#awinewith Hannah Koumakis
MEET Hannah, Founder of Dear the Series, Dear Community & Seven Content Studio
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
So God, Hannah, welcome to Spark tv. It's so exciting how have you here?
Hannah Koumakis (00:12):
Yay. Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to be speaking with you today.
Danielle Lewis (00:16):
I am very excited too. Let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Hannah Koumakis (00:21):
Gosh, that's such a loaded question. Well, hello, my name's Hannah. I'm from New Zealand, born in Auckland and I am a bit of a business guru. I've got a few under my bout. I currently have seven. I was juggling these seven with full-time work, but as of two weeks ago, I quit my full-time job so I could go full-time with all of my seven side hustles and everything. My, I'll run through them really quickly. So first of all, it's series A data series is a series of guided journals because I really wanted to help people in their mental health journey and I wanted people to help them in their self-discovery journey. And so it's literally these journals called Dear Future and Dear Me, and it is basically running you through your future for dear future, obviously, and it's prompting you to think about what should my 10 year goals be and how can I get there?
(01:17):
Because it's so great to have a goal, but actually what about the steps? Have you got those steps in place? So that's dear future. Then I've got DME, which is very much self-discovery, very much deep. Have I been hurt in the past? How have I been healing from that? Should I go seek out? So it's all these kinds of things. It's really deep. So that's dear the series, and that's my proper business kind of business. I also run a nonprofit organization, so that is really fun. It's called Dear Community. We're launching again in Australia. We did launch last year and then we've pulled it back. I was getting too busy, but we're going to relaunch there and it's essentially for girls, for women age 18 to 35 to come together and meet because actually it's really hard to make friends. As a woman, it's really hard, unless you're a part of a cool club or a group, that's actually pretty much impossible.
(02:06):
So we just literally have these groups or go attend bowling, go to picnics, so that's really fun. It's called Dear Community. That's cool. And then I've got a marketing agency called Seven. The reason why I called it seven was because it was the seventh thing that I was doing, so I thought it was a bit fitting. But yeah, I kind of do content creation and social media consulting. Then I also have Dear Brides, which is wedding content creation for weddings. And so that's a very new industry. It's quite big in Australia. It's still starting in New Zealand. There's only two of us in New Zealand. Then I have Dear Listener, which is my podcast. And then I also have a vintage selling account on Instagram. I don't really touch that, but finally I have TikTok. And TikTok is a business where obviously I treat it as a business, but it's just posting stuff and collaborating with brands. So that is me in a nutshell, juggling new things.
Danielle Lewis (03:04):
I love that so much because also hashtag diversification, like having multiple revenue streams for you as a human slash business is also a very smart idea. I love that. How did this happen? So you just said you quit your full-time job. What were you doing as you started to grow all of these businesses?
Hannah Koumakis (03:28):
I was actually a buyer, so I was assistant buyer and a big retailer. So it definitely helped me in terms of the dear, the series side, because I'm approaching different Myers, I actually went over and literally dropped off. I went to Melbourne to the Maya head office and just dropped off my book. And it's really given me the ability, the confidence to go, I know how to pitch to brands because people have pitched to me before, so I know both sides. I know the lingo. So yeah, I was assistant buyer. I also got a property kind of background. So yeah. Wow, that's fun.
Danielle Lewis (04:05):
And how did you go about, so okay, you're an assistant buyer, great, but then you decide you want to create a product based business. How did you go from idea to physical book in your hand to start selling?
Hannah Koumakis (04:20):
Well, I have always wanted to be a business girl. I've always had these ideas in my head. And then finally I was listening to girls that Invest, I was, and she had said, launch a business where you are marginally better than someone else. And I was like, oh, there's nothing. There's actually nothing. And I was like, well, hang on. I love to journal. I love to write. So I'm like, what about prompted journals? I love to journal and I can just write whatever comes. And I know there are a lot of people that get quite daunted by the fact that they open up this book and it's white, and they're like, I don't know what to write. And so I was like, why don't I create something that's prompted? So we literally have these beautiful designs and colors, and it's prompted, it helps people to journal. And so that was launched. I had the idea in January last year, and after two weeks I had found my factory. I'd finished the first book and I'd sent it off to the designer. And so it was very much fast, very fast. But yeah, literally nearly two years later, I've got two books and about 30 stores as well. So it's very exciting.
