#awinewith Julia christie
MEET Julia christie, Founder of Nail Snail
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Amazing. Julia, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Julia Christie (00:10):
Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
Oh, so good. And we've already been talking for 15 minutes and like, oh crap, we need to hit record. So this is going to be a great chat. I can already tell it is going to go off the rails. If we had wine, I'd be more worried, but we're on the coffees and waters today. Sore it in. Let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Julia Christie (00:38):
So my name is Julia Christie. I'm a mother of three little superstars and I am the inventor of a baby fingernail trimmer called the nail Snail. So this is just the packaging and then this is the actual product itself. So I am an inventor, I have patent, I am an entrepreneur, I'm a side hustler as well as a main hustler. I'm an employer, I'm a boss, I'm a friend, daughter, lover, all the wonderful things. So I wear many hats.
Danielle Lewis (01:15):
Oh my god, I love it so much. Now, for those of us on the planet who don't have babies, and I think I'll get canceled for saying this, but I did have cats whose nails I had to trim and feeling like I might be guessing where this is going, but can you explain what problem this solves and why it's so important?
Julia Christie (01:37):
Alright, so when a baby is born, you've got this tiny little precious newborn, and they've had the last three months in RO to grow their fingernails. So when a baby is born, they come out with sharp fingernails and they can scratch their faces, they can scratch you while they're breastfeeding, be quite difficult. So trimming nails is a must when they're born. Now, I don't know if you can imagine, but a newborn's, fingers and nails are so teeny, tiny, small. And when I had my eldest son who's now, what is he now? 10, my goodness, I've been doing this for a long time. When he was first born, like every parent, I got out a set of baby nail clippers and I was clipping away and I ended up clipping the tip of his finger. Did
Danielle Lewis (02:24):
You just die? Because I'm dying right here right now.
Julia Christie (02:28):
Oh my, absolutely. And you've got this beautiful little precious thing, and already I've injured him, I've hurt him, and it's through no fault of my own. But being moms, we blame ourselves. I'm the worst man ever. How could I do this to my precious child? And then I explained to my then husband, who's now my ex-husband, and he's a doctor. I'm a very, very qualified person to be able to do fine tasks. He got a set of narciss out and I ended upp cutting the other finger of my son. But we beside ourselves so upset, and I've asked other parents, is this normal? What do we do? What do you guys do? And they're like, you know what? It's part of parenting. Everybody does it. It's so normal. And I'm thinking, no, this shouldn't be normal. This is not okay. The clippers that are designed for babies are a terrible product and they shouldn't be on the market.
(03:23):
And I've got to come up with something different. So luck would have it On April 1st of all days, I woke up at about four o'clock in the morning and I was kind of like, I'm doodling away and I still have that original piece of paper doodle, and I knew I was onto something because I'd written a date on the paper. I'm quite a creative person and I'm quite an out of the box thinker, and I pride myself on having the, I don't care if this is the way it's always been done, I'm going to do it differently. So I do pride myself on that way of thinking. And I've doodled on this piece of paper and I've drawn this design that looks kind of like a snail, and I want something that goes across the nail rather than cuts down. And I want it to have a now file in it, and I want it to have this, that and the other. And I've drawn this little thing and I've gone, oh, that looks like a snail now snail. Whoa, whoa. And I haven't slept since.
Danielle Lewis (04:24):
Oh my God, I love it.
Julia Christie (04:26):
So I came up, yeah, so this is,
Danielle Lewis (04:29):
Wow,
Julia Christie (04:30):
I am snail. So it's got a recessed V-shaped blade at the front for trimming and now file in the tummy and then the under now cleaner in the tail. And so the recessed V-shaped blade at the front actually goes across the nail rather than clipping down onto it like clippers. So if you see in that little picture that it goes,
Danielle Lewis (05:00):
So does it clip together or does it actually just, the blade does the job
Julia Christie (05:05):
So the blade does the job. So we get very relevant for those of us running presence. And you get scissors and you get that sweet spot and you just glide. You're not actually cutting. It's that function that the cutting point is down in the V, not on the sides, and the nail sits through that V and you're trimming across very, very different to existing clippers, which is where two sharp points meeting together. And it's a two sharp points meeting together. Once you made that cut, that's the point of no return, which a lovely thing about the na. Now, Liz, if you think, oh, I'm cutting a bit short here, you can change direction. You can see exactly what you're doing and you can stop and change direction.
