Emily McWaters dropped out of a law degree to start pursuing business ideas – and has failed many times since.
She believes knowing how to get up again is what really matters in business, and has managed to do just that with her latest venture, online gifting company SQL Group, that has seen 100% year-on-year growth and is forecast to turnover $10-$12 million this year.
SQL Group has four gifting websites, including The Hamper Emporium , Gifts Australia, Everything But Flowers, and Mens Gift Store. Serving major clients including Qantas, AMP, Westpac and American Express, it’s dispatched more than 100,000 orders, shipped from her 1100 square metre warehouse in Sydney, and now run with the help of her sisters Amy and Libby.
Working remotely from her home on Kangaroo Island, McWaters manages a team of staff, sources all items for her hampers (especially from her local area) and regularly travels overseas to explore the latest in packaging, presentation and quality.
With a young daughter and another baby on the way, she’s aided with the help of a stay-at-home husband and a home office in a stunning farm location.
Below she answers our questions about how she got started in business and why she’s been successful.
Who or what inspired you to become an entrepreneur, is there a key turning point you can describe that put you on this path?
I grew up with two very ambitious parents who were self-employed farmers and then importers. Talking about business and money was always a part of my home life and so from an early age my mind was geared towards business ideas and how projects could be monetised and scalable. When I was only 9 or 10 my parents began importing from Italy and I still remember discussions about the Australian dollar against the Lira, their weekly and annual turnover, as well as their late night phone calls with Italy.
I also discovered throughout school and my part time jobs that I had different ideas for how things could be done and was much better being my own boss. Dropping out of my law degree was the turning point where I had to make it happen, as the sacrifice was big. I moved to Sydney from Adelaide at 20 with big plans but very little idea on the next steps.
Have you ever worked for anyone else, did you leave a corporate career behind?
When I first arrived in Sydney I didn’t have any money and I needed to save. I worked as a receptionist for a car seat cover manufacturer in Marrickville. Working for some else was not my forte, but it did teach me about invoicing as well as payables and receivables!
Where did the idea for your current business come from?
The idea for www.thehamperemporium.com.au came about by accident.
After buying and selling a run-down café in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, I then bought a struggling gourmet food and confectionary wholesale business. The team and I managed to turn this business in to one of Australia’s leading gourmet and health food importers and distributors. However, along the way we started The Hamper Emporium.
When we first took over the wholesale business some of its larger customers were small gift basket and hamper companies and it twigged to me that apart from alcohol and the actual hamper box we were importing and wholesaling everything required to make hampers.
I spent some time looking at the hamper market and realised there was an opportunity to target the higher end corporate market (of course The Hamper Emporium sells to everyone) and that the industry wasn’t particularly skewed towards that. They were niche operations.
We first launched without a website. I designed a nice brochure and tried to drum up business from a table in a shopping centre in the CBD. I worked out pretty quickly this wasn’t scalable so I had a website designed and we went from there!
Can you name three major contributing factors that have led to your businesses’ success so far?
Taking full accountability for every aspect of the business. If you own the business, you own and are accountable for the sales, the staff, the expenses and the net profit. If anything slides it is your fault, not the fault of your staff, accountant or suppliers. Own it and fix it.
Operating on the smell of an oily rag. I have always been very frugal with spending, particularly in the early days of the wholesale business. The work delivery van was my car for 5 years. Rolling up to dinner in a banged up delivery van did not look cool, but I was realistic about the fact that we didn’t have enough money to buy a car as every cent was going towards growth and buying more stock.
Don’t ever let your ego get in the way. I cringe when I see people with new small businesses getting a brand new fit out or buying fancy cars to look the part. Every dollar needs to be available for growth.
A business will get to a point where it does make sense to pay for the convenience of new things, but particularly in the first 6-7 years, my thriftiness kept us afloat. If it’s not making money or improving the customer experience then I only spent the bare minimum. All of our pallet racking is second hand. We also have second hand forklifts, cars and desks. Let big businesses pay for the deprecation of brand new things and SMEs should swoop in and pick up the good deals!
Building a team of people who share my vision and passion. Two of the women in my team have worked with me for six years. My focus is on hiring for attitude, not necessarily for skills or experience. We hire slowly and fire quickly – it sounds brutal but it is vital, especially for SMEs.
What do you believe is the number one trait that makes a successful entrepreneur?
The ability to fail and get back up. It is vital that we know how to fail. Australia doesn’t ‘reward’ failure as well as the United States. In Australia we tend to cut people down when they fail.
