Founder of Your Season, Teresa Wojcik
“There are obvious things that you miss, and that there's some huge learning curves.”
Not all business owners feel comfortable sharing their journey at the early stages or until there’s some wins on the board - thing is, that’s where the absolute gold is for us all as business builders. If we never see ourselves in the stories of others we might just give up on something that could be amazing.
So, I’m very excited to share with you my chat with Teresa, Founder of Your Season an online platform that organises third-party clothing items into seasonal colour analysis palettes which you’ll hear more about shortly, who’s right in that glorious early phase and so generous with her learnings.
You’ll hear about:
The random sparks that can cause a life-changing business idea
The realities of a tech start up from idea to incubator, to grants, legals and ongoing financing
Navigating the hidden costs in business
Finding a workflow that’s manageable for when you have both a business to build and a supportive job to maintain.
The ins and outs of building affiliate partnerships
Dealing with rejection
And trying to get started without proof points.
There's so much gold to learn from each other here, no matter what stage we’re at, and so I know you’re going to love this chat.
Check out Your Season at yourseason.co
Follow them on IG @yourseason2023
You can find the conversation transcript at unemployedandafraid.com.au/episodes.
And don’t forget to follow Unemployed & Afraid on IG , Threads and LinkedIn
And show your support for this independent podcast and small business by shouting your host a cuppa at buymeacoffee.com/unemployedpod
You can reach your host on email kim@unemployedandafraid.com.au on IG and on LinkedIn
Keep scrolling for the conversation transcript…
Kim Kerton [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Unemployed and Afraid, a podcast that explores the glorious mess of building your own business with the people doing it. I'm your host and fellow business builder, Kim Kerton. Thank you for being here. Let's get into some good, honest small business chats. Hello listener, and thank you for choosing unemployed and afraid for your business inspo at whatever stage you're at right now. In an incidental act of excellence scheduling, I'm sharing this conversation with you at the beginning of a new year with my guests, at the beginning, or slightly after the beginning, technically, of a very exciting business journey. And not all business owners feel entirely comfortable sharing their journey at the early stages or until there's some big wins on the board and confidence increasing as it's of course still evolving in real time. Thing is, that's where the absolute gold is for us all as business owners to learn from each other.
Kim Kerton [00:00:58]:
It's a sensitive stage where if we never see ourselves in the stories of others, we might just give up on something that could be amazing. So I'm very excited to share with you my chat with the lovely Theresa, founder of your season. It's an online platform that organises third party clothing into seasonal color analysis palettes, which you'll hear more about shortly. But she's right in that glorious early phase and so very generous with her learnings. In this chat you'll hear about the random sparks that can cause a life changing business idea, the realities of a tech startup, from idea to incubator to grants, legals and ongoing financing navigating their hidden costs in business finding a workflow that's manageable for you when you have both a business to build and a supportive job to maintain. The ins and outs of building affiliate partnerships, dealing with rejection and trying to get started without any proof points. There is just so much gold to learn from each other here, no matter what stage we're at. And so I know you're going to love this chat.
Kim Kerton [00:02:02]:
Let's get into it. I'm here with Teresa Wojcik, founder of your season, which is an online platform that organizes third party clothing items into seasonal color analysis palettes. Now let me try and break that down just a little bit further for you. Seasonal color analysis is a system of twelve color palettes that suit particular eye, hair and skin combinations. And by wearing your correct colors, the ones that suit your unique self well, it just makes everything look and feel better. But once you know your colors, finding them in the wild is really time consuming your season. Theresa's super unique startup has taken the effort and guesswork out of the equation so you can find your best outfits first time, every time. This was a business founded to solve a problem that Theresa herself had, as so many good businesses are.
Kim Kerton [00:02:58]:
And she is right in the thick of developing out her mvp seeking investment, going through all the chaos. And what a time. Theresa, welcome to unemployed and afraid.
Teresa Wojcik [00:03:09]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you, Kim. It's actually really cool. I'm going to jump straight in that the reason I met Kim is because I signed up for a media, what was it called?
Kim Kerton [00:03:23]:
A Media Insiders summit.
Teresa Wojcik [00:03:26]:
Insider summit. That's it. And it was interviews with all these really great podcasters. And they were saying, oh, this is what we want when we're looking for people to come on our podcast as guests. And there was one of them said, I want the person who's running this business to be making over a million dollars. And I was like, oh, that's definitely not me yet. I was like, maybe I'm a little ahead of myself here. And so I put a question up in the chat, like, how do you ladder up? Is there any recommendations or any advice on how to start being able to put your business out there in podcasts before earning a million? Nobody, nobody answered in the podcast.
Teresa Wojcik [00:04:12]:
I was, you know, probably not really interested in me at this point, but then Kim reached out to me and was like, hey, I'd love to interview you. That sounds like your business sounds really cool. And so that was really kind of you and really just really generous of you with your resources and your time. And I know you're busy trying to make an amazing business as well. So that's a really long introduction, but I'm just really grateful to be here. Thank you. So.
Kim Kerton [00:04:44]:
Oh, Theresa, that's so lovely to hear. Thank you. I remember that moment very well, and I was thinking the same. I was thinking the reason this podcast exists is because we have lots of wonderful podcasts out there where we get the opportunity to hear about the success stories of a few years into business, a few big wins into business, a few mega milestones, the six figures, the seven figures, the double seven figures, and the stuff that fits a pr pitch really nicely and gets the attention of those big podcasts as well, who are looking to further big names through their own outlet. One serves the other right, and I find that really inspiring and really fun to listen to. But the reason I created this is because there is so much more nuance in business. It's the big stories and it's the big successes. And then there's also the start point, the middle point, the weird three quarter point.
