July 22, 2024 • 25 mins
ZM’s Podcast Network is stoked to present ‘Bored to Boss’ with host Georgia Patten. As the Owner and Designer of bored.george, a designer sunglasses company based in Aotearoa, Georgia peels back the curtain to reveal the raw truth about being an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur's journey is challenging, dynamic, vibrant, soul-destroying, gut-wrenchingly addictive, and overwhelmingly fulfilling. Each week, Georgia invites fellow entrepreneurs to give the inside scoop on what it really takes to succeed in business.
Join Georgia for Episode One as she tells her story of being bored at a 9 to 5 and turning a bright idea into a brilliant business of five years.
Bored to Boss IG: @boredtobosspodcast
ZM's IG: @zmonline
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From ZM and iHeartRadio. It's Bored to Boss, Real stories
of how to navigate starting your own business with me
Georgia Patton, Welcome, Welcome to the Bored George Podcast. I
cannot believe we finally here and recording episode one. I
(00:21):
also can't explain just how nervous I am to be
recording this podcast. Although I'm putting my face all over
social media all the time, I feel like this is
opening myself and my business up to a whole new audience,
and that does make me a little bit nervous to
get a little bit of extra criticism. But for now,
I Am going to brush aside all of that nervousness
(00:41):
that I'm feeling inside and get episode number one underway.
I'm Georgia, i am the CEO of Bored George Sunglasses,
and I'm the host of Board to Boss. So what
is Bored to Boss about in a world where social
media glamorizes all of the prose of being an entrepreneur?
To unveil the curtain and show the journey behind the boss,
(01:04):
so how they got to where they are and the
stories behind their businesses. I'm going to bring on inspiring
guests and ask them all the questions that hopefully you
were wanting to hear the answers too. But along this journey,
keep in mind I am in no way a business expert.
I am here to come along the journey with you
and learn from them and take away all the information
(01:26):
that you guys will be dying for. We're going to
be talking to some of your favorite small business owners
and get the inside scoop on their business journeys before
I bring on any guests. I thought it was only
fair if I was going to ask my guests to
unpack their whole business journey, that I would do so myself.
So I'm going to take you through my own journey
and we can get to know each other a little
bit better. So let's go back to the start. It
(01:47):
must have been about twenty eighteen and I was working
as a practice manager at a physiotherapy company. While I
loved the job, it was just a little bit boring.
It was a little bit monotonous. I could finish my
work by eleven o'clock and then just kind of wasted
the day away. So I started to look for a
bit of a creative outlet and something that would challenge
(02:08):
me a bit more and I thought a good sight
hustle would be the way to go. I was looking
at what a couple of my friends were doing and
thought I could do that, and I could do it
while I'm working behind the desk at this physiotherapy company.
I know the boys knew that I was doing this
at the time, but I don't think they quite knew
(02:29):
just how big this little hobby was going to get.
So when it came to choosing a product, sunglasses were
definitely front of mind. When I was traveling through Europe,
I absolutely fell in love with the markets in Morocco
and Turkey. And keep in mind, before this I didn't
wear sunglasses, so this was kind of my introduction to
(02:50):
what sunglass could be, how they could make you feel.
It was almost like every time I put on a
different pair of sunglasses, I would have this new personality,
which is now I guess the basis of the business
A little thing I've not really told anyone, and I
would like to say maybe I'm the founder of this trend.
Is about five years ago. When I first thought up
(03:10):
this business and thought up the name board George, I
knew that I had to pitch the business to my parents.
I had to give them an idea of what I
was going to be doing, and so I created a
Microsoft PowerPoint. I actually still can't believe I did this.
That's now a full on trend on TikTok is to
pitch to your bosses through a PowerPoint, but I'm going
to say that I was the first to do it.
(03:31):
So after about six months of bringing in predesigned sunglasses,
I could see that my social media was growing. I
was really enjoying what I was doing, and it was
kind of getting a little bit bigger than I had imagined.
It still wasn't, you know, fully taking off or going viral,
but I knew that I had something in it. The
sunglasses that I was bringing in, I loved the styles
(03:52):
and I didn't like the quality, So I wanted to
produce some that I was one hundred percent happy with
selling to people. Started looking into manufacturers and the design process,
and I found a couple of manufacturers that were willing
to work with me and were willing to do a
lower minimum order quantity. For those who have businesses or
(04:12):
are starting businesses, you will know it's really hard to
find someone who will work within small quantities and once
you find that manufacturer that is willing to do it,
you've got to stick to them. And this one manufacturer
has now been with us for about four years. So
I designed my first two pairs of sunglasses. They were
called the Avery and the Miller, and the Avery absolutely
(04:33):
took off. We sold so many of the style, and
again I knew I had something here. Produce a pexie.
She's going to be sitting there and if you hear her,
you know, butting in. It's not just someone running in. Yeah, Christian,
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
To start a side hustle some here again in the
boat and something I'm so interested in. And I think
it's so intriguing. How do you come up with names products?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh no, you're gonna laugh at it's so bad. The
names of the products are the names of that I
like for my future children. That's so cute. I love that,
and it's so I remember it. So I have a
list of names that I love for kids or that
I've always loved, and then I name a pair of
Sunnis after it. And I thought that was a great
idea at the time, but now I think, imagine if
(05:25):
I pop out this beautiful girl and then I call
her miller. Am I always just going to think of
a metal rimmed, polarized pair of sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I have my notes, Zef, and you've got a whole
business dedicated to those baby names.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love it. I actually I've heard a couple of
brands who actually do the same thing. That's really cool.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That's a cool story.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But yeah, I think I am ruining those names for
myself in the long run. So once we had this
range of nine and I had one store, I wanted
to see if any other stores would be interested in
stocking us. So that's when I did some research into
the Auckland gift for Yeah, I think this is where
a lot of New Zealand or Auckland businesses get their start.
