Episode 302: An Interview with Kirsta Hawkins, Founder of Mutual Muse
In today’s interview episode, Fiona talks to Kirsta Hawkins, founder of Mutual Muse. They talk about how her business fills the gap in the market for sustainable fashion and discusses the importance of saying no. They also tackle how being autistic has positively impacted Kirsta’s business, which allows people to sell their clothing and supports local designers while promoting sustainability. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
New store opening in Melbourne
About Mutual Muse
Kirsta's motivation to start Mutual Muse
The early days of Mutual Muse
The challenges of starting a business in a new country
Cultural differences between Australians and Americans
Tips and Challenges for saying no
How Mutual Muse decides what to sell
Dealing with unhappy customers
Having boundaries in the workplace and respecting people's personal time, including weekends
Books & resources that helped Kirsta
Issues related to sustainability, including the impact of the fashion industry on the environment and on third-world countries
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
As far as I am creating an inclusive workspace. I personally need to work in an inclusive workspace because I'm an autistic person and I have ADHD, and there are certain things within a workspace that I need to do my best job. If I'm going to do my best job because I have these conditions, what do other people need to do their best job? I think that taking care of your staff is going to mean that you take care of your business because they're ultimately the ones that are making the money for you. If you take care of your staff, then they're going to take care of you.
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Welcome to episode 302 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today you are reading a small business interview episode, and I'm pumped that this is the first business interview for the My Daily Business podcast. We did have a little bit of a rebrand. You can read about that if you are on my Sunday email in last week's email. And next Thursday, I will be doing an entire coaching episode all about why we rebranded, how we rebranded, what were the exact steps, who did we work with to do this, and all sorts of other things. If you're interested in that, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. But today it is an interview with an incredible, creative, curious and just wonderful small business owner. I know you're going to take so much from this interview. I took so much just from the chat that I had with this person. I'm excited to be bringing you this.
Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I'm paying my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
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Today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you this interview that I did, maybe about a month ago now with the amazing Kirsta Hawkins, who is the founder of Mutual Muse. For many of you here in Melbourne, you will definitely know what Mutual Muse is. Mutual Muse is an icon in that space where sustainability meets fashion meets just ugh, like super cool curation of looks and ideas and inspiration when it comes to clothing. Mutual Muse allows people and enables people to sell their clothing, let’s say from Australian designers or other clothing that they've fought and their mutual muse team has a great curatorial eye. They allow you to sell your clothing to them and either get credit to then spend in the store or get actual cash. It's awesome for people to be able to edit their own wardrobe, get rid of things that maybe they're just not using or they have grown out of, or it's a different lifestyle they have now and they're not going to wear those types of clothes.
You can sell them and get money back or credit for the store. The other massive part of that is that people can shop and buy these clothes at perhaps a little less than they would have to buy them if they were brand new. But also you're giving that piece of clothing another life or another, 10 lives. I think that's a thing that is missing here in Australia. Kirsta is from the US where she grew up with this happening all the time then came to Australia and as she talks about it today, realized why doesn't this exist here. I don't understand. She created it herself. This a total example of somebody seeing a massive gap in the market and thinking, “I'm going to close that.” She has done incredibly well and there's a reason that the brand is so successful.
It's because there is a need for this. People want to be able to buy sustainably but also enjoy fashion, enjoy style, support local designers, and do so in a way that doesn't break the bank. Especially right now, as we hear nonstop on the TVs, radios, and news outlets about the recession and spend less and do this and do that. But outside of the financial part of it, there is just a huge want from people to feel like they're not contributing to the masses, masses of the landfill, and issues with the environment that come from the fashion industry. Kirsta is championing that. Outside of her own business, she's also a massive activist in the sustainable space and is passionate about climate change and, and changing the way that we interact with things that impact the earth and our environment.
Today we talk about all sorts of things, including the fact that Kirsta has autism and how this has impacted her business in such a positive way. It's a superpower for Kirsta as it is for so many other people. I have the pleasure of working with a range of clients. I have clients who have ADHD, I have clients who are autistic. I have clients with other things, other traits, and parts of their personality. It's such a superpower. And Kirsta talks about how this has shown up in so many parts of her business. We also talk about what it's like to say no because, being in the business that she is, where people are bringing in their clothing and people are asking, “Do you think you can resell this?” “How much would you give me for it?”
You are going to have to say no to some people. Kirsta talks about how she does that, how she trains other people to do it, and how to do it yourself if you are in the retail space. I know this happens a lot because I talk to clients where it's happening, where people who have a shop feel that they're supporting local designers or supporting makers, and they feel like they have to say yes to things. Even if that particular company that's coming in that brand doesn't tick all the boxes that they want doesn't give them the margin that they need. It doesn't just happen in retail, but there can be this people-pleasing aspect of wanting to say yes to everyone and wanting to be liked and wanting to be seen in a certain light.
Kirsta talks in today's episode about how to say No and just so many things came out of this talk. It was my absolute pleasure. Kirsta is an open book and I just know that this is going to help so many people, whether it is like Kirsta, you're in a completely different industry, not loving your job and want to start something whether you are also autistic, or whether you are not from Australia. How do you start a business here if you didn't grow up here and you don't know all the rules and regulations or, maybe you're in London and it's the same thing is going on? There's just so much to unpack in this episode. Here it is, my interview with the wonderful Kirsta Hawkins founder of Mutual Muse.
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Hello Kirsta, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am so excited about having you here. I feel like you've got so much to share and so many insights and tips. Can you tell us where you're joining from also I like to ask people, how are you feeling about life right now?
