#awinewith Julie Hirsch
MEET Julie
Julie is the Founder of Eloments Tea and Mullin.
Find Julie here:
Eloments Tea website and Instagram @elomentstea @drinkmullin.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
Amazing. Julie, thank you so much for spending some time and having a virtual vino with us here at Spark tv. I cannot wait to question you about what is in your hand. Yeah, look, let's start by telling the smart community who are an amazing community of female founders, how you actually got to starting a business, the first one, and where you're at now. So did you have a career before getting into running a business? What does that journey look like and where are you at today?
Julie Hirsch (00:44):
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on. Danielle. I can't believe that this whole segment is around having a wine and a chat, and I'm about to start a wine adjacent business, so this is absolutely
Danielle Lewis (00:57):
Perfect. The stars literally aligned.
Julie Hirsch (01:00):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So my name is Julie Hirsch. I'm I suppose a serial entrepreneur at this point, but I never intended to be. I started my career working in climate change in the charity sector, and from there I really became very interested with climate resilience work that was happening on the ground. And at that time, Fairtrade was one of the only international organizations that had already shifted their focus away from mitigation to climate resilience because they recognize that climate change was impacting farmers at that time, not at some future time. And so I became involved in TEA specifically, which is a very climate impacted crop, hooked up with a friend of mine who had a fair trade tea business and had amazing experience in tea. And we started to look around how could we innovate to bring more fair trade tea into the tea aisle in Australia because only about 3% of tea is actually fair trade certified in Australia. Oh,
Danielle Lewis (02:09):
Wow. Yeah, it's quite low.
Julie Hirsch (02:11):
So we wanted to create an innovation that could actually expand that offering. And what we found was that a lot of our daily tea drinkers also took daily supplements. So we thought, well, why can't we add something that's already in these Women's Daily Ritual into our fair trade tea? And that was the birthplace of Elements, natural Vitamin Teas.
Danielle Lewis (02:35):
That's cool. I love that.
Julie Hirsch (02:36):
Yeah, we started that about six years ago, and that has been such a wild ride. We had some really wonderful feedback when we first launched. We got into what were supermarkets pretty much straight away. Within four months of our first production run, we expanded into Holland and Barrett.
Danielle Lewis (02:55):
That's unheard of. We need to dive into that.
Julie Hirsch (02:59):
Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (03:00):
Keep going.
Julie Hirsch (03:01):
Yeah, they've been really wonderful to work with. And yeah, we expanded into Finland. We've just launched onto Amazon USA, so it's built a really wonderful following of tea lovers who also care about their health and the health of the world. And then of course, COVID threw us a very interesting challenge with fair trade certified supply chains and shipping crises with a really small team. So we've actually decided to shift our focus away from supermarkets. We're pulling the product out of most major supermarkets globally and moving towards a direct to consumer model. Still going to maintain a few of those supermarket partnerships, for example, in Finland where the numbers just make sense, but in mostly other territories. Honestly, for small business, it makes so much more sense to go direct to consumer at this point. And that'll probably change as the world levels out after Covid. But for right now, that's where we're looking, which is a big show, but quite fun.
Danielle Lewis (04:08):
That is incredible. And so then segue to, you've decided to start another business.
Julie Hirsch (04:15):
Yes. Because I wasn't busy enough.
Danielle Lewis (04:18):
Exactly. Sleep is unnecessary.
Julie Hirsch (04:22):
This business was one of those ideas that just wouldn't leave me alone. So back in 2020 when I was on a fair trade sourcing trip in Sri Lanka, I was speaking with one of the GMs of the Fair Trade Cooperative over there and asking him how as a western company, how can I help farmers in the face of climate change? And his answer was very surprising. He said, buy spices. So what they were encouraging farmers to do, yeah, it was a really surprising answer. And so what he said to me was that tea, as I said, is a very climate impacted crop. If the tea crop fails, there is no income sourced for these farmers. So they were encouraging farmers to plant a biodiverse tea garden, which included spices. It included your root crops, your pepper trees, your coconut into essentially what was mimicking a forest garden. And that way if one crop failed, they still had other crops, but on top of that, it was much better for the soil because you didn't have a mono crop that you were planting. So I came back to Australia and looked at whether there was the opportunity for a fair trade spice brand. There just really wasn't that much desire for it. So I started to think about my favorite spice recipes and mold wine came up as one of those recipes, but
Danielle Lewis (05:49):
Wow, this is so good. Have you ever
Julie Hirsch (05:51):
Bake mold wine?
