Well hello there – Catherine Langman here, back with another episode of the Productpreneur Success podcast.
I’m very excited about today’s episode as I welcome my friend and fellow entrepreneur Emma Lovell, founder and inventor of the brand CoziGo.
Emma’s story will feel familiar to many of you I think, as she invented a completely new and innovative product to fulfil a need she experienced in her own life. I won’t give it away as I’ll never do justice to her story compared to hearing it her own words!
But launching a completely new product to market is no mean feat. There really isn’t a rule book or play book that tells you exactly how to do it.
If you’ve ever struggled with things like – how do you push through when every step of the way it feels like things are not working or you feel like you keep hitting brick walls every which way you turn. How do you push through and keep going when you’re experiencing difficulties along the way.
Emma’s business also was severely impacted by Covid – when Covid first hit, she pretty much lost her market overnight. But she has pulled through and relaunched and is now growing again at a rapid rate.
Having the tenacity and the energy and the confidence to keep going through all this is a truly remarkable story that I can’t wait to share with you.
So without further ado, let’s welcome Emma to the show.
Catherine Langman:
So welcome to the show. Emma, it’s so good to have you here.
Emma Lovell:
Thank you, Cath. How are you?
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, good. It’s been a while trying to bring this one together, so we finally coordinated ourselves and making it happen.
Emma Lovell:
We’re finally in the same room, for sure.
Catherine Langman:
So good. So we are going to have a bit of a chat about your career as an entrepreneur, and talk a bit about your business CoziGo of course. And I guess just to kick us off, I’d love to invite you to tell our listeners and viewers what is CoziGo, give us the elevator pitch,
Emma Lovell:
The elevator pitch, the quick one. Want the short answer or the long answer, well CoziGo for the listeners is a popup, sleep and sun cover that I developed to fit all airline bassinets, firstly, and then also it fits all prams, strollers, Moses baskets, and capsules. And the idea of the product is to reduce distraction, to help babies sleep faster and stay asleep longer. And also while they’re out and about, it’s got a very high sun protection factor. So it can also be opened up and still used as a sun cover on your strollers. So we’re about improving the parenting journey because we know the more sleep kids get then the better-
Catherine Langman:
Yes, [inaudible 00:01:23] parents better too.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, the better the day goes. Less tantrums and just happier all around.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, totally. So let’s dive into this story of inspiration, because it’s a pretty good one.
Emma Lovell:
It is. Oh, it’s a good and a bad one. So my mama was diagnosed with lung cancer when Amy, my eldest, was just five months old. So I made the difficult decision to pack up and actually go to England to be her primary carer. But I had to leave my husband behind because he couldn’t leave the business. So he was sort of not down… They said six to nine months for my mum and he was like, “I can’t really miss the second six to nine months of my baby’s life.”
Emma Lovell:
So every time I could, in the nine months of my mom’s illness I flew back and forth from London to Sydney four times. And it was hell on Earth.
Catherine Langman:
That’s crazy.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, it was just awful. Amy was-
Catherine Langman:
And how old was she?
Emma Lovell:
… A party animal? She was five and a half months when she was diagnosed… Sorry, five and a half months when we first went to visit mum and I got off the plane, I went, “I’m not doing that again in a hurry.” And during that visit, she got diagnosed. I went home. And then did it again really quickly. And then four more times that year.
Catherine Langman:
With no CoziGo.
Emma Lovell:
Go with no CoziGo at all. But after the first disaster, I did actually take a single bedsheet with me, and a huge role of masking tape. And I would jimmy up these like make-do tent things. And I was constantly worried about her suffocating, but also I was the envy of the people sort of next to me [inaudible 00:03:08].
Catherine Langman:
On the other side.
Emma Lovell:
“Oh, Janet, I wish we’d thought of that.” So I’d be dolling out masking tape to other parents and they’d be using the airline blankets and we’d all be like, “Shit, I hope we’re not like suffocating the kids.” So that’s what made me think there was a market for this and I searched and searched and said, there’s got to be something that makes this easier. And there wasn’t. And it was only when mum passed away that I started thinking that I would quite like to fill that gap and make it easier for other parents to travel.
Emma Lovell:
In my mind at the time I was like, I don’t want any mom to go through what I went through, because I was in a very bad place. But then at the same time, I’m like, hang on, people travel with kids for good reasons too.
Catherine Langman:
That’s true.
Emma Lovell:
For holidays and travel and whatnot. But the other bug bear for me was in England I was using baby wraps and blankets and coats and whatever I had to hand to go over the stroller. And even though I had those clips and stuff, anything I used would get rolled up the wheels or the wind would blow it off.
Catherine Langman:
I remember this.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, totally. And it didn’t feel like it was going to… It didn’t feel like… They say breathable with fabric, but there’s a difference between air permeable and breathable. So it’s the air flow moving through. I always used to sort of lift it and get this hot breath of hotness, burst out of the stroller.
Catherine Langman:
And the rosy cheeked baby underneath.
Emma Lovell:
I know. And to an extent, you’d just be like, “I don’t care. At least she’s sleeping. As long as she’s still breathing.” And you’d kind of shove that issue to one side. So when we got about developing it. And I’m by no means a developer. I’m a high school teacher originally, was my original career. But when we started looking we were like, well, can we make it flexible enough to go onto different items?
Catherine Langman:
So you did that right from the start in the product development.
Emma Lovell:
Yes. Right from the start. That was my husband. He’s like, “You got to make it do more than one thing. Everyone loves a multifunctional thing.” we looked up all the sizes of the airline bassinets. Well, he is a builder, but his trade was carpentry. And he made me this box that kind of, with the largest size of the bassinets we could find. And obviously we had strollers and literally we made the first prototype with plumbing tube from Bunnings.
Emma Lovell:
And I’m no sewer, so I got some black fabric and I used double sided, sticky tape to put it together,
Catherine Langman:
I love it.
Emma Lovell:
I did an interview once with IP Australia, and I sent the pictures of my first prototypes and she wrote back to me and said, “Oh my God, you’re such a sport for sending them through.” And I was like, oh, I didn’t realize I had to be ashamed of them. There were no CAD drawings or anything. I just photographed it. And went, “Can anyone make anything like this?” [inaudible 00:06:02].
