This analysis explores a YouTube video transcript featuring Molly Michelle, the founder of Native Studios, who discusses her journey in establishing a handmade ceramics business while balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship. The conversation is hosted by Con N, the founder of a company called Asttr.
“If you know too much, I think that’s a poison pill.” - This quote captures Molly’s belief in the importance of being open to learning through experience rather than overthinking potential failures.
Molly Michelle's journey encapsulates the essence of modern entrepreneurship, particularly for women balancing family responsibilities. The discussion provides valuable lessons on resilience, adaptability, and the importance of community in building a successful business. The insights garnered from her experiences serve as a guiding light for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and a willingness to learn.
we're either gonna have a business or a clean house like we're not going to have both but at least we have a business and not a clean house this week I've invited an early stage founder to the unbox studios so we can hear the story so far and they have the opportunity to tell me where they need help in their business so how do you split your time between your child making the Ceramics and running the business just doing as much as I physically can without crying every day a in like the best way this week I'm speaking to Molly Michelle the founder of native Studios she creates gorgeous and unique handmade mugs I was a bit naive going into something that I'd never done before with no experience I was able to learn a lot quicker by making those mistakes if you know too much I I think that's a poison pill she started making her products during covid and after her first maternity leave decided to take it full time Molly May shared us once 40,000 people on the website and like nothing to sell that triggered 40,000 people in this episode we really get into the thick of what the first few years of a business is like in 2024 and where she can take it from here when when did you quit ass soon as I realized that like every drop was selling out within about 5 minutes there was never going to be any growth if I had that mindset of like I'm just going to do it all myself but it's funny that women are the only ones who have these kinds of gufts do you think your partner has that guft I think welcome to unbox I'm your host con n the founder of asttr in these conversations I speak to Founders investors and creators who are all Breaking boundaries in their space to discover the person behind the brand and what it took for them to build their Empires hey there unbox listeners we want to take a second to shine the spotlight on payhawk the sponsor of this episode and the company that's revolutionizing how businesses like astru manage their finances imagine a world where your team has 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see if payhawk can work the same magic for your business there's a link in our show notes where you can book a demo don't forget to mention you heard about them on the unbox podcast we can't thank pay Haw enough enough for supporting our show and for being a crucial part of astronom use growth story so good to see you Bal IRL thank you I know we've been connected on Instagram ever since we kind of started following each other and you slid into my DM I know I know I had say I just felt like I don't know your brand resonated so much with me so I was like I need to I need to make you a mug I just see something my favorite mug ever and my kids know it as well and ever since like we've been collaborating non-stop like the between the two Brands I would love to hear all about you yes since I have you now um so uh Where Do We Begin so you've built this viral Ceramics business called a brand called native tell me how you got started um and be but before that tell me about your background everything about you yeah well I would say it's a pretty it's a short story because I'm only 2 years old so far with the business but it's also a long story cuz I just feel like I've always been like an entrepreneur really um I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was that's a Google it when I was in uni and then as soon as I Googled it I was like I resonate with this I think I'm definitely an entrepreneur um what what is the definition of on by the way just non-stop working on some on yourself I guess that's how I feel what an entrepreneur is but yes someone who's just interested in business someone who just yeah wants to work for themselves and just feels like they can give something to someone to the you know to the world I guess um but yeah that's really how Native started like I I've always kind of wanted to make things so I did an interior design degree um and then realized this was in Cardiff as well and then I realized that all of the interior design jobs in London and I wasn't prepared to move so I was like I'm just going to have to do something else I ended up working for car insurance which was like the next completely different know but I was like I finished Union I was like I need I need money so I had to like quickly find a job um Admiral is like the insurance company that everyone goes to in Canada very practical yeah it was it was good um but it meant that I could just do that 9 to five and then after five I could work on like what I actually wanted to do um so I was doing like freelance interior design um and then realized then obviously we had Co so the freelance stuff just stopped immediately like well the world stopped didn't it so I was um just basically chilling at home because everybody had to stay at home for ages and I had eight weeks of absolutely no work Admiral were just