Danielle Lewis (05:25):
That's so cool. And also, I love that you just said what had the idea within two weeks had the things. I think people sometimes think that it's got to take a long time, that you've really got to labor over things. And so I absolutely love the idea of shipping something super quick. But was that, how did that happen? Was that a smooth process? Did you search on the internet? Talk me through, if I decide tomorrow that I want to create a journal, what would I do?
Hannah Koumakis (05:55):
So yeah, it was the summertime and I kind of sat down and literally I was still working full time. But what I would do is I would start work at seven or sometimes six 30. So I would finish work at three or three 30, and I would spend the entire evening and all weekend searching up book printing places in China and researching what is out there, what are my competitors doing? And I just threw myself into it. And that's the thing with me is I will run very fast rather than going, oh yeah, I guess I'll just dabble in that and I'll wait a few years. No, if I have an idea, I'll go for it. Sometimes I probably need to slow down. But no, I had the idea and I wrote all the prompts and I sent it off to my designer. And I think, yeah, like you said, you can do things fast.
(06:44):
You do have to be cautious that you're not cutting corners because that's the data series is I did come into a lot of delays, a lot of delays, a lot of problems. My designer was not good. She'd finished it, she'd sent it to me and I hated it. I had sent off to a friend and she said to me, oh, you designed that yourself. It looks like you've done that in Word. And I was like, no, I paid a designer to do that. She goes, it's terrible. So I just lost one and a half thousand dollars. And I think maybe what I could have done is actually looked at her work and been a bit more slower to go, okay, hang on. Who's the best designer? Where could it save me a bit of money? So I definitely, I didn't cut corners, but I probably could have slowed down and gone, hang on, what's the best option? But yeah, I definitely wasn't smooth sailing.
Danielle Lewis (07:31):
Yeah. Well, and that's interesting, isn't it? I guess there's pros and cons to running fast or going slow. You've kind of got to find what works for you. You also mentioned that you are stocked in 30 stores. Holy crap. How did you go about, people are always asking about getting stockers. How did you go about that?
Hannah Koumakis (07:52):
Well, it's funny how you say 30. Well, for me, I'm like 30. No, my goal was 50. You
Danielle Lewis (07:58):
Want all
Hannah Koumakis (07:58):
Of them? Yeah, I'm frustrated because I want more because that was my goal, and I'm a very goal-driven person. I've got to goal and I want to reach it. My dad's an amazing business guru, and I give him all the kudos for this. But we sat down and we wrote a really good pitch. And like I said, I've received so many pitches, I know what's a good pitch. And I actually had a lady pull me aside and she goes, Hannah, that was the best pitch I've ever received in my entire career.
Danielle Lewis (08:22):
Oh my God, that's amazing.
Hannah Koumakis (08:24):
And so I felt very honored and I was very stoked that it actually came across, well, still obviously, I reached out to over a hundred stores and only have got 30, I think.
Danielle Lewis (08:35):
Excuse me, hold the phone. That's a huge hit rate
Hannah Koumakis (08:40):
For me.
Danielle Lewis (08:40):
You overachiever you.
Hannah Koumakis (08:43):
I wanted them all. I wanted all of the stores. But yeah, no, I'm definitely grateful for the stores that have backed me and they're amazing. I need to keep up the relationship with them for my next books coming through. But I still, I'm now at that stage where people are slowly approaching me rather than me pushing, pushing, pushing for them. But yeah, it's been a big journey. I think getting stockers, making sure that you just find the right vibe. When I was quite sneaky as I found a similar product, but not a competing product. So I'd find cool candles maybe or cool glassware, and I would look at where they were stocked, and then I would just piggyback off them and go, okay, cool, that store. So that's
Danielle Lewis (09:27):
So smart. I love that. It's so funny. I remember a friend of mine had a fashion retail store once, and the brands, he was like, the way brands make a decision, they're like, is that brand stock there? Well, I want to be stocked there. So it's actually a really interesting idea of find complimentary products and leverage the fact that they've already done the work and that shop obviously likes that vibe. So a good place to start.
Hannah Koumakis (09:55):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's my biggest tip for people that wanting to, that's
Danielle Lewis (09:58):
So good. That's so cool. And did you literally just cold email them?
