Key Takeaways
- Why purpose can become one of your greatest competitive advantages.
- How to build an authentic brand that customers genuinely love.
- The importance of redefining success beyong revenue
- Why taking calculated risks often leads to the biggest opportunities.
- How joy became the foundation of the Merry People brand.

Topics Covered
Entrepreneurship
Purpose-Driven Business
Brand Building
Leadership
Customer Experience
Retail
Women in Business
Founder Stories

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 1 DANI PEARCE MERRY PEOPLE

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3 seconds

Hello everyone and welcome to Flower Press My name's Courtney Ray and I'm the founder of Daily Blooms In this episode we chat with the extraordinary Dani Pearce

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13 seconds

CEO and founder of Merry People a Melbourne born brand reinventing gumboots with style comfort and joy

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20 seconds

Okay Dani hi Hey Courtney I would love it if we could start with you just telling us a little bit about Merry People

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28 seconds

Absolutely So I started Merry People in 2014 and we are known as a gumboot company

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36 seconds

that sell mostly colourful gumboots online Thank you And yeah we also do some other products So we do sandals clogs

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45 seconds

socks but predominantly known for the gumboots And yeah I'd say a brand known for colour and joy as well

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54 seconds

Yeah Beautiful So when I was doing some research for this video today it struck me that we actually have a sort of similar background or path

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1 minute, 3 seconds

that led us here So I think from what I understand you grew up on a farm as did I And then we both moved into the city

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1 minute, 13 seconds

for our corporate girl careers like our sensible careers And then we both ended up starting businesses in 2014

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1 minute, 20 seconds

Yes Can you tell us a little bit about those early days and what that transition was like and how it all started So I probably never

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1 minute, 27 seconds

thought I would start a business I didn't really know I would have a view of what I wanted to do even in my career

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1 minute, 34 seconds

And it's like I'm just going to work this out as I go And yeah moved to Melbourne I was working hospitality

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1 minute, 41 seconds

call centre jobs And I was studying I was doing an arts degree at Monash but still very unsure

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1 minute, 49 seconds

of what my pathway would be The very first time I thought about Merry People was well not Merry People but the gumboot kind of concept Yeah

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1 minute, 56 seconds

I was going to a festival Merideth in the country And my friends were either buying really expensive

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2 minutes, 4 seconds

like Burberry or the tall Hunter boots which Hunter weren't doing ankle boots at the time And ecom wasn't really a thing either at the time

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2 minutes, 12 seconds

Most people were buying on eBay and those sorts of things So physically walking into a store Yes Yes Yeah Yeah So yeah

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2 minutes, 20 seconds

there weren't any ankle gumboots And I remember thinking like Havianas were having a really big moment And I thought yeah there needs to be a

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2 minutes, 30 seconds

really great gumboot I hope someone creates a really great gumboot one day And that was the very first time I thought of it And that was the early twenties just trying to pass uni

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and pay my rent and like not really thinking of starting a business And then yeah in my late twenties

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uh working at ANZ and I'd kind of climb the corporate ladder a little bit there And yeah I was like there has to be more to life than making money and like going home

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and doing all the things on the weekend and after work And I was like I wanted to feel more passion and feel more creative day to day

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3 minutes, 3 seconds

And I felt like I'd lost that spark as well in me And that's a little bit of where the name came from But um yeah I was like I just had this idea

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3 minutes, 11 seconds

and I thought I'll just see it wasn't like I'm going to start this big business I was like I just want to see if I can get this product which is in my mind

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3 minutes, 19 seconds

I want to see if I can bring it to life So that was just the first start like first step I mean so many of those things hit home to me What I say

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3 minutes, 27 seconds

to my kids now is you've got to love what you do Work takes up so much of your life that you want to jump out

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of bed every day and maybe not every day because you know we've all got those days where that is a nightmare but you want to love like fundamentally

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if you don't love what you do what's the point So can you tell me a little bit about once

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3 minutes, 48 seconds

you had the boots made which I don't even know how you managed that but that's what were those early days Like how did you actually like

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3 minutes, 57 seconds

do you remember selling your first pair Uh yes I I tried to get them made in Australia

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and I couldn't get them made here And so yeah I flew to China by myself and I just had these sketches that I'd got a friend to help me with

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Wow And um and I'd been I'd had some Skype meetings back then with some factories

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So I had some meetings booked and I remember my very first meeting and I came back to my hotel and I just had this

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4 minutes, 26 seconds

overwhelming feeling of whoa like you've never done this before This is going to be all your money

