Ask me anything about…growing a business

What was the biggest turning point in your growth journey?

When COVID hit and shopping went online. We were already prepared to pick up the extra online traffic and orders as customers spent more on their home.

What should a business review first when demand starts growing quickly?

You want to make sure your systems and processes are in place and working well when you start growing. If these aren’t right early on, there’s no chance of keeping up. Another consideration is understanding exactly why demand is growing quickly, so you can do more of it.

When demand grew, how did you decide what to prioritise — stock, fulfilment, delivery, systems, team or customer service?

We did it in exactly that order! Right when COVID hit, I sold my car to buy our biggest stock order yet. We worked on our systems to ensure that customers could pre-order their bedding sizes, worked with our warehouse to upgrade our fulfillment systems, followed that up with customer service, and then remarketing.

How do you keep the customer experience consistent as the business gets bigger?

We’ve always invested ‘over-and-above' in the customer service aspect of our business. If a customer is going to buy from your brand, the least you can do is respond to their questions immediately. We have systems that help us manage this process, but we make sure our customers are always talking to a human.

What should a growing business think about before scaling further?

It really depends on what's next. There have been times we’ve focused on product mix and range, brand identity and value proposition, operational considerations and team growth. You can’t generally run more than one big project at a time so pick the biggest pain point and evolve that beyond the capability needed, then go on to the next (and so on!).

What is one process, tool or habit that’s made the biggest difference to how you’ve grown your business?

Always keeping our team in the loop about everything that’s happening across the business. We have a monthly Town Hall meeting where we share anything from product and marketing to finance, people and culture. Everyone knows how the business performed in the month prior and what we’re aiming for next. We also celebrate our team values and culture: everyone can nominate someone who’s gone above-and-beyond that month, and we read out all the nominations during the Town Hall.

What helps you manage the pressure of running a growing business?

Downtime! Switching off to recharge is really the best way to tackle the next day. Yes, there are times where you need to push further, but recognising the balance between work and life is the key to bringing the right vibe to keep growing and running business.