Danielle Lewis (05:52):
Oh my God, this is brilliant.
Julia Christie (05:54):
It's very, very clever and I'm very, very proud of it. And I've a hundred percent stood by the ingenuity and the point of difference of my product forever. And that's one thing that's never wavered in my entire 10 years of business is just how freaking cool I now sell is. And I'm on, I think award number 23. I think I counted 23 design and business awards, which is, oh my God,
Danielle Lewis (06:30):
That is absolutely incredible. What's it like being in business? So we have a lot of people who are new to business listening in. What is it like being in business for the last 10 years? How have you seen things changed?
Julia Christie (06:44):
Wow. So look, there are so many ups and downs and so many people ask me, if you knew how hard it was going to be, would you still have done it? And I'd like to say, yes, the light at the end of the tunnel
(07:12):
Thing about my business is I liken it to building a mansion. And so many go, oh, you must be a millionaire. You must be raking in it. No, I'm not raking in the dollars, not even, I pay myself minimum wage, and I'm lucky to get the little itty bitty dollars that I do. Now, my experience isn't the same as everybody's experience, but I will speak candidly to my experience. So no, not a millionaire, not even close. I'm in my $2 shirt from the, anyway, I liken it to building a mansion. All right, so you pour everything into this mansion. You pick
(07:51):
The loveliest things you can, the gold taps, the marble countertops, the arched windows, this incredible mansion that you're building, you can't live in it because it's a construction site. You can't rent it out because it's a construction site. You're not actually getting any money from this mansion. No. Even though you're putting all your heart and soul and hours and time, and every spare penny that you have is going into building this mansion and then you sacrifice everything else in order to make this mansion unbelievable. And then it's only when you sell that mansion that you see any financial return. Now I'm still building that mansion and I'm getting to a point now where I'm like, huh, I've been building this mansion for an awfully long time. I don't really want to live in it because kind of super looking at it and baby space anymore. But gosh, it's a beautiful mansion and I'll be very, very happy at this point to get it ready to sell to somebody else. And someone else who's really good at managing mansions,
Danielle Lewis (09:01):
Oh my God, like the big p and g should buy you. Yes. Okay. You heard it here first. Where are they? Where are they?
Julia Christie (09:09):
So anybody's interested in buying now as a company, please let me know. That's awesome. Again, something's only worth what someone will pay for it. So what my goal is, my financial goal, and it is a lofty goal. Aim up here will be determined by economics at the moment. And once I said the dollar signs, how excited I get and all that sort of thing. Excuse me. But I'm doing everything I can and I work so hard to get it to the best possible place so that when a great big fish comes along and goes, we'll have that thanks, then we'll just insert that into all of our distribution chains.
(09:51):
They won't necessarily care about my socials or my branding or me being the face of it or anything like that. They'll just go, we'll take this, thanks. And then, I don't know, might probably put their own branding on it and then insert it into their existing enormous distribution chain and just go, boom, a million nails now sold on the first year, easy done. So that's the goal. That's the plan. I don't believe in dreams. I don't believe in follow your dreams. I believe in having an idea, having a goal, and working towards it, make it happen. Don't sit around dreaming about stuff, make it happen. So that, oh
Danielle Lewis (10:30):
My God, I love it.
Julia Christie (10:31):
That's where I'm
Danielle Lewis (10:32):
At. Wow. It's so interesting because everyone has a different kind of business. I hear so many different stories on when I interview people for this podcast and people who are, it's a side hustle. They just want holiday money for their family or they, okay, I want to replace my income, or actually I want this kind of lifestyle, or I love this. I'm building it to a certain point. I'm not taking a huge wage because my plan is to sell it, is to exit it. I love that we get to choose what our business looks like and how we approach it. And it is really interesting your comment about, no, I'm not a millionaire. No, I don't take a giant wage because that's not the goal. The goal is to build this into something that is really interesting for somebody to acquire. So I make the cash on the end and get out.