Hannah Koumakis (10:03):
Yeah, so I am an overachieve, and I did try and run a bit too fast. And so I called up all the places in London and Australia and I was like, get me into there. And I realized, oh, hang on, I need to dominate New Zealand market first, then Australia, then I can go abroad. So yeah, I just emailed, I called, I cold called, I visited stores if I could, but mainly it was emails and I just keep emailing. I've emailed stores many times because if they haven't replied, I'm like, they obviously haven't seen it. And I emailed a few emails to this one store and I called them up and they said, oh, I've never received your emails. And because these stores get so many emails every day, it just gets missed. And so you do have to follow up. Don't feel bad if you've sent one person an email, you go, oh no, that's me. Done. Tick them off the list. No, no, no. Keep following up. Literally, I've got, yeah, I'm up to probably my fifth email for lots of stores. I'm going to keep going until they say no.
Danielle Lewis (11:06):
Yeah, I love that. I love that. That saying you won't get if you don't ask, right? And it's just, but you're so right. We're so worried about annoying people that we just stay small and go, oh, I don't want to harass them. But it's like you said, they're like, oh, we didn't even see it. We didn't get it. Send it to us. People want, stores need new products for their customers, so reaching out is not a bother
Hannah Koumakis (11:34):
A hundred percent. And I would also recommend doing a massive push before the trade shows, because that's where the stores will actually use up all their money. So don't go and pitch to people now, because a lot of these stores have just gone to the Melbourne gift fair, which was last month, and so make sure that you are pushing your just a few weeks prior when they're cashed up and ready to buy.
Danielle Lewis (11:56):
Oh my God, that's so smart. Did you do the trade show or did you do everyone in advance of that?
Hannah Koumakis (12:03):
So I went over to Melbourne to go visit the trade show to see if it was worth me going life. And style was amazing in Melbourne. I would recommend it. I'm still deciding if I want to do it myself, whether I just approach people, approach agents, but I don't know. I'm still undecided, so yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
Danielle Lewis (12:22):
So good. No, it's always just interesting, the different approaches, like you said, email, call, visit people in person. Yeah, there's trade shows, there's, I know some people that just send samples to boutiques as well, so there's so many options. I just love that because just don't give up until you hit your goal
Hannah Koumakis (12:42):
A hundred percent. Just keep going. I think, yeah, if you can pop in, that's where I've received a few of my stockers. It's just literally going, Hey, this is my book, would you like to see? And they're like, actually, yeah, in person. It is really cool. And yeah, I think definitely send your products because mine are quite expensive cost for me that I didn't want to go and send it to a hundred people. That was going to be very expensive. So I just chose a few that I really, really liked. And literally I just rocked up to head offices without even booking an appointment, which I don't know if I would recommend doing that, but yeah, amazing,
Danielle Lewis (13:18):
Ballsy. I like it. Oh, that's so good. And do you sell online as well, or just wholesale? Yeah. Cool.
Hannah Koumakis (13:25):
So sell online and then we ship across the world, but I'm hoping to get maybe a three PL in Australia, so it's just a bit cheaper for shipping because I think it would be really cool to really get into the Australian market a lot more. I think it is a product that a lot of Australians will love. So
Danielle Lewis (13:42):
Yeah, absolutely. No, I think journaling is amazing and you're spot on. It's a take on it providing those prompts that doesn't exist at the moment. So I think it's super cool. People need that. It's addressing a need.
Hannah Koumakis (13:57):
Exactly. It's thought provoking. I even had one girl, she said to me yesterday that her and her best friend were going through, her best friend was going through a really hard time. And so they went to the local store and they picked up a book. They picked up Dear E, and they both did it together. So they would both go, Hey, let's do this page together. And the friend had said to other friends, said, this book has literally changed my life and how I've seen myself, because it's actually, it's made me realize the things maybe that have hurt me and then address those problems and actually realize I'm not just broken, actually. I've got all these things that I can slowly start to work towards making me kind of feel whole again. My God. So beautiful. Yeah, that's
Danielle Lewis (14:41):
Incredible.
Hannah Koumakis (14:42):
It was kind of a career highlight. I was like, yes, I'm doing something right. Yeah, I think it's nice with feedback.
Danielle Lewis (14:48):
Oh, it's amazing, isn't it? And I think it doesn't even matter how good a cause that you have sometimes if nobody gives you a little pat on the back, you're like, am I even doing the right thing? Is this even worth it?
