Starting with just $15,000 Melissa grew Lily Anne Family Brands from concept to $4.5MM in turnover in just 2 years. Within 5 years the company had turned over $14.5MM.
"I built the plane as I was flying it, that's for sure! In the beginning I did everything. It was crazy. I built the website (it probably looked soooo bad!), designed and sourced the products, marketed the business, grew the sales team and looked after customer service. I'm sure I'm missing like a gazillion things in that list."
There was so much Melissa had to learn in those early days and the learning never stopped as she grew the company year after year. She said she didn't even know how imports and customs worked. These were also the days before platforms like Shopify and fancy plugins that connect everything together to make business seamless. She just did whatever needed to be done and figured out solutions to all the challenges that arose along the journey.
"I believe there were 2 reasons why we were so successful and one of the fastest growing Australian companies in B2C at that time. 1. I built the company as if it were a multi-million dollar company from the start. I envisioned that kind of company before it was that big. And 2. I put systems and processes in place from the start to support that kind of growth. I run a really tight ship. The details are important."
"I built the plane as I was flying it, that's for sure! In the beginning I did everything. It was crazy. I built the website (it probably looked soooo bad!), designed and sourced the products, marketed the business, grew the sales team and looked after customer service. I'm sure I'm missing like a gazillion things in that list."
There was so much Melissa had to learn in those early days and the learning never stopped as she grew the company year after year. She said she didn't even know how imports and customs worked. These were also the days before platforms like Shopify and fancy plugins that connect everything together to make business seamless. She just did whatever needed to be done and figured out solutions to all the challenges that arose along the journey.
"I believe there were 2 reasons why we were so successful and one of the fastest growing Australian companies in B2C at that time. 1. I built the company as if it were a multi-million dollar company from the start. I envisioned that kind of company before it was that big. And 2. I put systems and processes in place from the start to support that kind of growth. I run a really tight ship. The details are important."
