My next guest is Nicole Broad, owner and designer at the Fruit Moth, a clothing and accessories brand with a conscience. Having launched in 2020 with a range of statement pussy bows and detachable colours. The fruit market now offers shopper bags, reversible sun hats, dresses and reworked blouses, handmade in her home studio in Manchester. All of the Fruit Moth's collections are created using vintage and remnant fabrics, and pre-loved clothing. With sustainability at the forefront of the Fruit Moth, no fabric will ever go to waste. Any off-cuts are reworked into small accessories or donated to a local primary school. And all packaging and stationery are made from 100% recyclable materials.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:28
Nicole, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.
Nicole Broad 1:13
Thank you so much for having me.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:14
It's really wonderful to have you. I'm excited to share all the great news that's happening in your world at the moment. But before we get there, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. And the first one is really why the fruit moth? Why that name?
Nicole Broad 1:28
So weirdly, it's actually the name of my wedding dress. I'm not married yet. I'm not even engaged. But it's the only dress that I've ever been obsessed with fashion since I was little. And it's the only dress that I've ever not been able to stop thinking about. When I saw it. I was like, I'm only ever going to get married if I'm wearing that dress. Well, and it's a Vampire's Wife Dress. He's my favourite designer anyway. But I just knew that I wanted to get married in it. But at the time, I couldn't justify buying it. I regretted it forever. And then it kind of got to a point where I thought we were going to get engaged, we are at some point.
And I actually emailed them last year, and said, What are you ever going to get the Fruit Moth Silk Maxi Dress back in stock? And they said "No". So but they did give me the name, it's a Liberty fabric. So they gave me the fabric name. So I ended up having the fabric shipped from the Netherlands so that I could get my dress made for me. Six months after that, they contact me again and said, "We found one in your size," the wedding dress and the fabric. But yeah, I knew that I wanted to start a brand. I have always known about SEO at the marketing university. And I thought that's what I want people to feel when they think about Fruit Moth dress or accessories. I want them to not stop thinking about it. So the Fruit Moth.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:05
That is just brilliant. My wedding dress is in a box waiting for that ring to be on my finger. I can't actually wait to see it. So now you know you've really piqued my interest, really. What drove you to start your own business? I know that you studied marketing and that you actually have this business as a side gig. And that's actually the whole topic of the conversation today starting successful side gigs. But what drove you to start your own business?
Nicole Broad 3:31
Yeah, as you said, I studied fashion and design in college. Basically, ever since I was little, I've always always wanted to be a fashion designer. Like I knew that that was what I wanted to be when I was probably 12,13 a long, long time. And I went to college, studied Design. And it really put me off fashion designing because everything was using patterns. I didn't feel creative in any way. I just felt like I was making something that someone else had designed. I didn't feel like a designer. And it really, really put me off.
Actually, to the point where I sold my sewing machine and I haven't, I didn't have a sewing machine again until November last year. So that was 12 years ago. (Well) Yeah, so I but then I went and did Marketing at university. So I did International Fashion Marketing at the uni. So I learned how to run a business, which I've been doing. Since I graduated really. I started off in marketing executive roles and added a bit of personal styling for the last three, nearly four years. I've been running a menswear brand for the owner so I do all of the e-commerce and marketing for him. And then yeah, last year it was because marketing is such it's such an intense career option. And there is no time like you have no time.
Other than work, and then you want to go to the pub. So then lockdown happened. And I was like, "oh my god all this free time," I don't have to commute anymore. I can spend my lunch breaks actually doing something for myself. So I have saved a little bit of money. And I thought you know what I'm going to do what I want it to do, initially. And I'm going to fall back in love with it. And I'm not going to use patterns, because that's what made me fall out of love with it. So yeah, I just started making accessories, literally just cut them by eye kind of just for myself. And then I thought, well, just see what happens. Let's just ask, I've set up a business for in my job anyway. So I knew exactly what to do with Shopify
. And what apps I needed, I knew how to do all of the logistics sides of it. Because I've been doing it for the past four years. So I thought, well, not really got that much to lose. I might as well just give it a go. And yeah, then it's just kind of snowballed from thinking that maybe I'll sell a colour here and there. And it's getting to a point where it might not be a side gig.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:11
Well. That's this is massive congratulations for taking that big step. And I think the pandemic opened doors for a lot of people to make these kinds of pivots. So tell us a little bit about how your journey has been in developing the business? And what sort of challenges have you faced.
Nicole Broad 6:32
So starting the website was all really easy. And I think as well because I didn't put pressure on myself because I already had a full-time job. I think that really helped me because I didn't really think that too much about it. And I think that's why it has done well because I've just been really honest and open from the start. Not trying to make myself look like a brand. Just Everyone knows that I do it from my bedroom. And I think my customers actually like that. Challenges.
What challenges have I faced so far? Probably actually working from home is a challenge. Doing this from my bedroom has been a challenge. I've recently, literally last week managed to force the other half into the spare room. So our bedrooms are now in the spare room, and I actually do have a studio. So I think it will get a lot easier from here. But actually just trying to fit in all of them because I only work with deadstock fabrics as well. Where there are piles of fabrics. absolutely everywhere.