Catherine Langman:
So you started with that homemade prototype and then what did you do next? Did you start looking for factories here?
Emma Lovell:
So I went to an Australian country… I went to an Australian company who takes… It was a full turnkey solution where they take your idea off the page, make the CAD drawings, the prototypes and go off, find manufacturers and come back at the end. When my mom died, I got left $50,000 in the will. And that’s what I decided I would launch the business with. And I think their quote for that was 80 grand. Some somewhere around that. I mean, hindsight, I should have taken the deal and ran because what then ensued was me trying to do a lot of it myself.
Emma Lovell:
And there was a lot of trial and error, a lot of tears, a lot of time and a lot of failings and disasters along the way. And I often think, my God I could have started probably two years earlier. I was pretty broken doing all this, mind you, I have to say-
Catherine Langman:
This is after your mother’s passed away.
Emma Lovell:
I have to say in all honesty-
Catherine Langman:
The emotional journey.
Emma Lovell:
And I was on antidepressants and had Amy, had a miscarriage. There was a lot going on, so I would pick up the project and then I’d go… And put it back on the shelf. And my husband would tap me and go, “Have you thought about this anymore?” “Get lost. It’s a stupid idea, it’s a stupid idea.” And he just quietly put it back in front of me. He knew that-
Catherine Langman:
He’s a beautiful man.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, well he knew that would help my mental health as well, just to have something else to concentrate on. So there was no big entrepreneur waiting to burst out inside me going, “Come on, I got to get this business off the ground.” It was a very slow burn. And I sort of rejected that quote, couldn’t really find anything in Australia. And started sending my stupid photos of prototypes back and forth to China and found an agent who works in China. And slowly got prototypes back and, “No that’s crap. That’s not quite what I need. No that doesn’t work. No, that’s not what I meant.” And back and forth. And we had load of prototypes knocking around the house. And each one would take weeks to just to post back and forth.
Catherine Langman:
Yes. It’d probably be worse if you’re doing that now, wouldn’t it?
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, my God. And then eventually we got one that we went, okay, we think this is going to work. And so after a few different tweaks and a leap of faith, I said “Let’s make a thousand of them and just…” Oh, I actually, I had a few different prototypes that were almost there by the end of it. And I use those four items, those four users to get myself some mums that were traveling long haul. And head out and use them. That also was a bit of a risk. Because we didn’t have airline approval or anything like that. Honestly, I didn’t even think about that. I just went take it on the plane.
Catherine Langman:
No, you’ve been scrapping it over.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. See what you think. And we got about, I had four prototypes and they were all used probably twice. So I probably got about eight moms, small market, small segment. But still some really solid feedback before we kind of did a few extra tweaks and went make a 1,000 of them. And I was super excited, but those 1,000 units arrived, even small things. They’re in boxes is way too big. And like just things we’ve learned over the years, but those arrived and they all had to go into landfill, because they were all wrong. And where we went wrong was the handmade prototype that they make in a little rim, the prototype girl or guy or whoever it is very different to the people that then go on to do mass production.
Catherine Langman:
This happened to me too.
Emma Lovell:
Oh, you too? Oh my God. Do you know what, the amount of people I speak to, it kind of seems to happen to most of us.
Catherine Langman:
I think it does.
Emma Lovell:
I really feel like my next project should be, write a book of here’s what not to do. Here’s everything I’ve done that I could try and help you not to do. Because I feel like I made every mistake in the book with this project, but I’m still here to tell the tail.
Catherine Langman:
You’re still here.
Emma Lovell:
I mean I cried and I remember having this stuff drive back up the road, like it came. First of all, I had no idea what 1,000 units would look like. And like, where are we going to put them all. We were living in an apartment with this garage and I said to Bill, “Move your car. We’re going to have to park on the street.”
Emma Lovell:
And at the time we lived in Manly, and there’s never any street parking. And we were like, “Holy crap.” And they kept coming out and coming out, we were so excited. And then we were opening them up and opening them up. “Oh, we can’t sell them.” And also the original prototype had magnets in them, which we thought would be amazing not to have the velcro because every tiny little noise wakes your baby.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s right.
Emma Lovell:
Let’s get rid of the Velcro and do magnets. And the magnets kept falling out and I would wake up in absolute streams of sweat thinking I was going to lead to the death of a child and [inaudible 00:11:28].
Catherine Langman:
Because you’re making it.
Emma Lovell:
And I was like, you’ve got to burn these things, bury them. I’m not selling them. So off they went up, back up the hill, they cost me $1,000 to chuck away. [inaudible 00:11:38] that’s another $1,000.
Emma Lovell:
Just horrendous. Horrendous. And I’m kind of wary to say, because I know it’ll lead on to… It’s from another question. But I’ve just a Shark Tank deal and told on national television said, I’m not selling it, but I’ve got a thousand units coming off the boat. Actually it was that day because on my way to the studio at Shark Tank I had to go via the delivery dock and pull them off, grab a box of them. They gave me a box, drive to the studio. And that was when I opened the box and I was like, “Oh, that’s not quite right.”
Emma Lovell:
But it didn’t actually seem to me that all 1,000 of them wouldn’t be quite right. And I actually picked another one up and I went, “Oh, that is.” Because obviously all of them were wrong. Oh that’s all right. And we ran into the studio with this prototype and told the Shark Tank team that we’ve got 1,000 units on the dock as we speak and we’re retail ready and ready to go.
Emma Lovell:
After cutting a deal, I had to bring them and go, “About that stock.” We’re now months away.
Catherine Langman:
I bet they’ve been through it all before too though.
Emma Lovell:
I didn’t tell them until I went, this is what’s happened and this is what I’m going to do. And it was amazing. Because they went it’s not what goes wrong. It’s how you fix it. Because everyone in business, as you just said, we all make mistakes and things go wrong in and out of our control. And it’s just about what your next steps are.
