An open letter | Our first year in business
It's been one year. One. Whole. Year. That’s 365 days. 365 wild rides. With my ride or die Businey (AKA Best Business Partner).
In the last year, Our small business, Wispy has both blossomed and grown. So much! Our goals and dreams have been exceeded and we’ve had a chance to set some new ones, (so watch out 2023). We thought year one would be a slow start and would be all about informing people about the products we offered and why they were helpful, plus what they could do to assist with the pesky Wispy hairs so many of us have. Boy were we wrong! We were inundated with orders and so far, we have delivered (some by hand), 150+ packages all over Australia, plus had our first of many international orders. We’ve managed to learn how to inadvertently change our social handles to a name we didn’t want, so spent quite a few weeks waiting for the social Gods of justice to let us have our name back, tbh, it may have happened more than once. We’ve also learnt some valuable lessons about each other. That one of us is better at building websites than the other, and the other should NEVER mess with said website or we will be at risk of losing all our postal information again and have to spend hours into the wee mornings updating it. We’ve had products sweat that we’ve had to recover, we didn’t think we would ever feel our fingers again after unscrewing 400 lids in a night, and we’ve also learnt that we are the bloody best at labelling. So good, that we can whip up a product ready for sale in 20 seconds now. Gone are the days where 5 minutes was spent slaving away in the heat making sure the label was perfect, (perfect labels don’t exist, TRUST us)!
And there has also been some wacky, fun, never to be forgotten business journey moments that have made our hearts sing and our eyes wet.
We have discovered new places, driven there and spent nights wondering if the fun loving person at reception really gave us the right key and if our door really locked and if someone would enter at midnight and scare the living heck out of us, (think small town rural Australia and Wolf Creek vibes), to wake up fresh faced and baggy eyed after saying goodbye to the Queen and realising we had very active imaginations. But back to the new places. We’ve also added more than we can count to our bucket list after spending too many hours looking at Google maps after packing an order and really knowing that it’s too beautiful not to visit. And of course, we’ve met so many wonderful Wispy pals in and amongst this process, both new and those friends of old who have been more than supportive and encouraged us to take the next step.
Meeting all of you has been part of the highlight on this journey. Being able to put faces to names and creating connections that have true value has been somewhat, surreal. Then of course, it wouldn’t be a descriptive party if we didn’t mention the fact we have also met quite a lot of your unknowing partners as they open the door to a stranger delivering another one of your orders all the while blissfully unaware of your fabulous shopping addictions. Or habits. Or your daily rite of passage, you choose a door.
We’ve always tried to real with you all though, and this open letter is no different, as we sit here reminiscing about the year gone by, so quickly that we nearly forgot it was a year. So one of the biggest things we want to do is give thanks. To you all. For creating a supportive, loving, challenging, honest and fun community. The Wispy Gang. This truly is one of our proudest moments, one that still continues each and every day. We love following you all online, for those who haven’t quite yet figured out the follow back button yet, here’s our IG handle @WispyAustralia and we love that you offer a glimpse into your life, and often show us how you use our products and how they have changed your look and feel. So bloody blessed. Social media has had the power to bring us all together, including the two of us. When we started, we lived in different states and the old ‘C’ word wouldn’t let us catch up in person, but we thrived on this and created this community with you. And thanks to the power of the social media creators and all of us followers, we have been able to congratulate you on your wins, cheer you on from the sidelines, and support you when times get tough. Trust us, we genuinely love, love, love creating connection and community and the hours spent down the rabbit whole of TikTok and Instagram are but a drop in the ocean compared to the full hearts we have when we lose grip in our left index finger and can’t read anymore as the single light in the room is the one glowing in our eyes at 2:00am on Tuesday mornings.
And here we are, past 365 days now, celebrating our Big Birthday Bash with you all. One of many we are sure. So our thank you’s are for real. They are for letting us in, supporting our small business, pushing us to be better and helping us make our dreams come true.
A big shout out to the ones you don’t see as well. The husband and the partner who hear us gas-bagging and idea gathering at all hours. To the parents and the sisters. Who film the content with us, come up with some one liners, (clearly their finest moments), but mostly, who are there to support us. On the good days, and the great days. Thank you.
And before we sign off from our inaugural birthday post, we will say: Keep your eyes peeled on your mailboxes for those fun loving 2022 Christmas cards. We are back at it and all our Wispy Gang from 2022 shall have an old fashioned, comes in the mail, Wispy Christmas card. It's a favourite tradition and a small gesture of our thanks to you all.
So stay tuned for more this birthday month and for bigger and brighter things as we launch new products in 2023.
It’s been a blast and we would hug you if we could, so take this signing off as our virtual hugs and thanks to you all,
JLaw & More
Sisters and Co-Founders of Wispy