Kim Kerton [00:05:42]:
Everything is weird, but there's all that stuff in the middle. There's so much more to business and if we are to truly inspire each other to keep persisting in business, we have to aspire to the big goals. And many of my guests have hit those big goals and many will in the future. But imo, in my opinion, a goal of registering a business and getting your first client is a big bloody deal. It's all about supporting all along the way. So I'm really happy that I was here to serve you in that opportunity, in getting your story out there a little bit. So thank you for that. That's really kind.
Kim Kerton [00:06:18]:
Yeah, it's my pleasure. Because Lord knows we've got to help each other through the chaos, right?
Teresa Wojcik [00:06:23]:
Absolutely. It's just such a big job. Like, however much work you think it's going to be, times it by about ten and you're probably still not even there yet. It's huge. So, no, yeah. People who are there supporting you are just like the little lights along the way. It's so invaluable.
Kim Kerton [00:06:43]:
Oh, I agree. I was interviewed recently for something and then they sort of said, so, yeah, leaving a nine to five and starting a business is kind of like your thing. Yeah. And I was like, no, it's really hard. I'm not like, yay, let's go do it. I was like, I quit one job and I took on 15 different jobs. I am an accountant, I am an administrator, I am PR, I am marketing, I am everything. So, yeah, amen.
Kim Kerton [00:07:06]:
But I could wax lyrical on that with you all day. Before we do, let's get to some of your seasoned goodness and some you goodness before we jump into that. So I know you have a very special relationship with your best friend because I read about this in some of my research phase, but I'd love to know, how would your best friend describe you?
Teresa Wojcik [00:07:24]:
I actually have a very specific response for that and I did not prepare this. My best friend would describe me as a capuchin monkey. So we're best. I know you weren't ready for that, were you?
Kim Kerton [00:07:36]:
No.
Teresa Wojcik [00:07:37]:
She's of chinese descent, so she was born in England. We actually met when her stepdad took a job at my middle of nowhere town in New Zealand as a surgeon at the local hospital and my dad's GP. So, really long story short, there were sort of temporary housing for new doctors and surgeons and things coming in on the street. That we lived on. So we sort of became friends completely randomly at high school. And so, as I said, she has chinese heritage, and we always talk about chinese astrology. So we're both born in the year of the monkey, so that's kind of where that comes from. But whereas I'm a capuchin monkey, I'm the tiny little monkey.
Teresa Wojcik [00:08:20]:
She's like, massive gorilla. Like, she's just got big gorilla energy. And I'm the sweet but persistent little monkey sitting on the shoulder. So that's how my best friend would describe me. You're welcome.
Kim Kerton [00:08:33]:
That is brilliant. That's definitely a very unique answer, and I'm absolutely here for that. Thank you for that. So I want to go back a little bit before your season, which is a very, very cool concept, and I can imagine quite the mountain to climb. But before your season revealed itself as what we'll call your business, baby, who were you?
Teresa Wojcik [00:08:55]:
So I'm a professional musician. I studied music in New Zealand. I studied composition, songwriting and classical singing. And then I moved over to Germany for four years and was working as a singer there. I was actually working with a traveling opera group. We were doing mini operas for two people, and we'd just load up the bus with the props and then drive out and then spend five days sort of touring and coming back to the home base. I was doing, like, two to three tours a month. And then you get towards Christmas and you end up doing, like, five tours and it gets mad and you're, like, swapping buses halfway somewhere with another group because you've got to swap and do a different show and things.
Teresa Wojcik [00:09:32]:
So that was fun. It was hard work, but it was really good learning experience. And then I moved over to Australia to write the music for a show that my best friend created. And it was a clown show dealing with mental health. It was called sad, a journey through the seasons of mental health. So she wanted me to write the music for it, but it was really hard to do in two separate countries. And, I mean, I'm sure anyone who's tried to do that before can appreciate it. Like, files would just go missing or it's a weird time of day, or I'd say, hey, here's ten ideas.
Teresa Wojcik [00:10:09]:
Can you give me your top three? And she's like, I like all of them. And I'm like, well, that's not very helpful. It just took a lot longer than it was supposed to. And eventually we got to a point where she's like, why don't you just come over and write the show? Be in the show, we'll do the show, and then we can just think about it. And it was at that point I was ready for a change. Germany is a really great place for artists to live, but I was personally ready for a change. I moved over for six months. I lived in a hole for four of those months and just wrote and wrote and wrote and edited and did all of this stuff because we couldn't afford other people and then put the show on.
Teresa Wojcik [00:10:49]:
And by that point, I'd started working at a few different places. I was doing some admin. I'd started working as a singing teacher at an institution, and I sort of just went, I think I want to stay here. So I did. I sort of ended up staying in Australia. So up until I had the idea for your season, I was mostly working as a singing teacher.
Kim Kerton [00:11:11]:
What a journey. I mean, the pull of a best friend can be quite the strong one. And I want to get to the stage where you are finding your own colors because I just find this generally interesting. I think a lot of listeners would also be like, gosh, what are my colors? I've been sitting here with you thinking I'm in a black dress as per usual, and looking at what you're wearing, how it brings out your colors. Yes, it's things we don't think about. I often go for what I like, but have never thought about getting my own colors, quote unquote done. So talk me through a little bit of that experience for you. How did you end up getting your colors done? What happened? And then what happened from there?
