This post is a quick grab of a few interesting details from a short television report on Australian mums starting up successful online Internet businesses. The report was aired on A Current Affair on Channel 9 here in Sydney, Australia in December 2007.
Online Businesses List
EnviroTrend
- Eco-friendly designer supermarket shopping bags. (The type that replace the plastic bags)
- AU$4-6 each
- Selling 3000 per week at A$4 each.
- This sounds very high, assuming most customers buy 6 at one time this equates to 500 new customers per week.
Find a Baby Sitter
- Directory for people finding baby sitters.
- A kind of market (buyers and sellers) driven portal based around a specific service, babysitting in this case.
- Customisation is in the area of data modelling the service, the enquire and the rating of service, etc.
- A$500,000 was mentioned in the report and implied that it was the revenue.
HuggALugs
- Arm and leg warmers for toddlers.
- Price point: A$17 each.
- Making A$250,000 per year.
- Selling in 47 countries around the world
Fertile Mind
- Belly Belt product. (Elastic strip that connects the top of the fly on women's pants).
- Started in 1997
- Multi-million dollar company
- Advice from founders: To think long term.
- The fertile mind web site is visually very neat looking, relaxing to the eye and certainly aimed at a female audience.
Tips From The Founders
- Do what you love (Laugh each day)
- Invest in the right technology
- Partner up (Business advisor)
- Plan around your kids
Common Themes
- Founders where after a businesses they could balance with their lifestyle (families).
- All selling product online that can be:-
- Posted easily. (Weight and volume low, therefore postage is low price)
- Does not require any government classification in any country.
- Price point is approximately AU$30 and under. (Buying decision is not too hard)
- Could use both Australian and overseas manufacturing sources. (Therefore provides scaling from small quantity to larger quantity).
- All largely focused on export / overseas markets.
- Those selling body apparel are not constrained by any sizing complexities.
- All have good looking web sites, therefore excellent first impression.
Congratulations to all the founders on their success so far and I wish them lots more in the future. :)