Danielle Lewis (05:54):
No. I've had friends, so I've watched process, but I've never done it myself.
Julie Hirsch (05:59):
It's lengthy and you have to follow a recipe, which
Danielle Lewis (06:02):
Is why I've never done it myself. Yeah,
Julie Hirsch (06:04):
Exactly. You have to have all the right spices in your pantry or you have to go buy spices that you may never use again. It takes a couple of hours to make. You've got to use it at least a full bottle of wine. So it's really only if you're entertaining. And I thought, well, I know how to put spices into a teabag and worked with one of our fair trade partners to create a blend that could actually be put into a single pyramid sachet so that you can make just one mug of mold wine rather than
Danielle Lewis (06:36):
Following
Julie Hirsch (06:36):
A big recipe and making a whole batch.
Danielle Lewis (06:39):
This is incredible. So that is what's in your mug today. You're very
Julie Hirsch (06:42):
Mold wine. Yes, that is what's in my mug. It came out very cute. It's these beautifully that is cute
Danielle Lewis (06:50):
Packed
Julie Hirsch (06:52):
Tins. So they're perfect for gifting and yeah, it's just a little pyramid that you put into your mug and then you chuck your mug of wine in the microwave and it's ready in three minutes.
Danielle Lewis (07:06):
My gosh, that is so incredible. I am absolutely blown away because this doesn't exist. This is so cool and so innovative.
Julie Hirsch (07:16):
Thanks. Yeah, it's the first fair trade single serve mulling sachet. A couple of tea companies had tried to do something similar, but personally, I like our blend better. We
Danielle Lewis (07:31):
Obviously, yes.
Julie Hirsch (07:33):
What we did was we actually added Stevia leaf. So a lot of people think of Stevia as that awful synthetic processed granule, which does come from natural stevia leaf, but actually Stevia leaf when it's grown and farmed is this really beautiful green leaf. And when you chew it, it's really sweet. And so by adding natural stevia leaf, we were able to have some of that sweetness that you get with you want wine, which yeah, otherwise you just get really spicy wine, which is less nice than your normal one. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (08:11):
Exactly. So where did, I guess, compelling, how did you become compelled to be so focused on fair trade products and actually having impact in your business impact? Where did that spark where come from?
Julie Hirsch (08:31):
Well, I think when you're starting a business, you would know this. It takes so much energy and so much motivation, and I just can't imagine starting a business that I didn't truly believe in because I think you would just run out of energy well before you ever got the product to launch. And so actually having that social purpose in terms of motivation has meant that I'm willing to keep pushing, keep trying, and if it was just for me, I would've given up. But also these days, with the transparency that we have available to us in supply chains, there are opportunities for impact everywhere, at every single decision point that you have as a business. And so there's very little excuse now to not have a positive impact because it's so easy to do so.
Danielle Lewis (09:25):
Yes. Yeah, and I love that too. If you decide that that is something that's important to you, there are options. And it is, as you say, it is hard enough to build a business, go that little extra step of research and figure out how you can make sure you are having a positive impact in business.
Julie Hirsch (09:46):
Absolutely. And there are so many different models that you can choose from. For us, we've baked the impact into our supply chain, our product, our marketing story with fair Trade. We also donate a percentage back to the Fair Trade Farmers as well as pay a minimum living wage for the crop. And so you can go the whole hog
Danielle Lewis (10:10):
Or
Julie Hirsch (10:11):
You can choose the piece of that that works for you, whether that's choosing FSC paper for your printing or asking was slave labor used in the production of anything in my supply chain to even if you have a service-based industry doing pro bono work for a certain percentage of your time, there are so many options to have impact. And it's so wonderful when you have those barriers because it really does help you to jump over those and keep going.
