance, which I think is such a testament as well to like the Irish community that we have.

Like they, I had absolutely nothing to prove to myself.

Like I had never sold anything in my life.

I had obviously worked as an artist, so I had hopefully a credible name in terms of artistry, but very different, you know, being able to be an artist and then being able to sell a brand.

So there's a lot of like really goodwill that went in behind them.

Yeah, I was, yeah, I was 22, 23 and I was just full of excitement.

I think like the passion was literally oozing from my vein.

So I think that was definitely probably, yeah, an encouraging thing for them to see.

I'll never forget that when I always share this, leaving that first buyers meeting.

It was like, I would describe the process of launching or starting a brand in two phases.

You've got the pre-phase, which is like where I love to be, you know, in that real nitty gritty business development, you know, we're looking at packaging, we're looking at products, I'm looking at logistics, I'm calling up customs company, pretending to work for someone else to understand, you know, what code do I need when this arrives in?

You're looking at warehousing, you're selling in, you're working on your pitch to buyers.

and I remember leaving that first meeting and it was really positive and they said yeah okay well we'll try all this and you know let us know how it's going to look on shelf etc and I was walking out of that store and I was like looking at all the brands on the shelves and I got this absolute dropping pit in my stomach being like oh my god I now have to sell this thing like I've spent so much of my outpouring love creating it and now I need to be sure that actually when it arrives it leaves the shelves yeah and that's a whole other ball game

And that is really when pressure starts.