I'm joining from my house in Reservoir in Melbourne. I'm feeling good about life right now. It's amazing. I feel so expansive and my mental health is really good. We just opened a new store this past week, that's exciting too. Feels very good not to have to work on that every day anymore so I can finally have some time to slow down and exist again rather than working every day of the week.
Congratulations on the opening. That's huge. Do you feel like, you just said you feel excited that you're not running this marathon again? Were you happy with the opening on the day of?
I was happy with it. I think we did a fantastic job on the build. It's beautiful, which is exactly what I wanted it to be. You just entered this space and it's like, “Wow, this is so cool.” It feels a little bit fancy, which is a different move for Mutual Muse. We've been open for six days now and people are just absolutely loving the space and we've just been hearing nonstop positive feedback about it. It's exciting. To launch a store and to have it be so busy straightaway too. Because previous times when I've launched physical spaces people don't quite know who we are yet and they need to discover it after a couple of visits. This time it's just like we were just busy as soon as we opened the doors, which was great.
I love this. You've mentioned the business just now, Mutual Muse. For those who don't know and haven't jumped into the new store, or dunno your other stores or shop online, what is Mutual Muse? When did you start it? Why did you start it? And can you tell us about the name, which is a very cool name?
The name has a pretty good story. I started in 2014. We buy and sell secondhand clothes from the public and we offer cash or store credit as payment. And store credit is a very popular option for a lot of people because that means that you get to swap your clothes. It's like having free clothes money and you get to just come in and pick a couple of stuff out and you already have something in the bank so it's, you don't actually have to use your cash for that.
Why did it start? I was working in childcare in a before and after-school centre, which was the least glamorous job that you can possibly have. It was terrible for me and it was a traumatic workspace. I was pregnant at the time and just hating my life and I was like, “I'm going to have this baby soon,” like, “There has to be more to life than this. I can't go back to this job when I have a kid because it's just, why would I?” I just thought a lot about what I wanted to be doing with my life and what a therapist at the time said, “Just imagine the space that you want to be in and what you want to be talking about every day and like how do you want to dress and what do you want your colleagues to look like?”
That's all deeply philosophical stuff. But I thought about those things more than I thought about what business I wanted to start. One of the most important things was just that I wanted to wear really cool clothes all day and dress as flamboyantly as possible and have fun and just have fun talking to people all day. I thought a lot about that. And then one day I think I was like five and a half months pregnant, it just like popped into my head. It was like, “Secondhand clothes, you're going to start a secondhand clothes store.” And it was just like a light had been switched in my brain and after that moment it was like all that I ever thought about. It was just everything, I wanted to quit my job at the time, but my mother was like, “Please don't quit your job yet. You have maternity leave, you've been earning this.”
I stuck it out at the job and I thought that I was going to start the business. I was like, when my baby's three months old, I'll start the shop. That didn't happen because it's hard to have an infant. I think like maybe a year or later I was like, “Okay, how am I going to do this?” I started a website that was very naive of me at the time because it's hard to get people to go to a website if you don't know who that person is already. We started with the website, we were selling clothes that way and then I was like, markets are a thing in Melbourne, let's try markets. I had a couple of market dolls every weekend for about six months and people were either just donating their clothes because they're my friends and they were like, “Here's a whole bunch of stuff.”
Or I would go make house visits to people and go to their homes and buy their clothes that way. It just grew organically, very small in the beginning. Eventually, I was like, “Okay, I just need to have the physical store because this is popular and I can see that people would come to it.” I took out a small personal loan of like $20,000 and got a lease to a shop that was down the street from my sister-in-law's cafe in Thornbury. I was like, well I have a business now. I opened the shop and at first, it was just me working in the store five days a week, and then I hired a friend who became my first staff member and it just grew slowly over time.
We got more customers, more people sold us their clothes. I had to take on another staff member. I remember one Saturday it was just so busy and I was working by myself all weekend for years or maybe a year and a half. Then a customer was like, “Do you think that you might need some help? It's a little bit busy here.” And he was like, “I do need some help here.” I hired another staff member and then we just grew slowly and then I had always wanted to have a store in Brunswick as well and my friend Annie who owns Eve Studio here in Preston and in Brunswick said, “I'm going to go look at this space.” And we had talked about collabing on a space before in Brunswick and I never thought that it would eventuate, but then it did, which was so magical.
We took over this former clothes factory in Brunswick, it was a warehouse and split it and she took some of the property and I took the other half and we opened Brunswick and it's just been growing and growing and it's, it just feels like every three months we're like, “Oh my god, how are we so busy and how are we here again?” It's exciting just to see what that growth does look like. And sometimes it does feel like it's slower than what I want it to be, but it always feels organic and it feels right And I think that taking it at the pace that I needed to take it at has built a business that I can personally manage pretty well.
I feel like there's so much in that. We could just stop now after that first answer. There's so much context and so much, I love that you said, firstly that you were already working somewhere else and you didn't enjoy it. But also that when you had a child, I think it's hard to start a business anytime, particularly when you have a new child that is reliant on you. I love that you also said it took a bit more time, but that you have grown each time. Like you have just, done a certain bit and then been like, “Okay, time to move to the next step.”
In the beginning, before I had the store, I just thought every day. And when I had my daughter who's now nine. When she was an infant, it was like I didn't have time to do everything that I have time to do now. But I would just think, what is one thing that I can do to further the business? Whether that's sending an email or taking a photo, it doesn't have to be a big thing. It can just be anything. But every small step that you're taking towards your goal is a step that is useful and valuable.