It's not the best trade show I've ever been to,
(06:07):
but it does the job, and it definitely did the
job for me. If I look back now at my
stand at my first trade show, it was so basic.
I think we had a black table, we had two
displays with my range of sunglasses on it, and I
had a hideous vinyl banner and back then my logo
used to be in a circle. Was so bad. But
that's where we started. My mom came to the trade
show every day with me, and she supported me, and
(06:30):
we met so many different stores, and we actually walked
away from that trade show with thirteen stores, which I
couldn't quite believe, my mom couldn't quite believe. And one
of those stores was a I guess you could say
chain store called Sales and Co. And they still to
this day are one of my biggest stockists. They put
me in six stores straight away, which I will always
(06:52):
be so grateful for.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
How important are those friends, family, those first stockersts for
you on this journey.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Honestly, the friends and family throughout those I was gonna
say throughout those first years, but actually even to this day,
friends and family are everything. I couldn't have gotten to
where I am without my family. Their support has been
so overwhelming. If I've gotten myself into some sort of trouble,
they have been there to help me, you know, find
my way through it. I call my mum basically every day,
(07:21):
whether my days been good or bad. So I guess
you could say she's a big part of the business
because she keeps my head stable, she keeps me sane.
I don't want to say you lose friends when you
start a business. You drift away, definitely, because there's nothing
they can relate to. There's nothing like starting a business
and you're twenty four hours in the day being consumed
(07:44):
by a shipment not coming in or you know, there's
just no way you can talk to someone who doesn't
own a business about that. So finding your small business
friends is so important, and to this day I have
the most incredible circle of business friends who are now
probably some of my best friends, to be honest. So
if we skip ahead, then from there, I left my
(08:06):
job in twenty twenty two to go full time in
my business, and I think my parents were still a
little bit apprehensive of this time. But I had just
bought a house with my boyfriend. We'd moved in together,
and I almost turned our home into a storage unit.
There was boxes in the kitchen, boxes in the dining room,
boxes in the lounge, in the spare room. The bigger
(08:28):
the business got, the more we lost our house to
the business, if that makes sense. And I found that
in that first year of working full time, it was
just me in the house. I wasn't seeing friends, My
head was down, and Jay would come from a home
from work. That's my partner, and he would feel super
(08:49):
overwhelmed with just how much I wanted to socialize, and
he just wanted to kind of decompress from the day
that he had. I started to look into a space.
So started to look into moving my business somewhere that
I could have a little bit more of a social
life and also maybe bump some ideas off of other people,
(09:11):
because it can get pretty lonely when you're just talking
about your business to yourself and you start to maybe
doubt that what you're doing is the right thing to do.
I think having other people in the room with you
is such an important factor to when you're coming up
with new ideas and new concepts. So I started looking
for a space. But in the meantime, I decided that
(09:34):
it was time that we made the move into Australia,
so myself and my friend who also owns a business,
we decided to look into the Life and Style Gift Fair.
I think it was day four. We'd had relatively good
success over these four days and we had the buyers
come to our stand from a store called Flow and Frankie,
and they are almost the goal store for a lot
(09:55):
of small businesses. It's like the dream of landing Flow
and Frankie and we had a really quick chat and
they said, yep, we're going to take your brand on board,
and they placed the order and they turned away, and
the whole interaction was about four to five minutes. So
I just absolutely melted to the floor. I just remember
bursting out crying, and it will always be one of
the core memories I from my small business because the
(10:19):
month before I had just been so stressful. I had
been doubting myself with these bigger companies, you know who
they are. You send out feelers here and there and
you don't get much back. And I think when I
landed this store, I was just in such an emotional state.
I just found my office that I'd signed onto, which
(10:39):
was a massive risk. From the whole trip to Australia,
I was thinking, have I screwed up here? Am I
making the wrong decision? Are we ready for this? When
this happened, it was almost like this massive sigh of
relief that everything I'd done leading up to that point
was right and that my gut was right and I
didn't need to doubt myself so much. Creating a relationship
with your store owners is the number one thing I
(11:00):
think One of the big differences is that you get
to show your personality and show your story, and it's
often quite hard to get that through email. Meeting people
in person, for me, is where I know I'm at
my strongest. If I ever have to get something done,
it's always meet that person face to face. And when
you run a business, to make your business grow and
(11:21):
to continue on the growth trajectory that you are, you've
got to reinvest everything, and sometimes reinvesting the money that
you're making means that you can't pay yourself. I said
to myself, I'm feeling like I'm not able to put
in as much money into our household as I was
wanting to. I didn't feel like I was pulling my weight,
and I know that me and my partner are a partnership. However,
(11:42):
I'm someone who really likes to do things for myself,
and so I made the hard decision in March to
go and get a cafe job so that I can
put that money back into the business to keep growing it.
I think that was a massive ego hit, and it
was a real hard thing to admit to myself and
admit to friends and family. I almost saw it as
a failure. Back then, when people would ask me what
(12:03):
I was doing, I'd kind of be like, oh, you know,
like I've I've went back and got a cafe job.
When I got into floor and Frankie and I got
into those eighteen stores. I quit the cafe job the
next week because I knew I was able to pay myself.
I was also going to need that space to pack
this order of six hundred Sunnies that just came through.