Danielle Lewis (10:44):
And I think customers are demanding this now though. I think that as I just reflect, we've just had the Australian election and as I think about all of the independent seats that got in, who spoke through the whole time around climate change and impact and all of those things, I think that consumers really want to put their dollars behind products that are taking these things into consideration.
Julie Hirsch (11:15):
Absolutely. It's a really interesting time period where actually customers are raising the bar on companies. And the great thing, there are many bad things about late stage capitalism, but one of the great things is that companies pay attention to dollars. And so every dollar that you spend, you have the opportunity to send a message to those companies and they will listen because they know it's in their best interest to listen.
Danielle Lewis (11:44):
Yeah, I love that so much. So talk to me about, I think when you mentioned getting elements, a physical retailer, so like a Woolworths, that is the holy grail. It's really funny how we live in this digital world and everyone's like builder, scalable SaaS platform, make it one sell, but there's something so glorified around traditional. So be in a retailer, be in a magazine, write a book, all of those things that we associate as a little bit less scalable or older ways of thinking, but that is considered the holy grail. Getting your product into a big retailer is considered the holy grail still. So I know you've made the decision to pull out now, but talk to me about those early days and how did you even get in?
Julie Hirsch (12:38):
Yeah, it's such an interesting topic for me because we did choose to go into major supermarkets straight away. For us, we got in the door because of innovation. We were the world's first organic certified vitamin T, and it took us two years of research and development to actually create that product. So we had two years to build a relationship with a lot of those supermarkets to bring them on that research and development journey with us. And so by the time we actually were ready for launch, they were so invested in that journey that they were really awesome.
Danielle Lewis (13:18):
I love
Julie Hirsch (13:19):
That, ready to stand behind us and put it on shelf, which was so wonderful and really heartening to know that these big players are looking for people who can provide something unique, whether that's a small business or a large business, it really does, even the playing field when you have something innovative. And we had a patent around our blending process, so that was really helpful, that position as well. And so we have been in Woolworths for about three years now, and I have so many wonderful things to say about their vision and the way that they engage with us Australian consumers. But for us, when we signed our first agreement with Woolworths, it was 2019, Australia was in a boom, no one could imagine a global pandemic. And fast forward to 2022 when we've had two and a half years of shipping crises and lockdowns, and those lockdowns included a lot of our farming partners. And so the world is just different now. It's incredibly different. And so we had to look back and go, does this business model makes sense for the current world that we live in? And our answer just had to be no at this point, as much as we love that partnership, it really didn't make sense anymore. And it was a hard decision
Danielle Lewis (14:57):
Even though numbers that was going to be question, well, that was going to be my question. How did that feel? Because a lot of founders talk to me about things that they're doing, and they're like, well, that was something we said we were going to do. And they keep kind of, I guess, flogging a dead horse because they think that they have to hold onto the way that they had previously done something. And I know personally from having pivoted 17 million times, sometimes it's
Julie Hirsch (15:26):
Away. I've given up on Covid
Danielle Lewis (15:28):
Wedding, oh, I love parent wedding. I love that so much. I'm stealing it.
Julie Hirsch (15:33):
Please do. We're all a little dizzy at this point from
Danielle Lewis (15:38):
Number. Definitely. So how did that feel?
Julie Hirsch (15:44):
Yeah, well, we all really fear losing our sense of success and that visibility of success on LinkedIn and on your website and that Woolworths logo, like you said, it's still seen as reputable, trustworthy, who are successful if you're in work. And so to jeopardize that is really scary, even when you are looking at numbers saying it doesn't make sense to stay in these retailers. But at the end of the day, we were never in this really to look successful. That's the other strange thing is most entrepreneurs are really willing to take risks and do things outside of the realm of what other people are willing to do. And so then it's very funny when you have that flipped on you and it's like, okay, well now it's okay. Now you've proven yourself, but you still have to be willing to say, no, I'm still going to do the thing that doesn't necessarily look right on the outside because I know it is right for me and my business. And we were very lucky. We raised seed and series A investment, and our investors were actually really supportive of this move as well. They were also Oh,
Danielle Lewis (17:10):
That's good.