I love also that you talked about like wanting to wear super fun clothes and like those things because it's similar. I had a similar thing, I went to a workshop and the woman was like, “Describe your perfect life” and asked similar questions to that therapist. One of the biggest things I had was, I want to work from home and I want to be able to have a cup of tea and I want to be able to go for a walk if I want to go for a walk in the middle of the day. I didn't even know like, how am I going to build a business. But I was like, “These are the things I want in my life.” And I want my business to like work around those things.
I feel strongly that the business should support my life, not that my life should support the business and I don't want to sacrifice my life and the things that I need for the business. I always put myself first in that sense.
Mutual Muse, where did that name come from? Is it when you were still at the childcare centre?
I'll say that naming a business I feel like was the hardest part of the entire process somehow because it was like, “What the hell are we going to call this thing?” It was harder than naming my kid. We toyed with many different names and I was in Seattle visiting my aunt and uncle who lived there and there's this fish store down the street from their house in Seattle called Mutual Fish. I mean this is so weird, but this is how it came about. I just loved the name Mutual Fish. I just thought it sounded like a bank or, like a co-op or something like that. I just adopted the name Mutual Muse and it was like, “What is the mutual thing?” It's the customers and the people that were inspired by it because we're wearing each other's wardrobes. That's how the name came about.
I love this mutual fish. I feel like I'm going to Google that afterwards. But I love that your name can come from anywhere when you are open to receiving different, inputs and everything else. We can tell from your accent that you are not originally from Australia and you mentioned your aunt and uncle living in Seattle. You tell us where you're from originally, but also what has it been like to start a business and a business in the industry that you're in, that newer to Australia, this concept. Tell us about the challenges that you've gone through, not being from Australia, opening a business here, and also opening a business in an industry that is not really totally understood in Australia.
I'm from Phoenix, Arizona in the United States in case anyone's curious. I've lived in Melbourne for 11 years now, and I've been living in Melbourne for like two or three years before I started the business. I had always shopped in stores like mine growing up in Phoenix, and in America, they're just so much more common there. I don't know what it's like in other parts of America, but in Phoenix, there were just so many good options for secondhand clothes and for different kinds of secondhand clubs. I felt like there was a big hole in the market here. When I thought of the business, I just thought, “What would I sell?” I was like, beautiful quality secondhand clothes. I love local designers.
I feel like I would've had to learn these challenges, but when I first started out I couldn't even open a bank account in my own name because I wasn't a permanent resident yet. I would say that was a challenge, but you just learn quickly. I think one of the funniest challenges that I thought of is probably just cultural differences because Australians don't ever want to say the thing directly. They just have to, “I'm just going to be honest with you,” they couch their words a little bit, and Americans are very direct and I'm very like to the point always. Also as an autistic person, I'm very blunt sometimes. I think that learning to change my language a little bit and speak the way that people would respond to the best, I think was probably one of my biggest challenges in starting a business in a new country.
I love that you say that because that is very true of Australians. I have a good friend who's American and we have worked together and when the first time I met her I thought, “Oh my God, you're so direct” and it can be taken, in a negative way sometimes. I think that's an important thing to bring in. Obviously, you have just mentioned that you are autistic and that is something that you talk about quite a bit, but some people that even if they're shopping with you may not be aware of that. Has this been something you've known your whole life? Is it a part of you that was recently uncovered? And how do you think it has impacted the way that you run a business?
I didn't know for my whole life, I did know for my whole life that I felt like an alien in a human body because I just always felt like things were challenging for me that are not challenging for the people around me. I was constantly like, “Why is it so hard for me to do certain things that everybody else” It’s just like, you can be on time for a meeting. Why would you ever have a problem with that? And I'm like, “I have a very hard time being on time sometimes.” I found out that I was autistic because I read an article on the internet about another woman who was diagnosed in her thirties, which is a very common thing for women to be diagnosed later in life because the medical system is n not set up to recognize that as young people like it is for men.
It's common for autistic women to be diagnosed later in life and for them to come into this information. I think that as a business owner, it's everything because I feel like autism is my superpower. I'm extremely perceptive. I have a photographic memory, like I mentioned, I'm constantly looking for patterns and noticing the things that people do and trying to change my behaviour, trying to change the way that the business works to accommodate that. I don't know what business owner I would be if I wasn't autistic because it's the only body that I have been given.
I think it's important for people to hear about this because maybe they're going through something similar and maybe they haven't been diagnosed or they haven't gone down that path. I think it's important, and I cannot tell you how many clients I'm working with, in the last two years that have recently been diagnosed, especially women because I think if I'm correct, when you're a child or women in general, we are just taught to like to figure out social cues and it's not as apparent as maybe it is in young boys, if I'm correct.
Doctors and education professionals are just not taught to look for those signs in girls because women in general, even neurotypical women are taught to mask throughout their entire lives.
We're taught to be sweet and agreeable and to get along with people and not make a big stink about anything ever. If you are autistic you can fly under the radar as a young child. That's why I feel so passionately about talking about it publicly because every time I do talk about it publicly, I get so many messages from people who are like, “I have never heard that before.” Like, “Thank you so much, I think I might be autistic.” I think that's why many people are being diagnosed now because we have the internet and we can talk to each other publicly about these sorts of things.