I did the right thing by getting a cafe job
(12:26):
and doing that all myself. I didn't have to ask
for help. And I look back now and I think
I was just thinking about people's perceptions of me too much.
I think how much is.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A part of business doing those things that you don't
want to do so much?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
And because I took on two days a week at
a cafe, it meant I'd get home from the cafe
at three thirty four and then I'd be working till
ten pm, eleven pm, twelve pm. You're kind of sacrificing
something at all times. You're either sacrificing time with your family,
time with your friends. I didn't go on a holiday
for five years, just been on our first holiday this year.
(12:59):
Because I have a staff member who can, you know,
manage the floor while I'm gone. When you get to
the point where you can do that holiday and you
can say, actually, I'm going to take a full weekend
off and not look at my laptop, it's a pretty
good feeling. I think I had three days without looking
at my laptop the other day and I was like, yeah,
I've made it. No. I would love to do it differently,
but I don't think i'd be where I am today
if I did it differently. If you want to get
(13:19):
where you are, you have to make sacrifices. I don't
think there's a way you can make the impact you
want to make it in business by working forty hours
a week and going out every night and you know,
saying yes to every single event. I think those sacrifices
led me to put in more time to build a
better website, to interview for the right people, to bring
on the right contractors. You know, before I hired a team,
(13:42):
I learned everything myself through Google. I learned how to
do Facebook ads, and you know, YouTube was my best friend,
and I wouldn't have had the time to do that
if I didn't make the sacrifices I made.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And how important in business is that not looking back
and just moving forward. Like if something bad goes wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
If something bad goes wrong all the time, every day,
every day, something goes wrong. Failure in business is inevitable,
and if you dwell on those failures, you're gonna go
down into this little hole that you're not gonna be
able to come out of. I think you can have
a quick ten minute cry and then you've got to
move on and you've got to fix it. That's probably
one of the most important lessons I've learned is when
(14:20):
something goes wrong, it's just straight into action mode. How
do I fix this? How do I make it better?
And then you learn from that mistake next time. It's
just the small things. When you do that fuck up
and you think to yourself, how the fuck did I
do that, it's then just straight into how do I
not do it next time? And I think the people
that dwell on those mistakes are the people that this
is harsh but probably won't make it through. That's really mean.
(14:41):
But all the people I know who have successful businesses
have this way to just move forward. And do you
think that's a mentality you can change definitely. I think
when I first started, I would dwell on all the mistakes.
If I wasted five hundred dollars back then, I'd be like,
oh my god, the world is over. But now you
waste five grand and you go, oh well, never gonna
see that again. Oh my, make a couple more mistakes
and then hopefully one was not going to be a mistake,
(15:03):
and I'll make that five grand back time six. You've
got to make these mistakes to find the thing that works,
and then when you find that thing that works, it's
going to make up for all those mistakes.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Oh my gosh, I'm learning so much.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I'm glad it could be of service. So if we
fast forward today, that's five years in business. We just
had our fifth birthday. We're now in over ninety stores
New Zealand and Australia wide, which is just crazy. We
have this massive retail side of our business with our wholesalers,
and I wanted to make sure that we were getting
the brand awareness out there that both they deserve and
also we deserve as well. So brand awareness and online
(15:36):
sales have been a massive part of the business and
because of that, we actually now have a team we
have an employee, one employee and three contractors. So little
of me five years ago wouldn't think that I'd be
managing any sort of stuff, But here we are.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
How daunting has been like oh, well, I need to
employ someone I'm going to have to interview, Like how
do I do that?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Absolutely crazy? So I started off with contractor. So my
first contractor was actually a PR agent. The money each
month for that PR agent I was like, oh my god,
this is so much money. She's been one of the
best decisions I've made to date, and I think that
was a big learning as when you invest into staff,
they invest into your business. From then, I got Brier
who does my ads. She does all my meta Facebook
(16:19):
Google ads. We now have Jess on board who does
all of our marketing, email marketing, Clavio, everything along the
lines of that. And I also have a part timer
who does everything packing and is more of like a
little assistant to me. I started her off as an intern.
So I looked at Auckland UNI and I reached out
through all my socials and I found somebody who was
(16:40):
super keen to work and turns out she had followed
the business since the day we launched, so she knew
everything inside out. And yeah, it's just been fantastic to
find these people that love the business as much as
I do. I think that's that's a real key.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So as part of the Board to Boss podcast is
getting listener and interaction questions on because I think so
much of a business as you know, that consumer, the
person that's purchasing your product or your service. So we've
reached out to people that know your business and want
to hear a little bit more about your story, and
they've got some questions. So the first one is where
(17:20):
does the name bored George actually come from?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
This is a good one. I get asked this all
the time. It's a name that definitely captures a lot
of attention, especially from this is really weird but middle
aged men. Honestly, they see on the side of my
car and at the supermarket I get stopped weekly and
they go, what is bored George? So it actually comes
from a travel blog I wrote back when I was
traveling through Europe. I wanted a way to kind of
(17:44):
keep track of what I'd done and also keep my
family up to date with my travel escapades, and I
called that travel blog not so bored George. So when
it came to naming my business, it just kind of
made sense to take the not so off and leave
it as board George. But it's now pretty ironic. A
(18:04):
lot of people say you've made the mistake there because
you're no longer bored, But I think it kind of
shows the place I was at when I started the business,
like I really was looking for something to keep me busy,
and it's definitely done that.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
So obviously, like societal expectations, everyone thinks, you know, go
to UNI and get a good job. How did you
learn all of this business jargon lingo, how to do things?