like just wait for your laptop so I just wait for that um and that's when I was like I've got time so I started really working on like what what I felt like I could give I was trying to find like gaps and things like that in the market and yeah so I basically realized with all the time that I had that I was watching a lot of YouTube videos watching a lot of like um just going online seeing Instagram and everybody would share themselves online with a mug or like they'd be you know they'd be online on YouTube and they would just have they'd be like oh go and grab a cup of tea and come and sit down with us and like we'll we'll Vlog yeah classic Co yeah classic Co and I just realized I was like their mug is is not nice why it's nice no one got like a nice mug um and I just realized that I was like you know I think I can make a cute mug um so I just started playing with Clay um at this point did you know how to make a mug no have how did you learn it so basically I with YouTube um but i' done a bit of Ceramics whilst I was doing my interior design degree because it's was all like a massive art school in Cardiff so I just I kind of played in that area like I knew what I was doing and i' always made stuff we were quite Hands-On in interior design we had to like handb build model and things like that so I knew kind of what I wanted to do with intricate details and things um but yeah come Co I was like I'm just going to learn how to make a mug uh I didn't couldn't afford a wheel so I had to handb build a mug cuz wheels cost like 22,000 so and plus it takes years to learn on a wheel so I just grabbed a bowl of clay and I just started making mugs and I just didn't stop until I was happy with something that I'd made and it did take quite a while to actually get there um but yeah as soon as I found out I was like you know I'm going to make this cute mug I decided I wanted a baby so I got pregnant and the mugs that you created back then is it the same concept as what you have right now it is the same concept it's more of like wabby saabi and wabisabi is where like you're just celebrating the imperfection of things and I really felt like it was quite important to do that in Ceramics is quite unpredictable and so you are just making things that are going to have like these really difficult intricate parts that you know they're not always going to look perfect I wanted every mug to be unique and different I felt like that that's what I wanted native to be um and because all of these other mugs you could just buy from the shop they're quite I don't know they don't make you look at them you know they just look like other mugs so I really wanted to make sure that every piece and everything I made was different and so I had that Vision in my head when I first started and that's still stuck with me now definitely and what happened to the baby and then when did you properly start the restart the business so basically when I'd kind of gotten comfortable with actually making mugs I thought I'm going to have a baby now it's like the perfect time so so uh so like impromptu but I just knew I wanted to I knew I wanted to get pregnant when I was 26 I don't know why I've always just had this thing in my head of get have a baby when I'm 26 so I was 26 so I'm just going to I'm just going to try for a baby and then you're a planner yeah I'm a plan you need things a certain way 26 do this 27 do this I know I feel like it's the only way I feel like I have some kind of control over something but yeah I felt like basically I'm going to have a baby when I'm 26 and then what I'm going to do is use my maternity leave to actually work on the business like actually launch the business so um and it was Co time so I'd had quite a bit of time at home to already kind of get a feel about like what I wanted to do like what gaps were in the Market at the moment and what I felt like I could make that was needed for the world um and then when I was pregnant I thought right now I've got nine months to actually come up with a business plan so that when I'm on maternity leave I then have nine months because my maternity was nine months to execute the plan that I make when I'm pregnant so um it basically just worked out like I I made the plan when I was pregnant and I had like months for like the goals that I was going to hit so I was going to like launch in the in the um the June and then so it did go as planned it did go as planned oh wow I never hear this by the way I didn't have a business plan when I launched asra so what what did the plan look like so I actually still have the the piece of paper I took a picture of it um but the plan I'll show show it to you later what overachiever it's weird though because I never was when I was in school it's almost like this this entrepreneurial vibe that I had was what I needed like I needed the freedom to do what I wanted to do because I felt like I was going to do well if I was just allowed to do that whereas in school I really felt like I was having to be told what to do and so I wasn't able to like really reach my potential cuz like I didn't want to do geography and other things like that so um I did excel in the Arts in the art side of school but yeah so basically I was when I was pregnant I thought right I'm going to have my baby in December cuz that was his due date um so then I knew then when I I to be honest I didn't pressure give myself any pressure like I was having a baby like I knew I had to give myself a of a break but as soon as he was born I kind of had a routine for him to to kind of sleep and things like that which helped and it he was a good sleeper which I don't know you need to get some lessons on sleep training maybe that's a separate episode I know well I wasn't sure whether it was like you know whether he was just a