Everywhere you look, you could sleep any way you look in because there are just piles of fabric everywhere. So yeah, sleeping around that wasn't great and possibly hasn't tested my relationship. But yeah, that's been the main challenge is working from home and actually doing everything from here as well working my full-time job from here. Having my studio here and living here is definitely challenging at times. My Instagram growth at the start was really challenging as well like infuriatingly challenging, but only for a really short amount of time. But I'm very impatient. So when I didn't see numbers straight away, I think that is a challenge for me, as well, because I'm used to working with big numbers. So working my head around only having 100 followers for the first three months was probably a bit of a challenge as well.
Yeah. And did you go to your existing network to tap your followers at first? Or did you just try to grow based on the strength of the brand organically?
I definitely tried to work organically. Unfortunately, the full-time job that I have is definitely not like my customers. And the people that I work with are I don't think that they can really help me in this sort of way out. So I live in Manchester and the brand that I have been working full time for is technically a "fast fashion" brand. So it's everything that I do not want the Fruit Moth to be. So it's really yeah, the network that I had to the point where I just closed out my LinkedIn and made a new one. Like, I just wanted a clean slate. I don't think that there's much that I could gain from that.
Whereas if I was starting a brand that was wholesaling, I would have had so many connections. Yeah, definitely not direct to consumer. I don't have a network for that, unfortunately. Yeah, I think that's been good as well. To be fair, I think that helps the brand grow organically and not go in the opposite direction. I always knew that I wanted it to be sustainable.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:55
Yes.
Nicole Broad 9:55
So I think growing it organically is the only way that you can do that really.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:00
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. So in what ways would you describe your brand as sustainable? You know, I'm tapping in here to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And I'm just wondering if there are other goals in particular that you're addressing with the statements that your brand makes.
Nicole Broad 10:17
Obviously, I'm still very much in my infancy, I've only just hit eight months. So really, really young brand. And there are so many different goals that I would like to complete for the Fruit Moth. But currently, I do think, I think there's a tendency with brands when they first start to try and do everything all at once, and try and hit everything and put so much pressure on themselves that eventually it just implodes anyway. So I really focused on the fact that all of my fabrics are either remnant or vintage.
Like, I'm not bringing any new fabrics into the matrix. So I suppose that my main goal from the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is focusing on sustainable consumption. And my production patterns, it's pretty impossible to not have a good production pattern when I'm creating it all in my own home. But obviously, as it grows, I would want to keep that as well. Yeah.
And using the vintage and remnant fabrics, not adding to the abundance of like, there are so many fabrics that go to landfill, there are so many garments that go to the landfill, there is no need for me to create new fabrics. And obviously, I need to make sure because I'm working on my own, I need to make sure that I'm paying myself a living wage. Otherwise, I'm not a sustainable brand. And I can't call myself on. I was actually listening to a podcast the other day and someone said, it was Catch Rhys, which is a jewellery brand. And she said that she doesn't call herself sustainable.
She calls herself responsible, right? Which I thought was amazing. I've not heard that word. One of my biggest worries, in fact, was the biggest challenge that I should have said about the last question, pricing. Yeah, it's a minefield life. And for me to work out how much my time is worth, as well as the costs, the delivery, the packaging, the electricity that I'm using in my house, like all of these things normally would just be all consumed within a factory for a fashion brand. But obviously, I have to consider all of them in my costs. And when you're first establishing a brand, it's really difficult to sell yourself like that. I think the imposter syndrome kicks in a little bit. And you say, is that right? Yes.
Should I be charging that much? But yeah, so I think I think that is a really difficult part of, especially having a sustainable business because there are so many businesses that use vintage fabrics, but I just feel like they undersell their own time. Like, it takes a long time to make a dress, like a long time to make a dress from scratch, make your own patterns. And all of that needs to be considered before pricing your items. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's definitely it. And I'll do quite a lot of things for charity as well, donating 10% of my sales to diabetes UK for the next three months, because I'm doing this challenge. And I'm a member of Ecology. And they like to plant trees every month in your business's name. So you pay like a subscription fee and it sort of offsets your carbon. So yeah, anything like that. And I'm always looking for new ideas.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:52
Yeah, that's, it's really interesting what you brought up about pricing. I share your challenge. It definitely is a challenge for us, as sustainable businesses to come up with the right pricing. I, I like to think about this is as really going back to basics. So what do I really need to live, like to sustain the quality of life that I feel I want to sustain? as well as to sustain the quality of service I want to maintain? What does that cost me together? And then how many units you know and this is the company to pride how many units do you need to sell to make that you know how much you need to invest to sell those many units so I think it's it's really for me breaking it down into numbers. I like to think about it as sustainable businesses are kind of lifestyle choices, and therefore your lifestyle is part of it.
So being able to preserve that freedom that you have to, wake up when you want and do the work that you want to do, add the value you want to do give where you want to give it, you need to just cost that out, you know that your whole life. And then and then put that into, you know where you need the business to be and then choose your pricing according to that. But it's still tricky because quantity and quantity and price have a relationship as well. And I guess this is where your time comes in.