Did you study or did you find your own path?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So I applied for university after high school. I think
I applied for Auckland you need to do a spatial
design course because I always wanted to do fashion, but
last minute decided no, I think in terry design will
be the way to go, And I applied and I
got rejected. So I didn't get into university, which to
this day I'm still like what it was a bit
(18:50):
of an eye opener. I think I was the only
one out of my maybe group of ten girls that
didn't get into UNI. I had to think, well, where
am I going to go from here? And I found
a interior design correspondence course to do while I also
had a part time job. So I did that, got
the course done in about eight months, and still felt
extremely lost. I think there's this expectation in high school
(19:13):
to know what you want to do straight off the bat,
and I was always so jealous of those people who
knew what they wanted to do. My sister knew she
wouldn't wanted to be a primary school teacher from the
day she was born. She just knew, and I never ever,
ever had a definitive career path. And once I finished
this course, I thought, I still don't know what I
want to do. I don't want to go to university
(19:35):
and spend all this money and hate it, and I
have a really short attention span. I decided to go
to London. It was a real quick decision. I think
I was gone in two months. My mum also moved
when she was nineteens. She knew what I was getting
myself into. When I moved back and started the business,
I still hadn't been to UNI, but I had this
drive to educate myself and that's when Google and YouTube
(19:58):
became my best friend. I spent hours and hours every
evening googling how to build a Shopify store, how to
read profit and loss statements, how to market online, how
to build an Instagram, how to grow followers, how to
get consumers, and I still do it to this day.
If I don't know something, I will go and watch
(20:20):
twenty YouTube videos and pull the information I find from
each video, and yeah, implement it and see what works.
I don't think UNI is a must. There's definitely pros
and cons, but it depends on how you learn, and
I'm just not a learner who can sit there for
three hours and listen. I have to do stuff and
I have to be active and do it in my
own time. So it depends on where you want to
(20:41):
go and what you want to do. But I don't
think it's a must.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
We talked about one of your biggest pinch me moments
being flown Franky and landing that deal. Is there another
one that stands out for you?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Probably a second business pinch me moment which isn't directly
tied to my business. Landing this podcast. Honestly, I was
so so excited. I don't think i've been that excited
in a long time. I was in the doctor's practice.
I got the call and I was just like jumping
up and down. These people must have thought I was
a psycho.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You've got a story to tell and what has been
the most tough moment so far, and that you're so
proud that you've pushed through.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Probably as I lightly touched on earlier, not being able
to pay yourself what you thought you were going to
be able to pay yourself going full time and taking
that hit to your ego of oh god, maybe this
isn't as good as I thought, or maybe I'm not
doing the right thing. I think pushing through that, getting
that cafe job, putting the money back in the business,
that was a real hard time, and we owned a home.
(21:41):
Everything I did was putting that on the line, you know,
like we have financial commitments we have to make every
single week, and I'm half of that financial commitment. And
if I'm not pulling my weight, it's really scary.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And what does boor George look like in five years?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's a hard one. I would love it to be
a you know, flourishing business and Australia and somewhere internationally,
and I would love it to just be able to
be my stability. Yes, having a massive business would be incredible,
and you know that's the dream. But what I get
out of the business is why I do it, Like
I get the flexibility, I get, the networking, the friendships,
(22:21):
the personal growth, the employees. I get to run a
business how I could have only dreamed my old bosses
ran a business. I think that's the bit I love
the most. So, you know, the bigger the business gets,
the more stability I'm going to find within myself. Hopefully.
Of course it's going to be stressful and it's going
to be a lot. I think I just want to
be happy in the business. That's so cheesy, and I'm
not a cheesy person, Oh my god, No.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that. I think when people think business, they
think money, right, they think finances. To see that you
are doing it for personal growth and to meet people
is just such an eye opener. It opens up a
whole new side of business.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Honestly, being in business has been the eye opener. There's
just such a world out there. I'm a completely different
now then when I started. Honestly, I would never have
sat here when talked on a microphone, but Honestly, if
I could encourage one person to do it and they
do it, then I've done my job.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
And how have you kept going for five years?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Honestly just the love for what I do. Lots of
people are like, oh my gosh, you must have this
wild obsession with sunglasses, and I do, like I have
twenty five peers sitting in my car so I can
pick a different pair with each outfit. But that's not
the reason why I keep going. The reason is because
my partner works weird hours, and the flexibility I get
in my business now is I can actually see him
when I want, We can go on trips when we want,
(23:35):
I can hire the people that I want that I
can surround myself with have these friends that are so
smart and so inspiring, and I don't think any of
that would have happened if I was working for someone else. So, yeah,
I love sunglasses, but I also love the life the
business brings me. I think. What I say to wrap
up the episode is that the guests I have coming
on are all guests that we might see on social
(23:56):
media that are growing businesses, and what I hope to
get from this podcast is the behind the scenes of
that journey, maybe the things that they haven't talked about
on social media, being able to get to know them
a little bit better, get to know what they've been
through and where they are now, and learn a lot.
I'll give you all a little bit of a hids
up that I'm not coming into this as the absolute
be or know all of business. I am in no
(24:18):
way an expert, in no way a coach, in no
way anything along the lines of that. I am here
along the ride with you, and I'm going to learn
things with you, and hopefully that can be the questions
that you guys want to hear and the stories that
you guys want to hear. I'm just as excited to
take away some learnings and some things that I can
put into my business. So I hope that the people
(24:40):
coming on this podcast star just as inspiring to you
as they are to me. Thanks for listening. Boor DeVos
is a z M podcast for iHeartRadio with me Georgia Patten.