I've heard that one-fifth of the population is neurodiverse. I think we're also taught that being neurodiverse is rare and very unique, and it isn't like there are so many of us out there yet. I think it's important for people like me in the public sphere to be open and honest about it because we can reach those people. Also, I think it's important to exhibit a positive view of what it is to be autistic because you only see the hard part sometimes. I think that being autistic is beautiful and wonderful and it brings a completely different perspective to the table that you wouldn't have if you were neurotypical.
I love it. Thank you for talking about it on this podcast as well. Another part of who you are as a person is that you're very interested in sustainability and activism and all sorts of things. And obviously part of your business model is a sustainability part of it. You're getting clothes to be worn again and brought back and not just disposed of or thrown away. When did that interest in sustainability come into your life as a person to be like, “Okay, I'm interested enough in this, that when I create my business, this is going to be part of it.”
I've always been interested in activism. I've always been seeking justice in the world and trying to make the world a better place. And like that was one of the most important things to me about starting a business was that It could feel like something that was a calling rather than just a job that you're showing up to 40 hours a week. Running Mutual Muse does feel like a calling, and I feel very passionately about that. I would say that ultimately sustainability came after my love of buying secondhand clothes. I loved finding out how much people were selling things for. I just loved secondhand clothes. And once I was running the business I was like, sustainability is such a big part of fashion and is such a big part of secondhand clothes.
I feel like the sustainability factor came after I had the business for a couple of years. I think historically we just didn't know that sustainability was such a big issue and was something that we needed obviously with growing knowledge of climate change as well. It's like people are really waking up to the fact that our choices have an impact on the world around us. I think realizing that I had such a big audience that I could speak to of people who were hungry for that information and were hungry for that influence, I moved into that space more and I feel like I'm honestly only getting started with it because it's just so big. I'm still learning so much too, and like, I forget to bring my coffee cup to the cafe half of the time, honestly.
I'm not the most sustainable person in the entire world. But I think that thinking about sustainability is just a series of habits. If you are shopping in a secondhand clothes store that's so great because your clothes have less of an impact on the environment. But then I think a lot of my customers also go like, what else can I do? What else is there out there? It's exciting to be able to move into that space and explore what that means and how I can give that to my customers in the future.
I think it's so important. Especially as someone I'm interested in style and fashion and have worked in the fashion industry. I think it's so important that we look at, not just the newest and the latest and the most colorful, but how are we going to heap that piece of clothing having another life and another life. I was raised by my mom who always took me to Op Shops and the thrift stores and markets, and I love just getting like, it's a treasure trove. That's the other thing about mutual views. Anytime you come in there it’s like it's a treasure trove, you don't know what you're going to get necessarily.
You never know what you're going to find. Of course. With that being said, growing up my grandparents, were like World War II teenagers. My grandma would wash out every plastic bag that she used and she would like every Ziploc bag to be used five or six times in our house always. I always thought that was so weird as a kid now, but now as an adult, I'm like, “That's actually just a good idea?” I feel like that inclination towards reusing things was always there in my life.
When will people come in to get their clothes reviewed, I guess by your staff or yourself and get their cash or get their credit to spend in Mutual Muse, how do you decide what to say no to? Because a large part of your success is the selection, the curation of the clothing. How do you say no? Because I think whether it's you're selling products like you or people are service-based, I think saying no, especially, you're saying no literally to someone’s face. How do you do that? And do you have any tips for people? Because I hear retailers quite often say, especially retailers who are taking on like makers and say jewelry and different things, they'll say, “But they were so nice. I know there's not much of a margin and I know it doesn't really go with the rest of the staff, but I just feel like I couldn't say no in front of them.” How do you do it?
The hardest part of all of our jobs. Everyone who works for me knows that this is tough because it is hard to say no to someone in front of them. It can feel very confrontational, especially if you're not familiar with that business transaction. I had been selling my clothes in secondhand stores for my entire life and I know exactly what it feels like to be said no to. And you're just like, “Excuse me.” Like, “How dare you? My clothes are wonderful.”
We know what sells in the store and we know what ends up on the sale rack and we know what people are looking for and we know what we want to buy too. We're always consuming fashion information, whether it's Instagram or just reading books or seeing what people are wearing on the streets you can pay attention and see what things people want to buy and what people don't want to buy. We do have to say no to some amazing stuff sometimes because it's just not quite what we're looking for. We don't take cocktail dresses, we have been moving into more high-end fashion. But I said no to a Chanel skirt once because I was like, it's so beautiful, but this is just not what my customers want to buy.
They're coming into Mutual Muse want. A slightly more affordable experience, we have to say no to some amazing stuff. It's not like we're saying no to all the crap all the time. It's just like these beautiful corporate clubs are just not going to sell for us. Or this beautiful cocktail dress is not going to sell for us. Or heels like our customers don't really wear heels anymore. I don't wear stilettos anymore. What do I want to wear and what do the people around me want to wear? We just pay attention to that really closely. It does change every year and we try to avoid things that are trend-focused, but everybody does like something that is currently styled. Denim trends change from year to year all the time.
15 years ago we were all wearing skinny jeans and now we cannot, nobody wants to wear skinny jeans anymore. We have to say no to a lot of skinny jeans. For example, five years ago knit vests would not sell at all. Nobody would buy them. And now it's like if we get a vest in, it sells on the day because everybody wants to wear that cute oversized chunky vest style. It's always changing and people will be like, “What do you mean? I bought this from you two years ago.” And it's like, “Unfortunately times have changed.” But we just try hard to be as gentle as possible and ask if they want feedback on that decision that we made. And people want to know why we didn't take their clothes sometimes it's like they're just not seasonally appropriate or sometimes they just need to be washed or there's a stain on this one or this one's zippers broken.