Teresa Wojcik [00:11:46]:
So last year I am dating this wonderful man who I'm still dating, and he's the most incredible person. I will try not to go on about him for the whole podcast, but he's incredible. We were visiting his mom and she is chinese, malaysian, and with love in the most blunt way possible. She said, you dress really blandly. You should get your colors done. And I was like, to be fair, I'm not terribly confident with wearing different colors, to be completely honest as well. Before I was in this relationship with my most wonderful partner, I was not in a good relationship. And maybe there was some confidence there as well where I was wearing literally more bland colors because I wanted to sort of blend in and things like, you know, it might not have been my most confident moment in clothing at that time.
Teresa Wojcik [00:12:43]:
And so I could have been really upset about it. I could have been offended. I think Richard nearly had a heart attack because he and his family, they'd heard that we were dating and he's been single for quite a while. And everyone was like, to the mum, you have to be nice to her. You're not allowed to say anything that's going to upset it because she's well known for just being, like, really blunt. And then the second time I meet her, she says, you should get your colors done. You dress badly. But what happened was I went, you know what? I've been thinking about getting my colors done for ages.
Teresa Wojcik [00:13:16]:
It's sort of something that I'd heard about. Mum used to say, oh, I think you're winter. And I'd had a few other comments from other people as well at different times. And I'd done some of the online tests, and they gave me all sorts of different results. And I was like, I don't know. I'd sort of never followed it all the way through, but I was definitely already interested in. It was somewhere on my radar. And so I went, you know what? I'm going to take this as an invitation, like, from the universe or whatever, to go, maybe this is the time to just do it.
Teresa Wojcik [00:13:45]:
And so I googled, how much does it cost to get your colors done? Had a heart attack and didn't get my colors done immediately. I was like, I'm not ready to spend that much money right now. I'm going to see if I can do it online. And after about 8 hours of trying to research what my colors were and doing all these different tests, I was like, you know what? Maybe it's just worth it for my sanity, because by this point, I'm, like, halfway down the rabbit hole, and I'm like, okay, let's be reasonable here. Someone can tell me in, like, 1 hour what my colors are versus me spending, like, 50 hours trying to work it out. Maybe that's worth it in my time. So I booked an appointment. I had to wait about three months, and then I got an appointment with Fiona Keery, who is beautiful.
Teresa Wojcik [00:14:29]:
She's my favorite person. I love her. She came and did my colors, told me what I was, and I was like, great. That's it. Amazing. Now I know what colors suit me. She gave me the little swatch of the different color patches, and I was like, that's it. I can just go shopping now, and I can ignore, like, 92% of the other things out there and just focus on the things that I want.
Teresa Wojcik [00:14:51]:
And then the problem was that when I tried to find those clothes in store, they're not there. The stores, they sell whatever is currently fashionable. They sell whatever they've been shipped. They don't have you personally in mind. They don't organize based on your palettes. They're just like, this is what we've got. Make it work. Yeah.
Teresa Wojcik [00:15:13]:
I'd go through a store, and I'd maybe find one item that was in the right color, but it wouldn't necessarily be an item that I liked. Right. It ended up being this whole search for, I was like, I just want to find the damn colors. I feel like I've got the key, but there's just no doors that that's fitting, and that's really frustrating. Or it's like when someone gives you, like, a jar of jam and you're like, I love jam. You can already imagine what it tastes like. And you're like, jam, great. And I'm going to put it on all this stuff, and you're, like, looking forward to it.
Teresa Wojcik [00:15:44]:
And then you go to try and take the lid off, and you just can't get the lid off, and you're like, you just want the jam. It was kind of like that. And I was like, well, this is frustrating. And, I mean, I don't know if you can already tell that about me, but I'm quite an intense person. Like, I do really deep dives and things. I was like, okay, I'm obsessed with this. I spent, like, over 100 hours trying to work out where to buy these clothes, and I was like, I couldn't quite find the solution that I was really looking for, which was, okay, I know what my colors are. Can someone just tell me where to buy the damn things? I remember one night, my partner and I were brushing our teeth, and I sort of turn over, and I'm like, what if I just did, like, an online platform where you could just organize the clothes into the colors? And he's like, that sounds like a good idea.
Teresa Wojcik [00:16:30]:
You should work on that. And he was just sort of, like, immediately supportive. Like, he's done business stuff before. He started his own businesses before. He's run all sorts of different things, and he's busy thinking, oh, my God, this is going to be so much work. But he kind of wanted to let me go on that journey, and he has just, like, from day one, been such a big supporter of that, and it's sort of a champion of my journey and just wanting to sort of support me without solving the problems for me. So he sort of went, well, hey, why don't you have a go at it? What have you got to lose? And he also recommended that I go to Sebrin, which is the Canberra Innovation Network. He'd done a workshop there the year before called ideas to impact.
Teresa Wojcik [00:17:20]:
And it's basically you take an idea, it can be as completed or incompleted a form as you like, and basically you say, hey, we're going to spend ten weeks on this. You have to have 100 conversations with potential customers. There's a lot of workshops, there's a lot of information sessions, some filling in gaps of business basics that not everyone understands. And at the end of it, you come out with a pretty clear idea of what you think you really have to offer. And there's a lot of pivots and trying things out that you go through there. So that was really, really valuable for me. And then I had the idea and that was about it. And then I applied for the next round of the icon grant, which is up to $30,000 for sort of a tech business idea.