This episode was produced by Pixi Copperrel, engineered by me
tut and Call It with production help from Sam Harvey.
If you like to hit subscribe to get notified whenever
(25:02):
we release a new episode, Listen every Tuesday on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and make your business
idea a reality.
From ZM and iHeartRadio. It's Bored to Boss, Real stories
of how to navigate starting your own business with me
Georgia Patton, Welcome, Welcome to the Bored George Podcast. I
cannot believe we finally here and recording episode one. I
(00:21):
also can't explain just how nervous I am to be
recording this podcast. Although I'm putting my face all over
social media all the time, I feel like this is
opening myself and my business up to a whole new audience,
and that does make me a little bit nervous to
get a little bit of extra criticism. But for now,
I Am going to brush aside all of that nervousness
(00:41):
that I'm feeling inside and get episode number one underway.
I'm Georgia, i am the CEO of Bored George Sunglasses,
and I'm the host of Board to Boss. So what
is Bored to Boss about in a world where social
media glamorizes all of the prose of being an entrepreneur?
To unveil the curtain and show the journey behind the boss,
(01:04):
so how they got to where they are and the
stories behind their businesses. I'm going to bring on inspiring
guests and ask them all the questions that hopefully you
were wanting to hear the answers too. But along this journey,
keep in mind I am in no way a business expert.
I am here to come along the journey with you
and learn from them and take away all the information
(01:26):
that you guys will be dying for. We're going to
be talking to some of your favorite small business owners
and get the inside scoop on their business journeys before
I bring on any guests. I thought it was only
fair if I was going to ask my guests to
unpack their whole business journey, that I would do so myself.
So I'm going to take you through my own journey
and we can get to know each other a little
bit better. So let's go back to the start. It
(01:47):
must have been about twenty eighteen and I was working
as a practice manager at a physiotherapy company. While I
loved the job, it was just a little bit boring.
It was a little bit monotonous. I could finish my
work by eleven o'clock and then just kind of wasted
the day away. So I started to look for a
bit of a creative outlet and something that would challenge
(02:08):
me a bit more and I thought a good sight
hustle would be the way to go. I was looking
at what a couple of my friends were doing and
thought I could do that, and I could do it
while I'm working behind the desk at this physiotherapy company.
I know the boys knew that I was doing this
at the time, but I don't think they quite knew
(02:29):
just how big this little hobby was going to get.
So when it came to choosing a product, sunglasses were
definitely front of mind. When I was traveling through Europe,
I absolutely fell in love with the markets in Morocco
and Turkey. And keep in mind, before this I didn't
wear sunglasses, so this was kind of my introduction to
(02:50):
what sunglass could be, how they could make you feel.
It was almost like every time I put on a
different pair of sunglasses, I would have this new personality,
which is now I guess the basis of the business
A little thing I've not really told anyone, and I
would like to say maybe I'm the founder of this trend.
Is about five years ago. When I first thought up
(03:10):
this business and thought up the name board George, I
knew that I had to pitch the business to my parents.
I had to give them an idea of what I
was going to be doing, and so I created a
Microsoft PowerPoint. I actually still can't believe I did this.
That's now a full on trend on TikTok is to
pitch to your bosses through a PowerPoint, but I'm going
to say that I was the first to do it.
(03:31):
So after about six months of bringing in predesigned sunglasses,
I could see that my social media was growing. I
was really enjoying what I was doing, and it was
kind of getting a little bit bigger than I had imagined.
It still wasn't, you know, fully taking off or going viral,
but I knew that I had something in it. The
sunglasses that I was bringing in, I loved the styles
(03:52):
and I didn't like the quality, So I wanted to
produce some that I was one hundred percent happy with
selling to people. Started looking into manufacturers and the design process,
and I found a couple of manufacturers that were willing
to work with me and were willing to do a
lower minimum order quantity. For those who have businesses or
(04:12):
are starting businesses, you will know it's really hard to
find someone who will work within small quantities and once
you find that manufacturer that is willing to do it,
you've got to stick to them. And this one manufacturer
has now been with us for about four years. So
I designed my first two pairs of sunglasses. They were
called the Avery and the Miller, and the Avery absolutely
(04:33):
took off. We sold so many of the style, and
again I knew I had something here. Produce a pexie.
She's going to be sitting there and if you hear her,
you know, butting in. It's not just someone running in. Yeah, Christian,
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
To start a side hustle some here again in the
boat and something I'm so interested in. And I think
it's so intriguing. How do you come up with names products?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh no, you're gonna laugh at it's so bad. The
names of the products are the names of that I
like for my future children. That's so cute. I love that,
and it's so I remember it. So I have a
list of names that I love for kids or that
I've always loved, and then I name a pair of
Sunnis after it. And I thought that was a great
idea at the time, but now I think, imagine if
(05:25):
I pop out this beautiful girl and then I call
her miller. Am I always just going to think of
a metal rimmed, polarized pair of sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I have my notes, Zef, and you've got a whole
business dedicated to those baby names.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love it. I actually I've heard a couple of
brands who actually do the same thing. That's really cool.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That's a cool story.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But yeah, I think I am ruining those names for
myself in the long run. So once we had this
range of nine and I had one store, I wanted
to see if any other stores would be interested in
stocking us. So that's when I did some research into
the Auckland gift for Yeah, I think this is where
a lot of New Zealand or Auckland businesses get their start.