They're all like practical reasons why we do say no sometimes, but we always say in the buying training if it's a maybe then it's a no because if it's a maybe then it's like, “It's okay.” But that really means that it's a no, but it's hard. It's hard to say no to people, especially if you've had to say no to 10 people that day. It can be emotionally fatiguing as well. And we get a lot of feedback from customers when they're unhappy with what we've said to them. We are always trying to adjust to make it more sensitive or to provide the right information for people. I mean, but sometimes you say no thank you to people and they're just like, “Cool, whatever. No worries.” And it's not a big deal.
But then sometimes people get very emotional about it because clothes are a very emotional thing in the things that you are presenting it feels like we're saying no to the person, but we're not saying no to the person we're saying no thank you to their clothes. It's tricky. It's hard sometimes. I think you know in your body when it's a no and you just have that feeling in your chest or in your heart. I think if you feel that, then that's a pretty good sign that you should say no. But I know that that's very hard for people because it's very hard for me.
I love that you said, “If it's a maybe, it's a no” because I think that is a good rule of thumb to live by. I know people say, “If it's not a hell yes, it's a no.” But I like the, if it's a maybe, because of all the time we have, maybe I should maybe. And that's just prolonging the inevitable no.
Exactly. It's prolonging the inevitable. I think women especially have a very hard time being assertive sometimes because like I said, we're taught to be very agreeable and very sweet and kind but if you want to run a successful business you do have to say no to the people a lot.
We've talked about it is one part, but you also say yes to inclusivity and yes to lots of different people working for you and creating, I know from having worked with you that you are all about creating a brand that is not only amazing for the customers and people coming in and buying things but also has a great workplace culture is a place that people want to come and work and feel good about getting up to work. And you mentioned at the start of this how you worked in a childcare place that was not enjoyable and you didn't love coming to work and it was like a chore. You wanted to create a place that people do enjoy for the most part. Not every every single job has its tedious parts of course. It sounds a bit obvious, but why was that so important to you? And then secondly to that, how do you make sure that you're able to run this business that's financially successful and is getting all the parts moving, but also that you have time to spend with your team and to nurture them as people?
I would say inclusivity has also always been extremely important to me, especially from a fashion perspective because so many communities are underserved by the fashion world in general. Trying to provide a more inclusive size range has always been a huge priority for me. That means selling plus size clothes of course, which is tricky to do in the secondhand space because there aren't as many plus size stuff pieces available. But I would say that that didn't really start having as much as I wanted it to until I had plus-size representation within the staff as well. One of my managers is plus size and she's been incredible about developing that aspect. But people who come into the store need to see themselves reflected in the staff to feel included in that space.
That's why I think that it's so important to have so many different kinds of people and many different voices on the table because there's always something that you're going to miss. My cis-white worldview only goes so far, so I need to include as many people as possible in that decision-making process to include them. I always look for staff people who are not like anybody else that we really have on staff because we all have different style choices and different ways of dressing. I wouldn't say that anyone on staff dresses exactly like me. We do have all kinds of different elements of each other, but then it's like that person is going to be able to pick clothes for that demographic of a person or be like, these people do want to buy these clothes.
As far as creating an inclusive workspace I personally need to work in an inclusive workspace because I'm an autistic person and I have ADHD and there are certain things within a workspace that I need to do my best job. It's like if I'm going to do my best job because I have these conditions, what do other people need to do their best job? I think that taking care of your staff is going to mean that you take care of your business because they're ultimately the ones that are making the money for you. If you take care of your staff, then they're going to take care of you. That looks like one of the things that people have responded to most about the inclusive workspace is when I talked about how we have like an open policy of allowing children at work meetings.
Because a lot of us have kids and we have young kids sometimes you might not have childcare for the day. I'm always happy for my staff to bring their kids to meetings. I mentioned that on social media and passed once very casually. Many people messaged me about it and were like, “I can't believe that you do that. I wish that more places would do that.” Even stuff that you don't even think is making an impact is the thing that is becoming inclusive and allowing more people to sit at the table with you. But that being said, I'm still learning and I am always trying to do that work of learning what I can do to be more inclusive and to attract new people because I ultimately feel like the more people that we have at the table the better we are going to be able to serve our community.
We're also very open with each other about needing to take mental health leave. I'm very encouraging of my staff always taking all of their sick leave and all of their holiday and taking time away from work. And a lot of people are very surprised by that because they've had workplaces where they're like discouraged from taking holidays before. I'm like, “You can't do a good job if you are working every day of the year.” That's going to mean that you're going to get burnt out and everybody's going to be angry and upset with each other all the time. I've been burnt out so many times. I try to avoid that with my staff and my managers especially. And if they do need to take extended mental health leave then we try to put a plan in place for how we can do that and what that's going to look like.
But it is an ongoing process and the work is never done really, but I think it's because I'm autistic and that's why I said like every question that you're asking me is like, because I'm autistic, it's like, I think about things from a completely different perspective than most people would. I'm not doing things by the book or by the rules. I'm not traditionally trained as a manager or even as a fashion or retail person. I'm just making it up as I go along, but it seems to be working well.