Emma Lovell:
So I’ll come back to that but we had this 1,000 stock and I was, I said to my husband at the time, “I’m packing it in. This is your fault, Phil, you made me do it. You made do this. I should have just been basking in depression [inaudible 00:13:37].” So off we went again and luckily… My mistake there was to rely on my agent to do the QC. And the QC consisted of opening up the box and checking they were there and closing up the box. And they didn’t actually quality control the products themselves. And they were pretty mortified as well. And we were actually still working together.
Catherine Langman:
Oh wow. I was going to ask you if you’re stuck with them all.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. We found a different manufacturer. We went with a different manufacturer and we both wore half the cost. So we both came to the party. And I felt like, I guess, it was my greenness to overlook that. And it took a while because we kind of did it in stock and units and stuff. But at the end of the day, I thought if we’re going to carry on and keep supporting each other, that was sort of a fair way to go.
Emma Lovell:
But yeah, we moved manufacturers and I’ve been with them ever since that time. So the next lot-
Catherine Langman:
What year was that?
Emma Lovell:
[inaudible 00:14:46] very independently.
Catherine Langman:
Yes. Good.
Emma Lovell:
I try not to think about what year it was. What year was that? oh, I don’t know, six years ago or something. I’m not good at that. Because it’s been such a slow burn and such a bloody hard road and sometimes, often not paid anything. And so I just go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s all right. It’s all right it takes this long. So it was a few years ago.
Catherine Langman:
We are a few years older.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, you can see when I aired for Shark Tank, that’s your homework for the podcast.
Catherine Langman:
Okay.I shall. I shall. Let’s talk about Shark Tank, though. Because, was that the first season of Shark Tank that-
Emma Lovell:
Do you know what I was… Even though I didn’t appear in episode one, I was day one of filming for series one.
Catherine Langman:
Oh my goodness, I never knew that.
Emma Lovell:
That day that we walked in was everyone’s first day on the job. And I did not know who the sharks were until the day I walked him because they were still locking them in. So when I went onto Shark Tank, when I applied for it, I applied for a program called the Australian Entrepreneur. Isn’t that friendly. Isn’t that a nice, friendly title.
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Emma Lovell:
Little did I know that was their working title and they did not want to let the cat out of the bag. And I thought it would be one of these almost documentary style, ABC kind of things where they just look in depth into someone’s business and decide whether to fund it. I didn’t know it would be a real TV show.
Catherine Langman:
Reality television, really.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. And then once… Reality TV, exactly. Which is exactly what it is, first and foremost. And eventually they said, “Okay, here’s a few links of this TV show Shark Tank is what it will be based on.” And I watched the American version of Shark Tank and I was just like, oh my God. Horrified. That’s not what I signed up for.
Catherine Langman:
It’s pretty cutthroat, isn’t it.
Emma Lovell:
And then they went, “Well, have a look at the Dragon’s Den.” In England, which is the English version. “We’ll try and make it more mellow than the American version.” And I looked at that and I was like, it’s brutal. I called [inaudible 00:17:04] Shine, the production company and said, “Don’t make me a patsy. I do not want to go on this show if you think.”
Emma Lovell:
Because I hadn’t to sold a single item. So I didn’t know really whether it was a good idea or if I had just been stuck in my own head, and my own needs and my own drama and thought that other people would benefit from it. You see some people pitch their business and you’re like, what? That’s a shitty idea.
Catherine Langman:
What planet are you on?
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, totally. And I thought that could be me. So I was nervous. And I was like, they might have got me as the patsy. They’ve got three great ones and one crappy one and they’re going to put me in the mix as the crappy one. And I told them, I said, “Don’t you go making me the Patsy, my mental health is far from strong and I’ll sue you.” And she said, “Oh my God, we’re not going to hurt you.” I was like, oh God I sound like a total head case.
Catherine Langman:
Good for you for saying it up front, though.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, totally. We’ve all watched big brother haven’t we?
Catherine Langman:
Exactly.
Emma Lovell:
So we went ahead, and Phil, my husband was like just go in there and have a ball. Don’t give them any more than 10% and see what you come up with and it’ll be exciting. And so we walked in on day one of filming and my husband just came for moral support. He had kind of like a dirty shirt and a broken belt on because he was just the patsy in the background.
Emma Lovell:
They ended up dragging him on the bloody TV. And he was like, “Oh no.” And this is the guy that had to have hypnosis for our wedding speech. So he’s not one to go in front of the camera. He was like, you’re killing me. So we went in and I just, I pitched on my own on TV. Well, I didn’t know what to expect, but you watch the TV and it’s like, they’re 10 minute segments.
Emma Lovell:
But we were in there for a good hour back and forth getting hammered and the questions quite in detail. And Steve wanted to know a lot about my profit and loss and my forecasting. And I don’t know, I’m such a realist.,
Catherine Langman:
You haven’t sold anything yet.
Emma Lovell:
I am such a realist. I could have gone in there and gone. These are my forecasts. This will be year one. This will be year two. This will be year three. I was like, I’m not [inaudible 00:19:19] figures out my back stock. Because in the end of the day, that’s what the big wigs do. It’s all just flying by the seat of your pants.
Catherine Langman:
It’s pie in the sky stuff.
Emma Lovell:
It’s pie in the sky. And I could have sounded much better, but I said, “Oh, there’s this many flights. There’s this many bassinets. There’s this many kids that fly, babies that fly.” So I had done that homework. And if we could just get 1% of that market. And he just thought that was the most rubbish way to forecast. And I felt lumps. And I thought, “Oh my God did not let this man make you cry.” So I managed to get through it. And John McGraw was in the first series. I don’t know if you remember him.
Catherine Langman:
Yes. I remember that.
Emma Lovell:
And he was like, “Oh, I’d love you on board in real estate. That was one of the best pitches.” I was like, “I always fancied myself as a bit of a real estate person. I’ll take the job.” And he goes, “I just don’t know how I can help you.” He said, “I want to help you. I want to support you. I don’t know how I could help the business. But we’ll just see what everyone says and if you don’t get a deal, then come back to me.”
Emma Lovell:
And then Janine Allis, lovely Janine from Boost. She started negotiating. She wanted 50% first and that’s when I went, “Can I speak to my husband?” And he’s like, “No.” He’s in the green room with Sarah Harris. He looked, he goes… He can’t talk. She’s pushing him in. And the funniest memory is when we are in the Shark tunnel with all these super post sharks, that looked really real, by the way. We were whispering. We were whispering about the deal, but we were both all so mic’d up like. Could have just sniffed.
