7 months later - Rebuilding after the grief of losing a goal in Small Business Startup Journal - The Journey To Starting My Own Brand of Travel Clothing and Handbags

It’s been 7 months since my failed launch and the grief I felt at knowing I had not succesfully launched my brand at the expo and the realisation that my manufacturer was not making my product to the standard I needed and that I would need to start all over AGAIN.

I had come back from the experience suffering from nothing short of exhaustion and the early stages of burnout. From there things have disintegrated pretty quickly in my personal life with my family, things which I won’t go into too much detail about, but it became a very intense 6 months starting from October where there was a plan to move the house and as a result me having to pack up my whole life, then from about January until about now with a fallout between me and my Mother and brother that has affected my grandmother and I pretty badly. I am now about to drop to part time work to be able to fully taker care of my grandmother who will be turning 90 this year.

All of the above has really pushed me to reasses and take stock of my goals, how I treat myself and value myself and how I will react and plan my steps moving forward.

For just over 6 months I have done almost nothing in my business, stuck and frozen with the guilt of the failure, the shame of nearly selling a product that would not have turned out to be the standard I wanted and the frustration and realisation I have to begin the arduas process of finding a new manufacturer, as well as having to go through another process of saving up the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to get a sample and initial purchaes of product to be able to launch a brand.

But sometimes, no matter how hard things get, no matter how tired and exhuasted you are and no matter how much self doubt you have, the dream in your head and the vision you have is just enough to keep you crawling forward, never content with the idea of giving up or signing up to the same predictable life that everybody else subscribes to.

In January I forced myself to sign up to an event for women in business. It was called Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine and I decided to go all out and get the VIP ticket. Expensive, but I thought I would treat myself as I dipped my toe back into the business world, and in February I went to the Reed gift fair in Sydney.

I knew I had to get back out there, I didn’t know what i was looking for or what I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t wait another year or longer to have somehting to sell with my brand and lose the momentum I had. So off I went. I think I got 30 minutes into the Reed expo where I had an idea. What if I could sell travel kits, kits designed for the different types of travellers. A kit for a solo traveller, a foodie traveller, an advenutre traveller, a nervous traveller.

Kits filled with useful things and items that would make travel feel fun and special but also be really helpful or handy to have. Kits that you would want to buy for yourself and that others would want to buy for people who they knew loved to travel. By the end of the expo I had taken info from different businesses that I thought could help me build these kits, just something to sell until I got my own label up and running.

But then I had the problem of watering down by label with other brands.
I had been toying with adding items to my brand and being concerned with if it fit. After all who sells travel adapters with a kaftan right? And most fashion and accessory labels do not sell other labels or brands.

But then I thought about the name I had been also toying with for some years. A second name I had loved for a while and always thought would be good for the name of a travel clothing brand, but that was also neutral enough that it could be marketed to people who wanted clever pieces of clothing that were not necessarily just for the purposes of travel.

But I was not sure, so I filed it away again and thought I would sit on it. After all I didn’t want to go making another change for my current label. Who rebrands after not even really selling in the first place.

Cut to March and then I went to the LMBDW conference. I wasn’t really feeling myself to be honest. I felt kind of out of place, not that I wasn’t meant to belong, but that I wasn’t sure I had the confidence I could have my own businesses after so many failures and setbacks or that I had the energy in me.

However I still was determined to go, as I knew that I would learn something no matter what. So three days ago I went, and you know what - it was FANTASTIC and I am so glad I did.

You see for some time now, I had been playing with an idea I kept throwing in the bin because I wasn’t sure it was right. I was too nervous about what people would think of me making a change- ANOTHER change to my business AGAIN, especially my friends and family. Attending the event gave me the chance to hear about the other challenges and set backs other business owners had, and the similiar set backs and decisions that had to be made.
But that wasn’t the the part that I think will stick with me.

I remember I had been sitting next to these two women at the expo. We never spoke once for the whole day. At the end of the expo when everybody got up to leave, for whatever reason they turned to speak to me and we got chatting. We talked about how great the day had been and how we would love to come back next year. I then confessed how I had been in two minds and talked about my concern and the fact I was in a stage where I was torn about what to do. I mentioned that I really loved travel and travel accessories and that I wanted to sell more than just my own label, and that I had been thinking of doing a mini rebrand and launching a second label that would sit under the other one. One of the ladies leaned over after I mentioned the name of the new label and she asked ‘Does that start with an A’? to which I replied ‘Yes it does’! . She then responded with ‘Then you have to do it - it means it will come up first in the search results, that’s good for your business’.

The second lady standing beside her then said ‘Oh yes, I had one that with many of my busiensses, I have several that sit under a larger business umbrella, you should totally do it, you have got to trust your gut and forget what others think, you will evolve and change many times in your business - I know I have’.

And as quickly as the conversation had started, we had parted ways. I never go their names, I don’t hink we even shared them. But it was a pivotal moment for me in that day.

I felt reassured at hearing this. I continued on conversing with other ladies and even got a photo with Jane Lu, one of the founders of the event.

The second interaction though was the final cherry. I was talking with another lady who also mentioned she was looking to do travel accessories. She mentioned that she was looking to do travel accessories and camping kits specifically for women. I said ‘YES that’s a great idea, I mean you could always go in stores such as Anaconda or Kathmandu or Paddy Palin but they always seem so .....’ to which she reponded with ‘MASCULINE’ and I was like ‘YES’. And that was it.

She said the exact word out loud that I din’t want to say because I was worried that I was the only one that felt that way. But I’m not. And that when it hit me.

I know what I want to do. I know what all these challenges and failed branches of the tree have been for. I have been learning all different things and failing these thing becuase they are not any single path I am meant to take. I am meant to bring them all together.

You see the past few years has seen me discovering all the differnt niches that are under serviced or provided for. And now I know what I want to do.

I want to have a travel brand that sells travel accessories all over Australia and New Zealand. I want to sell everything ever traveller could ever want. My target market will be women because I feel we are under valued or neglected when it comes to our travel styles and preferences. I will sell all the latest travel accessories and items, and I will have a seperate brand that is my own clothing and bag designs that will be sold under my current label along with other brands. I want to rival all other travel accessory businesses. When women think travel accessory shopping I want to be the number one destiantion they hit first. I want exclusive stuff that is not sold anywhere else in Australia or New Zealand to be sold here.

I want to be not just the go to destination for accessories, I want to grow the business to the point where I am the go to for information, I want a dedicated blog section, I want a section for tips and advice. I want to eventually release a magazine that under the travel branch of my business. And it’s so perfect because the name of my business is neutral and all encompassing for all things travel.

But to get there I have to start here. Start again. But take every scrap of knowledge and wisdom I have learned along the way and be more clever, trust my intuition and instinct, make hard choices and take the risk.

I have to utilise the short period of time that I will get to work part time while being a carer to funnel and leverage my time carefully. I hae to start by finding a manufacturer who can make my design and save up. I need to start selling some things and redesigning my business plan.

I have to start, by picking where I have to start first.

This Friday I have a phone call with a connection I got from the LMBDW conference. Her name is Simone. I don’t know if this will be a path I take, or another dead end. But I won’t know unless I make the call. So here is to the firs step again, back on my journey but with a new destination.