Julie Hirsch (17:11):
Yeah. They were also looking at the numbers going, look, you're right. This isn't the same world. And that doesn't mean that in two years time we might not call up Woolworths and say, Hey, things have changed. We'd love to start talking again. But for right now, I don't know what the world is going to look like in two years. I couldn't have imagined the world looking like it does right now, two years ago. So yeah, you just have to make decisions that make sense for the time.
Danielle Lewis (17:39):
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that it wasn't a gut feel. I mean, there was probably a little bit of gut feel in there, but the things, talking to investors, talking to shareholders, talking to team, looking at the numbers, actually sitting back and taking the time to really think about the impact that the change will have, but also thinking about the impact that not changing will have as well.
Julie Hirsch (18:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think similarly to other founders at the moment, or really anyone who's just lived the last two years, I don't want to do a repeat of the last few years. I don't
Danielle Lewis (18:17):
Want that either. No.
Julie Hirsch (18:20):
So for me, it was a question of is it worth trying something else rather than just repeating this thing that we know doesn't work?
Danielle Lewis (18:31):
So obviously going through a retailer versus a direct to consumer business, super different strategy, how have you found adjusting to that? So now owning that relationship with the consumer?
Julie Hirsch (18:46):
I really love that so much more. One of the privileges of running an SME is that you are a lot closer to your customer. You can talk to them, you can understand them, you can see what they like or don't like about your product, and you lose that when you're going through a major retailer. I can't talk to someone who purchases from a shelf in a supermarket because I don't own that relationship, which means that I can miss things. I can misunderstand why someone is purchasing something and not something else. And I think especially with a food product, with something that someone can taste and enjoy and sit down with, I just think it's so much more special if you can close that distance between your company and your customer because they can love it and enjoy it daily. And you can have a conversation with them about the beautiful tea and spices that they're enjoying and have a conversation about why you chose that spice and not another or why you sourced from this farm and not another. And I think it makes the experience for both parties so much richer and more interesting.
Danielle Lewis (20:13):
Yeah, and actually as you said that, so telling the story behind the brand and why you created the product the way you created it, you are a thousand percent correct. You don't get that walking down the aisles of a retailer. Exactly. It's when you follow a brand on Instagram or you sign up to their newsletter or subscribe to their YouTube channel, whatever it is, whatever their medium of communication is, it's when you have that direct relationship that you really do understand why brands are so important and why they are the ones that are creating impact in the world.
Julie Hirsch (20:55):
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a privilege to be a customer facing brand. You get a direct relationship with the person who's enjoying your product, and that is not something to take for granted.
Danielle Lewis (21:08):
No, absolutely. So what does your team look like now? So for both businesses, what does the team look like and what role do you play? So I'm sure that what you do now is very different to when you started the business. So how has that evolved and how has your team evolved?
Julie Hirsch (21:27):
We're really small with elements. There are four of us and my co-founder, Nicole, is an absolute powerhouse and has so much experience in tea and global trade and fair trade. She was actually one of the founding board members of Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand.
Danielle Lewis (21:47):
Oh, cool.
Julie Hirsch (21:48):
Yeah, I love bragging about her. And with Mullin, I've actually started it with two friends who I've known since we were five years old. And it's so wonderful when you get to see your friends in a different light. I always knew that they were both incredibly talented women and now I get to see them up close while they do their thing, and that's been so much fun.
Danielle Lewis (22:20):
That's so cool. I always love a bit of co-founder love. And it's so funny because I interviewed East Forge to a co-founder duo who do iced tea, but it's like a nitro infuse iced tea. And it's so funny that we're talking tea and before we started recording, it's like you're like, you can't be mad in the tea industry. Everyone's so full of love. They're exactly the same. It's amazing.
Julie Hirsch (22:50):
I love the tea so much. Everyone is so lovely and so kind, and it's justs a brilliant industry to be in.
Danielle Lewis (22:59):
Yeah. So how do you find then, so I guess in that vein, with co-founders, it's not always perfect. How do you go about navigating a co-founder relationship and now a business with friends? Is there any kind of tips on making sure you do get it semi right?