It does seem to be working well and I love that you talked about that you may miss things because you are not seeing them from a perspective. If everybody in your staff is the same as you and I love even the fact that you're a mom, you understood that it's hard to get childcare sometimes and if you've just got a one-hour meeting that you're coming in for like not all of us have family or other people we can ask to look after a child for an hour or two hours. I think that like for you it seemed really obvious because you maybe have been in that situation so many people wouldn't be in. I totally get it. I can imagine why it did so well on social media or had so much engagement because I've been in so many meetings where it would've just been so much easier if I could just have my son on my lap for half an hour.
I love when people bring babies to meetings because it diffuses the tension and everybody loves to coo over a cute baby. I was so surprised that the thing resonated with so many people so well because it just seemed like such an obvious choice to me. Why would we be people who have children, why would you need to, If you have a one-hour meeting, what's the problem? There's no harm in bringing your kid and letting them sit on the couch while you do business stuff. I also think it's good for the kids to see their mothers in particular being like badass businesswomen like we're taking care of it and it's fine.
I love it. Like Beyonce when she has that what is it? We bear the children, and then we get back to business and make millions.
Exactly. And to your question about, how do I have time to nurture my staff? I would say the key to that is having boundaries, boundaries are extremely important. Again, that's an ongoing work that I'm doing for myself and for my staff. But I am very firm in what I will and who hold space for in the workplace. I respect people's weekends personally. I'm not going to text my work colleagues at 10:00 PM at night and expect them to respond straight away. If you are off the clock, then you're off the clock. I respect that and they respect that about me too. I think that boundaries are very important when it comes to running a business and having a staff. But one of the things that I've learned from you, which was so amazing was just blocking out your work schedule week by week. When I saw your work schedule and how you had everything blocked out hour by hour.
I was like, “That is genius.” Because then it's like you have 8 million things that you need to get done at any given week as a business owner and how are you supposed to pick one of them on a Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 pm? But if you work out what you need to get done in a week and then you plan the whole thing out, then on Tuesday at 3:00 PM I'm working on marketing or I'm working on this thing and then it takes a lot of that guesswork out that I think really consumes so much of your energy.
I feel like time blocking also, at least for me, it's definitely to your point about setting boundaries, it's allowed me to set boundaries and be like, “Sorry, I can't feel a meeting at that time. I have X, Y, Z happening on Tuesdays.” Even with our coaching, we always say to people, it's on a Tuesday or Thursday and if you can't do Tuesday or Thursday I'm sorry we're not the right coach for you because we are not going to change our days. We have things on.
I think that I've seen if you step outside of your boundaries for a person or you try to make accommodations for someone who won't fit into your own boundaries, then it usually ends up not feeling so good and not being the right fit. And you're like, “Why did I do this? Why did I say yes to this?”
Yes. I'm totally all about the whole it sounds a bit cliche, but that whole, if you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And if I say yes to like a client on a Monday, then I'm saying no to getting my podcast done, getting my marketing done. If I say the same on a Friday, which usually my son is not in childcare on a Friday, but because I'm writing a book that's my book writing day. it's the same thing. If I say yes to something on a Friday, then I'm saying no to getting my book done and then that's going to make future Fiona stressed out because it hasn't been written. I think it's so important. You mentioned that it is working for you and it is working well because as you mentioned at the start, you've just opened another space. You opened Northgate this week, congratulations again. What goes into opening another space? And you've had a few different physical spaces I know people listening to this, we have a lot of people in retail that listen to this podcast and they may be thinking, I'd like to open a second space. What goes into it?
For me, opening multiple stores has always been part of the vision of Mutual Muse because I just feel passionate that everybody needs a secondhand store in their neighbourhood. you just need, it doesn't need to be a huge thing. It's like everybody just needs to have a great local secondhand store where they can sell their clothes and where they can buy secondhand stuff. It was always part of the vision for me to have multiple locations. And sometime over the last six months, I was just like, “I want 20 stores.” Like I've just been throwing around the number 20 because that just seems like a lot of things, a lot of stores. But I feel passionate about the idea that we need to open in Sydney and we need to open in Byron and we need to open on the west side of Melbourne.
But the first thing that we had to do before getting all of that done was move the Thornbury store to a bigger space because I started the business with my tiny space in Thornbury. If anyone has been there, it is 62 square meters. It's very small. I think I naively took on that space in the beginning because I just didn't know how much space we would actually need. it felt like after two or three years we had really outgrown that space. But just in terms of the neighbourhood where we are, there are not a lot of properties available in a great location. There are more than 120 square meters, which we needed at least 120 square meters for the new space. We didn't have a break room for the staff in Thornbury, which was a big problem for everybody because everyone needs to have a place to go eat their lunch.
That was important and it honestly took me so many years to find that space because of Covid. We were trying to get it up and running before Covid and then everything got thrown out the window when Covid happened and it was just a matter of looking at every single property that came up always being available to go check something out. And we just found this great store in Northgate, which is huge and beautiful and it's full of Windows. It was the first one that I had walked into after probably looking at 20 properties over a two-year period. I was like, “Yes, this is it. This is perfect.” Again, that full-body yes of just being like, “This is right for us.”
It was a big leap for us because it's more expensive and it's big and it's in an excellent location. But you signed the lease. I knew that I wanted to hire an architect this time because I wanted the space to be very beautiful and to be very design-forward, love interior design and I love the colour. I was looking to integrate those two things into the space and I think we did a good job. We worked with an architecture firm called Fowler and Ward here in Melbourne and they were so amazing they were leaning towards more neutrals and less colour and I was like, “No, all colour.” I think they did a good job of listening to everything that I wanted, but also knowing how to temper some of my wilder instincts.