Julia Christie (11:26):
And that's always been the goal. The idea of calling my company Christie, and Christie was just based on Johnson and Johnson. There is no other Christie that's working on it. Even this always from the very beginning I went, well, what would a big company do?
(11:46):
What
(11:46):
Would a big company do? It's me and two other amazing staff that work from home sometimes at 11 o'clock at night, sometimes between finishing their shift at their other job and picking up their kids from school, squeezing in an hour or two there. So we are sort of doing bits and pieces, but we give this wonderful impression of being this really big established company. It's three work from home moms working in our lounge rooms.
Danielle Lewis (12:14):
I love it though, because you don't need to have an office, have a giant team be doing all of these things just to tick the business boxes. Actually, you can build a successful company in your own way.
Julia Christie (12:28):
Absolutely. And I've always wanted it to be that way. I've always wanted it to fit around my life with my children and being a mom and the fact that I can go to every single concert that I go to every single awards night and dance recital and be there when I, because I share custody with my ex-husband 50 50, so I can be there for them the weeks that I have them. I'm there for them 100%. And that to me is worth absolutely everything.
Danielle Lewis (13:01):
Wow, I love that. That is incredible. So how have you grown the business is so can you buy the product online? Is it stopped in stores? How does distribution work? Right now
Julia Christie (13:13):
We have three avenues of distribution. We have direct to consumer, so that can be bought from our website and even things like eBay, selling on eBay as well. And then we have B2B, which is wholesalers can come and order from our website all through fair, which a fair was a little bit hit and miss. That was really exciting to start with. And then it's really dropped off, and I dunno whether that's a Christmas thing or not, but again, that's something that I need to work on and look into. And then we have distributors as well. So we have a wonderful distributor based in Europe, Iley and Wonder Bumps, and she does things like that. And then we have other distributors that we've had in the Philippines. But again, I've been a bit kind of hit me, not a huge amount of communication there. And I was also told, and we have chemist and pharmacy distributors as well, and baby store distributors. So there's quite a few different avenues to sell. And we were in about 500, 600 chemists and pharmacy, maybe even more than that now. I don't know the exact number of
Danielle Lewis (14:25):
That's okay, you've got things to do. I get it.
Julia Christie (14:28):
But there's a lot and there's people coming on and different pharmacies are shutting down, and then some pick up and there's some, so we, let's just say it's 600 chemists and pharmacies, which is amazing. And then baby stores like Baby Bunting as well, which was a big win. And then we have another distributor that buys to sell on Amazon as well.
Danielle Lewis (14:49):
Oh, cool.
Julia Christie (14:50):
Yeah, there's all these different avenues. Again, in hindsight, I had originally thought that I would sell directly from our website, and that would be it that we wouldn't distributors or retail representation, and people would come to my website and buy. But so many people, oh, you've got to be in stores. You've got to be here. You've got to be there. And should I have listened to my own self? I don't know. Does being in a pharmacy give you credibility? Yeah, sure. So there's all this, and once you go down that path, you can't really pull back. That's a tough one, because I was a school teacher, I was a singer and a school teacher, and I still feel like I don't quite know what I'm doing.
Danielle Lewis (15:38):
I love that because it's like 10 years in and we're like, I don't know, let's just try something new. And I feel
Julia Christie (15:45):
Like that every day. And people are like, I've got to be on TikTok. I'm like, oh, I'm such a millennial. I don't want to
Danielle Lewis (15:51):
Be. I gave up on TikTok. I've decided I drew the line at TikTok. It's like, go away. And also, what if it gets banned next year in America, and then it's like somebody else swoops in and makes the new TikTok and then you've invested all this time. And I kind of hope that does happen because I didn't jump on TikTok. So when you jump on things in the early days, you tend to get more traction and blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, I want the new TikTok, the new US based TikTok to come out so that I can jump on it early and go viral. And that's what I gave up on TikTok.
Julia Christie (16:29):
That's the trick, right? You've got to get into it early. I know that Bell, the glorious clothing label, which I adore, their growth, their initial growth and success was a hundred percent attributed to being one of the first people on Instagram. That huge growth in getting that huge following post one little video, and all of a sudden 20,000 people would see it organically. And now even with 5,000 followers, I post one video and it might be seen by three people. And it's
Danielle Lewis (16:58):
Really shit, isn't it? It's so infuriating. And you
Julia Christie (17:03):
Think, why am I doing this? What for?