Teresa Wojcik [00:18:14]:
They really want it to sort of be developing like AI and technology stuff, not so much brick and mortar things. And I applied for that. I got it, which was very exciting. And that has allowed me to be able to afford to pay an algorithm developer and the web developers, and also legal fees, which are not small. Oh my goodness. I've had some heart attacks over legal invoices. And now, as we were talking about at the beginning, I'm just finishing up the Griffin accelerator, which is sort of phase three still within Sebren. So I've kind of worked my way through their offerings and their programs, and now I'm kind of quote unquote graduating.
Kim Kerton [00:19:03]:
That's wonderful. I mean, I really love to hear a story of Rand's gone wild a little bit. They're actually out there and you can get them and you can find them. Because I think a lot of times in different business circles, they get overcomplicated and they're kind of like this elusive thing that maybe exists, or they're kind of the last thing that a lot of people will think of when they have these fantastic ideas. But there really are so many incredible programs and opportunities out there if you're just kind of willing to back yourself into them enough. And I think that's where I would love to pick your brain on a little bit about, quite simply, the application process to go in there and how fleshed out the idea needed to be in your experience to even answer their questions kind of put the idea there. How did that feel for you, getting that information in a way where it could be a little bit outside of your head and easily understandable enough that someone on the other end could go, yeah, let's give this girl a chance to look at her idea a bit deeper.
Teresa Wojcik [00:20:02]:
Actually, in the first week of I to I, which is the ideas to impact, they were like, there's a grant going, put in an application. And I'm like, well, I don't even.
Kim Kerton [00:20:11]:
Know what my business is yet, but.
Teresa Wojcik [00:20:12]:
Okay, I'll put in something. And I applied for. I don't even remember what it was. I think it was like $10,000 or something to put towards, like a website or something like that. It wasn't terribly fleshed out. It was very rushed. I did get shortlisted, so clearly they could see that there was something there. But I didn't get the grant at that point.
Teresa Wojcik [00:20:34]:
And in fact, I'm actually really glad that I didn't because if I had won the grant at that point, I would not have understood the business as well. I would have spent the money on something that wasn't going to be as helpful and I would have peeded out very quickly. So as disappointing maybe, as it was at the time to go, okay, I applied and I didn't get in. They offered lots of feedback, which was really good. I just made meetings and meetings and meetings just to talk the idea through with as many different people as I possibly could. Sebrin were really helpful. They have networking sessions where you can talk to people. They have one on one meetings that you can book to just talk ideas through.
Teresa Wojcik [00:21:18]:
And everyone in that community is just so generous with both their time and their knowledge. So it's a really, really safe place for people beginning a business. There was never any, oh, well, you don't know what you're talking about yet, or, oh, well, I don't think that's reasonable or anything. There was just, hey, you've got something and you're working through it. Let's just sort of part the clouds a little bit further ahead so you can maybe take a few steps and then come check back in with me. And that having that community has made a huge difference for me in my success with applying for the grant. In the first round, they had said, hey, we haven't funded you this time, but we definitely encourage you to apply again. So, first of all, I had that little tick and I was like, great, I definitely will.
Teresa Wojcik [00:22:04]:
And the second time round, I was much, much more prepared. I knew what the budget was that I was going to be applying for. I'd got the teams already on board who I was going to be working with. I had people to introduce. We already had a little bit of movement at the beginning. I suppose it's something that during the Griffin accelerator has a lot of things have developed and clarified, but I think I had a really good sense of the direction I wanted to head in and why I wanted to do this and who I thought my customers might be and that there really was something here. I mean, not just me going, I have a problem and I want to fix it. For me, I was like, I think this is really something that other people can really align themselves with as well.
Teresa Wojcik [00:22:52]:
And I actually had a couple of different target markets. So there's the people who have already had their colors done. There's people who are interested in just experimenting. There's a lot of TikTok face filters and stuff around at the moment. A lot of people are interested in experimenting, and then the other one is stylists. This is something that's really going to save a lot of time for stylists once the algorithm is a bit more developed. And so I didn't necessarily have the numbers or the timelines for some of those things, but I was like, look, I think there's potential here. And I also had an end goal.
Teresa Wojcik [00:23:29]:
By the time I got to the end of the project, I was like, look, this is the specific outcome we're going to have. We're going to have an mvp that is functional. It's hopefully going to have x amount of affiliates on board and it's going to be ready to start earning revenue. This money that you give me is going to actually have an outcome that gets me to a point where maybe I can be independent. It's not, oh, it's going to puff me a little bit further along and then I'm going to have to ask for something else. I mean, obviously that's not how it's panning out. I'm hoping to apply for more money because now I've stretched myself and I'm like, oh, well, I have these other goals I want to reach, but even if I'd only gotten that far, the money wouldn't be wasted. The thing is, they want you to succeed.
Teresa Wojcik [00:24:19]:
They want to give money to people who are working on businesses and who are striving towards something. And I think especially with the icon grind, I mean, I can't speak for other bodies, but they really want entrepreneurs to have this opportunity and they understand that it's hard and it's expensive. Like, applying for IP has been nearly $8,000 for me, just like out of my own pocket. They already know that I'm like, oh, it'll only be $400. They're like, no, it won't.
Kim Kerton [00:24:49]:
Good luck.