I think that when you're working with any contract professional in the business they're the experts, but you are ultimately the one who's paying the bills. It's like going to be my decision finally about those sorts of things. It's a collaborative process and it is ongoing, but I'm so pleased with the result I had so much help as well from my staff and I have an amazing chief operations officer who's named Emma. I couldn't do what I do without her. She is brilliant and she helps me execute all of my wild dreams all the time. I have so much help and it's nice to be able to do a huge project like that without feeling broken as a person afterwards because I frankly have in previous fit-out projects because it's a lot of work and it doesn't happen overnight. this project took us like six months to complete. It's a marathon. But I'm so pleased with it and it was great and I can't wait to do it again.
Yes. And I can't wait to see your empire take over Australia and the world. Looking forward to coming in and looking at North soon. You mentioned Emma, “Hi Emma. I've had the pleasure of getting to know Emma as well and she's amazing. Who else or what else has helped you in your business journey? Are there other autistic business owners that you've looked to for help? Are there other just business books or documentaries or or people that have helped you or do you have a mantra that you live by? What has helped you build this business to where it is now?
I don't know any other artistic business owners. I do actually. But I'm sure there are more of us out there. Please feel free to give me a shout if that's you. I made a little list of all the things. I mean firstly my mentor, I would say her name is Malia and she is my sister-in-law and she owned a cafe called Brother Alec in Thornbury. And it was through seeing her run her business that I was like, maybe I can probably do this too. Malia's doing it and she is so amazing with customer service things and staff management and even still I'll call her and be like, “What do you think about this?” She's always willing to talk to me about that stuff. Malia's been invaluable in the whole process.
I love asking other people for coffee other business owners that I admire. I'm like, can we go get a coffee and I'll just pick your brain for an hour” But I love finding people that I admire and just being like, “What do you think about this?” And like, “What did you do about this problem?” I'm endlessly curious about the way that other people started their businesses because it's just fascinating to me. I picked a couple of books that I liked business books. One of them is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix.
Yes, I've read that one too. It's great.
I think I'm going to have to redo another listen to it because it was so good when I was starting out. I loved that book. And then another book that I loved was called Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Dunkel Thomas. That's about money mindset things. I'm not a finance person, and I'm not a numbers person, but I do think that there's a lot to be said about the ways that women address money issues in general and just like our own perceptions of their own value when it comes to making money. I loved that book for that reason.
I think she's written a few more after that as well.
She has heaps of books I think. And she also has a podcast. I haven't read her other books, but I liked that one. And then as far as sustainability goes, I love Aja Barber, who I follow on Instagram. She's very accessible on Instagram, but she wrote a book called Consumed and it's all about sustainability, capitalism, and the fashion industry. It's a colonial issue. It's not just an environmental issue, it's a colonial issue because the fashion industry is so depleting for the people who make the clothes and for the areas in which the clothes end up. Learning about the Atacama Desert in Chile which is basically just a dumping ground for the secondhand clothes that come from the West. And when you look at photos of it and you just can't even imagine these mountains and mountains of clothes. Imagine if that was like over Mary Creek in Melbourne you would be horrified. But secondhand clothes are literally taking over so many beautiful areas in third-world countries.
No, I've seen some photos online, I'm not sure if it's that same place in Chile, but they're like mountains and then there are cows on top of them. It's bizarre. You think it's something from like a movie set, like a horrible movie set and it's like, this is reality.
This is reality. There's a market in Ghana outside of Akra, which I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but like so many of our clothes in the West, people think that they're donating them to charity as an act of goodwill, but it's not an act of goodwill. Unfortunately, like OpShops in Australia and America are only able to sell less than 10% of the stuff that they receive as donations because there are so many clothes in the world. They're shipped in bales to these other countries. Akra has one of the biggest secondhand markets in the world, but the stuff that they receive is oftentimes they can't sell it because it's damaged or it's out of fashion or it's not good quality. it just gets shipped to this like beach point. Again, if you look at the photos, it's like there are just mountains and mountains of clothes clogging up the beaches, becoming integrated with the sand and it's completely eradicating natural environments all over the world. Also, like a huge burden on these countries as infrastructures and the people that live there. we are doing that to them. Aja Barber's book was instrumental in learning more about that.
I want to check out that book I have not heard of. It sounds really good. There's a good documentary that was made years ago, I don't know if you saw it called Wasted or Wastelands. It was about a guy, I can't remember exactly where it was, it was somewhere in South America. He went home and there's like a landfill. He made artwork and then sold it through Sotheby's or somewhere big in London and all of that money went back to that community. But it's just devastating. There are children picking through this stuff every day and trying to find things. It is just like, we have no idea.
Yes. We don't have any idea. I think that this information can be so overwhelming to learn about sometimes. I personally get overwhelmed when delving into the sustainability world because it just seems like such a big problem. How can one person possibly do anything about this? But I think I just try to take that information and just small bites of it and learn about it slowly. You don't need to know everything about it overnight, it is an overwhelming issue and I hope that I can do my little part to help a little bit.
Yes, you are. What are you most proud of from your journey in business with Mutual Muse so far?
Maybe it seems a little bit selfish, but making a comfortable income for myself is just huge. I never really thought that I would be the person that would make the income that I do from my business, And as a small business owner, I feel like so many people in small businesses are struggling a lot of the time, But I've been really fortunate in having a lot of success selling secondhand clothes. Ongoingly, I'm just like so proud that I'm able to support myself. Also providing employment for now 25-plus people is huge. I just look at my staff and I'm like, “The thing that I made is paying for your life.” It's so great. at this point, and as we grow, I feel like yes, I'm a business owner, but also I'm an employer and that is an important role for me to learn about ongoingly.