Julie Hirsch (23:21):
I think understanding your own personality is very important. Definitely. I have a lot of female founder friends who are solopreneurs or have started all of their businesses and now have teams under them, and they could never imagine doing a co-founder journey. They really thrive in that environment where they're making the decisions, they have the control, they have the responsibility. For me, I've always gravitated towards teams and a co-founder relationship. I love bouncing ideas off of other people. I really think that through tension you get the best outcomes. And so that's why I've always gravitated towards that model. But I don't think there are inherent benefits to either one. I just think it's what works for you. What are you most comfortable in?
Danielle Lewis (24:15):
Yeah. Well, and I love that too because coming from both of us have raised capital before, and I know that there is that funny thing even in capital raising where it's like they prefer co-founder relationships. They don't value a solo founder as much because they think that there's a better chance of success when there's multiple people involved. I actually, but in saying that again, the other thing is I kind of like the spin you took on it, which is actually what works for you. So I've gone from a co-founder to I think to now I'm a solo founder. So I'm experienced both worlds. And for me, I actually, I fall in the camp of liking to be the solo founder,
Julie Hirsch (25:00):
And it's just about knowing that about yourself.
Danielle Lewis (25:04):
But the thing was, you are right. You need to know who you are in business and your personality types and other people's personality types. That was the biggest trick for us in a co-founder relationship was once we learned what we were both good at and we stopped stepping on each other's toes, we just went, I trust you. I trust you. Go. That's when it worked. When you had that understanding and trust and really knowing yourself and knowing the other person, that's when the magic happened.
Julie Hirsch (25:33):
Absolutely. And I think that word is the core of it. You have to trust the people that you're working with, otherwise the whole thing just falls apart. Nicole and I were friends for six years before we started our business together, and we actually met at a writer's group. It was an open creative
Danielle Lewis (25:55):
Oh, cool.
Julie Hirsch (25:56):
That has been meeting for the last nine years actually. And so we got really used to critiquing each other and we were critiquing each other's creativity. So if you can give feedback and receive feedback on someone's writing something that's so personal to them, you're going to have a pretty good chance of working well together. And with my two co-founders for Mullen, we've known each other for many years, and actually one of the girls, Sony, her and I had started a record label together in college. This is not our first rodeo together. So we knew that we could work really well together, and I had all the confidence in the world in both of them.
Danielle Lewis (26:43):
Them. Yeah. Wow. So does this mean that you're a closet writer That we dunno about?
Julie Hirsch (26:50):
Before I started multiple businesses, I had time to dabble. I would say it's not my core competency, but I really enjoy it.
Danielle Lewis (27:00):
Yes. Amazing. Well, good segue into what does life look like for you outside of business? Is there a life? Is there time for a life?
Julie Hirsch (27:09):
I have a dog named Timber who I adore. He was actually a three week prior to Covid Dog, which was great. Didn't know how good that timing was. Yeah, I think a lot of high stress jobs you have to have the things that you do outside to make it work. So for me, hot yoga is something that I am obsessed with and I try to do three to five times a week. Whoa,
Danielle Lewis (27:42):
That's cool.
Julie Hirsch (27:43):
Yeah, you have to keep that balance. And I think one of the easy ways to do that is through physical exercise. It's just a easy hack to get out of your mind.
Danielle Lewis (27:56):
Yes. Oh, I know. That's one thing I've found. If you are getting into a funk, if you are getting overwhelmed by the to-do list, there is nothing so good. No amount of pep talking yourself can get you out of it. Just getting up and physically changing your state and moving your body
Julie Hirsch (28:16):
Exactly.
Danielle Lewis (28:16):
Tends to be the thing.
Julie Hirsch (28:18):
Going for a walk, going for a run, going to yoga, going to the gym, you have to find the type of movement that works for you. But just getting away from a screen can be so wonderful.
Danielle Lewis (28:34):
Life changing.
(28:36):
Yes. Oh my God, I love that. So what do you think has been the secret to the growth of your businesses? I know, so the interesting thing is a lot of people tuning into Spark TV are kind of in the early stages of their business, so they're probably trying everything right now. They're in that phase of I have no idea what works, so I've really got to go through the list and try everything and see what sticks. Was it the same for you? Was it more strategic? How did you think about growth in the early stages of your business?