It's not the best trade show I've ever been to,
(06:07):
but it does the job, and it definitely did the
job for me. If I look back now at my
stand at my first trade show, it was so basic.
I think we had a black table, we had two
displays with my range of sunglasses on it, and I
had a hideous vinyl banner and back then my logo
used to be in a circle. Was so bad. But
that's where we started. My mom came to the trade
show every day with me, and she supported me, and
(06:30):
we met so many different stores, and we actually walked
away from that trade show with thirteen stores, which I
couldn't quite believe, my mom couldn't quite believe. And one
of those stores was a I guess you could say
chain store called Sales and Co. And they still to
this day are one of my biggest stockists. They put
me in six stores straight away, which I will always
(06:52):
be so grateful for.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
How important are those friends, family, those first stockersts for
you on this journey.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Honestly, the friends and family throughout those I was gonna
say throughout those first years, but actually even to this day,
friends and family are everything. I couldn't have gotten to
where I am without my family. Their support has been
so overwhelming. If I've gotten myself into some sort of trouble,
they have been there to help me, you know, find
my way through it. I call my mum basically every day,
(07:21):
whether my days been good or bad. So I guess
you could say she's a big part of the business
because she keeps my head stable, she keeps me sane.
I don't want to say you lose friends when you
start a business. You drift away, definitely, because there's nothing
they can relate to. There's nothing like starting a business
and you're twenty four hours in the day being consumed
(07:44):
by a shipment not coming in or you know, there's
just no way you can talk to someone who doesn't
own a business about that. So finding your small business
friends is so important, and to this day I have
the most incredible circle of business friends who are now
probably some of my best friends, to be honest. So
if we skip ahead, then from there, I left my
(08:06):
job in twenty twenty two to go full time in
my business, and I think my parents were still a
little bit apprehensive of this time. But I had just
bought a house with my boyfriend. We'd moved in together,
and I almost turned our home into a storage unit.
There was boxes in the kitchen, boxes in the dining room,
boxes in the lounge, in the spare room. The bigger
(08:28):
the business got, the more we lost our house to
the business, if that makes sense. And I found that
in that first year of working full time, it was
just me in the house. I wasn't seeing friends, My
head was down, and Jay would come from a home
from work. That's my partner, and he would feel super
(08:49):
overwhelmed with just how much I wanted to socialize, and
he just wanted to kind of decompress from the day
that he had. I started to look into a space.
So started to look into moving my business somewhere that
I could have a little bit more of a social
life and also maybe bump some ideas off of other people,
(09:11):
because it can get pretty lonely when you're just talking
about your business to yourself and you start to maybe
doubt that what you're doing is the right thing to do.
I think having other people in the room with you
is such an important factor to when you're coming up
with new ideas and new concepts. So I started looking
for a space. But in the meantime, I decided that
(09:34):
it was time that we made the move into Australia,
so myself and my friend who also owns a business,
we decided to look into the Life and Style Gift Fair.
I think it was day four. We'd had relatively good
success over these four days and we had the buyers
come to our stand from a store called Flow and Frankie,
and they are almost the goal store for a lot
(09:55):
of small businesses. It's like the dream of landing Flow
and Frankie and we had a really quick chat and
they said, yep, we're going to take your brand on board,
and they placed the order and they turned away, and
the whole interaction was about four to five minutes. So
I just absolutely melted to the floor. I just remember
bursting out crying, and it will always be one of
the core memories I from my small business because the
(10:19):
month before I had just been so stressful. I had
been doubting myself with these bigger companies, you know who
they are. You send out feelers here and there and
you don't get much back. And I think when I
landed this store, I was just in such an emotional state.
I just found my office that I'd signed onto, which
(10:39):
was a massive risk. From the whole trip to Australia,
I was thinking, have I screwed up here? Am I
making the wrong decision? Are we ready for this? When
this happened, it was almost like this massive sigh of
relief that everything I'd done leading up to that point
was right and that my gut was right and I
didn't need to doubt myself so much. Creating a relationship
with your store owners is the number one thing I
(11:00):
think One of the big differences is that you get
to show your personality and show your story, and it's
often quite hard to get that through email. Meeting people
in person, for me, is where I know I'm at
my strongest. If I ever have to get something done,
it's always meet that person face to face. And when
you run a business, to make your business grow and
(11:21):
to continue on the growth trajectory that you are, you've
got to reinvest everything, and sometimes reinvesting the money that
you're making means that you can't pay yourself. I said
to myself, I'm feeling like I'm not able to put
in as much money into our household as I was
wanting to. I didn't feel like I was pulling my weight,
and I know that me and my partner are a partnership. However,
(11:42):
I'm someone who really likes to do things for myself,
and so I made the hard decision in March to
go and get a cafe job so that I can
put that money back into the business to keep growing it.
I think that was a massive ego hit, and it
was a real hard thing to admit to myself and
admit to friends and family. I almost saw it as
a failure. Back then, when people would ask me what
(12:03):
I was doing, I'd kind of be like, oh, you know,
like I've I've went back and got a cafe job.
When I got into floor and Frankie and I got
into those eighteen stores. I quit the cafe job the
next week because I knew I was able to pay myself.
I was also going to need that space to pack
this order of six hundred Sunnies that just came through.
I did the right thing by getting a cafe job
(12:26):
and doing that all myself. I didn't have to ask
for help. And I look back now and I think
I was just thinking about people's perceptions of me too much.