(17:08):
Yeah,
(17:08):
Why? Because the algorithm says you've got a post every day. Oh
Danielle Lewis (17:14):
Yeah, I strongly, I'm in the camp of, unless you're advertising, unless you're putting money on Facebook and Instagram, then there's no point. But also there are people that are successful and whatever, and influencers and all of those things. So perhaps I just make shit content, I don't know. But I
Julia Christie (17:38):
Want to add to the noise here. Here's more noise. It's
(17:42):
Like
(17:43):
Once you've explained what a now snail is and what it does, that's kind of it. Here's a, now sna, here's what it does. Would you like to buy one? Great.
Danielle Lewis (17:52):
Totally. Yeah. It's like, here's the problem, here's the
Julia Christie (17:55):
Solution. Yay. That's my sales pitch. I don't consider myself a very good sales person. I really don't. And I find now, especially with nownow, that it's sales focused. That's it. That's all I'm doing. They'll sell, sell, sell. And I love solving people's problems. I love the creative process. I love the designing it. I love all that sort of thing.
(18:19):
Now it's just sell it. And honestly, dear new moms or new parents or new carers, it's hard cutting baby's nails. Yeah, I know that you think it's hard. You've come to me. Here is the problem. Here's how to solve it. It's a good price. It's an Australian ally produced product. Here's how to buy one. And okay, I'm not going to go, but wait, here's more. But wait, I'm going to bug you with ads for the next six years. But wait, here's an email spam. No, no. If you here is one to bye. We have customers.
Danielle Lewis (19:01):
It's so interesting too that you say you love the innovation, the creativity, the design process. And then it's like, oh, sorry. Now you're just a salesperson for life. And I also love that why that's your strategy to grow and sell the business because it's like, I'm sure you've got a billion other ideas just cooking in the background that you're like, oh, if I could just finish this one, I'll move on to the next one.
Julia Christie (19:27):
Yeah, I've got two really good ones that I've done that background research. Does it exist? Is it possible? Am I the only one that's got this idea? And I've got those simmering away in the background that I really would love to do. But because I did now with no investment and no financial backing, I did do a Kickstarter campaign and I have had some money from my parents, which I greatly appreciated. But it was this as far you hear about companies going, oh yeah, we did a seed round and we raised 6 million to build our website. And you think, I think I had $60
Danielle Lewis (20:08):
And an afternoon and a bottle of wine, and I did it myself.
Julia Christie (20:14):
And I was googling how to build our website, how to get her barcode, and that's how I did it. And because it's been completely bootstrapped. And then there was this hell of a divorce in there that interrupts the flow of it completely. And all that kind of vomitous excrement interrupts the flow of your business and then fighting for my company.
Danielle Lewis (20:49):
Isn't it wild that that happens?
Julia Christie (20:53):
Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (20:55):
I had to buy out my co-founder this year. So I'm scarred for life about businesses. And it's something that people don't talk about. You have, and it's funny, in the tech startup world, being a solo founder is not ideal. They always want you to have a team because they think that you'll do better. And then the
Julia Christie (21:18):
Number of grants I got locked out of, because I wasn't cast as a solo founder, was astronomical. And then the women in business, the women's grants that I applied for, oh, sorry, you're not female enough because you've
Danielle Lewis (21:33):
Got, oh my god, I had that too, because I do have shareholders. I have too many male shareholders, so apparently I'm not female enough.
Julia Christie (21:42):
Would you, can I show you? I can prove it. I can prove it. The female part Ill, so yeah, the company was owned by trust, which was then owned by my well husband at the time. That was to male. I'm like, but he does nothing. He doesn't work in it day to day. He's a doctor, he's got his own job, he doesn't work, he doesn't offer advice, he's not, and anything from dragging me down, but that, that's a freeze over that. It wasn't female enough. And I'm thinking, you can't win. So I had to do everything bootstrapped. I'd be, I was selling clothes on eBay as a bit of a side hustle to a side hustle to a side, just stuff from my wardrobe, just trying to bring in an extra few dollars. And I was doing supply teaching for the first two, three years of it and then was kind of like, oh no, I'm doing too much now. S now stuff. And then I was singing and the occasional modeling job and that kind of stuff. I don't mind love it.
