How Our Earth Life Went From Side Hustle to Six-Figure Sales Without Debt

Lauren – Our Earth Life (00:00)

Being able to outsource that stress and that time and to be able to grow in a smart way and to know exactly what works and what doesn’t,

Dahna Borg (00:08)

Hi and welcome to the Bright Minds of Ecommerce podcast. I’m Dahna founder of Bright Red Marketing and I created this podcast because I wanted to bring you the best advice from Australian experts in eCommerce and eCommerce store owners. If you’re wanting relatable stories and actionable advice, as well as the latest Facebook advertising strategies, you’re in the right place. So let’s get into today’s episode.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (00:29)

Hi and welcome to the Bright Minds of eCommerce podcast. Today we’re here with Lauren from Our Earth Life. Welcome Lauren.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (00:35)

Thanks so much for having me.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (00:37)

Thank you so much for joining us. So tell us all about our Earth life. I just love what you guys are doing and I’m excited to share what you’re up to.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (00:45)

So we’re a nature play supply store for kids and grownups because we all love getting back out into nature. We’re running it as e-commerce at the moment. Hopefully, eventually, we can keep our journey going to a retail store. But for now, it’s just trying to bring nature back to kids and families.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (01:03)

You have the cutest products. I am still obsessed with the Ocean Explorers bundle. I want my cute little seashells on my desk.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (01:10)

I love that. I love that so much. It’s wonderful because we appeal to both grown-ups and little ones and just bringing that love of the earth back to them and yeah, all inspired pretty much by our own kids

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (01:24)

Yeah, we love that so much. how did our Earth life as a business come to be?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (01:30)

Actually started originally as from Petter with Love. That was like my tiny little mum side hustle. Because I think sometimes as a mum, you need a little creative outlet or you need another purpose other than being mum. As amazing as it is, you need something for you. So I’d care after having my daughter

I was trying to fit set up like a bush kinder. And then, so I had that nature play ideology and just wanted to bring that to something. So I started making little

nature play cards and then expanded into making wooden nature play products. Yeah, once again, all inspired by my daughter at the time and that background in nature play from childcare and from my studies.

Yeah, so I went through that and I had a friend who sold the specimens, which I wanted our like top products. That’s what everyone loves. And she wanted to move to Queensland. So she was like, don’t want my stuff, we don’t want my contact. I said, okay, well.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (02:12)

Yeah.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (02:28)

Sure, let’s do that. I said, how about, can I buy your brand? Because she was a photographer, so she had amazing branding, amazing vibe and the product. So yeah, that sort of fell into our lap. And we went from there and merged our two businesses into our life and kept expanding to make it more adventure and outdoors to what it is now.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (02:49)

Wonderful. I feel like your process of buying a business is maybe not as typical as like the traditional, I bought a business, but what was that process like? Obviously being a friend or someone you knew was a little bit different, but like, what was that process of buying that business like?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (03:03)

It was actually quite easy. She had a certain figure that she wanted to get so she could move her whole family up to Queensland. And then it landed on the same price. So we just sort of threw a number out there to say, hey, what’s what this look like to you? She was happy. Then we wrote a contract up just between ourselves. So I guess if you’re buying something bigger, you probably want to do it legally, like properly, I to a lawyers, but we did lots and lots of research, signed it with both happy.

And then, yeah, she passed all the passwords on, passed all of the, like, your digital content as well, and did a big handover. She also, one thing which is a great tip, is to make sure there’s a bit of a, like a layover. So she said, I’m still available for you for three months in case there’s anything that you get stuck on. Yeah.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (03:51)

Yeah, I’ve heard that’s a really good way of doing things that just don’t leave you high and dry and you’re like, how, how, what was this?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (04:00)

That’s That’s exactly it. know a couple of times I’m like, I can’t remember who this is or how do I do that or what’s the password? And yeah, I was just lucky being a friend that it was nice and she’s still there. She still does photography for us as well. That friendship is still there. She does.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (04:07)

Yeah.