Having come from Adelaide, I set myself up in Sydney for this very reason. I could not have achieved what I have in the last 10 -12 years if I had stayed in Adelaide with all of my peers looking on. I liked the idea that I was anonymous in Sydney and I could fail and get back up without the added stress of people talking about me.
My first business was a failure: I supplied staff for wine tastings. As a 21 year old I had minimal experience in staff and money management and just couldn’t keep on track. The best thing that I did was buy a 7 day a week café and throw myself in the deep end. It was during this time that I developed a much stronger work ethic and accountability.
Since this first business I have failed many, many times. Over ordering, not ordering at all, getting distracted by venture capitalists, bringing in a CEO, and poorly judged technology investments.
So many business stories make it sound like success comes over night. I had no money in the bank for the first 9 years of my journey. At the end of the day everyone makes mistakes, it’s how you recover and learn from it that counts. You need to own it, and own it fast, then move on. Look at what I did, I thought I could sell hampers at a shopping centre, I failed real fast!
As well as your business, what other priorities do you juggle?
I am about to become a mum for the second time and will have two kids under 2, so that keeps me well and truly busy!
Can you describe an ‘average day in the life’? When you wake up, first things you do in the morning, arrive at work, fit in any exercise etc, and how you finish up for the day and evening?
Every day starts with a coffee and grabbing my phone to work through emails and checking or updating my to-do list for the day, and then from there no two days seem to be the same!
I work remotely from our farm on Kangaroo Island for over half of the year so when I am there I work from the ‘home office’ which can be the spare room, the big old shed overlooking our paddock or the lounge room.
I am a lot more focused on output rather than the number of hours I put in, and I find time blocking to be very effective. I try to work a solid for 4-5 hours with no distractions and then reward myself with time with the family. We might have lunch or do the grocery shopping.
All days include a lot of phone calls, impromptu staff meetings (I prefer these over set meeting times), responding to a myriad of emails and working on the latest projects as well as planning and ordering.
I have finished work by 6pm at the latest ready to have dinner as a family and then bath my daughter and spend time with her until she goes to bed.
After she has gone to bed, I often work on the couch next to my husband. I get more fun creative things done in the evenings like packaging or hamper design, and I am able to get my husband’s advice on lots of things. He has a retail background and I trust his opinion more than anyone’s when it comes to visual and marketing materials.
My to-do list sits on the notepad on my phone so that I can move tasks up and down to allow for new tasks and reprioritising if I end up with more to do than expected (this happens most days!). Updating it for the next day is the last thing I do before going to bed, and I sleep soundly if I know exactly what I need to do the next day and in what order.
What books and online publications do you read to keep up with the news and advice relevant to what you do?
I find Power Retail a good online publication for news about companies, competitors or trends that may impact my business. My team also regularly send me relevant industry.
What (if anything) do you believe needs to change in Australia for us to see more successful female entrepreneurs in the future?
My husband is a full time stay-at- home Dad, and we are fortunate that the success of the business means that only one of us has to work. Many successful female entrepreneurs would be more supported if their partners had flexibility to be the primary caregiver. This would mean a more supportive culture around paternity leave and Dads having time off to look after children.
Attitudes also needs to change about the importance and significance of the stay at home role.
My husband does not have the easier role in our relationship, his job is relentless and requires a high level of organisation.
I feel like it is often assumed that women can juggle both a career and home life all on their own. The super mum persona and the drive to have it all has created impossible standards for many Mums. We should feel empowered by outsourcing care for our children and paying for help at home. The pressures of life have changed and paying for conveniences like pre-made meals, cleaners and nannies should be celebrated if it means a better quality of life.
What are your future ambitions for the business? How big can it go?
We are on track to become the largest online gifting company in Australia and we will continue to warehouse and dispatch all of the product ourselves.
We are also well on track to reach our goal of a turnover of $20 million by 2020, although if we continue at our current rate of growth this figure will be much higher.
Our corporate gifting is a rapidly growing area, we will soon offer our corporate customers a dedicated gifting URL so that their staff or clients can go on and choose their own gifts. These gifts are then picked and dispatched from our warehouse and delivered to their door. This new format of gifting is used for customer loyalty programs, staff rewards and Christmas presents. Instead of getting the usual branded diary or desk ornament, our customers can offer their staff one of a selection of gifts for their home, family or something of value to them.
Which women inspire you?
My Mum has always worked for herself in her own businesses. She ran a farm for 20 years and had three daughters, before she and my Dad moved us as a family to the city. Mum continued to work full time and built very successful businesses. I always felt I had plenty of love and attention even with both parents working full time, and now that I am in a similar position myself, I can see how much work this takes.