I think how much is.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A part of business doing those things that you don't
want to do so much?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
And because I took on two days a week at
a cafe, it meant I'd get home from the cafe
at three thirty four and then I'd be working till
ten pm, eleven pm, twelve pm. You're kind of sacrificing
something at all times. You're either sacrificing time with your family,
time with your friends. I didn't go on a holiday
for five years, just been on our first holiday this year.
(12:59):
Because I have a staff member who can, you know,
manage the floor while I'm gone. When you get to
the point where you can do that holiday and you
can say, actually, I'm going to take a full weekend
off and not look at my laptop, it's a pretty
good feeling. I think I had three days without looking
at my laptop the other day and I was like, yeah,
I've made it. No. I would love to do it differently,
but I don't think i'd be where I am today
if I did it differently. If you want to get
(13:19):
where you are, you have to make sacrifices. I don't
think there's a way you can make the impact you
want to make it in business by working forty hours
a week and going out every night and you know,
saying yes to every single event. I think those sacrifices
led me to put in more time to build a
better website, to interview for the right people, to bring
on the right contractors. You know, before I hired a team,
(13:42):
I learned everything myself through Google. I learned how to
do Facebook ads, and you know, YouTube was my best friend,
and I wouldn't have had the time to do that
if I didn't make the sacrifices I made.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And how important in business is that not looking back
and just moving forward. Like if something bad goes wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
If something bad goes wrong all the time, every day,
every day, something goes wrong. Failure in business is inevitable,
and if you dwell on those failures, you're gonna go
down into this little hole that you're not gonna be
able to come out of. I think you can have
a quick ten minute cry and then you've got to
move on and you've got to fix it. That's probably
one of the most important lessons I've learned is when
(14:20):
something goes wrong, it's just straight into action mode. How
do I fix this? How do I make it better?
And then you learn from that mistake next time. It's
just the small things. When you do that fuck up
and you think to yourself, how the fuck did I
do that, it's then just straight into how do I
not do it next time? And I think the people
that dwell on those mistakes are the people that this
is harsh but probably won't make it through. That's really mean.
(14:41):
But all the people I know who have successful businesses
have this way to just move forward. And do you
think that's a mentality you can change definitely. I think
when I first started, I would dwell on all the mistakes.
If I wasted five hundred dollars back then, I'd be like,
oh my god, the world is over. But now you
waste five grand and you go, oh well, never gonna
see that again. Oh my, make a couple more mistakes
and then hopefully one was not going to be a mistake,
(15:03):
and I'll make that five grand back time six. You've
got to make these mistakes to find the thing that works,
and then when you find that thing that works, it's
going to make up for all those mistakes.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Oh my gosh, I'm learning so much.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I'm glad it could be of service. So if we
fast forward today, that's five years in business. We just
had our fifth birthday. We're now in over ninety stores
New Zealand and Australia wide, which is just crazy. We
have this massive retail side of our business with our wholesalers,
and I wanted to make sure that we were getting
the brand awareness out there that both they deserve and
also we deserve as well. So brand awareness and online
(15:36):
sales have been a massive part of the business and
because of that, we actually now have a team we
have an employee, one employee and three contractors. So little
of me five years ago wouldn't think that I'd be
managing any sort of stuff, But here we are.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
How daunting has been like oh, well, I need to
employ someone I'm going to have to interview, Like how
do I do that?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Absolutely crazy? So I started off with contractor. So my
first contractor was actually a PR agent. The money each
month for that PR agent I was like, oh my god,
this is so much money. She's been one of the
best decisions I've made to date, and I think that
was a big learning as when you invest into staff,
they invest into your business. From then, I got Brier
who does my ads. She does all my meta Facebook
(16:19):
Google ads. We now have Jess on board who does
all of our marketing, email marketing, Clavio, everything along the
lines of that. And I also have a part timer
who does everything packing and is more of like a
little assistant to me. I started her off as an intern.
So I looked at Auckland UNI and I reached out
through all my socials and I found somebody who was
(16:40):
super keen to work and turns out she had followed
the business since the day we launched, so she knew
everything inside out. And yeah, it's just been fantastic to
find these people that love the business as much as
I do. I think that's that's a real key.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So as part of the Board to Boss podcast is
getting listener and interaction questions on because I think so
much of a business as you know, that consumer, the
person that's purchasing your product or your service. So we've
reached out to people that know your business and want
to hear a little bit more about your story, and
they've got some questions. So the first one is where
(17:20):
does the name bored George actually come from?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
This is a good one. I get asked this all
the time. It's a name that definitely captures a lot
of attention, especially from this is really weird but middle
aged men. Honestly, they see on the side of my
car and at the supermarket I get stopped weekly and
they go, what is bored George? So it actually comes
from a travel blog I wrote back when I was
traveling through Europe. I wanted a way to kind of
(17:44):
keep track of what I'd done and also keep my
family up to date with my travel escapades, and I
called that travel blog not so bored George. So when
it came to naming my business, it just kind of
made sense to take the not so off and leave
it as board George. But it's now pretty ironic. A
(18:04):
lot of people say you've made the mistake there because
you're no longer bored, But I think it kind of
shows the place I was at when I started the business,
like I really was looking for something to keep me busy,
and it's definitely done that.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
So obviously, like societal expectations, everyone thinks, you know, go
to UNI and get a good job. How did you
learn all of this business jargon lingo, how to do things?