Julie Hirsch (29:10):
Absolutely. It's all about trying as much as you possibly can and grabbing as much data as you can about each of those trials so that you can make an educated decision from there about what's working and what's not. For us, innovation was really the key to fast growth because it meant that we had a really lower barrier conversation to be had. We weren't directly competing with anyone in the T aisle because no one else in the tea aisle had a vitamin T in Australia. With Mullin, I'm not really directly competing with anyone because no one has a single serve mulling spice available. So it just makes that sales conversation, that customer conversation so much easier because you're not trying to say, I'm incrementally better. You can say I'm different.
Danielle Lewis (30:06):
Yes. I love that so much because we talk about that in, so I probably come more from the online tech SaaS world, and that's what they talk about. So marketing through product innovation is such a game changer because you're not going, how do I get more followers on Instagram? Or how do I grow my email list? Or how do I do all of the things? And people talk about PR and use leveraging other people's networks. It's like, well, if you don't have anything to talk about, all of that stuff is really hard. And you're right, it's all incremental. But when you do have a real point of difference, not the thing that you say is your point of difference, a real point of difference, and have innovated in some way, those conversations just become so much easier.
Julie Hirsch (30:54):
Yeah, exactly. It would be very hard to have seen the growth that we saw with elements if we didn't have something that was incredibly different to offer.
Danielle Lewis (31:05):
Yeah, no, I love that so much. So then with that, thinking about innovation, thinking about the people in our community who are just starting out, would that be your piece of advice for someone just getting started? Or is there something that you wish you had have known when you started your business?
Julie Hirsch (31:24):
Oh, my piece of advice always is to just start.
Danielle Lewis (31:29):
I love that
Julie Hirsch (31:31):
You can innovate at any time. You can iterate and iterate and iterate until you hit an innovation. You don't have to have the innovation from day zero. I have learned so much more from getting a product in someone's hands than I ever would have from delaying in an MVP or a theoretical phase. You have to just get it into someone's hands to know if it works, if it doesn't work, what they love, what they hate, and you really can't test for that, and you certainly can't do it in isolation. Sitting behind your computer or with your group of friends and family. They are going to love whatever you do, and that's wonderful, and you should
Danielle Lewis (32:16):
Hold
Julie Hirsch (32:16):
That tight as your core group and love that. But you have to get it into someone's hand Who doesn't know you? This is an MVP. I love this product. I'm so happy with how it came out, and I can already tell you three things I'm going to do differently in the next production run.
Danielle Lewis (32:36):
Amazing. Yes.
Julie Hirsch (32:38):
You start and then you work it out from there.
Danielle Lewis (32:42):
And I love the iterate, iterate, iterate, optimize, optimize, optimize. Because the fact that you go, there's three things that I'll change, doesn't mean that your product's a failure just because it's not right and perfect out of the gate, it will never be right. It will never be perfect. And I think I love that you're like, don't delay because that's not where the value is. The perfecting it is not where the value is. It is the getting customer feedback, getting into their hands and figuring out what's next, because sometimes you don't know what's next until you have that thing in your hands or you get the feedback from the customer or something's not converting, or sometimes just looking at the thing in your hand, you're like, I don't know what to change. But as soon as you get it out there, you're like, oh, yep, it's obvious. And that's not a failure, and that's not a problem. That is the goal. That's where the magic
Julie Hirsch (33:36):
Happens. Absolutely. Absolutely. When you have the feedback and you know what to change, that is a huge success because it's so valuable. It tells you exactly what your next step is. It's absolute gold.
Danielle Lewis (33:49):
I love that so much. Well, you have been absolutely phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing that wisdom. I absolutely love it. I love the innovation. I love the optimize. I love listen to your customers, trust people around you. All of that is just such gold. So I can't thank you enough being honest and sharing your experiences with the Spark community. Cheers. Thank you for having a little with me.
Julie Hirsch (34:19):
I wish all interviews included wine. That would be just so wonderful.
Danielle Lewis (34:25):
I'm working to make all lore around it.
Julie Hirsch (34:29):
Brilliant.
Danielle Lewis (34:29):
No, it's so good. The purpose of this is to really help people feel like they are having a glass of wine with the world's best founders. And so I'm just so grateful that you came along and shared your wisdom with
Julie Hirsch (34:44):
Us. It's been such an honor, honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