Emma Lovell:
And so the whole world could listen to this, but we were still talking very quietly. And he’s like, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” And I said, “I think she wants to meet you.” And he was like, “Oh my God.” but anyway, this was after she… She changed her deal, I think. Oh gosh, I forget now. I think it was 100 grand for 35% and we… No, she wanted 100 grand for 50% and we changed it to 80 for 30% in the end. And on the offer, it was talking about sweat for shares and stuff. And we managed to write that out for contract. I thought that was silly because I was already sweating. I didn’t need to be told to sweat [inaudible 00:21:45] product. And a lot of deals get made on the TV, but our one actually passed due diligence and went ahead and we worked together for quite some time. And about 18 months later, I really just wanted my business to be mine again.
Emma Lovell:
And I bought Janine back out. And she was a lot of fun to work with. And even now our girls go to the same school, she was Melbourne based at the time. But she’s Sydney now. And we have the same stomping ground and just a couple of weeks ago, we were both standing, watching our girls do their athletics at the athletics carnival and having a natter, talking about celebrity apprentice and how much cool stuff she still gets to do.
Catherine Langman:
Ah, that’s awesome.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. Good.
Catherine Langman:
I hope she was encouraging. When you said you wanted to go out on your own again.
Emma Lovell:
She was super cool. Super cool person. And there was no lawyers or anything. It was just literally here’s your money back, here’s your shares back. And there was no revaluing or anything like that.
Catherine Langman:
Good on her.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. That was really nice.
Catherine Langman:
That’s supportive. Having been through that experience… I mean, I don’t even think they do Shark Tank anymore.
Emma Lovell:
It’s been dropped now. It’s been dropped now, yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Would you recommend to a startup going into something like that though? Because it’s a pretty massive experience, isn’t it?
Emma Lovell:
So because of my experience, I had a lot of people approach me over the years asking for advice on Shark Tank. [inaudible 00:23:17]-
Catherine Langman:
I bet you have.
Emma Lovell:
… A, whether to go on it, B, how to pitch and, C, whether to actually take the deal. Because a lot of people were like, “Well, what if I just go on TV and get the deal and don’t do the deal.” And stuff like that.
Catherine Langman:
Just for the publicity.
Emma Lovell:
Yes, for the PR my advice was always to make sure that you go in knowing that first and foremost Shark Tank was a TV program, and that’s where their care factor ends. Was they were in that business for entertainment. Maybe not the sharks, ultimately were, but the TV program was there for sheer entertainment. And nothing to do with your business, your sweat, your money, your shares, your future. And if you go in knowing that and understanding that, then go in on your terms and decide whether you’re going to do it as part of your life journey. Because I don’t know, my kids think it’s so super cool that I was on TV. And that I think is just like, how cool. And Amy, she’s so cute. She’s 12 now. And she’s like, “Shall we Google my mom?”
Emma Lovell:
And her friends are like, “What?” [And she’s, “Look.” And they’re like… I mean, she doesn’t do it now so much, but when she was younger in primary school, she’s like just Google my mom’s name. As a parent that’s like yeah, I got a [inaudible 00:24:39]. But it was a beautiful part of life’s journey and adventures. And digging into my past, I’ve had so many different adventures throughout my career and throughout my life. And being in a different country, setting up a new life, it was definitely part of life’s journey. How much it helped my business, I’m not sure beyond the initial PR and being able to jump with a business that had not sold a single unit. Then all of a sudden it’s got a value because someone’s bought shares in it. And I had PR and I had TV. I had all these back links.
Emma Lovell:
It’s a bit of a shame for me because I ended up having to rebrand. So yes, it used to be called Fly Baby. And we moved to CoziGo because another mistake I made I did actually pay for a lawyer to do due diligence and find any other businesses that I would be encroaching on. But the US had a product called Fly Baby. It was spelled really different. F-L-Y-E B-A-B-E-Y. It was actually a airline product. It’s like this seat that you could hang over the back of the seat in front of you and strap your kid in almost like a-
Catherine Langman:
It sounds like a torture device.
Emma Lovell:
A torture device for the person in front of you, I reckon. Who’s been dangling around [inaudible 00:26:00].
Catherine Langman:
Can you imagine.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, no, I can’t imagine. I don’t know how good an idea it was. But even though the spelling was different, if I wanted to enter the US market and I threw myself open to that. And even I did actually even contact the business owner and say it looks like you’re at the end of your business journey. And they were like, no, but we’d still be litigious. So I had to make the really hard decision. I either had to decide whether to just keep the brand going and launch something different in the US, or just kill it and start again. And it was really hard because it killed so much of my SEO and back links. And the PR that I did receive from Shark Tank kind of didn’t mean as much along the way. And we had to do loads of messaging about Fly Baby is CoziGo.
Emma Lovell:
And it took us years to get into the US market as well, which is the ironic thing. But at the end of the day, I don’t know, we were still less than a year old when we decided to… But so again, I had to pay for all the packaging and branding and websites.
Catherine Langman:
Redoing it all.
Emma Lovell:
Just everything, the domains. If you think about it, what you have to do to launch a brand. And less than a year later, I was doing it all over again. It was hell. And then people go, “Oh, CoziGo.” Because I go, I’m like, “It’s CoziGo, it’s get cozy and go.” Don’t you get it. But anyway, there we are, CoziGo.
Catherine Langman:
Here we are. But in the end, the US was a good move though. Because now it’s pretty much the biggest proportion of the business.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, 50% of my sales are coming from the US alone at the moment. And then 25% in Australia and then rest of world 25%. And all over. All over the world. Yesterday was Israel, Singapore, Netherland, Germany, Croatia. And I was like, whoa, it’s so cool to know that you’re in every corner of the world.
Catherine Langman:
I remember the first time I ever sent an order overseas, I had to get a map out and mark it, because I was-
Emma Lovell:
That is such a cute thing to do, isn’t it.