Hannah Koumakis (15:02):
I know, definitely it's a positive. And I actually have in my book, in DME, encouraging things that people have said to me, and there's five pages, I realized that someone will say something nice to you and you go, oh, cool, thank you. And that's it. Literally, you don't even take it in. So it's time for you to go, okay, I'm going to write it down. And then when you're feeling down, you can actually open it up and go, whoa, these people have said these things about me to me, and I'm not going to feel because written them down. So that's a little,
Danielle Lewis (15:30):
I think that's so powerful too, because a lot of people just don't say things. So if someone's gone to the effort of paying you a compliment or giving you feedback or saying something lovely, hold on to that. That's so lovely.
Hannah Koumakis (15:42):
Exactly. No, a hundred percent. So no, that's good.
Danielle Lewis (15:45):
And how do you find navigating, or how did you find navigating going from being employee to business owner? Was that a big shift for you, or did you find because you side hustled it for a little while, you were kind of ready to take the leap?
Hannah Koumakis (15:59):
Yeah, I think I was definitely very much ready. I pushed myself a bit too far that two weeks prior to quitting, I completely burnt out to the point of I was on the edge for a whole year going, okay, am I, no, I'm all right. I'm right. And then it was literally to a point that I was like, nah, I really can't do this. And I think the lifestyle that I live is not a lifestyle that I promote and I want to promote to other people. I think the hustle culture is dangerous, but it's making sure you have that balance. I'm all for working hard, and I think it's important to work hard to get ahead, but it's having that balance that you are not getting yourself burnt out, so dangerous. And the feeling that I felt was just, I was like, I never want to get to this stage ever again.
(16:43):
I just took on too many things. Like I said, I've got seven, so I had clients, I had social media platforms that I was looking after for clients, and I was like, oh, I just pushed myself too much. My personality, I'm an ENFJ, which is Myers Briggs personality. It's like the achiever and our personality wants to do everything all at once. So yeah, going back to your question, I think moving from full-time work to self-employed, I think it's been a bit of a relief. I'm still running very fast. I've taken on a client, which is now 10 to 20 hours per week, so it's not going from a hundred to nothing. It's actually, I'm still going fast. So every day is still busy. I still wake up at five and still go to bed late, working massive hours, but I'm a lot happier. Yeah, a lot.
Danielle Lewis (17:30):
That's so good. And do you do things like, now that you're aware of that, okay, I don't ever want to get back to that burnout stage. Are there things in your toolkit that you use to try and stay balanced?
Hannah Koumakis (17:43):
I think one thing that I want to do is maybe not working in the evenings, but it's just like, oh, I've got so much to do. I may as well, but maybe what we've recently
Danielle Lewis (17:54):
Done hard when you like it too, when you actually doing it, it's kind of hard. Oh, I could just do that one more thing. I know,
Hannah Koumakis (18:01):
I know it's so hard, but I live with a flat of, there's six girls and so every Tuesday night we do games night, and so it's going, okay, I'm going to prioritize spending a whole night with my flat rather than me having to always gravitate towards my phone and my laptop. Sundays day off, all Saturdays depends, but I've got at least one day where I'm just like, no, I'm not going to touch anything. So I'm starting tennis and I'm reading, I'm like, this is something I know I need to do. Even though inside of me, it's like I could be doing so much, but I'm like, no, no, breathe. I can do this one day and I think it'll be so worth it.
Danielle Lewis (18:38):
Totally. And it is funny, you do have that feeling of guilt that, oh my God, I could be, what if I worked the seventh day in the week, how much could I accomplish? But sometimes it's counterintuitive. You actually need that rest day or rest days to then perform really well on all the other days.
Hannah Koumakis (18:58):
Totally, totally agree. And I think I definitely found that since taking a Saturday or Sunday off, I'm like, whoa, actually I do feel a bit, I'd feel a lot happier I think. Yeah, really important. You put yourself first.
Danielle Lewis (19:12):
I have a random question for you. You have a couple of different business types. Do you prefer the product businesses or the service businesses?
Hannah Koumakis (19:21):
Oh, I feel like my product business is very much the last of my priorities because it's kind of good because the stores are doing the hard work really. If they sell, they come and they order, I send it off B two C, I am very slow at that and I need to pick it back up. I love wedding content creation. I love Dear brides, that is my heart. So I think service based, I do in terms of growing it though is really tricky because I do want to grow dear series into a business where it doesn't have to just be me. So yeah, I love them both, but I think my heart really lies with service. Maybe, I dunno, that's a really tricky question.