good sleeper and I'd hit the nail on the head with that or whether it was like the routine that I'd kind of started off with that helped so I I couldn't I couldn't say it might be completely different with my second but that was the plan and it and it actually worked so I started feeling comfortable to like start making mugs again when he was about 10 weeks old um and then I would I remember thinking I remember only having like 15 minutes to make a mug because he would only sleep for like he'd have a nap for like 15 minutes but the good thing about clay was that like you could wrap it up with plastic and leave it and then come back to it afterwards so I never really had any pressure to like you know like this wasn't going to dry up too much or anything I could just cover it in plastic I can you know play with with him for the rest of the day until his next nap and then I could just carry on making the mug so it was really slow progress how how many would you make a day or like how long would it take to make one I would probably I would it would probably take me like sometimes two days to make one mug um but I was still in kind of that like learning phase of like what I really wanted to do so I wasn't putting too much pressure on myself and I was making a lot of mistakes because I didn't know Ceramics like hadn't properly learned it so I was was making the mugs and then they were all cracking in the Kil and they were like the glaze was too thick and stuff like that so it was it was quite a long learning process but I think because I was a bit naive going into something that I'd never done before with no experience I was able to learn a lot quicker by making those mistakes I think sometimes I think that's the best way if you know too much I I think that's a poison pill you can like avoid doing stuff you know whereas like I spent like so much money on glaze and Wast the whole thing cuz I didn't actually know how to use it which was just so silly like most people would be like why would you do that but I then learned how to do it because I knew not not how to do it if you know what I mean so I I must have I think before I launched the business I must have spent about 700 of my because I'd given myself a maternity business budget um to use yeah so I'd made sure like that was all planned and so as soon as I like reached that 700 pound Mark I started selling them and then the one or two cups that I'd sold actually paid for the next bag of clay so then I just used that bag and so then I was no longer using my own money then um so going back to the business plan aside from the manufacturing or like the making of the mugs what else did you have in it so with the business plan basically I had like these monthly goals so I had to learn how to work Shopify and set up a business and take orders because I knew I didn't want to go on Etsy I knew that wasn't the place for me I didn't want the brand that's where like most you would find most places and I think I knew at that point I needed to stand out a little bit more cuz I didn't want to get lost in Etsy yeah so brand building was important for you yeah and I knew I wanted it to be like handmade homemade and that's where the word native came cuz native is like you know it's that's what it means like it's homemade and it's from where you are and it's just that feeling of home so I really wanted that to represent in the brand so I just made the logo myself um learned a lot about like marketing and where I was going to be Distributing this in the future and making sure that when I was building the brand that that's where I was heading I just it's weird because it's like it all came from the heart so it's like I planned it all then I did also kind of just I did what felt right at the same time so um the the plan was to launch the business in July and it was the 19th of July um and that was my first ever drop it was was mostly just family and friends that had ordered but part of the business plan was to actually get my story out there from the very beginning so when I knew I was going to launch the brand I made an Instagram account and I basically just on my first ever post which you can still see now now is basically like me explaining how I don't know what I'm doing but I'm starting a Potter business and this is how I'm going to do it and so every like every other day I would post like I've just bought a new logo and I've just built my in my in logo and then I just built my people love having a sneak peek into into a small business don't they yeah yeah I think as well like you learn so much um just by like having a look at what everyone else has done because I I feel like you don't really see things from the very beginning you only really see companies that are like doing really well straight away but i' I've tried to keep that story so like you might have to scroll quite a while but if you scroll down the Brand Story is at the very bottom of the of my Instagram page and like exactly how I started done so well in brand building in a span of 2 and a half years which is very short you have over 100,000 followers on is that right and it's highly engaged people love the brand I can see like there's so many likes so many comments I mean not not that like you're necessarily looking for it but validation is important as well so how did you build that up what like was there a milestone for you no I I never I never gave myself the pressure of like making sure like followers and engagement was like a massive thing up until recently but when I first started it was more about like I'm just going to share my what I'm doing and I'm just going to share it naturally I'm going to share how I make the mugs uh what they mean to me what they mean to the customers because I've been making some like really intricate