She takes some beautiful photos. Wonderful. So obviously you guys have grown a lot since then, but what were some of the most important lessons that you learned in the sort of initial phases of business?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (04:25)

A tough one. I think one of our main ones, which goes back

I guess, value that my husband, so he’s now working with us, but one of his values is to never work on debt. So we’ve done a lot of budgeting through our life, through our home life, which has then come over to the business as well. So we don’t operate on debt. ⁓ Everything is done with money that we have. If we can’t afford it, then we have to wait. It’s as simple as that. And I think the other

The other tip or guess lesson I’ve learned is just start small. doesn’t matter how small. Like we started with PDF nature play cards. That’s what we were. And then it’s grown into this massive, massive for us business now that starts small. doesn’t have, you don’t have to start with the perfect branding. Just start with your idea.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (05:11)

Yeah, I think that’s really valuable because I think there is something to be said for like just starting. I think a lot of people wait till they got the absolute perfect and everything’s finished and everything’s the like end product, but you don’t have to have the end product. You can start, I think they call it the MVP, like your minimum, viable product, Like you can start with something small, get that audience like the audience that you’d have had for those sort of PDF cards would still be a similar audience to what you sell to now. You just have such a remarkably different product now. ⁓ It’s beautiful.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (05:40)

Yeah, that’s it. No, thank you. That’s exactly it. Like you said, and the journey, it’s more a journey as opposed to, hey, here’s me in all my perfect glory. It’s something that your customers can come along with you and the amount of times the customer’s been like, hey, why don’t you do it like this? Or, oh, I wish you had this product. And so then of course we were like, well, yes, let’s go for it. Let’s do it. Yeah. And because you’re so small at the time, can just,

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (06:04)

We shall go make that.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (06:10)

Get creative and find what sticks, what doesn’t. And I think people really respect it when they see that that’s, yeah, again, coming along for that journey and that they get input too.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (06:20)

100%. I think it is definitely something to be said for being in that phase of business where you are small and you are nimble enough to do these things. Like you can launch a product really quickly. You can change service providers really quickly. You can do things quickly. Whereas when you do get to that,

larger phase of business, all of a sudden there’s people to go through and like processes and you’ve got to like get approvals for things and like there’s this huge big, I mean, they call it the red tape for the reason, like there’s a whole much, whole lot more to be done to make changes, whereas it’s kind of fun to be in that nimble phase where you can just go, let’s just try this and see what happens.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (06:56)

Exactly. And you’d be surprised. originally it was just myself working it and now my husband’s been able to finish up work and come join. And it is amazing what you can get through with just two people from home. We work in our garage so it’s there’s no overheads, which then again keeps your costs down so that you can be creative and you can make those changes. just so much easier with on a small scale.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (07:18)

Yeah.

Yeah. On that note, you have now grown the business to the point where Ash was able to, join the business. What was that moment like and what was the lead up to that moment like?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (07:30)

It was suppose he was in a bit of toxic workplace, he had to commute, all of these things. And the business was growing too far for me to handle by myself. And it was just that little tipping point that, can we afford this? I think one of the only reasons that we could make that leap to say, not see later work was because there’s been a lot of groundwork, a lot of functioning to keep our personal finances. Now, I am not a finance brain.

I can not, I yeah, money is not my deal. But my husband, Ash, so he’s, he’s got a brilliant, yeah, he’s a brilliant mind for, for numbers and for finance with a lot of research. And that’s what sort of got us to this point. He crunched some numbers and go, hey, this is what we need to live. Can our life make that? And we looked and go, you know what, we can. And if we can grow it, then we can be quite successful. ⁓ Again, once again, trying to keep our overheads down.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (08:02)

He is great at it.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (08:25)

He feels so good, he’s so happy that we made that. It was tricky, yeah, it was tricky at the start. I think it took us a year to adjust. We had a new baby, homeschooling our daughter, him left work, so all four of us in the house together at all times is a big adjustment when you think someone’s gone from a trade to being at home. But it’s, we’re in such a great rhythm now and

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (08:29)

So good. Hahaha.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (08:49)

Like our Black Friday was huge and we smashed it considering.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (08:52)

Yeah, that’s so good. What was probably the biggest lesson that you guys learned about working together? Because obviously that is a lot. It’s going well by the sound of it, but like it is a lot to go from, you know, having different jobs to being in the same place all the time. What’s sort of the biggest lesson you guys have learned about working together?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (09:12)

Probably understanding how each person works and what their strengths are. I’m, I guess, hot mess, chaotic, successfully creative. I can get a, yeah, that’s it, right? I can get a lot done, but it’s gonna look messy as anything. Whereas Ash is,

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (09:25)

They usually go hand in hand.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (09:34)

