“It’s Never Too Late To Start”
Can you be an entrepreneur if you don’t wear a hoodie? Every success story we read these days seems to focus on a whiz kid – usually male, usually in the tech industry – who has made his first million or two while still in his 20s.
If you neglected to become a business maven as a young adult, don’t despair. You can still build a successful business – and you may even be more successful because you have waited.
“A New York-based accelerator program I recently attended had data showing that older entrepreneurs who went through the program did better than the younger and less experienced ones, especially in fields that need industry expertise,” says Phoebe Yu.
Phoebe’s own story proves the point. The founder and CEO of ettitude, which manufactures bed linen made with organic bamboo, was in her fourth decade when she launched her business. Six years on, business is booming. Ettitude expanded to the United States in 2017 and in the first 12 months of operation, US revenue overtook Australian revenue. The company’s global revenue tripled from 2018 to 2019.
Phoebe says that her years of experience in logistics and supply chain management gave her the skills to navigate her way through the many challenges of launching a business. More importantly, it also gave her the confidence to take risks.
“You have to think through the implications of the business possibly failing and I knew that, if I had to start over again, my experience would be in demand with employers,” she says. “My expertise would carry me through.
Here, Phoebe shares her top tips for women considering reinventing themselves as entrepreneurs.
Take the help that’s available
“Australia is a great place to start a business because there’s lots of government support,” Phoebe says. “The Victorian government’s Small Business Festival, which is now transitioning into a new program, was a great resource for me, with lots of free events and workshops. Events such as Startup Weekend and Startcon deepened my knowledge and connections within the Australian startup world.”Prepare for the long-haul
Phoebe had a very clear vision of the product she wanted to create. “Working in textiles, I knew about the huge amounts of harmful chemicals and toxic dyes used in existing processes. I wanted to create a sustainable product that would also save water and only use non-toxic dyes and solvents.” Phoebe worked for years with a textile university in Shanghai to develop her signature CleanBamboo™ product. “It involved a lot of trial and error, required a lot of patience and cost me around $100K over the years,” she says.Get used to asking for money
Like most entrepreneurs, Phoebe funded the first stages of her business herself. To grow the business, however, she had to look elsewhere. Research shows that women still face challenges in finding funding – according to the Harvard Business Review just 3 per cent of venture capital in the US goes to companies with a female CEO – but creative entrepreneurs can find a way. As well as reinvesting profits from the business, Phoebe ran a number of crowdfunding campaigns with Pozible, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, raising close to $300,000 in total from 1236 backers. “These campaigns also helped us tap into what colours and products our customers were responding to most,” she says.
The company’s success has made raising funds easier. Earlier this year, Phoebe raised a $2.54 million seed round in the US. “Investors will ultimately look at the numbers and consumers will vote using their dollars on a great product, so the key is to focus on creating a great product that solves a problem,” she says. “Venture capitalists look more into profitability rather than growth at all costs. Research shows female founders and female-led companies do better on profitability, so I think we will see more investment opportunities for female entrepreneurs in the next few years.”Get the right people on your team
“I quickly learnt the value of building a small but passionate team who weren’t afraid to think outside the box in many ways and who really understood the problem I wanted to solve,” Phoebe says. “When you’re bootstrapping a business, you need innovation, energy and a lot of hard work.
“Networking has become a real buzzword over the last decade, but it’s hard to overstate how important it is. People are most important support of your founder journey. As my network has grown across three continents, I’ve found my access to resources has grown organically, too.”Stick with your vision
Ettitude relies on a direct-to-consumer model: a bold choice for a product like bedding, which is essentially tactile. Yet Phoebe was determined to cut out the middleman in order to make a high-quality product available at reasonable prices.
“In the first few years, we supplied sample swatch packs upon request. We now offer 30-night sleep trial periods, during which you can return your sheets for a refund,” she says. The pandemic has made that business model seem like a smart option. “With bricks and mortar so heavily hit by global shutdowns, it’s going to become more and more important to have an agile and nimble business model,” she says.Share your good fortune
Giving back is ingrained in ettitude’s business model. One per cent of the profits from its bedding sales is donated to 1% For The Planet, while faulty sheets go to animal shelters. During the 2020 bushfire crisis, ettitude offered an additional PTO for “staff to volunteer for bushfire relief efforts, and donated 1 per cent of first-quarter sales to WIRES and WWF Australia.
“It’s important for brands to put their money where their mouth is, provide accountability and back up their vision with transparency and tangible impacts,” Phoebe says.
“Being a responsible business is really baked into the ettitude culture. It’s important to build a team who believe in what the company is doing. That shared outlook means we have a shared internal dialogue about how best to continue giving back to the things that matter most to us, both as individuals and as a collective.”
Interview_ Ute Junker
Photo_ Supplied