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Like it was probably around 70 000 USD on like molds first order tooling equipment like

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cause you've got to do minimum orders Um so it was yeah a lot of risk And I remember just going back to my hotel and thinking goodness

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you have no idea what you're doing here and you need some help So um I ended up getting an agent to help me with the process and yeah went back to Australia

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4 minutes, 58 seconds

And I think even just doing that whole process and navigating going to China and finding a factory that even in itself gave me a little bit of confidence

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5 minutes, 7 seconds

I thought well wow if you can do this first step maybe you can do this next little bit And then yeah I came home

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5 minutes, 14 seconds

and I took them to a retailer and I just really yeah

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5 minutes, 20 seconds

stumbled in one night I stumbled in but I was very fumbly in my sale but I kind of just said hi I'm Dani

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5 minutes, 28 seconds

And I live in the area and I shop here and I've created this product Would you stock it And yeah and they said

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yeah they would So that was yeah it was such a huge retail commercial like affirmation that like wow this they want

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to stock it so that's still their floor space yeah totally carefully about what yes they're willing to put on that like I remember going home

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and I was just like pacing up and down the house going oh my goodness okay now I need to actually make the order yes they've said that they want

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to buy 20 units it was just yeah I was exciting and um a little bit scary but exciting terrifying

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yeah that's amazing like and from that initial store it then went into other stores and yeah it was really great yeah it started

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6 minutes, 17 seconds

a little like wholesale and then me selling at farmers markets so um that's really I guess the early days

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6 minutes, 24 seconds

while I was trying to learn ecommerce and learn who my oh my goodness yours looks amazing no I no I love yours yours is just like a beautiful ball of color I love it

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6 minutes, 34 seconds

but yeah so that was yeah that was early days and yeah markets and learning ecom it was yeah it was a lot

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as you would know it's yeah trying to balance cash and I was still working but just yeah trying to get it off the ground in addition

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6 minutes, 50 seconds

to your fulltime yes job wow wow so was there a moment kind of early on or a moment generally in your business

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6 minutes, 58 seconds

where you thought oh this is like this is working this is yeah this is a viable business

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7 minutes, 4 seconds

that's actually going to continue on was there one moment or a story or a spark yeah I would say the moment was early days

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7 minutes, 13 seconds

in the farmers markets I was doing I used to do one down in Balnarring called Emu Plains yeah right and it was when I started having

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7 minutes, 24 seconds

women coming back for their second pair and they're bringing their mums or their friends and or coming

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and wearing them and telling me how much they loved them and they're like the best boots they owned and they're like I'm a school teacher

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7 minutes, 38 seconds

and you hear about all these reasons of why people were buying them that I never thought of I just wanted to create a cool gum boot but yeah they were like I'm a school teacher I wear them

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for yard duty I'm a florist I'm a studio gardener I'm a landscape gardener all of these different all the different professions where people wanted to look like cool

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but still have a functional product and yeah something I hadn't really thought about so that was probably when I felt okay wow this is a lot more

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8 minutes, 4 seconds

there's a lot more people that want this product than I initially thought um well yeah you just did a walk through we did a walk through the

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8 minutes, 11 seconds

warehouse before this and you met Bella I mean so many of our florists they said we were merry people and Bella came up to you

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and said I'm wearing the brown ones today but I own them in every color but you're exactly right like they're so um

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8 minutes, 27 seconds

They're so functional comfortable practical all those things that you need but then they're like they are fun yes you want

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8 minutes, 34 seconds

to get them in every color and yes yeah you know weave them into your life yeah so just on that I think one

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8 minutes, 41 seconds

of the great things about your business and your brand that you've created is this beautiful sense of community

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8 minutes, 49 seconds

and how do you think you have I guess developed it and continued building it as the brand has gotten bigger

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8 minutes, 56 seconds

and bigger so how have you managed that because I I think you've just done this extraordinary job of it I think the product actually there was a gap in the market

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and people connected with the product and so I think that was one thing

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maybe the other is that maybe it's my story in that I was I was not an

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9 minutes, 18 seconds

influencer I didn't have a following I was a regular girl that worked in a corporate job in the city and came

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9 minutes, 25 seconds

from a farm farming family and that I had this idea and that I just went and did it and I think that's probably connected

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with massive a lot of people and I think people also like that knowing who they're buying

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9 minutes, 39 seconds

from and why they do what they do and I think yeah and we talk about that a lot but I remember at the start my website like my face

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and my name was not anywhere on it and then I did an accelerated business program and they said to me they're like you