A lot more routine and he’s got that efficiency through that. So it’s trying to balance the two of us. Do we need to be in there at the same time working? Can we do a time schedule? so it’s just playing to strengths and understanding that each of you still need space and when’s the optimal time to come together and collab about it. But it just, yeah, a lot of adjusting. And once we’re there, we’ve hit that sweet spot.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (09:52)

Yeah. Fabulous. It sounds like the perfect partnership really. Like you’ve got the like creative, like super vibrant energy and then you’ve got Ash and he’s great in numbers brain. And like he can think a little bit more strategically and like together that’s I think why you guys are doing so well.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (10:06)

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely. Sometimes I get these wild ideas and he’s like, hang on a second. This isn’t, this

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (10:16)

you

Lauren – Our Earth Life (10:16)

possible. Let’s come

So he was a manager at his previous trade. So he was able to organise employees and make sure that inventory and everything flowed, which has really, I guess, upped our efficiency in the garage so that we can get the things packing smoothly, inventory stays stocked.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (10:25)

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Love that. Now, Ash is very good at managing the numbers. He knows the ins and outs of everything, which is just such a great thing to have in business. How did he get so good at that? It sounds like a little bit from the managing experience in the past. And then what difference has that made to your growth moving forward?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (10:41)

Yes, absolutely.

think one of the biggest things for him was that he did a lot of research into a thing called the fire movement, which is basically to invest and to retire early. So he followed that. did so much research into it around, that’s been in COVID times, on how can we be in control of our own money and not have to owe banks. And because of all of that research and honing into it, that’s really given him the skills to see what percentage

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (11:11)

Yeah.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (11:25)

You can take successfully from the business now ⁓ to sustain your life. What percentages go to different spots? ⁓ And then how does that look when you grow it? How does that look when you add on, you’ve got your marketing, which is you guys is awesome. And then you’ve got your ⁓ advertising spend. And then how does that influence the cut you can take from the business? Well, still accounting for GST, ⁓ your overheads and your cost of goods. Like it’s a lot of juggling.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (11:33)

Yeah.

Yeah. I think you guys would have to be one of the few clients that are the most across their numbers. Like we have conversations and Ash is just like, yep, we know we need this, we need this, we need this. Like he has it broken down, I think, so incredibly well. So I think that is a real testament to your success as well. Like being able to be that in control and be like, yes, we can scale. No, we can’t scale. This is the point we can do these things. Like it really does make such a massive difference to be able to be so across those numbers.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (11:55)

Yeah.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (12:24)

And think it’s something a lot of business owners can learn from because even like bigger businesses sometimes still get to the point where they’re like, ⁓ like we think we’re making money. Like, and it gets, it’s really hard. Like you need to know what’s going on. So it’s great that he saw across that.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (12:27)

Yeah.

That’s exactly it.

That’s it. You really need to break down your exact cost of goods, which include all your little packaging things, your swing tags, your string. You need to have that percentage across all of your products and then to know, hey, if we’ve got bills, what percentage of that goes to the business? I think one of the main tips as well, finance wise, is if you’ve got accounts with your bank accounts, like business bank accounts, is to split it. We’ve got an account for income.

So all of the money comes into that account. Then we split it off into a GST and tax account. We’ve got a cost of goods accounts or restocking account. And we’ve got an expenses account as well. So we split our money off. We get 10 % or however much to savings. And then we split the rest up so we know which percentage is our family splurge money. And it’s all accounted for. So you don’t accidentally spend all of your money. And next thing you’ve got no cash to restock. You’ve got a habit sitting there.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (13:30)

Yeah. I’m a 17 business, not business, I’m a 17 bank accounts person across my business life and my family life. So I’m like, I am on board with this. I’ve never heard of anyone in e-commerce doing that before. ⁓ But I know lots of people that do it for like their personal finances. So I love that. And I think.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (13:37)

Yes, yes.

Yes, definitely.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (13:50)

It is one of those things that a lot of people are like, I don’t have enough money to pay my tax bill. And it’s like, well, if you do something like that, it puts you in such a great position to never have to stress about it. Like you’re never going to be like, ⁓ no, I don’t have enough money this year. Like it’s just there. Take it. Thank you.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (14:04)

Exactly, having it sit there and not only that, like if that GST can’t, which is it’s technically not your money, it’s the government’s money, it’s your tax money. But while it sits there for however many months, you’re also accumulating interest. So you’re getting free money from that sitting there. Like it’s just a win-win situation.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (14:16)

100%.