mugs for customers that like they really meant like something really special like we made we've made some with like some little Halos on top you know we've made some like really lovely things with their all their family members and it would be like a joke that their granddad used to say and they'd have it customized on the mug and so when I was making these mugs I was I'm just going to film me making it and then it's just really showing exactly what like the brand is and what we want to do and and how I want it to come across basically um so yeah that was it and I just feel like people have just picked picked it up and then we've just had some really amazing influences and well I call them influencers but they most of them are genuine customers who just purchased and shared and they've just been really supportive um and like sharing the brand and so that's just like propelled us into yeah people can see the authenticity yeah that was my main thing because you know we we just make them in a little studio in Pont PRI um and so yeah it's just been amazing to to see it yeah and speaking of manufacturing and production you told me earlier that you have 12 people working for you making um Ceramics and yeah I like I don't know like when I saw your Instagram because you're so person everything so personally I thought it was you making everything and I was like how the hell does she make all of those Ceramics um and take all those orders so how did you build that production team yeah so I started realizing basically with my drops um and with the emails that I was getting in the messages there was just no way of me physically being able to make all of them um and then me being like a yes people please I was like don't worry I can I can make that for you so I'd like take all the orders I took far too many orders and I was like I'm not going to be able to do this so that's when I was like I need to get help um so I just started teaching people to help me make them basically um it started off with like family uh and now we've got some external people in as well yeah just teaching them exactly how I want the mugs to be made and so they're all made in exactly the same way they're still all handmade um and we had all the intricate gems and things like that so you would never be able to tell like who made the mug or anything like that because they're just so amazing like all of the people that work for us are so great so that's when I started realizing that I'm not going to be able to do this on my own and it's not also it's not going to be the brand that I wanted to be if I try and make them all myself like how am I supposed to it was taking me 5 days to make 15 mugs and you know like yesterday we had like 30 orders you know just in one day so it's like there was there was never going to be any growth if I had that mindset of like I'm just going to do it all myself so it was really that point of like as much as I want to make mugs all day I can't yeah and ultimately you're an entrepreneur as you said not not a Ceramics maker right although you are as well well I feel like I've learned it now but that was not like what I intended to do so how do you split your time between I guess like your child family um making the mugs or making the Ceramics and running the business and building a brand I would say it's like the most chaotic thing ever done in my life honest answer yeah like it's I just feel like I was going to ask you I I don't know I feel like I'm just doing as much as I physically can without crying every day a in like the best way I guess um but yeah I feel like close by that are helping yeah yeah kind of I've got my brothers but like they're all working for Native now so I don't really have help with Rio um but he is in Nursery so he's in Nursery from 9 till 3 um and then so I've got like the till three so I'm just trying to be like as productive as I can in that time and then at home then I'll just give him 100% of my attention so then I don't have the mum guilt of not giving him as much attention then when he goes to bed I'm just working in the evening um or sleeping and then I'll try and get up super early as well but I guess it's just a Non-Stop and then there's also delegating so like I do have my partner he's helping me loads so he's basically doing all of the operations side of things yeah so he's like running and managing all of the teams uh well all the teams we got one team he's um the production team yeah so he's running the production team and he's basically that's amazing you keep everything in the family yeah yeah it's been it's been really nice it's been difficult with family because obviously you have that that part where like you're trying to tell them your vision and they're just like but I want to do it this way so so so what are the challenges of um work working with your family or your family working for you it has been really difficult I think because they care so much and I think that's the problem is they care so much that they don't want you to like make a mistake but I'm like I want to make mistakes so what's an example an example I don't know I guess I guess I'm the type of person that is like I want to make 150 of this type of mug and like I haven't probably thought how we're going to make it who's going to be helping me make them if it's even like the best design to put out there or something I just get super excited about making something and so they might be like look you know it's not realistic or why don't we go for this design and so we kind of just have like these little bits of arguments but I guess we're just learning how to work together because I've I've gone from but that's a great thing if you can leverage it right because you have different opinions different ideas that you can really yeah and