Catherine Langman:
[inaudible 00:28:10].
Emma Lovell:
It’s really cool, isn’t it?. One of my friends went overseas and she landed, she rang, she goes, “There was a CoziGo on the flight.” And I was like, “I bloody hope so.” And she goes, “No, you don’t get it. I was so excited.” She does some of my packing when I’m away. And she was so stoked. I was like yeah, I’m so stoked that she got such a buzz out of it.
Catherine Langman:
That’s pretty cool.
Emma Lovell:
And even me, I mean, I still don’t take it for granted. When one walks past me, I’m nudging whoever’s with me. “That’s CoziGo.” And then we just recently flew Air Canada and Phil goes, “Are you going to take a walk around?” I said, “I think I’m going to have to.” And go and asked her, there was this woman pulling out her CoziGo from out the headlocker. As soon as the seatbelt signs went off, she was like pop. And I was like, “I’ve got to have a photo with you.”
Catherine Langman:
Did she oblige?
Emma Lovell:
She was so cool. She was like, “Oh my God, we are so grateful to this.” So we had got on the plane in Sydney, but she had the product sent to Canada. She was Canadian and with an Australian husband and flew to Sydney, had her holiday and was flying back. So she’s like, “We’ve used this every day of our holiday and we’re going to go home and used it every day until they’re at school.” She was laughing. And I said, “That’s so cool.” I said, “I bet you just thought it was for the plane.” And she goes, “I had no idea we’d be using it as much as we are.” and I said, “Do you mind having a photo?” She’s like, “Can you send that to me?”
Catherine Langman:
I love it. What a legend.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah it was cool. My husband’s like, “Oh, there she is, I’ve lost her. She’ll be at least an hour chatting away.” Oh, it’s so good.
Catherine Langman:
So now I have to ask you about the past couple of years, which I know is going to be a big question.
Emma Lovell:
Do you have to?
Catherine Langman:
Aren’t we just aren’t we just deleting it.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, I know. It’s like a reset button, isn’t it, COVID.
Catherine Langman:
Honestly though, I think… I mean, obviously when COVID hit, it really was a dampener for your business right at the start.
Emma Lovell:
Immediate dampener.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Emma Lovell:
It was a very sharp sudden loss and yeah. And at the time I felt like someone had died. It was really bad. I thought, and this is probably my failings in business that I thought that probably 30% of our sales came from the stroller market, and 70% from airlines. Airline travel. And then they grounded the planes. They didn’t ground strollers.
Emma Lovell:
So they grounded the planes and I lost 98% of my business overnight. The sales just stopped.
Catherine Langman:
Disappeared.
Emma Lovell:
And I was like, whoa, okay, all right.
Catherine Langman:
Such a hard thing to stomach.
Emma Lovell:
And you are getting the drift that it’s not been a easy ride. It’s been an uphill battle for this business to keep going. And it’s come with so many extra challenges that I don’t think, A, we weren’t expecting, B, we probably didn’t deserve. But I did so much of the right stuff and it just didn’t go right at times. But I think one of my greatest qualities and one of my biggest flaws is my tenacity. So most people would’ve packed up and gone home and probably quite rightly so, but I’m like, “No, I’m not giving up.”
Emma Lovell:
And COVID was like, great. I actually have got this chance to go, well, here was a situation completely out of my hands.
Emma Lovell:
COVID killed my business. Had nothing to do with me. I’m packing, I’m going home. And after a little while. So when it very first happened, I was so stunned and everyone kept using this bloody word pivot, how are you going to pivot? What are you going to do to pivot your business? And I was like, pivot, shivot, shove it up your pivot, backside up. I don’t want to pivot, I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I feel broken. And [inaudible 00:32:16], again, my husband said, “Em, rest, just hibernate everything. Just rest, concentrate on the kids. We all need you now.”
Emma Lovell:
Because it was very much looking into ourselves, wasn’t it? It was a time to come together as families. So we didn’t have a choice.
Catherine Langman:
Did not have a choice.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, I was like [inaudible 00:32:40]-
Catherine Langman:
It was 13 weeks or something.
Emma Lovell:
Totally. Well, I mean, it was more for Sydney. We had a couple of really long ones. And my background was high school. I was a teacher. So I actually thought at the time, “Well, my business has failed. I feel like a failure. I’ll be damned if my kids are going to fail through this homeschooling. I’m going to make sure they go back better educated than they came to me.” And I did. I just dropped the subscriptions. Sales were still coming through and I would still fulfill them. And I told my marketer, you’ve got to have a rest as well. The business is resting. Just do an hour a week to just rattle on a bit in social media to keep people front of mind and keep it active.
Emma Lovell:
And we did the absolute bare minimum. And I kind of enjoyed it. We were lucky enough to not have to rely on the business’ income for our food. So we were okay. We weren’t going on holiday. We weren’t doing as much. And the income not coming in wasn’t putting us on the breadline. So we were grateful for that. My husband and I own two separate businesses from two different industries. So we were good about that. And as much as my little boy was a challenge to be homeschooled, I homeschooled him and I homeschooled him effectively and consistently.
Emma Lovell:
Well a lot of my friends are like, “What, [inaudible 00:34:13] iPad all day, while I work. And I’m like, “Well, I don’t have a business anymore.” So we did that. [inaudible 00:34:21] bike rides and collect tadpoles. And to a great extent, there was a lot of positives that came out for our family. I think all of us are a little bit bittersweet about that period. And whilst I’m glad to be out of it.
Catherine Langman:
It’d nice to have it a bit more.
Emma Lovell:
[inaudible 00:34:35]. Yeah we miss aspects of it.
Catherine Langman:
I agree.
Emma Lovell:
I’m sick of sport. I’m so sick of the kids training and sports routines and dashing and running. I would love for a day to go bush walking and hold little sneaky cocktail in my kid cup. I liked those days. So anyway, and we were lucky the government… I believe the government supported small business quite well.
