Ashleigh Whittaker, CEO of Snack Proud
What made you want to start a business?
Wanting to help people be healthier at work and facilitate better habits. Also grow new distribution channels for innovative health food brands.
How did you first start?
Selling snacks to staff at Macquarie Bank where I worked. Tested out a whole bunch of products and payment methods to see what worked.
At what point did you realize this could be something?
When Snack Proud got two big customers who were spending weekly with me. I think I got to maybe $13 or $17k a month as a side hobby so thought I might was have a go at scaling it up.
Can you give us any kind of growth stats?
3 months after quitting my job I doubled my revenue. Then maybe 10% growth month on month for the next year. I was early in the market and it was hard. The 4 months before Covid we really accelerated due to a new sales partnership. Unfortunately Covid has really shut down my market but presenting new opportunities.
What do you wish you knew before you got started?
How long and hard it would be
Best hack for growing your business?
Partnerships to scale sales. Yesware for cold emails. Always being faster to adapt than the competition
Tools or services any business trying to scale should know about?
Yesware for email tracking and Rebump for follow ups. VA in the Philippines
Anything else you would like to add ?
Be real on the numbers. Build in good margins from day one. With Facebook ads, fees, discounts, shipping, postage etc, if you don't watch yourself you could be investing a lot of money and time for little reward.
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