it's been really difficult for me to kind of learn that as well because I I want to learn I want everybody to have like to feel like they can really be there own type of person in Native and like you know have make their own mugs for example and like if we love it like let's just make more of them but then it started off like with me just making this like one thing and so I've had to and because it grew so quickly I've had to be like okay I I can't make mugs anymore basically delegate that and then you know so then it's like you delegate so much and it's like how much control have I actually let go of and how much do I have for it to still be native cuz I still want it to be like my vision but then if you so away does it start changing into something that you don't want it to be and I think that's some of the arguments that we've had as a family um of like their Vision against my vision I'm like but it's not native if we do it that way yeah you know so but you know they've been really really respectful about like how I do want things to be done it's quite easy to ask someone that isn't your family member or someone that you don't know very well to be like look this is how I want it done but for a family member they're like yeah but you know I don't like that they're straight up like they'll just tell you and it's like thanks so it's been a learning curve but it's been a good one because I feel like learning all those problems early on working with family is like I I feel like I can manage people a little bit better now because I know like how difficult it can be to have awkward conversations and so in the future luckily I haven't had to have many but but do you think it's harder to have awkward conversations with family or with that I guess non-f family members of stuff do do you have non-f family members of stuff yes we've got non-f family members now too we haven't had to have any awkward conversations with non nonf family members yet but um I guess I'm prepared if I could say so I've had to have some like and as well it's like I have to sit down and and I'm not the sister when when we're sitting down and having these conversations get very complicated it can cuz it's like they're like you know I'm your I'm your brother and I'm helping and it's great but it's like right now it's like this is what we need to do and I I I can't be a sister right now I have to be you know the CEO or like the designer or like the marketer like I because you wear so many different hats and so it's hard to take the hat off and be like how how am I supposed to run a business being a sister like you know so I have to be a little bit ruthless yeah and I'm assuming you don't have your insurance job anymore no when did you quit so yeah I basically quit that um as soon as I realized that like every drop was selling out within about 5 minutes and I knew wow it was it was every drop was how many pieces at that time so it was about 50 pieces and it would take me a while to make them um amazing yeah it it went it was going really well and but people were getting so annoyed and like if we go back to when I started realizing I needed to employ people was when they were selling out so quickly as well that was another key thing was like um people were getting annoyed with me cuz they'd all go and they'd be like I've been waiting on the website for like an hour and and they went and I was like I'm so sorry I it's great problem it's a great problem but that's why we never put any money towards um like advertisement or marketing that much like this was all just organic growth yeah um so it was it was a really great problem to have and then obviously I left Admiral because I realized that it I was not going to go back basically and I hadn't finished my maternity leave so as soon as I'd finished my maternity leave I was like there's no physical of me going back so I just stopped um and they were really appreciative of it actually they were really nice but yeah when I started employing people and we had all those orders it was like okay now we have to like teach people how to make them how did you know how to put the systems in just absolutely winging it YouTube Google yeah yeah and a lot of just making a lot of mistakes but being quick to fix them I think that's the main thing is like acknowledging okay this doesn't work or like you know we were getting some orders in and some spelling mistakes were coming through like we were making spelling mistakes and it's like okay well we haven't got a system where the customization is laid out properly so then we have to like edit the way that we print out the labels to get the tickets with all the customization on and then you know we were putting them on the shelf and then they weren't dated or they were you know some customers were ordering before others and we were making them all at once putting them on a shelf but the Shelf wasn't dated so we didn't know which one SEL like we were just basically making a lot of mistakes in a very short time and just completely systemizing constantly no I guess it's so hard to know what kind of mistakes we come through unless you've done it right it's all try and error exactly and it's like who who who was I supposed to look at that was doing something similar like I had no idea who was doing something like this to learn from so I was just for inspiration was looking at like other companies like Starbucks and how they were making their orders so like they would have fully customized coffee and they'd be at the till they'd write down the orders they' put it on the cup and then they'd send it and then it would get made so you know I was like we need something like that like we're we're doing the same thing just in a a much more detailed way so that's where the inspiration of getting the orders