Emma Lovell:
And we got some ground… Well, it just depends what kind of business. For me, my overheads weren’t massive. I didn’t have a shop front or, or massive overheads to carry. So I was able to use those $10,000 grants to push back into the business. And I think that’s when I rang you, and went, I want to relaunch my website. And I want to put more of a aspect into…. When we relaunched, I wanted to have more of a leaning towards the stroller covers as well to make sure people understand that it’s a high value product outside of travel as well. Even if that’s the reason for purchase, you are still… There are other stroller covers on the market. I think we are the best one on the market, but there are definitely other ones, and definitely cheaper ones.
Emma Lovell:
So I don’t necessarily think we are competing in that market. But I definitely wanted the new website to have higher conversion rates. When we got cracking, when the world came back again, because we all knew it was going to come back eventually. It did take a lot longer than I thought. And I got kicked out of my fulfillment center after six years. I was really dirty about that. I remember that. That was tough because they just said, you’ve got to go because you’re not turning in your target. And I was like ah-ha. But they actually kicked me out right at the end of COVID. I’m like, “You’ve ridden the storm with me now. What the hell are you doing?” “Yeah, we’ve thought about it carefully. You’re going.” All right.
Catherine Langman:
Wow. I don’t remember that.
Emma Lovell:
Back to the garage, I go. And interestingly, I’ve never been in the garage until that first day that that back stock came and we saw bought 1,000 units look like and went, oh-
Catherine Langman:
Don’t want to do that.
Emma Lovell:
… let’s start as we mean to go on. And I started in the fulfillment from day one and all of a sudden they did it to me just as stock was arriving. I was like, shit. So I had to get it redirected to my home.
Emma Lovell:
And it was more than 1,000 units this time. Luckily the home’s a bit bigger. So our garage is bigger. There I am licking and sticking and working out posted rates and it’s a minefield. And I’m like, “Oh, how am I doing this, this far into my business?” But that again, see, that was a really nice, positive thing. Because it’s a first time it’s in a long time that I was touching and feeling the product again. And not just seeing orders, but seeing order names, order addresses, locations.
Emma Lovell:
It was pretty cool. And it made me feel a lot more connected to the product again. Because my kids aren’t young anymore.
Catherine Langman:
And to your customers I guess.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, definitely to the customers. Definitely. But I always have been quite connected to the… My customer service is impeccable and no email goes unanswered and no problem is not sorted out.
Emma Lovell:
And as a result I’ve got to… Sometimes you lose faith in humanity because, I don’t know. People come across this a little bit… [inaudible 00:38:17], like, oh my God, what were they thinking? I’m dealing with sleep deprived, broken mums a lot of the time. They’re absolutely terrified about traveling overseas for the first time with a child. They haven’t had a full night’s sleep in six months or nine months they’re breastfeeding or not breastfeeding.
Emma Lovell:
They’re just broken and they’re like, I didn’t put my unit number on or I put my old address down or I ordered three by mistake, I only wanted one.
Catherine Langman:
[inaudible 00:38:49].
Emma Lovell:
Why did you add three to cart and pay for them and get through to the… And then go, “Oh I didn’t want three.” But I understand because I actually drove through a car park, turnstile once, it shut. I didn’t put my ticket in. I just drove straight through at the mall. Because I hadn’t slept that much. My husband’s like, “What were you thinking?” [inaudible 00:39:12].
Catherine Langman:
It’s a happy day when your kids get old enough that they don’t do that to you anymore.
Emma Lovell:
Totally, totally.
Catherine Langman:
Oh my God.
Emma Lovell:
So I am with customer service and some of the nasty emails or the broken emails or the silly mistakes I get.
Catherine Langman:
You have a lot of patience for it.
Emma Lovell:
I will always remember. Always remember where they might be at. But [inaudible 00:39:33].
Catherine Langman:
Interesting.
Emma Lovell:
But I’m currently fulfilling from home. And I don’t want to, I want to find a new fulfillment center. But with the way freight is at the moment, I’m actually struggling with someone that can really offer the service that does worldwide fast. Because we offer three to four day courier. And everyone’s really afraid of offering express services because express just isn’t express anymore. Express is just the fastest way to get something there. But it’s not real fast.
Catherine Langman:
If you’re lucky. Might need to puzzle on that one for a little bit longer.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, I’ll keep going. We’ve got enough room. We’re fully stoked. It arrived on my birthday before 50 people were due to arrive for my birthday. And I was like, “Oh, thank you. I love the timing. Bring it in.”
Catherine Langman:
Pass me a margarita while I unpack.
New Speaker:
Just want to quickly ask you. Obviously COVID really put a stop to everything for you. Whereas I think now that a lot of eCommerce businesses now they’re finding it hard because now their supply chains are constrained and now the freight is a problem and all this kind of stuff. They didn’t go through it initially when you did.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
How hard was it for you to make the decision to go, you know what, I’m going to go for it again, I’m going to redo my website. Because that would’ve been hard for me to make that decision.
Emma Lovell:
It was, it was. It was really hard and I really labored over it. But see what happened is I hibernated it and it slowly started coming back by itself with zero marketing and zero effort. And I rang you and you laughed your head off because I said, “Cath, I just can’t kill this business. It won’t die.” And you were like, “Oh, not many people come to me saying that.” And I’m like, “No, I kind of really want it to die. And it just won’t let me go now.” And the decision was all of a sudden kind of just made for me because it started ramping up again. And I was like, “Oh, damn, here we go again.” I had a couple of jobs during COVID and just contract jobs. Really hard to work for other people once you’ve been your own boss and you have your own ideas and your own working life and your own flexibility.
Emma Lovell:
And I don’t mind saying I do a lot for the kids and the family. My husband works massive hours. I cook, I clean, I wash, I do the school drop off. As mumsy as it sounds, a lot of people roll their eyes and go, “Why is it your job?” But it’s how our life works and whatever I do, it needs to fit around that for now until the kids are-
Catherine Langman:
It’s a season of life.
Emma Lovell:
… older than they are. And I was like, “Well, it’s not letting me go. And it’s coming back.” And I’m enjoying it in a different way at the moment, still. And even when I saw Janine the other day, she’s like, “What other products have you brought out?”
Emma Lovell:
And I’m like, “No, not doing it again.” She’s like, “You can’t just see a one trick painting.” I’m like, “I can, I will and I am.” And it’s a shame because the product development and the marketing and the packaging is the stuff I really enjoy. I love that, it’s right up my alley. But eventually, maybe I’ll do that for other people and consult later down the track.