Yeah, I love that. ⁓ Now let’s talk Black Friday because you guys just had a spectacular Black Friday. What do you think made this year so successful? And then we’ll go into some other questions.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (14:34)

Okay, probably having the best marketing team on board, like we’ve got your beautiful Rachel. She’s just incredible. She’s done so much planning. Yes, is. She’s done so much planning around it. She’s analyzed what ads have been working, what our customers, I guess, gravitate towards and what our winning ads are. So we’ve put a lot of thought into that and she’s been able to make up some brilliant creative ⁓ that’s helped that. ⁓

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (14:42)
Rachel is spectacular.

It helps that you’ve got such beautiful content too.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (15:06)

Yeah, I’m a massive fan of having beautiful content. always bring what I have to put like, ugly ads, call them, ugly ads, the content just, it really, it really helps and it really gives a feel and I know I vibe with it a lot.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (15:13)

Yeah.

How did you go with the like stock planning for Black Friday? Cause I know there was some wobbles in that process and enduring Black Friday. How did you guys sort of go with that like forecasting for Black Friday to

it was?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (15:34)

Very challenging again, once again, that’s probably where Ash came in to play and he’s, I like to order little amounts because I always think, my goodness, I’m sending so much money on staff and I don’t need that much on hand. Turns out, yes, yes, we actually did. We needed that and we needed so much more. So was lucky that I had him there to plan and to go, here’s that forecast. This is what it looks like. We need this many ⁓ to get that organized. We still had some hiccups, which we always need to think ahead of and we should have been ordering earlier.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (15:42)

Hehehehehe

Yes, you did.

Mm.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (16:04)

We had some customs issues where we had things hold up for way too long, which sort of made things a little bit rocky. But we were able to flip. chatted to Rachel in Australia, which is like, all right, well, let’s do a little pre-order or let’s just pop on the website so that we could be a bit flexible with that. We also hand make a lot of things too. Like we do a lot of making. So there was a lot of prep work for that. Once again, having Ash home.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (16:11)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (16:32)

That so much easier. He was able to make up tons of stock. As you can imagine, we’re still juggling kids 24-7. Like there’s no childcare, there’s no school. We’re all here together. having that extra pair of hands to prep and to get so much stock made. Whereas again, my hot mess style is, no, we’ll be right. We’ll just make it when we get to the sale. ⁓

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (16:38)

Yes.

I’m very glad you had Ash to prepare because you would have been so stressed out.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (16:57)

Yes, yes, I must say what we saw the orders coming through, go, oh my goodness, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We managed to be able to because once again, planning and ensuring that we had money there and our cost of goods down, we could get one of my close friends come over and help pack. So we had her come for three hour bursts and say, all right, we really need you.

Yeah, so that’s. That’s it, that’s it, and like we’re still at the stage.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (17:18)

Come clear some of these orders please.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (17:23)

Where we take this down to the post office. So we can imagine his, his, me or my husband going down with the kids, wheeling trolley loads into the post office.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (17:32)

I was like, don’t know how you’re still doing that yourself. I know how much you guys did over Black Friday. I’m like, that’s not a normal amount to take in drollies in the back of your car.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (17:40)

No, no, but again, it’s trying to keep little costs down because I think it’s $12 a day to get Australia Post to come pick up. So if you add that, see it exactly like those tiny little one percenters here and there. Next thing you know, that adds up to like 10 % of your revenue coming out expensive. It’s just…

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (17:49)

Again, it adds up.

Yeah, for sure.

When things get busy, how are you sort of managing these growth phases? Because obviously you guys are going through a lot of growth at the moment. ⁓ What are some of the things that you’re doing to sort of help manage that process?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (18:16)

Again, I guess probably

accounts have helped so that we can increase our restock. So knowing that we’ve been putting, think we’ve put 40 % away of every sale. We might be put 40 % away into a restock account, which accounts for your cost of good and broke.