through onto some kind of ticket system that was dated and trackable and then reflect what we had on Excel on the shelves in like physical form so it was all organized uh and then yeah just having people that are like willing to like stay late to help put it together like a lot family I family um and some really close friends that were just absolutely grinding and helping us cuz we were getting really busy like you know like Molly May shared us once and we're just completely overwhelmed with orders yeah tell me about that experience that's amazing yeah so it was absolutely insane because the first well the first time she shared us um was really nice I basically gifted her sister and when was this and is this when the the brand went viral yeah well this was I would say it was like it was before I even had a unit or like any employee so this is when I was just making them by myself and I had just made her a cute mug with Bambi written on it as just like a present as like a congratulations for having Bambi and like you know love you cuz I was watching her on YouTube all the time so I was like just going to make this really cute mug and send it over um and I was really fortunate to be sending zoee some stuff anyway so I thought I'm just going to throw it all together um but I did not like think about her sharing it wasn't part of I didn't think she was going to share she didn't really share that much anyway so I was like I'm just going to send it to her didn't think anything of it um and then like two I think it might have been two weeks later like my phone just absolutely blew up and I had no idea what was going on and I didn't have like employees or a system to take orders at that point I had Shopify but everything was sold out because everything would sell out in 5 minutes anyway so I didn't have I didn't have a way of taking orders so I had about 40,000 people on the website and like nothing to sell and I was just absolutely gutted because I was like what look at all these customers that want things and I can't did you manage to capture their emails yeah so I very quickly managed to put uh a sign up email on on my Instagram and then I also turned off the website so it automatically goes to the password page and so everybody who was jumping on and then I obviously had started planning a drop so I just popped everything there so I managed to capture loads of emails which was great um I was just that that triggered 40,000 people on the website that's incredible it's a lot like it it was a lot and yeah over the course of like the 24 hours that she'd shared us we had like 25,000 followers and the phone my phone was just roasting for like a whole 24 hours so how long the story lasts and I was just like this is insane um and then so I just knew then I was like we need to we need to make sure that if we're ever in this position again that we can actually like take these orders and that's where throwing myself into like this manufacturing side was like this is where we need to go like it just basically was like we're not going to we're not going to grow if we don't have these systems in place because there's so much potential for us and it just all it needed was a good system basically so she actually end up sharing us again and I had all the systems ready on that day that's aming that was really good um and then yeah we just basically have have just not stopped sensor and what's been the biggest challenge for you oh wow I would say I have a couple of really big challenges I would say mother being a mother in business is probably one of my biggest ones because I think it just comes with guilt that's like really unnecessary but you know and I know he's going to be so proud of me when he grows up and sees everything that we're making and stuff but I just see him and I just want to like I just want to stay and play with him and I want to stay at home and cook food and that house is a mess because I don't have time to clean it and I I when I first started the whole thing and when Rio was Tiny I said to EV I was like we're either going to have a business or a cleanhouse like we're not going to have both because it's just not going to happen uh and it still is that way but at least we have a business and not clean house um but that was that was I think it's better to have a happy mom yeah exactly exactly and like it's like you can't you just can't physically do everything and I think I've been trying and that's what's been a challenge is I've been trying to make sure there's food on the table at 5 trying to make sure the house is clean trying to make sure all the the washing is done and the dishes are done and I think that's when you're like this small anyway and this you're just on your the cusp of growing your business it is those sacrifices that you do have to let go of because it's like I I need to work like I need to sit on my laptop and I need to work it's funny that women are the only ones who have these kinds of guils do you think your partner has that guil I think I think he just doesn't mind having a messy house I think that's the thing with him is like he he helps so much as well with with cleaning but there's there's obviously like he he's like I want to go to work too so we're both arguing about who's going to go to work so funny so he he'll go to the studio and he'll stay late you know like he's like sorting out all the operations and coming up with like cost effective Solutions and just sorting loads of things out that end and I don't want to say no CU business needs it so but I think he just he just has this idea of like it doesn't matter if we have a messy house which is nice for me whereas but I think I'm just deep down I'm like so you're you're putting the pressure on yourself yeah I'm putting the pressure on myself