Mustard Made: $9 Million in Annual Revenue Selling Vintage Lockers
Mustard Made is a perfect one for this moment where ad costs are rising and many ecommerce brands are paying more to Meta than taking home in profit.
They make vintage lockers in bright colors and launched through a trade show.
Let’s get into it!
Becca Stern was a single mom and didn’t want to work for anyone. She started a jewelry store on Etsy and then an in person monthly market with other businesses. After five years she was tired of making jewelry and wanted a break.
Her sister, Jess, visited her from England and as they walked along the Australian coast they talked about starting a business together.
One of their ideas was a bra company for larger busts and smaller backs, but it was a relatively technical product so they continued brainstorming.
Becca had a unique, quirky passion for vintage lockers.
So they decided to try it. Becca, her six month old, Jess and their dad flew over to China and met with manufacturers.
They decided to partner with a mid-sized family firm (still with them six years later). They took the samples and surveyed 50 people on what they thought an appropriate price was…
The feedback wasn’t what they expected. People thought the pricing should be 1/3 of what they were planning to charge. But they trust their instincts and moved forward.
The lockers were big and bulky so they couldn’t just start selling them online due to high shipping costs. They thought they needed to be in retail.
They spent AU$8,000 to book a spot at the 2018 Life and Style trade show in Sydney and they were committed! They’d spent AU$25,000 to start the company and needed enough orders to fill half of a 20 ft container for the first order to make sense.
The launched with two products The Shorty and The Skinny in six colors.
The Shorty in Mustard.
The Skinny in Ocean.
The bold colors stood out at the trade show and when someone opened a locker all of the contents matched the color of the locker. That combined with their enthusiasm and sibling dynamic where they finish each other's sentences worked.
They sold half of the 20 ft container. In fact they sold two 40 ft containers worth of lockers. They had liftoff!
But now they needed more money, so they borrowed $50,000 from their dad and put in the order.
Jess went back to London and they attended another trade show so they could expand into the UK. They found success again, but when the product started shipping they had a bunch of complaints of damaged product.
They weren’t packing the lockers with enough protection. They had wanted to be environmentally friendly, but didn’t think shipping would be so rough.
They got on the phone with customers and drove the replacement parts out to their houses. It surprised customers when they offered to help build the lockers.
Jess then flew to China and worked out different packaging. They dropped them off forklifts and jumped on the boxes to test them out. With the packaging fixed they were back to selling!
Since launching in 2018 they’ve continually grown with revenue reaching £2.7 million in 2020, £5.5 million in 2021, £6.4 million in 2022 and most recently included in the Sunday Times 100 list of fast-growing British companies with 2023/24 revenue of £6.8 million (approximately $9 million USD).
Jess and Becca
I love the branding of the company, the fact that they went to a trade show as the initial test of the business and the focus on wholesale when so many entrepreneurs are trying to make DTC and digital marketing work.
Hope you’re all doing well and remember there’s money everywhere!
Sources:
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