Did you study or did you find your own path?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So I applied for university after high school. I think
I applied for Auckland you need to do a spatial
design course because I always wanted to do fashion, but
last minute decided no, I think in terry design will
be the way to go, And I applied and I
got rejected. So I didn't get into university, which to
this day I'm still like what it was a bit
(18:50):
of an eye opener. I think I was the only
one out of my maybe group of ten girls that
didn't get into UNI. I had to think, well, where
am I going to go from here? And I found
a interior design correspondence course to do while I also
had a part time job. So I did that, got
the course done in about eight months, and still felt
extremely lost. I think there's this expectation in high school
(19:13):
to know what you want to do straight off the bat,
and I was always so jealous of those people who
knew what they wanted to do. My sister knew she
wouldn't wanted to be a primary school teacher from the
day she was born. She just knew, and I never ever,
ever had a definitive career path. And once I finished
this course, I thought, I still don't know what I
want to do. I don't want to go to university
(19:35):
and spend all this money and hate it, and I
have a really short attention span. I decided to go
to London. It was a real quick decision. I think
I was gone in two months. My mum also moved
when she was nineteens. She knew what I was getting
myself into. When I moved back and started the business,
I still hadn't been to UNI, but I had this
drive to educate myself and that's when Google and YouTube
(19:58):
became my best friend. I spent hours and hours every
evening googling how to build a Shopify store, how to
read profit and loss statements, how to market online, how
to build an Instagram, how to grow followers, how to
get consumers, and I still do it to this day.
If I don't know something, I will go and watch
(20:20):
twenty YouTube videos and pull the information I find from
each video, and yeah, implement it and see what works.
I don't think UNI is a must. There's definitely pros
and cons, but it depends on how you learn, and
I'm just not a learner who can sit there for
three hours and listen. I have to do stuff and
I have to be active and do it in my
own time. So it depends on where you want to
(20:41):
go and what you want to do. But I don't
think it's a must.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
We talked about one of your biggest pinch me moments
being flown Franky and landing that deal. Is there another
one that stands out for you?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Probably a second business pinch me moment which isn't directly
tied to my business. Landing this podcast. Honestly, I was
so so excited. I don't think i've been that excited
in a long time. I was in the doctor's practice.
I got the call and I was just like jumping
up and down. These people must have thought I was
a psycho.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You've got a story to tell and what has been
the most tough moment so far, and that you're so
proud that you've pushed through.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Probably as I lightly touched on earlier, not being able
to pay yourself what you thought you were going to
be able to pay yourself going full time and taking
that hit to your ego of oh god, maybe this
isn't as good as I thought, or maybe I'm not
doing the right thing. I think pushing through that, getting
that cafe job, putting the money back in the business,
that was a real hard time, and we owned a home.
(21:41):
Everything I did was putting that on the line, you know,
like we have financial commitments we have to make every
single week, and I'm half of that financial commitment. And
if I'm not pulling my weight, it's really scary.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And what does boor George look like in five years?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's a hard one. I would love it to be
a you know, flourishing business and Australia and somewhere internationally,
and I would love it to just be able to
be my stability. Yes, having a massive business would be incredible,
and you know that's the dream. But what I get
out of the business is why I do it, Like
I get the flexibility, I get, the networking, the friendships,
(22:21):
the personal growth, the employees. I get to run a
business how I could have only dreamed my old bosses
ran a business. I think that's the bit I love
the most. So, you know, the bigger the business gets,
the more stability I'm going to find within myself. Hopefully.
Of course it's going to be stressful and it's going
to be a lot. I think I just want to
be happy in the business. That's so cheesy, and I'm
not a cheesy person, Oh my god, No.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that. I think when people think business, they
think money, right, they think finances. To see that you
are doing it for personal growth and to meet people
is just such an eye opener. It opens up a
whole new side of business.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Honestly, being in business has been the eye opener. There's
just such a world out there. I'm a completely different
now then when I started. Honestly, I would never have
sat here when talked on a microphone, but Honestly, if
I could encourage one person to do it and they
do it, then I've done my job.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
And how have you kept going for five years?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Honestly just the love for what I do. Lots of
people are like, oh my gosh, you must have this
wild obsession with sunglasses, and I do, like I have
twenty five peers sitting in my car so I can
pick a different pair with each outfit. But that's not
the reason why I keep going. The reason is because
my partner works weird hours, and the flexibility I get
in my business now is I can actually see him
when I want, We can go on trips when we want,
(23:35):
I can hire the people that I want that I
can surround myself with have these friends that are so
smart and so inspiring, and I don't think any of
that would have happened if I was working for someone else. So, yeah,
I love sunglasses, but I also love the life the
business brings me. I think. What I say to wrap
up the episode is that the guests I have coming
on are all guests that we might see on social
(23:56):
media that are growing businesses, and what I hope to
get from this podcast is the behind the scenes of
that journey, maybe the things that they haven't talked about
on social media, being able to get to know them
a little bit better, get to know what they've been
through and where they are now, and learn a lot.
I'll give you all a little bit of a hids
up that I'm not coming into this as the absolute
be or know all of business. I am in no
(24:18):
way an expert, in no way a coach, in no
way anything along the lines of that. I am here
along the ride with you, and I'm going to learn
things with you, and hopefully that can be the questions
that you guys want to hear and the stories that
you guys want to hear. I'm just as excited to
take away some learnings and some things that I can
put into my business. So I hope that the people
(24:40):
coming on this podcast star just as inspiring to you
as they are to me. Thanks for listening. Boor DeVos
is a z M podcast for iHeartRadio with me Georgia Patten.
This episode was produced by Pixi Copperrel, engineered by me
tut and Call It with production help from Sam Harvey.
If you like to hit subscribe to get notified whenever
(25:02):
we release a new episode, Listen every Tuesday on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and make your business
idea a reality.
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