definitely um but I guess it's just one of those things where I'm like I'm just going to shut that off for now because you know we're only two and a half years old and it's not going to be a messy house forever Rio isn't going to be this small forever so I think learning to prioritize next challenges basically looking at Rio and thinking like he's not going to be this small for that long I'm going to prioritize spending time with him when he's awake and I'm going to prioritize work when I'm not with him and that's that's how I'm living at the moment just those two things and what's the other challenge that you had just not knowing what I'm doing because like you're doing such an amazing job thank you I think it's the planning though you know like when I when it was just me um I didn't have to worry about like everybody else getting paid and I was like there was no risk so I was happily able to be like I'm going to spend all of my time building this business and all building uh you know the website and there's no loss for me because it's like all it is is my time right and my and my you know the money that I put into it which was about 700 and worst case scenario was that I'm just going to go back to Admiral if it doesn't work um and so I was able to like confidently make those decisions whereas now is like I can't spend all of the money on things like massive new production systems that we need and things like that because we' we've got obviously loads of employees so it's like yeah I have to be really careful and I think you have to be responsible for other people's lives exactly and I really want to be I want to make sure that I'm doing that right whilst also building the business in the right direction like I want to make sure that everything's right and so I've kind of started doubting not doubting myself I have this confidence issue now where I'm like I think I need some direction because I've come to a point where it's like this I've done this much but I do want to scale I want I want it to grow bigger I feel like it could be absolutely massive and I have so many plans but I'm like what what what is the vision the vision I think if there were no constraints if there was no constraints it would be having a a store with experience you're able to come in to a native store and you can make your own mugs we have workshops we work with other brands um we also have teams that can go out to like schools and other companies and have other workshops like that and basically yeah just having a massive huge place where we're just everywhere and it's just making customized handmade mugs or customiz handmade Pottery in general more accessible I think it's just it's quite difficult and I don't think it's been done in the way that I Envision it really uh and then it's like who who do I go to to ask for help with that because it's like I don't think what I want to do has been has been done in the way that I want to do it to the scale that I want to do it anyway is there a comparable brand even if it's not handmade like in Potter or um I don't know I feel like I feel like there are loads of Potters I think this is like the like I love I love the idea of lash like I always look at other brands that aren't Pottery based and trying you know like as you like going into your brand where you have an experience you you get to go and you get to feel like you get to see the jewelry feel the jewelry you have to put it on it's a whole experience you're going around and you're talking to the people and it's really nice and homely and I want to make that Pottery wise and I just The Potters that I see is what you know the studio is like basically which is just like super messy it's like super Workshop SL studiio slore right you know and I just want to turn that pretty I want to make it pretty and I want to make it more accessible like a household name where you can just go and be like oh we're going to go make mugs with Native this weekend you know something this just like really quick I think it would be so fun I think it would be so fun that's the vision that's where I'm heading um I just don't know how to get there I do that's so exciting do you have one advice you'd give um to an aspiring entrepreneur I guess I would say like just make a make as many mistakes as you as you can I think that's the I think I think I at the moment I'm like I'm not scared to make mistakes I'm like really happy to make mistakes but I was so much more confident making mistakes before and I'm really glad I did that now it's little bit different because you can't don't want to make mistakes when you've got like loads of of people relying on you but when you're first first starting it's like just try everything like throw everything you can at the wall and wait for something to stick that's like the best thing I would say great advice completely agree thank you so much Molly that was so fun you thank you so much that that was really good yeah thank you so much for listening don't forget to follow the podcast wherever you're listening or watching you can follow me at conam estr at ASD and meu and the unboxed Instagram page at unboxed founder confidential see you next week
This week, we feature another early-stage founder to show what it’s like to start a business in 2024. Mollie Michelle launched her handmade mug company during the pandemic and maternity leave and 2 years on she’s organically grown to 100,000 followers. In this episode, she joins Connie Nam and shares why she’s grateful for making so many mistakes early on, how she built a 10+ strong production team and the influencer repost which changed everything. Thank you to Payhawk for sponsoring this episode. Follow @naetive.studio To keep up with the podcast, follow @unboxed_founderconfidential, @connienam and @astridandmiyu