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are a big reason of why you're different to your competitors yeah so you need to start to feel more comfortable like learn to feel more comfortable

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in being that person I mean it makes a lot of sense but it also feels a bit unnatural especially when you're starting a business yes and especially in ecom

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10 minutes, 14 seconds

I don't know about you but this is my own experience It was just me Yes And it feels a bit too small Yes And so you want to pretend you're a bit bigger

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So you're like we Yes Let me ask my customer Oh the customer service manager will get back to you

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10 minutes, 29 seconds

And that's also me Yeah totally Yeah so I totally yeah understand that Yeah So Dani you seem to be somebody

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that wants to move through this world making a positive impact I'd love your view on how you balance that sort of giving back

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with running a commercially viable business and how you balance that manage that work it through yeah

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because I actually originally thought of making Merry People a social enterprise when I was starting oh wow people and I that's how I met my now husband oh really yeah yeah

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so he he started a Melbourne social enterprise called Homey um so they're in based in uh Fitzroy yep

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and yeah and so I was wanting to learn about okay what does it mean to be a social enterprise and and uh yeah

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11 minutes, 22 seconds

and then we ended up dating and now we've married with two children so that was a great idea that you had yes I know but he actually um yeah

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it's a lot running a social enterprise it's like you've got the charity component and the commercial component and there's a lot of obligations on both sides

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and it was just me at the time and I wasn't even making profit and paying myself so at that point I thought

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well I've just actually got to make get this off the ground and actually make it into a legitimate profitable business

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and then from there I can look to see how I can do positive things and give back so that's what we've done

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and I think creating and learning to have that discipline as well in creating a commercial business and managing cash and um

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and saying no to things and um and yeah I guess leveraging opportunities as well where you can i think

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it's yeah it's been good to create that discipline and thought process yeah and definitely i think now it's yeah we've got some charities that we work

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12 minutes, 26 seconds

with every year um so the mother's day classic is probably a really big one we do a boot with them every year and you're right um

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donate yeah last year we donated close to a hundred thousand dollars to them so wow yeah that's incredible yeah yeah through that oh wow and do you guys do the

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money mother's day classic yes yes so this year we're running a few of us are running the half marathon oh my gosh wow do you train it's like we're thinking

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of um yeah we are we're actually thinking of asking our customers as well if they want to run with us and this is like how your community is about

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right like it's full circle moment yes so wow wow no it is the team also yeah i think we're all

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I think I've tried to hire like values aligned and I think we all care about that and I think it's not just about giving money or working with charities

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I think it's also around yeah staff and how we are and even I think employing

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people is a great thing for the world and I guess with your staff who are becoming parents and just all the changes through life

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or going through things it's like how do you support people through that so it is I think it's not just that part but it's yeah how do

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you feel like a good employer as well there's no point in doing all that stuff if internally it's you know not bad

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so I think it's just the whole thing that yeah we try to be I've never thought about it like that but you're so right yeah holistic yes

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viewpoint of it all yeah absolutely yeah it's so interesting it just so even saying that it just I can feel it

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in everything that you do that it's yeah so important to you and the business So what are I guess your favourite bits

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14 minutes, 14 seconds

of running the business and your I guess the bits that you find really challenging Yeah

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So my favourite is probably the product design Yep Coming up with colours concepts

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14 minutes, 28 seconds

and yeah just thinking about that I think that's that Along with marketing we're doing more customer events Yes and they look so fun

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14 minutes, 37 seconds

Yes yeah they are Every time I leave one I feel like my heart is really full Oh that's so nice Wow

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That's so nice It's really nice I think having started at markets you kind of lose that contact with customers Yeah So it is really nice I don't mind the problem

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solving side as well So when there's something that's happened I feel that I can bring people together and remain pretty calm

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15 minutes, 3 seconds

and okay yeah that's great like that's awesome that you like that throwing a couple of jokes there I try and like bring the energy into like more productive

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15 minutes, 11 seconds

state what I find a little bit more challenging the HR side is probably just something that it's probably not the right thing

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15 minutes, 18 seconds

to say for also because I love my team but it's just it's yeah it's a lot in terms of the admin yeah and doing like KPI documents

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15 minutes, 28 seconds

and doing and you know it's people's careers yes yeah quite heavy conversations sometimes definitely you kind of want people to feel good

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15 minutes, 35 seconds

and want people to feel happy and so when something isn't as great you're like it really gets to me and I'm like yeah particularly with a startup I think

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15 minutes, 45 seconds

you go through someone said to me different people are right for your company at different stages and you have people