Teresa Wojcik [00:24:50]:
And there's a little bit of those things you have to learn yourself. But what they really want to see is that you have a plan that is actionable with an outcome that's actually achievable. Don't bother saying, oh, we're going to earn $5 million and it's going to make so much money. They know that that's not realistic. They don't want you to sort of shine the apple. I have also had experience with music grants as well. I've won a couple of music grants in the past, which is a similar process, but for way less money.
Kim Kerton [00:25:24]:
I think a lot of people could relate to that hidden cost factor. There's just you make a working budget and you estimate and you overestimate, and then you're like, sorry, what tax? And what? I mean, I'm going through this process at the moment with an ecom idea that my partner and I have been kicking around for a while that I will talk about on the pod eventually once I get over all these hidden costs in my way. And, yeah, you plan for something and then all of a sudden it's like, no, add 800% to that cost. So, I mean, it's something I find very interesting to talk about because I think we don't often talk enough about those sorts of elements. We can get started with a very small budget for these things, but once we're in, it's that challenging period of sunk cost fallacy and feeling really passionate about your idea and being like, well, I've already spent eight grand. I've already done this. Should I keep going? Should I not? And you can fall into that trap where you do just keep sinking more money into it, even if it's challenging you in some areas. So I think it's about having your head together in that.
Kim Kerton [00:26:22]:
And it sounds like you've got great external advice to be able to help you go with that and be like, this is okay. This is a cost I'm willing to bear. But talk to me a little bit about the experience of feeling so passionate about an idea and getting some runs on the board with people saying, yes, there's something here, keep going, keep going. And balancing being able to sink your own money into it as well. So what's your, I guess, professional journey been like to support this idea and yourself?
Teresa Wojcik [00:26:49]:
So, first of all, I had some savings, so I had already paid off my student loan, which I had to do.
Kim Kerton [00:26:58]:
Congratulations.
Teresa Wojcik [00:26:59]:
Thank you. But in New Zealand, if you leave the country, you have to start paying it back immediately with interest. And at that point, I mean, I'd probably been recalculated now, but at the time when I left, you had to pay back a minimum threshold, which I think was like 2000, $3,000 a quarter. No, maybe it was a year, it was a year and then interest on top of that. And the interest was calculated on the amount that the loan was when you left the country. It never got recalculated. So the interest stayed really high and it was about 5% on $50,000. So I was like, I have to get rid of this.
Teresa Wojcik [00:27:41]:
Because the thing is, I could have stayed in New Zealand, but there's no way I would have had relevant work. So I sort of decided to take that challenge on and I'd paid off my student loan because I had to get rid of it. I had some savings in the bank. I was joking when I applied for the Griffin accelerator that I was saving for a house and I'm not anymore because obviously I did have to dip into most of those funds to pay for things. So for the icon grant, you not only got funding, you had to then commit to at least the same amount yourself personally. So yeah, I did have to say, look, I've either got this much X dollars or Y amount of hours that I'm going to be doing in kind or a combination of the above. So I did have to have that. And you actually also have to pay the money for the invoices up front before you get reimbursed.
Teresa Wojcik [00:28:35]:
So that's another sort of hidden thing to be aware of. There's maybe an extra 10,000, $15,000 in costs that you have to pay before you'll get reimbursed. And I know I had to be ready for that, but that was a little bit of a surprise at the beginning. So I had some savings. That was good. But honestly, the thing that has been so incredible is having a partner who's really supportive. And I know I mentioned before, even if I'd been with the partner I was with before this, there's no way this would have been possible. Personally, financially, emotionally.
Teresa Wojcik [00:29:10]:
Like full disclosure, he's covering costs for rent and food. The fact that I don't have to pay rent or everyday living costs means that I can put my money into the business. So I'm really fortunate, and I'm really aware of how fortunate I am that I can just sort of pour my time and money into the business. And I'm not going to be eating ramen noodles for the rest of my life or trying to find a really crappy place to live where the rent is low enough that I can still afford paying for things. So as I say, I'm really fortunate to be in a very stable position personally. And I'm not someone who's ever come from money or anything like that. So when I tell you I am used to making things work on the smell of an oily rag, I am so good at budgeting. I am so good at just finding the ways to do things, like economically.
Teresa Wojcik [00:30:05]:
But yeah, when you start seriously getting into the business, there's just costs that have to be addressed. You want to make sure that you've got the right insurance. You want to make sure that you've got your terms and conditions and privacy policy at least looked over by a professional. Then there's contracts that need to be looked at. I'm working with contractors at the moment that's really important that those are done well and professionally so that you don't lose more time and or money, but it's another upfront cost. And I actually had, for one of the contracts, I was asking the person in the business side I was dealing with, hey, can you just send me over the contract you'd like? I'll send it to my lawyer, we'll get it checked over, and then we can have a conversation about it, then we can sign it. And they're like, great, great. I send the contract off to the lawyer, I pay for it, which now, if any of you have dealt with lawyers, they're not cheap, they're amazing, they do a great job, but they charge for it.
Teresa Wojcik [00:31:06]:
And so I paid for her time to look over this contract. I bring it back and I'm like, hey, great. Ready to go have a look over it? Let me know when you're ready to sign. And then all of a sudden I'm talking with a different person in the business. She says, oh, no, we're not using that contract. We're going to use a completely different contract. And I'm like, okay, why? And why wasn't this talked about before? I don't know, just the other person didn't know what they were doing. There's just been some miscommunication or something.