Growing into myself as a person and a boss and being able to do whatever I want to do and explore whatever wild dream that I want to have is just so much fun. I feel so honored to like to do the work that I do. It's just so joyous. And obviously, the clothes are so good. I feel very proud of the clothes that I am able to come into contact with because it just never gets old. Also providing our customers a place to shop and buy cool secondhand clothes is so much fun. I hear from people, every week people will stop me on the street and be like, I don't know what I would do without Mutual Muse. My entire wardrobe comes from your store now. I’m like, “Thank you.” I'm just like so humbled and honored when I hear that because it's having a big impact. I love what I do and I love that the customers love it, it's great.
I love your store. You stock a lot of Australian designers and I think that that also helps those businesses because maybe someone's never heard of them. They come into your store, they buy a dress and then they're suddenly looking at those businesses as well, like, “What else do they sell?” I think it's awesome. where is next for you and where can people connect with you? You've just opened a brand new store. Is that the best place to check you out? Where's the best place to connect if people are reading and thinking, “I just have to tell her X, Y, Z.”
You can see me in the store sometimes. I'm not in there consistently. It's a surprise when I'm in there. But I always love when I'm in the store and I get to see the regulars and stuff and say hello to people you can connect with me on Instagram. We have @mutualmuseshop, which is our main account, and then my personal account is @kikilaroux, which you can write down in the show notes maybe. I love to chat about stuff, I love to talk about mental health things too, so feel free to reach out. But what's next for Mutual Muse? We just got the store underway, I'm trying to take a couple of days off right now which is a challenge. But after we have a little rest and recuperate, we're going to move on to the next project.
Hopefully the west side of Melbourne in the works in the future, this year. I wanted it to happen in 2022, but in 2023 I feel very good about it. I would love to have a store in Sydney and I would honestly just love to have a store in just about anywhere in Australia because we are hearing all the time from our customers, like, come to Brisbane, come to Byron Bay, please come to Castle Maine and people are always telling us where they want to have a new store, hopefully, we can give it to them because it's so much fun to open new space and to see new customers and our secondhand clothes are just so accessible we just need more people to provide it to the customers.
It's made such a joy talking to you. Honestly. I could just keep going. This is a long podcast as it is, but there are so many other things I could ask you, maybe we'll have to get you back on for another episode.
No worries. Yes.
Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're trying to rest and everything else. I appreciate it.
Of course. It's my pleasure.
Okay, take care. Bye
Bye.
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How lovely is Kirsta? I just think she's just such a breath of fresh air. She is just an interesting, curious, creative person. I always enjoy talking to those types of people and I'm just so fortunate that I get to work with so many of them as well. I'd love to know what you took away from that beautiful and vulnerable and real conversation that I just had with Kirsta from Mutual Muse. I want to highlight two things as I always do. And there were so many other things I could have highlighted, but these really stood out to me. I guess the first thing is, “If it's a maybe, it's a no,” I feel like that is a huge one for a lot of us, myself included. I feel like sometimes I'll think, maybe, but you're just procrastinating. You're just delaying the inevitable.
If it's a maybe where it's like, let me just figure out the logistics of this. I want to do it, but let me just figure out the dates and the scheduling, that's different. But if it's a, my heart doesn't want to do this and I'm just worried about coming off in a certain way or worried about what someone will feel or something like that, then I think I'm going to take that on board myself. I would urge you too, if you are somebody who is like, maybe, because you're just being a yes person as again, without being like, no, this is actually not going to work for us. That is a big one. If it's a maybe it's a no. The other thing that stood out to me was just how Kirsta talks about being autistic and using that and seeing it as a superpower, which it is.
I think there are so many traits and parts of who we are as small business owners that we don't always see as superpowered. For example, I know that I can be quite sensitive. I've been told that my whole life. Especially when I was younger, being told it was a negative, you're so sensitive. I think that is a huge superpower of mine. I think that it's allowed me to be a good coach and to pick up a lot of things people are not saying. I think I'm very empathetic and I can sense a lot about people without them necessarily saying so much. I feel like that is something that I have learned over the years to harness and utilize. I'd urge you to think about things that are part of who you are as a person.
They're part of your traits, they're part of the way that you're made up. And look at them as superpowers. Like if I'm going to consider running my business and running my business as myself, my full whole self, where are my superpowers and focus on those? I love that Kirsta talked about she's got a photographic memory. That is an incredible trait to have as any type of small business owner, particularly somebody in retail who is looking at products and items all day long. I just think we don't, as small business owners, regardless of what type of trait it is or part of who we are, we don't always give ourselves that wisdom of going, this is my superpower. I'd urge you to think about that.
But there are so many other things I'm taking from this, whether it's the systems building, the amazing team culture, I mean there was so much packed into this. Thank you Kirsta for giving up your time and sharing so much with us. As I said, Kirsta is the founder of Mutual Muse and you can find out more about them over at mutualmuse.net. And that's Mutual Muse. And of course, we'll link to that in the show notes. If you want to connect with them on Instagram, you can find them @mutualmuseshop, one word, or Mutual Muse Shop. And of course, you can go to their Shops in Menu, new North Kit, and Brunswick. We'll link to all of that and have all of that, those details over in the show notes, which you'll be able to find at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/302. Thank you so much for reading and if you found this useful, I would love it so much if you could share it with a friend or tag us on social media if you share it with your community. Thanks for reading.
