Every woman in Australia knows Black Leaves, the herbs and spices company that sells one of Australia's bestselling teatox, the newMe 28-day teatox.
One year ago, due to the Covid-19 situation, Anthony was fired from his beloved workplace in Perth, Western Australia.
After a week of hunger and disbelief, he decided he would have finally followed his dream of starting a tea company.
At that "nothing-to-lose" moment, with no money, no job and a mortgage, Anthony went all in with his $10,000 COVID-19 early release of superannuation and founded Black Leaves around Jimmy Durante's words "Make someone happy, and you will be happy, too."
Instead of running for-profit, the small team put together his best blends, and with only ten teas, after a rollercoaster month of action, they were finally ready to open.
The emotion of that first "ding" sound from a sale is hard to describe. Back then, Black Leaves had only a bunch of followers on Instagram, and someone from Perth made a purchase - $27, which was just a small profit, but a change in mindset.
Making people happy despite the lockdown was possible.
"When I started, I did not check the competitors; I did not want to be influenced by others and make a product like theirs.
I wanted to build my company and its product around the challenges my mum faced with weight during her lifetime." Anthony said.
So the team started giving the blends away for free to friends and family with the goal of processing 1000 orders in 1 year.
Thanks to word of mouth, Black Leaves did 1,000 in a single month, and the number keeps growing, making the company well on track for the 1 million 2021 target.
Black Leaves now has more than 30 teas and three special bundles.
"Running a business is a big responsibility, and you risk spending months working 18 hours a day without making any money. But if you have a vision, you know that situation is just temporary." Anthony said.
"The only advice I'd like to give everyone who wants to start his own business is to treat your customers like family. From selecting the herbs to the mixing, packing, selling, sending, and specifically supporting your customers after selling, because if you sell them only once, you have failed. I love Shopify because as our revenue increases, tracking every detail is so easy, and we have never had problems with orders or integration with other platforms."
