LADY-BRAINS

Today's chat is with two of our oldest and dearest friends Sage and Tahli who are the lady-brains behind Golden Grind - the brand that brought the turmeric golden latte to mainstream cafe culture.The business has come along way since the early days and can now be found not only in cafes around Australia but also on the shelves of some of the biggest retailers in the world...we're talking Selfridges in the UK and Urban Outfitters in the US! The girls have built this business with grit and hard work and have a no bullsh*t approach to sharing the story of their success.

Jess Thomas is the founder and brains behind Health Lab - a multi-million dollar wellness and beauty brand that was born out of a desire to create healthy snacks to cure that afternoon stress-induced sugar craving we all know too well. After testing out her all-natural protein balls on her co-workers in the early days, she quickly realised she was onto a winning formula and started selling them to cafes all over Melbourne. Fast forward three years, and Jess has managed to bootstrap her way onto the shelves of Australia's biggest retailers including Woolworths, My Chemist Warehouse, David Jones, 7-11, and the list goes on!

A few years ago, Erika did what some might consider crazy or even unthinkable. She left the business she co-founded with her best friends at the height of its success, to go out on her own. Erika is the co-founder of Frank Body – the $20 million brand that’s referenced as one of the best Aussie start-up successes in recent years. It was courageous decision, but one that was driven by Erika’s mission to fight back against the unrealistic portrayal of women by the beauty industry, and her desire to create a positive narrative around what it means to be beautiful.

Let's be frank, if you haven’t lathered yourself in some Frank Body or seen babes all over the internet posing in their bathroom covered in coffee scrub, then you need to go take a peek! With just a pocket full of a cash, some ground coffee and a killer brand, our next guest Bree Johnson along with her business partners Jess, Alex and Steve have managed to build a thriving multi-million dollar beauty biz off the back of just one scrub. And not only that the ladies behind Frank also run creative agency Willow and Blake which they started at just 22. Talk about serial entrepreneurs.

Alison Rice is a bit of a unicorn in the digital media world – she's kind, humble, and above all, real. If you're not in media-land, you may not know her by name, but we’re sure you know her work. Alison is the Group Publisher of Allure Media's Women's Lifestyle Division, and oversees the digital brands Who What Wear, Byrdie Beauty, Pop Sugar and My Domaine.

In 2014, Laura Foley quit her day job and moved to Bali with her partner in search of inspiration. Without having to look too far afield, Laura realised she was already onto a winning business idea – vegan and all-natural tanning oils that she was blending and using herself. Despite not having a business or marketing background, Laura started out by gifting her oils to influencers who fell in love with the product and soon enough, the Bali Body brand was born.

For Beck Wadworth, what began as a simple blog turned into an international minimalistic stationary brand – An Organised Life, which is stocked in a curated selection of over 45 stores across Australia and New Zealand. We sat down with Beck to chat about her career and business building journey to date, including a dream come true partnership with fashion brand, Karen Walker. This is Beck’s story of paving her own path, and taking the plunge from being a full-time employee to an entrepreneur.

In case you hadn't heard, vegan beauty is in. Demand for cruelty free products is booming and the US market alone is set to be worth $3.1B by 2025. While many of the big beauty brands are only now jumping on the vegan trend, today's guest predicted it would happen quite a few years ago and she had the foresight to create a brand that filled a significant market gap - vegan, cruelty-free hair care. Today we're speaking to Jess Gerring from Hello Hair - she founded the business with two friends back in 2013 and over the past 5 years has created a thriving global business with a social following of 400K. Not bad for a trio who had no experience in hair care before they got started!

Sarah Holloway thought she had her life planned out. She'd studied Arts/Law, graduated top of her class, secured a job at a top-tier law firm in mergers and acquisitions, and soon after had received an offer to become an associate to the Chief Justice of the High Court – a position she’d been working towards for the previous six years. At the very same time her career was taking off, Sarah was busy launching her side-biz ‘Matcha Maiden’, which was born out of her recognizing a gap in the Australian market for matcha-based products.

Back in 2014, peer-to-peer platforms were on the rise - we were all renting our houses out on Airbnb, and jumping in strangers’ cars for a ride home. While this was happening across various sectors, at the time Lauren Silvers and Lisa Maree recognised that in beauty, there was a gap. No tech platform existed to allow people to book beauty services on-demand. So they started formulating an idea, seeking funding, and building a business…separately. Yes, the two originally started out as competitors.