So we have cash there to say, right, we need to reorder this amount and we need to increase it by another like 100, 200, 300 like stock quantities. So having that there.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (18:32)

Mm.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (18:44)

Helps having an amazing Black Friday really helps too. One of the other things as well is outsourcing, like starting to know when, ⁓ we can’t do this anymore, which was why we brought you guys, Because being able to outsource that stress and that time and to be able to grow in a smart way and to know exactly what works and what doesn’t, that is one of the main things. So advertising and having an advertising specialist is probably, yeah, top.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (19:09)

Yeah, it’s a fine line between knowing the right time to like engage someone’s like ourselves and like when’s too early. And I think the timing that you guys did in terms of where you were at and where you were wanting to go, I think it just worked out perfectly. And the fact again, that Ash knew all of the numbers, like when we got in there and Rachel was in there, like we knew exactly what we needed to hit for you guys.

to be breaking even, be profitable and for you guys to be stoked. Like we knew those numbers within like decimal points. So it just makes it so much easier for us to go, yep, okay, we’re doing this. We know when to scale. We know when to pull it back. We know when we need to do these things. So I think it is a part of business of being like, is this the right time to get the next level of help and working out what the thing is that is gonna make the biggest difference to your business?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (19:42)

Yeah, yes, literally.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (20:02)

So I think you guys timed that really well.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (20:05)

Absolutely. We’ve got a lot of wish lists. I really want a social media manager, but it’s kind of that toss up. Is having someone being all over our socials, is that going to increase our profit? Or if you put that money somewhere else, that same money, is that going to increase it even more? So it’s making that judgment call. And again, having someone that can be like, this is how much it will increase it by, and this is how much this will, and then you can make that call.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (20:33)

Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. What are you most proud of when you look at the business today?

Lauren – Our Earth Life (20:39)

I’m probably most out of the products that I’ve designed. So we’ve designed like a little backpack and we’ve designed ⁓ forages bag, like a lot of other products we’ve designed and curated and had custom made, but I hand drew the forages bag. it came from a chat at Christmas time with the family about how our daughter Zoe loves to collect things. And my mom goes, ⁓ I saw this this plastic like shell collecting bag I want to buy that for and I go, you know what? I want something better. I want something that fits, fits the aesthetic that I love so much that fits ⁓ something that’s organic and natural materials and just, and durable. So yeah, then I sat there at that Christmas drawing and sketching out this bag, which then has now become one of our absolute best sellers. ⁓

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (21:32)

I still remember the relaunch and it was just like gone. And we were like,

Lauren – Our Earth Life (21:37)

That’s it. We’ve restocked it so many times that it just keeps flying out. Like we have over Black Friday, we had someone order eight foragers bags in one order and we’re looking at it going, my goodness. So seeing that come from something that was born in a family moment inspired by our daughter to now think something literally flies off the shelves. We can’t keep it there. ⁓ Like now it as well, it’s been stopped in the Melbourne Museum too. So their gift shop like

all of those things coming from one little idea, that’s probably the proudest moment ⁓ for me personally.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (22:12)

I love that so much. makes me so happy. we have a couple of little questions we ask for everyone.

The best piece of business advice you’ve received.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (22:21)

That’s a challenging

Probably two. One with finance side is to not scale too fast. Don’t go too fast and too hard because then all of your costs add up and you find yourself in a point where you’ve run out of money. You can’t actually restock, you can’t grow. You can’t do anything, you can’t do it like a big standpoint. ⁓ And I guess the other one is a lot more ⁓ from the heart and that’s to just keep doing something that you love. ⁓

So suppose if it feels like it’s not a job, it is a creative outlet, it is something that you’re passionate about, something that you love, you can keep growing it and you can do whatever you want with it if you’ve got that, if that’s your heart and your soul,

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (22:59)

Yeah.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (22:59)

But something that’s then it’s a lot harder to put your everything into it.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (23:07)

Yeah, I think it’s so clear that you guys just love what you do. Like the, the foragers bag is, as you said, like a perfect example. Like you put so much love and care into that and it shows like it is such a beautiful product and people are obsessed with it. you don’t get that from just trying to make money. You get that from having the love and the care and the attention to detail. And I just think it’s so wonderful what you guys have created.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (23:30)

No, wonderful, thank you. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Have that art and that soul in it. Be passionate about it and that’s, you can keep that going. You can create wonders.

Dahna – Bright Red Marketing (23:40)

Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.

Lauren – Our Earth Life (23:44)

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Dahna Borg (23:46)

Thank you for listening to the Bright Minds of Ecommerce podcast. As always, you can find the show notes on our website at brightredmarketing.com.au. Just look for the podcast page. Thanks for listening.