Danielle Lewis (23:08):
The original influencer over here. So
Julia Christie (23:13):
Fun stuff like that. But yeah, definitely not having this great big chunk of money to build things with has. And as a result, there are director's loans in the company that upon the divorce became solely in my name. So the company owes me a nice big chunk of money, which I realistically, excuse me, am not prepared to see until the company sells. And even then, when the company sells, they won't pay me out the director's loans. I'll just get the money that the company is sold for. So it's not like I'll ever get paid back.
Danielle Lewis (23:53):
So yeah, unless you sold for a billion dollars.
Julia Christie (23:56):
Yeah. Yes. Cut some whatever manifests all the things. Again, making plans to make it happen. And I hear of companies being sold for multimillion dollars and you think, huh, that company doesn't have a patent. That company is not in a growing subset of the baby category that's forever got customers. That company has got a bazillion other products that are exactly the same Juice companies, small, tiny, teeny juice companies selling for you, like $27 million. And you're like, huh, juice. Okay, revolutionary. Yeah, I'm sure Juice, I'm sure it's delicious Juice, but there's a hundred other companies selling juice. And you kind of think, well, I've got something that's so unique, completely unique, and it's got a patent on it, which means there's nothing else on the market, even vaguely similar, nor will be because I've got all that IP protection. And that was a conscious effort too, because when, again, that's very smart. From day one, when I exit, when I sell, what is it that I'll actually be selling and it'll be there. So protecting that patent and upholding that patent has been my number one priority. Even to the point where it's like, don't pay me. If we have a bill for patenting, I'll eat magic noodles for the week. Just don't pay me. Let's keep that patent up. So yeah,
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
I love that. And I think it's, it's very smart. Good on you. But I also think it's really important to talk about as well, because that is what will the company buy you spot on it is those patents. So a p and g can't come along, create the same or similar product and go chuck it in every store they go. They have to buy you to make that happen. And that's interesting conversation around value where, okay, so juice company gets solved for 20 million. Your revenue might be whatever it is, but it's almost like it doesn't matter because they can see the potential of the patent and what they could earn if they then bought the patent manufactured because they get cheap manufacturing and then pushed it out through their distribution, that's the value that they will see. So the possibility of that big exit is there, which is so exciting. And it's funny because that potential is there, but sometimes doesn't fix the fact that day-to-day is pretty hard. You're just got to believe in the dream. Believe in, we can do this, put one foot in front of the other, let's go. You can do it, you can do
Julia Christie (26:34):
It. But when I sell, I will take you out to the most amazing lunch you've ever been out to. I will, I'll be there and lunch is on me and it'll be amazing. And we'll just eat this delicious, all the champagne and caviar.
Danielle Lewis (26:51):
I'm there, I'm there for that. I'm going to hold you to that. Oh, that is incredible.
Julia Christie (26:58):
So people always like, oh, well what's the value of your business? It's Forex, whatever your profit is. I'm like, as far as profit's concerned, it's this. I make back my running costs. I pay my staff, I pay myself minimum wage. We are running on the cent of an oily rag and it's still going so proud that it's still going because most companies fold after, what is it, two, three years in Australia,
(27:25):
Any debts we're running, pay all our bills on time, if not early pay three staff and keep them employed to and myself. And even through surviving Covid and the Covid and then the Hellscape, that was uny divorce. So I feel like that's pushback kind of four years and money that was in the company that then had to be paid out at a time where we couldn't afford to pay things out. And there are a few sort of murky gray areas as to who was owed what. But again, I would say ladies who were starting their business, put everything in your name, not put anything in your partner, spouses, de factos, husbands name, not us. Keep it all in your name
Danielle Lewis (28:18):
Even though we know you love them very much. And you will never get divorced. Don't do it. Don't fucking do it.
Julia Christie (28:26):
Yeah. Keep everything in all your patents, everything. Everything in your name.
Danielle Lewis (28:32):
Yeah.