Emma Lovell:
But I have a good product and it’s niche and it’s selling. And I know this sounds so cliche and I know a lot of people only say it because it’s what they think they should say. And it helps with marketing. But I really believe it helps people fix a problem. And every review, I get it goes straight to my heart and it really, it makes a difference. And I’m enjoying that. I do, I enjoy that.
Catherine Langman:
That’s really good.
Emma Lovell:
Thank you.
Catherine Langman:
So now that travel is relatively opening up.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah, yeah.
Catherine Langman:
All that kind of stuff, and I guess we are never going to go back to a pre-COVID world, I’m sure.
Emma Lovell:
Well, not with this recession looming, we’re surely not. Our mortgages are going to double in a minute, won’t be able to go on holiday again.
Catherine Langman:
Well you know what to do if that ever happens.
Emma Lovell:
Go back to bed.
Catherine Langman:
This business is not going to die of its own. I guess where we are right now with things progressing and growing again, where do you feel like is the next step for CoziGo? What’s the future hold for you?
Emma Lovell:
I want to get more physical stock in more countries. So at the moment, for example, to pay for a CoziGo to get to the UK, my English countrymen have to pay $40 to express courier, but it’s actually costing me $57. I’m subsidizing it. So just before COVID a courier was costing $34. And I was subsidizing it down to $20. So $20 I think is achievable, but it’s now $40 for the customer, but $56 for me. And the way the freight is working, it just goes up a buck or two every day or two. Just from emergency fuel surcharges. And it’s not the actual rates that are going up, they just wack all these different… And I’m like, “Oh my God.” They used to have annual price hikes. And these are going up in front of my eyes on a daily basis.
Catherine Langman:
It’s crazy isn’t it?
Emma Lovell:
So it’s not really achievable to keep going when the postage-
Catherine Langman:
When you’re shipping it from here.
Emma Lovell:
… is outweighing the product. And I can’t really scale like that because you have to really want a product to pay that much.
Catherine Langman:
You do.
Emma Lovell:
And they do. They really want it. It’s the only way they can get it there. So my next aim is to get physical product to the UK. I’ve done it in the US and it’s working really well. I’m able to do overnight shipping, two day shipping, send shipping cheaply for them. They’re not paying very much. It’s not free and it’s not Amazon.
Catherine Langman:
No. Stay away from that. As long as you can.
Emma Lovell:
No. Well, that’s another story we don’t [inaudible 00:45:50]. For very good reason. That’s another podcast.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Maybe we’ll do that one day. We’ll do a round table with a few.
Emma Lovell:
Well they lost all my stock. They lost all my stock and wouldn’t pay my money back.
Catherine Langman:
They’ve done that too another one of our clients too.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Anyway.
Emma Lovell:
Did they get it fixed or…
Catherine Langman:
No, they had to leave.
Emma Lovell:
Oh, well write to Jeff Bezos. I wrote directly to him and actually got an answer from him and it was fixed within 24 hours after a six months battle. But as I say, that’s another podcast.
Catherine Langman:
Okay.
Emma Lovell:
We can talk about that offline for your other business.
Catherine Langman:
I love it. All right so to round us off today, I want to ask you three kind of rapid fire questions. I know that we don’t have rapid fire conversations.
Emma Lovell:
Am I capable in them?
Catherine Langman:
But three questions for you if you’re up for it. And so the first one really, I guess, is what you know from all of this experience that you have had, what advice would you give yourself back when you were in that startup mode?
Emma Lovell:
Go with the one stop shop that I was talking about? No, just go into it with your eyes wide open, probably double your budget and triple your time and half your expectations.
Catherine Langman:
Seriously. To be in entrepreneurship for the long haul, you just-
Emma Lovell:
You have to be a millionaire.
Catherine Langman:
Well, you’d have to be tenacious like exactly what you were saying. Otherwise you would just go why.
Emma Lovell:
You do. You do. My friend’s actually just finishing up her business today. And she just said, “Emma, I just can’t wait to get a job. I’ve never worked so hard in all my life for so little.” And she just can’t wait to run for the hills. And it happens all around. And I’m like, “God damn, I’m so jealous.”
Catherine Langman:
Oh dear.
Emma Lovell:
Not really.
Catherine Langman:
But then you remember when you have worked for other people more recently and you’re like-
Emma Lovell:
No, not really.
Catherine Langman:
… Maybe not. I did that too.
Emma Lovell:
A lot of my coping mechanism is humor. And I muck around a lot, but, yeah, it’s good. I’m where I want to be. I wouldn’t be anywhere if I didn’t want to be here.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, it’s funny, because I went after selling out my first business, I went and worked for my old boss again and I lasted five months.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. He’s like, “I’m out. Can’t do it anymore.”
Catherine Langman:
The thing that killed me the most was the expectation that you’d be at your desk for at least eight hours a day, but they just did not give me enough work to do. Especially, I guess when you’re a mum and-
Emma Lovell:
When you’re clever.
Catherine Langman:
… Also running your own staff, you’re really efficient. I’d get through it all in two hours.
Emma Lovell:
But that’s why a lot of people with… I’m saying. And that’s why a lot of people have coped really well during these lockdowns because they’ve been able to work from home and exceed their boss’s expectations. And to go for a surf and still cook for dinner and still hang the washing. And get all these things done. And they’re being asked to go back to the office, just like, “No. You’re just going to make me sit there. And I’m going to pretend that I’m not on Google.”
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Emma Lovell:
Try and plan my wedding.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right. Exactly. All right. Next question. I want to ask you what has been one of the best decisions that you’ve made in your business to date. Which is a tough one because you’ve been through so many.
Emma Lovell:
Actually finally getting stock into the states. It’s something that took me a long time to get right. And I kept looking and looking and trying and trying and nothing quite felt right. I tried to do it by Amazon and that was a disaster. And then I was about to do it by a fulfillment company that is all over the world and offers… You handle it just from one dashboard and everything in Australia and England.
Catherine Langman:
No matter which location you’re in.