Teresa Wojcik [00:31:34]:
And this is the contract we're going to be using. I'm like, okay, but I've already paid for the lawyer to look over the other one. And they're like, yeah, well, you can just sign it. Like you don't have to take it to lawyers. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. Sorry, but this is an extra cost that has been incurred by your business's internal processes not working optimally. And they're like, no, if you want to take it to the lawyer that's on your side, that's up to you. You can choose to do that if you want.
Teresa Wojcik [00:32:06]:
You know, there's things like that that come up as well, where suddenly you end up having to pay the lawyer twice or just due diligence and lessons learned. I was in America a little while ago, and I was talking to someone, I was like, oh, it's so stressful with this contract. Just like sending it back to the lawyer and then back to the contractors, and then back to the lawyer and then back to the contractors, and it's wasting so much time and it's taking so long. And she was like, why don't you just have a Zoom meeting and put them all in the room at the same time? I was like, oh, my God, that would have saved me so much time and stress. Think, like, for me, because I'm taking on so much new information all the time, there's obvious things like that that you miss, and there's some huge learning curves from stuff like that.
Kim Kerton [00:32:52]:
Yeah, the volume of time that gets wasted as you're starting to develop any kind of business, let alone a tech business, but any kind of business, it's the time that you waste either learning a new program that you end up not needing or going down a rabbit hole thinking, oh, maybe this will help me save time. I'll just learn how to do it, or maybe I'll put everything into this type of spreadsheet or this type of project management tool. And days and days are gone, and then all of a sudden you're like, shit, I didn't need that anyway. And right back to the beginning. So, yeah, the sheer time investment for any kind of business modeling is really, really challenging. And I think what you talk on there about having the support of a partner and someone who, it's like having an investor, isn't it? And I think it's so wonderful because it's someone who's able to say, look, I see your idea, I see the value in there, so let me support you in any way that I can. And I think there's lots of different ways to do that. I've spoken to lots of people who've gone home to live with and dad, and all of these elements certainly come with their privilege and different types of guessing what's available to you.
Kim Kerton [00:33:51]:
But the friends and family support that we get is pretty pivotal and pretty important through the process. I imagine with your business in particular, there's a lot of headspace being filled up given that you're talking tech and all of those requirements as well. So how are you balancing the week? And I guess the one thing we didn't touch on when we talked about financial and feeding money into the business as well is that you're also still teaching, teaching singing. So you have that on your plate too. So talk to me a little bit about balancing that through this process.
Teresa Wojcik [00:34:23]:
It's a lot of hours, so I'm teaching about 30 hours a week, including admin time. So that's already quite a lot. And I teach from home, I teach out of a grammar school. I try and clump everything together so that I can have either a morning teaching and then afternoons working on other stuff or an afternoon, and then I've got mornings free to have meetings or whatever. But yeah, look, working on the business just feels like all the rest of the time. So there's a lot of evenings, there's a lot of working on the weekends. I am trying to make time for my classes. I do martial arts and ballet at the moment, so I'm trying to fit them into my week.
Teresa Wojcik [00:35:03]:
I canceled my gym membership because it was like six months and I wasn't going. And I was like, okay, I could be spending this money on marketing. I'm pretty good with my sleep hygiene. My partner and I always go to bed at the same time. I'm pretty good at just being able to say, all right, it's the end of the day. I'm going to pick up tomorrow. I had some really good feedback early on from a mentor. My head mentor is Harry Hoang in the Griffin accelerator.
Teresa Wojcik [00:35:28]:
And I said, look, I'm getting quite overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I have to do. And he suggested just like organizing your calendar by week and putting in the tasks you need to do. So you've got a list of the priorities. And this sounds super basic when I say it, but when I tell you, it changed my life. So you start off with the list and you've got your priorities. I do sort of like red, orange, green, red is the highest priority. And then you take those items that are the highest priority, and then you schedule them into tasks to do on the week. And actually when they're to do, I have them in my schedule as orange.
Teresa Wojcik [00:36:05]:
And when I've completed them, they turn green and if they're still orange I then carry them forward. So for me, and I am quite a visual person, that just really helps me manage the chaos ongoing. And for me there's so many things that change in a day as well. I'm not saying it's clean but it just sort of helps me keep my head a bit above water in terms of what needs to go where and all this things come up before I was really kind of relying on keeping it all in my head and just sort of writing down in a spreadsheet. Oh, I think I did 2 hours of research here and 3 hours of working on the website there and I can sort of go back and be a bit more specific with the tasks that I've actually gotten done. So yeah, that's kind of how I manage that.
Kim Kerton [00:36:51]:
Yeah, I think it's always an ongoing learning, isn't it? Sometimes things work one week and then sometimes you need to just shift it up a little bit. And I try very hard to have one day a week where I don't have any meeting time, any recordings or just chatting time so that I can be quiet and rest my voice and then it just doesn't work. Then it just ends up being every single day. So I know it's just all about just toying with things and getting used to running your business and figuring out how to grow it. I'm interested in, I guess where you're sitting in terms of you talked about marketing before and you've talked about affiliates and kind of getting people on there. So it sounds like you're entering the sales phase and kind of trying to grow this into a revenue model. How has that experience been pitching to affiliates to be part of the site? And what's changed things for you through that process?
Teresa Wojcik [00:37:39]:
So it's been very interesting usually with affiliates. So I'm doing affiliate marketing which means I'm promoting or categorizing other people's items on their behalf. And then when people follow my links and end up buying those items then I get a commission. So it's kind of an interesting one anyway. It's a little bit more in the back end, but in terms of actually making those partnerships there are very specific avenues. So the first one I got was Amazon Australia. You can sign up to be an Amazon affiliate that's just through Amazon because they're an absolute mammoth and do everything themselves. A lot of other businesses go through a sort of a secondary hub which takes care of the infrastructure for them because what they have to be able to do is create deep links that you can attach to your website that then takes the customer back to their website and tells them that you're the one that sent them.