Julia Christie (28:33):
Because touch wood, people can get hit by buses, people can get really sick, people can, all these unknown things can happen. And if it's murky as far as accounting goes and business registration goes, then it makes it very, very difficult. Is everything's in your name. It is so much to go. Okay, thanks. No, thanks. It makes it so, so much easier. So I would say for women going into business, protect your company, protect your assets, protect everything you can. And if your relationship goes great, guns brilliant. You don't have to worry about it.
Danielle Lewis (29:08):
Amazing. Totally. There are other ways to share your assets and dividends and profit and love the spoils together without starting out putting it in a joint
Julia Christie (29:23):
Name. And be very mindful about accepting any investment from your in-laws.
Danielle Lewis (29:31):
Yeah,
Julia Christie (29:33):
Don't get that.
Danielle Lewis (29:34):
Be careful about accepting any investment from anyone. Well, it's interesting because it is, bootstrapping is really hard. It's really hard. And especially with the product-based business, there's money. It's not just, okay, with a service-based business, you can pay $30 to Squarespace and you can build a website and you can start accepting money. Today with a product based business, you have to have money. You've got to design, you've got to get samples, you've got to do manufacturing. There's minimum order quantities, there's all of these things.
Julia Christie (30:11):
Packaging, buy codes, branding and labels, which I guess is the same as service or your prototype. Prototyping huge. Costing huge.
Danielle Lewis (30:23):
So it is sometimes you kind of go, well, I do have to take a loan or investment or something, but you do. So I raised capital for my other business and the unwinding of all of that and the reporting and the, okay, 10 years on, do I still want to be reporting to these people? They have nothing to do with the business that I'm building. How did I get here? And
Julia Christie (30:49):
They call it your little
Danielle Lewis (30:50):
Hobby. Oh my God. Or when am I getting my money back? Or when am I getting a return on this investment? Pressure, pressure, pressure. So you really do have
Julia Christie (31:03):
To be careful. It's when it sells. It's when it sells. We talked about this,
Danielle Lewis (31:08):
Remember, it's an investment and I'm not listed on the stock exchange. You can't just sell your shares. And it's interesting though, but that's not the day-to-day running of the business. But now something, an overhead of time and energy that you have because you accepted that cash. Oh my God. Full on. Full on. But you should be so proud that that product is incredible. You are incredible. Let's wrap up the podcast with one last piece of advice. Alright, so reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her journey?
Julia Christie (31:48):
Get a good accountant. Love it. A really good, trustworthy local female available accountant that you can call on the phone. If you can go to their office and say, Hey, what's up? How's it going? Help me with these things so I can do as much as I can on my own and help you further, really have you help me for the really tricky stuff. It is so important to get yourself a good accountant that's got all the T's and i's and dotted and lowercase j's and everything all sorted and organized beautifully for you. So when you get to that exit point, you can go here, you go to the person that wants to buy it, and you can keep track of what's happening. Bookkeeping and accounting is so beyond me, I don't like it, but I understand how important it is. And that's why I make sure I had an accountant that wasn't, I had three accountants in this process. First one, great, but moved and things happened and it sort of didn't quite work out, but on good terms. Second accountant, very disappointing, very expensive mistake. Was not great. Not great at all. And that was through the divorce process as well. So there was a bit of loyalties in question here. So there was a whole nother thing.
(33:11):
But the accountant that I have now, amazing, amazing accountancy team, local, again, female loan. So they get the whole parenting at the same time and just organized, know their stuff, had to deal with all this mess and fix it and clean it up and get everything ready. And so I'm, yes, get a good accounting team and people that you can go, Hey, I need six hours of your time. Can I pop into your office? Yes, yes. Julia, you can. What else? Yeah, do that, I think is crucially important. And that'll help with your, if you plan on exiting, that'll help with the exit as well.
Danielle Lewis (33:54):
Julia, you are absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom and your experience with the Spark community. Yeah, so valuable.
Julia Christie (34:06):
Oh, and I could go for hours, so if you need a follow up one, Lemme know.
Danielle Lewis (34:11):
Yeah, yeah. I want to hear about the exit. You are coming back when we, and we are going to talk about that.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