Emma Lovell:
[inaudible 00:50:00]. Gotcha. And it didn’t quite feel right. And I eventually found a family run company that also come from a wholesale background. So I met them at the ABC Vegas show years ago through Danielle Steerman, D. [inaudible 00:50:23] D. We had a store together there and she introduced me. And at the time they were looking to represent my product on Amazon.
Emma Lovell:
And again, that didn’t feel quite right at the time. And she said to me during COVID, she said, you should get back in touch. They do fulfillment now. And they’re unreal. They’re unreal. So that was one of the best decisions I’ve made. And it’s given me lots of control and they’re so there. And fulfillment centers are like used car sales, that normally just they’re horrendous to deal with.
Emma Lovell:
And the service levels are quite poor. And these guys are just like an extra arm of your business, your own business. So I said, he’s moving. He is actually moving warehouses today. And I had to… The more deliveries you had, of course the more things go wrong with deliveries and things are late and stuff. And so this week, a few things have gone missing or delayed, and I’ve got all these customers going “Where is it?” And so I have to feed through him and I’m like, “I’m so sorry. I know that you’ve just got so much on your plate this week. I’m sorry you had to follow up this other order.” And he wrote back, “Please, don’t ever be sorry for asking me to do my job.” And I was like, oh a breath of fresh air.
Catherine Langman:
Got to use it.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. So that was great.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Oh, that’s fantastic. I guess even being able to have that help on the customer support side, in that time zone as well, I’m sure.
Emma Lovell:
He doesn’t deal with the customers.
Catherine Langman:
He doesn’t.
Emma Lovell:
No, he’ll just get onto FedEx if I need him to and answer the question. But I’m so-
Catherine Langman:
Maybe one day.
Emma Lovell:
I do everything, for asking anyone to do anything for me. It’s always like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t want to bother you.”
Catherine Langman:
It’s the female’s curse. Last question for you. And so this one’s a bit of a philosophical one, I guess, but what do you love about being a business owner and being your own boss?
Emma Lovell:
Hands down, flexibility, hands down. The ability to… It’s so cheesy, but it was Amy’s athletics kind of all the other day. And I said, “I’m not going to come.” And she’s like, “Mom, why aren’t you going to come?” And I’m like, “Because it’s so boring. You’re not a runner. It’s not like you’re an athlete.” I didn’t say that.
Emma Lovell:
I was just like… She goes, “Mom, it’s the first day of the year. It’s really important to me.” And I went, “Oh gosh, okay, I’ll go.” And I got a speeding ticket for it and two points on my license. Because I was going 48 in a 40 zone. So I was like, really don’t want to go to the carnival. But the flexibility and this week I lost a friend and I haven’t been able to do as much work as I’ve wanted to this week. And I went with my best friend yesterday and just had some self love. And her birthday present to me was a flotation tank and a massage and a sauna. And I never do stuff like that.
Catherine Langman:
That sounds amazing.
Emma Lovell:
I did that. I did that when a lot of my friends are at work and still managed to kick goals and just work in the evening. I still did the work I had to do yesterday, but yeah, I love the flexibility of… Yeah I do.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. I have to agree with you on that.
Emma Lovell:
Master of my own destiny.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, yeah. This year for us, I’ve thought about that the most, because… And I don’t have little kids now either.
Emma Lovell:
But your industry has changed so much. I know you could go through huge challenges. With the lovely iOS updates and Facebook and stuff like that. And you constantly have to look at why you are doing it and what you’re doing it for to remind yourself. Just keep bloody well getting on.
Catherine Langman:
Keep on getting on. But much like you, but for different reasons, I guess for me to be able to support my boys with their swimming dreams, I have to spend a lot more time being mom than I would ever have time for if I was working in a full time job.
Emma Lovell:
Totally, totally. And no way does the most understanding boss ever want to hear you go, “Sorry, but I’ve just got to get to the swim carnival.”
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Emma Lovell:
You might be able to get away with it once. Then it’s like [inaudible 00:54:49].
Catherine Langman:
[inaudible 00:54:49] afternoon.
Emma Lovell:
That’s our priority. Totally. Nobody says on their bed, “Damn, I [inaudible 00:55:01] harder.” Or, very few people say, “I wish I’d have earned more money.” Most people’s regrets all surround not connecting enough with their people, or not having enough of their people around them or not doing enough with their families. And I think we’re in an environment now where there is so much opportunity and if you’re dynamic and tenacious and you’ve got a bit of schnapps about you and get up and go. Then there’s just so much opportunity out there to live the life you want to live and run your own race.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Emma Lovell:
Yeah. But having a job is nice and reliable and pays well too. There’s definitely room for everyone.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. But a beautiful message to finish us off today. And I really thank you so much for sharing all of that.
Emma Lovell:
You’re welcome, darling. It’s always a giggle. It’s always [inaudible 00:56:03].
Catherine Langman:
Now for any listeners or viewers who would like to kind of connect with you on social media or see what you’re all about with CoziGo. Do you want to give yourself a shout out? Where will they go and find you?
Emma Lovell:
We are@cozigo.com the email goes straight to me. Emma@cozigo.com and Instagram, what is it? _CoziGo. Facebook it’s just CoziGo. C-O-Z-I-G-O. It’s me.
Catherine Langman:
Yes. Fantastic.
Emma Lovell:
Thanks for having me, Cath. It’s been fun.
Catherine Langman:
No worries. It’s been great fun. So we’ll finish off our conversation here. And for listeners, you can join me again next week, but for now, thank you so much for being with us.
So that’s it for today’s episode. I really hope you’ve enjoyed hearing Emma’s story. For me, everytime I chat to Emma she just lifts my spirits in a way that makes it feel easier to keep pushing on with the business even when things are hard. Her sense of humour leaves my cheeks aching too, which is always fun!
We will of course share all the links to Cozigo on our podcast show notes page, so go check it out.
As always, if you’re keen for some help with this stuff, please just give us a shout! Whether you’re looking for coaching to help you to learn and implement these things, or if you’re looking for a team of experts to outsource to, just head over to http://www.productpreneurmarketing.com and you can book in for a free strategy session with us.