Danielle Lewis (20:05):
Maybe mean I'm super interested in it because I'm listening to some stuff at the moment about choosing business models for your personality type. Oh wow. And if you are the type of person that loves the client delivery or you're the type of person that likes the marketing. So I'm just always fascinated because I've not really thought about it. I think I just created my businesses to solve a problem. And then at different stages into the different businesses, I've kind of gone, oh, I don't like, this sucks. I don't want to do this. So it's only through trial and error that I've kind of figured that out. But now I'm listening to a few things where it's designing it intentionally and I'm like, that sounds way smarter,
Hannah Koumakis (20:47):
Way smarter. Who would've thought? That's crazy. Looking at yourself and going, what is my personality? Whoa. I'm a very much a people person. That is another part of my personality. So maybe that's why I do love people,
Danielle Lewis (21:02):
Because the wedding, so that one is you do the behind the scenes social content, don't you? That's so smart. I only just found when I was researching you, I was like, hang on a second. Okay, so this is timely getting married on Monday. So I spoke to the photographer and we were both, and photographers are very expensive, their work is amazing, but it takes a few weeks. And I'm like, well, we kind of want a handful of photos to share on the day and we're eloping, so no one's coming. So I'm like, my mom wants photos and all that kind of stuff. And then I saw your service and I was like, holy shit, this is genius. This is exactly what you want. All the behind the scenes, the raw, the social stuff, it's on your phone on the day, whatever. That's so smart. How did you figure that out?
Hannah Koumakis (21:55):
Well, I pretty much piggybacked off America, and I think it was in America where we first saw it, and Australia picked it up very fast, extremely fast. And I think people are very much willing in Australia to trial things. But I think, yeah, I can't say that I came up with the idea, but I love taking content. I do content for businesses, I do content for so many other things. I actually had already been doing behind the scenes content for friends, but I never thought about making it into a business. So when I saw other people doing it, I thought, well, hang on, I am already doing it for friends. I always shoot videos for friends and make it into a reel. Why don't I do it for other people? So yeah, like I said, New Zealand is slow. They're like, oh, it's tacky. It's like, well actually it's not. When you get back your footage, you are not going to find it tacky. It is very cool. And I think, look, if you're a girl that's on TikTok and you want to go viral, it's your best bet because it is portrait mode. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a cool service. And I think anyone that has access to a wedding content creator nearby should so go through it.
Danielle Lewis (23:04):
Oh, a hundred percent. I think it's so clever and it's, I feel like, because one of the problems that I have with the photographer is I'm like, I don't want to be posing for photos all day. It sounds like the worst time ever. I love the idea that there's somebody just capturing the silly fun moments and it's casual and I think that's, so many people reflect on their days and kind of go, I wish I just relaxed a little bit more and kind of got into it. So I think that's so clever. You're very smart. So good.
Hannah Koumakis (23:36):
Thank you.
Danielle Lewis (23:38):
So look, I want to wrap with one last question for you. So as somebody who has multiple businesses across multiple industries, multiple types, reflecting on all of those things and your time in business, is there a piece of advice that you would give to another female founder or another woman in business, something that's kind of helped you keep going on those tough days?
Hannah Koumakis (24:04):
I think it always comes back to this one quote that my grandma gave me, and she said, each day and each experience shapes the person that you will become. And I think whenever I go through a tough time and I go, why is this happening to me? I look at it from another angle and go, okay, this is growth. I'm actually learning something. I had a massive printing error in one of my books where I'm taking full blame, but it didn't get picked up in multiple rounds of proofreading and it came to your many eyes were on it and it didn't get till the last end. The books were printed, it was done, and there was a huge error. And so instead of going, oh man, that was so frustrating, it's now meant that going forward, I'm so careful. And so it's kind of going, you know what? That day has now shaped me into becoming a much more yes, someone that's more accurate with my proofreading and really careful. And so I'm like, no, I think it's just your mindset. Change your mindset when you go through bad things and go, no, that was, wow. I've learned so much now from that experience, it's not all bad. I'm going to learn to move forward. So I think that's probably my biggest piece of advice. Just keep going, learn from your mistakes and just keep pushing forward. It's going to be worth it.
Danielle Lewis (25:22):
So good. Hannah, you are absolutely incredible. I am blown away by your story and seven fricking businesses. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and insights with the Spark community. Best of luck and I can't wait to have you on again and hear all of your updates.
Hannah Koumakis (25:40):
Thank you so much. It's been such an honor. But no, thank you. Thank you.
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