Teresa Wojcik [00:38:37]:
Right. So they know to pay me the money. And then the other thing is they have to have that set up to be able to pay those commissions. So there's a couple of sort of things that need to be in place that not every business is necessarily going to have the capacity to do. Right. So there's often these sort of external providers. So I'm at the moment signed up with Awin and recruitin advertising. And so what you do with those programs is you have to sign up, you have to show what your business model is, what are you planning on making, what are your avenues of marketing, and some basic information about yourself.
Teresa Wojcik [00:39:12]:
And then once you've been approved to be a part of the program, then you can apply to businesses. And this is something that also takes a lot of time. And you might not always be accepted the first time either. Like, I've been rejected from so many businesses, I've been accepted by two through recruitment, and I've been rejected by, I'd say it's over 20 and that's temporary. Some of them do. They do a temporary rejection, which is like, say 15 days. And that may be because you don't have enough traffic, you might not be selling stuff that they're interested in, you might not, just might not be interesting enough to them at this point, or maybe they just don't think you're aligned. So there's all sorts of reasons why they can reject you, and then you've got the opportunity to reapply.
Teresa Wojcik [00:40:01]:
Some people permanently decline and they're like, no, not interested at all. But most people, it's a temporary decline. The biggest hurdle I had at the beginning was getting anyone to accept me at all because you have to prove that it works before they're interested, but you have to have items to prove that it works. So it was sort of a catch 22 that I was stuck there in the middle with for a while, which is why I set up the sort of proof of concept website that I had and I spent hundreds of hours trying to click paste, click paste, click paste, resize, resize, resize, optimize for mobile. Optimizing for mobile. I swear that's the thing that nearly did me in. It's so painful because I could use Amazon. Amazon, they sort of let you in without really taking a second glance at you.
Teresa Wojcik [00:40:49]:
You're allowed to have an affiliate status for six months, and if you've sold three items within that period. You can keep being an affiliate. If not, you get kicked out, but it's pretty low risk. They don't really seem to care so much. They're pretty relaxed about it, so they let me in. I used just Amazon images and it wasn't terribly exciting, I think, for potential buying customers because there's not really brands people know. You sort of have to do a lot more research. You have to be a lot more careful about the items you pick because you just don't have that quality check on Amazon.
Teresa Wojcik [00:41:23]:
So it wasn't as attractive, but what it did do was show other affiliates what I was thinking and how I expected it to work. So that then got some more items on board where I can use nicer things, things brands that people are more excited about. And so now we're at the point where I'm starting to push that then out on social media. I've actually just gotten someone in to take over social media for me because I was drowning. About two weeks ago, I was at the Griffin accelerator and I was just like, everything's spaghetti, and I just don't know where one job starts and another job ends, and I just can't do it anymore.
Kim Kerton [00:42:02]:
I know those feels. Yeah.
Teresa Wojcik [00:42:04]:
And the next day I outsourced social media and I was like, oh, I feel so much better about myself. I don't feel like I'm drowning in a bowl of pasta anymore. So that was good. That was a good choice. So we're sort of working together on creating the look and the feel and disseminating that online and getting people interested and reaching out. Obviously, I'm still doing a lot of the in person stuff, like trade shows and podcasts, and I've got another live pitch in a couple of weeks that's public as well. So that's definitely trying to get ordinary customers in or regular online shoppers. The other group that we're really interested in is stylists and saving them a lot of time.
Teresa Wojcik [00:42:49]:
So I talked to one stylist and she said once the algorithm can do all of the things that we want it to do, like all the different items, makeup, jewelry, patterns, block colors, all of that, it'd be saving her and her team, like 180 hours a quarter. Yeah. So obviously there's a couple of different models there. There's just online shopping model, which is where individuals will buy an item off supplier's website and I'll get paid a commission. And then the other angle that we're really aiming for is to create a subscription model for stylists once the algorithm is at full capacity to save the stylists the time of that manual labor so that they can then work on servicing more customers, they can do more detailed analysis. They can just have a break for the afternoon. They're working really hard at the moment. So those are the two sort of revenue models I'm looking at at the moment.
Teresa Wojcik [00:43:47]:
It may also be that individual businesses are potentially interested in white labeling. I know that's been mentioned as well. So rather than people being sort of pinged through your season, they can just go directly to whatever website it is that they're interested in and have that capacity available sort of running in the background of that website. Yeah. So lots of potential directions there.
Kim Kerton [00:44:10]:
That's so cool. The white label opportunity. Thinking about how you can license something that you build elsewhere and generate a little bit of extra revenue, or dare I say the magic golden word, passive revenue. And having a look at those different opportunities is the thing we all want. A certain thing. It's very, very hard to get. It seems like there is a lot of opportunity to follow. How do you keep your motivation for the big idea?
Teresa Wojcik [00:44:34]:
I mean, I'm really passionate about it. I think it's a good idea. And so really, the thing that I got out of having my colors done is it helps you organize your wardrobe, it makes shopping easier, you get more compliments, all of those sorts of sort of external things, which are nice. But really, for me, I'm not a terribly vain person. It's not a huge priority for me. But what I really got out and what I really noticed the differences were, for me personally, was before I got my colors done, I'm quite a small white female. I presented as a pretty easy target to just, like, strangers. And people would be rude to me.