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15 minutes, 51 seconds

that can grow the whole way through but it's very rare that can actually happen Yep And sometimes people you know there's change that happens we're

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16 minutes

growing internationally and so we're recruiting in you know the US and UK and it's yeah challenging when

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16 minutes, 8 seconds

that impacts um yeah the way people have worked here they've been used to dealing with like a global lens and that can change so yeah I think just

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16 minutes, 17 seconds

that side as well the growth of the company and then bringing people on that journey so that I guess comes back to how you hire and all of that

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16 minutes, 25 seconds

so we've been pretty good we've got it we've done pretty well I would say for the most part but yeah it's it is still just it's a

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16 minutes, 32 seconds

challenge challenging yeah yeah yeah so Merry People has evolved so much since 2014 yeah you've

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16 minutes, 40 seconds

moved online you've got a big ecom store you sell internationally you've opened up your beautiful flagship store in Melbourne what what's

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16 minutes, 48 seconds

next like how do you see this continuing to evolve so that that actually is also another thing I struggle with it's the future I

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16 minutes, 56 seconds

should have mentioned that the strategic longterm planning but what is next so we yeah we're trying

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some like other new products that will come out this year that's exciting it's so exciting

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for me I turned 40 recently and I had this feeling of like I need to live a bit more and have fun a bit more

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through business and yeah yeah my kids are two and four and just starting to feel a bit more like

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yeah not as fullon as that you're not quite in baby and yes stage so I feel like I've got this wind

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17 minutes, 32 seconds

of like just having fun and it not just being about growth for the sake of growth it's like thinking about momentum yeah just also having fun

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17 minutes, 42 seconds

and enjoying the journey and yeah so yeah I don't have this I want to get to this stage or this size business yeah it's yeah just trying

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to have fun and enjoy the journey so I used to like yeah I have business people that help me and they go you know what's your 10 year or your five year goal

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and yeah like I just do want to feel happy and I still want to make products I really love and I want to be proud of where I work and what we're doing yeah

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and that's kind of all I can say confidently I can't say that okay we're gonna have this many stores I'm gonna sell this many products

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um so yeah but yeah hopefully hopefully I'm yeah still merry merry yeah oh

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my god what a great spot to hopefully to leave that answer that's amazing yeah Okay Dani

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18 minutes, 30 seconds

It's now time for the rapid fire questions Okay So we're just looking for a quick whatever comes to mind just a quick quick little response

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18 minutes, 38 seconds

Okay Okay So did you ever imagine your gumboots would become the Daily Bloom's unofficial florist uniform

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18 minutes, 47 seconds

No If you could pick anyone in the world to wear Merry People who would it be

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18 minutes, 56 seconds

Okay someone really merry Maybe someone like Drew Barrymore great answer yeah great oh she's very very

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authentic yes yes yeah one word your friends would use to describe you

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they're kind oh it's so nice I hope so I think I think they would yeah one word your colleagues would use

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to describe you brave my god amazing um early mornings or late nights early mornings definitely same

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19 minutes, 26 seconds

If you weren't running Merry People what would you be doing Maybe working for like a creative

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19 minutes, 32 seconds

company like Daily Blooms or Merry People something creative or something in the social impact space

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19 minutes, 40 seconds

Yes yep yep Makes total sense If you could give a bunch of flowers to anyone in the world who would it be and why

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19 minutes, 50 seconds

I'm actually going to say my son he's four he started kinder this week and it's a new kinder and he didn't know anyone

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and he's just been so brave and yeah I saw this question and I was like thinking about it in the car here and I was like even this morning he

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like got dressed and I can see he's a little bit nervous It's a big deal But he doesn't know anyone and yeah he's just been so brave So yeah maybe I'll give this

20:15

20 minutes, 15 seconds

to him That is a beautiful answer I love that I love that I love that Well thank you so much for coming in and chatting to us

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20 minutes, 23 seconds

It might be time to do a bit of a flower reveal So we'll turn them around so the camera can see They look great They look beautiful

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20 minutes, 32 seconds

You're a natural Oh thank you 100 could get a job at Daily Blooms Well thank you so much for coming

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in Dani It was amazing People can find you on your website merrypeople.com on social

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Yes So Instagram TikTok all of the socials All of them They can walk into your beautiful flagship store in Melbourne Yes Manchester Lane

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Manchester Lane Wonderful Yeah Well thank you so much It was an absolute pleasure I had such a nice time talking to you And yeah I hope you come back

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and visit us again I absolutely will No thank you It's been really fun