Teresa Wojcik [00:45:18]:
People would be pushy. I used to get shouted at a lot in car parks. It's just a classic one. I remember this one time, I'm walking behind this car. You know how woolies has got, like, five different pedestrian crossings? Almost like overkill. I was going across one. A guy's backing his car up. He sees me, he stops.
Teresa Wojcik [00:45:38]:
I'm like, okay, he stopped. I'm going to keep walking. There is no problem here. But then he leans out of his car and he's like, don't you walk behind a moving car. And I'm like, mate, it's a crossing zone. And he leans out of his car and he's like, don't you talk back to me. He was just so mad about me. Existing.
Teresa Wojcik [00:45:59]:
And also, I think the fact that I stood up for myself just got up his nose, and he was just mad about it. But the thing is, that wasn't like a one off. Things like that seemed to happen a lot. And I was like, okay, patriarchal society, it's just the way it is. I'm not a reserved person. I'm not someone who pulls my shoulders in. I take up my space in the world, and I've worked a lot on being a person who does that. So I'm not saying suddenly I wore the right colors and I walked differently.
Teresa Wojcik [00:46:31]:
That's not what happened here. So once I had my colors done and I started wearing the right colors, what I noticed, first of all, is people stopped shouting at me. That was nice. But also, people just seemed to inherently respect me, and they gave me space. They didn't push. They would actually make way for me. Like, they would make space for me, which was fascinating. Another thing wearing the right colors does is it brings the eyes up to the face, so it creates better memorability of the wearer.
Teresa Wojcik [00:47:02]:
It creates more trust in the wearer as well. I know we joke that my partner watches the news, and I watch the news presenters because they've all had their colors done. And it's so obvious to me that the reason they've had their colors done is because people need to absorb what they're saying immediately and have that inherent trust in them. I'm like, that's like a perfect match for the type of people who should have their colors done right. First of all, there was just this immediate respect where people just went, oh, this is a person who should be given space in the world. And obviously, that was already true before, but nobody was fighting me on that anymore. It was very, very bizarre and kind of maddening. But you take your wins where you can get them.
Teresa Wojcik [00:47:51]:
But the other thing is, I didn't grow up with very much money. I was from a large catholic family. I had handmedowns. My grandma was the president of St. Vincent's de Paul in my hometown for a decade. And she would be in the store on a Saturday morning, and my spree would be like, a dollar a bag from Vinny's. I'm pre Internet. I didn't grow up with all of the social media and all of the help that they give you.
Teresa Wojcik [00:48:20]:
I had to make a lot of mistakes, and I wasn't getting things right. And I'm an intelligent person. Right. I could work out that there were trends. I could work out the different shapes. I was supposed to be wearing and stuff, but I'd look back at pictures of myself and I'd be like, I'm just not getting it right, and I don't know why. And then as soon as I got my colors done for me, as I say, it wasn't vanity. It was more like a sense of relief that there's a system that just works and you just don't have to guess.
Teresa Wojcik [00:48:52]:
There's specific rules that if you follow the rules, you get it right. And for my brain, as I say, that's just such a relief. I'm like, yay, it does work. And so when you're like, what motivates you to keep going? That's why I'm building the business, because I know there's the system that works. I know there's this thing that if you just get these things right and you can find them, the quality of your life improves so much. And as I say, it's kind of like a weird thing for a fashion business to be looking at. But if other people can just tap into that amazing resource that I have found, that's something that get me out of bed every morning.
Kim Kerton [00:49:39]:
Well, I think you've certainly inspired me to get my colours done. I am quite nervous of them telling me that it's not black, navy blue, white and gray, because that is my entire wardrobe of which I have invested in for quite some time. But, Theresa, sharing your journey in the way that you have, I think often business owners don't like to share too much of their journey before they're really kicking the big goals. And like we talked about upfront, you want to get your journey out there. You want to talk to people about what you're creating. You want to create interest. You're proud of what you're building. And too often we don't get the opportunity to talk about that.
Kim Kerton [00:50:13]:
And there's so much gold to learn from each other in this space. And you certainly shared some very generous gold in what has been your journey to date. And I'm very excited to watch it continue and watch it to grow. But in a thank you to sharing your story so generously with us today, how can the listener and I support you in your growth?
Teresa Wojcik [00:50:33]:
It's so kind of you to talk about it that way. And again, thank you so much for taking a punt on someone like me who's just starting up. So what you can do, you can check out the website. We've got the MVP ready to go. Ww dot yourseason co c o.com randomly and just check it out. As at the moment, we're right at the beginning. We're still developing things, we're working on things, but just getting that feedback from people who are interested is so invaluable at the moment. So yeah, just have a look, check it out.
Teresa Wojcik [00:51:11]:
Hopefully you enjoy it. But yeah, give us your feedback.
Kim Kerton [00:51:15]:
I'm going to make sure to have the links there in the show notes. So listen, you can go get around, check it out. Theresa, again, thank you for spending this time with me today and sharing your story so generously. It was brilliant to hear.
Teresa Wojcik [00:51:25]:
Thank you, Kim. Thank you so much.
Kim Kerton [00:51:28]:
Thank you for listening to unemployed and afraid, the podcast for small business builders with your host, me, Kim Kerton. If you love it, you can say thanks with a star rating and a review. And of course, join the community on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Find us at unemployed and afraid wherever you're hanging out, and I'll see you there.