So how many pieces can I realistically produce? Considering the time I need to spend on marketing the time I need to spend on other things, etc? And then work it out based on that. But it's not simple? Yeah, it's just something that I think as lifestyle businesses, we just need to trim up our lifestyle to what we do when we price. But yeah, it's a fascinating conversation. I think there are probably many ways to look at it. So, Nicole, I know that you have had some challenges along the way to becoming a business owner. several challenges, actually, you shared a few with me. I'm wondering if you can share with the listeners, some of what you've gone through and how you've overcome it and turned it into values in your business.
Nicole Broad 16:08
Yeah, so I've had a bit of a dramatic life for the past six years. And so six years ago, I was 23, my partner's 28. And unfortunately, he passed away very, very suddenly. And that kind of sent me into a bit of a spiral, really. I got into a bit of debt. And eventually, the stress gave brought on type one diabetes, which I got diagnosed with within 2019. At the start of the year. That's been a bit crazy. But also, I think, I think there are two ways that people can go when they have severe trauma. And you can either just give up, and you're done. Like, that's it. You've had enough. Or you can just like, girls, dying definitely made me think life is social, and I just need to grab it. I need to do whatever I can do to make my life worth it. He died at such a young age, he died.
He was a year younger than I am now when he passed away. And he was only just getting started in his career. And it was just so cruel. But I yeah, so now, definitely focusing on this. If I died tomorrow, at least people could say, "but she did that Fruit Moth thing. That was pretty impressive." But eight months was pretty impressive. So I think there's always been a lot of hurdles. I think I'm a million times stronger than I would have been if that hadn't have happened. I kind of believe in fate anyway. I always have. And although that is the worst kind of failure you can ever have. I do think it's taught me everything that I needed to know, to have the confidence and the determination to make life what I wanted it today.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:07
I totally get that. And like, you know, really, I congratulate you for all that you've accomplished. tell everyone what's just happened in your business, because I know this is really exciting.
Nicole Broad 18:18
It's so exciting. And it doesn't feel real talking about it. And so back in March, just on a whim, I was shopping on the high street. And on a whim, I applied to be a partner. And this was like, obviously, the business was only like six months old. And I heard back and they were like, "yeah, we'd love to have you onboard," which I was really happy about anyway. But then they said, Oh, it said 250 pounds joining fee. So at the time, I was like, "Oh, well, that's nice that they accepted me. But I can't pay that right now.
I've got a lot of expenses going out this month. And I'm not making any money yet." So I just ignored it. And then last week, about 10 days ago, I got an email saying "we've been watching your growth, we really really want you to be our next partner. If we waive the joining fee, will you partner with us?" And I thought it was a standard email. But, but it turns out it wasn't. And I went live on Not On The High Street on Friday.
That is so awesome. I love this brand. I remember going well before when I was more of a consumer. I remember going to this website to look for stuff because there would always be something original, something you hadn't thought about and really exciting stuff. So it's wonderful. I think your brand perfectly matches them which is what makes sense about them reaching out to you so lovely.
So exciting. And I celebrated a bit too much over the week.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:58
It's pretty good news. So I feel as if your side gig is really starting to blow up. Alright, so what advice would you give to people just starting out now? Or maybe people who've been in business for a while, but it's still probably struggling with their growth? What sort of advice would you give them?
Nicole Broad 20:19
Okay, I'm going to firstly go with Instagram because specifically for a product-based business, I think you have to be on Instagram. Now, I think it's so, so important. And I know that there are, there are other social media platforms that I really need to pay more attention to like Tik Tok and Pinterest. I need to up my game. But I could not have grown as a business without Instagram. So I'm like all for it. My account started growing and I started seeing sales as soon as I joined in with a virtual vintage market. An influencer wore one of my pussy bows. And after that one of the founders of a virtual vintage market got in touch with me and said, "Please, please, please, can you apply for our February market."
And at that point, I was literally I was doing like 200 pounds a month sales. And I thought that was amazing. And now like six months later, I'm doing like 2000 2500 pounds a month sales. And I do genuinely put it down to a virtual vintage market and Instagram and the community that they've built is just incredible. And I'm shown up on Instagram as well. Like, I remember us having a conversation in January. Guineas, put your face behind the brand, geez, put your face behind the brand.
And I was like, "Oh, I just don't know, I don't like having my photo taken." And now I'm like, half of my feed is my face. And people buy into that. Like, I think it's so important, especially for a small brand, especially for a sustainable brand. People want to see who is making these things, people want to see who's coming up with the ideas. And I get customers now who are genuinely my friends last week, I had a customer send me a bunch of flowers. When she found out about Not On The High Street. She sent me a bunch of flowers. There are many like these people who are amazing. And they do want to buy into people. (Yeah) And I think I genuinely think it's 80% the person and 20% the product.
Yes, obviously your product has to be amazing. But if you're not there and there's no face to the product, you're just any other brand really, life people are buying into you. And my other main thing, I always say this, "just be kind." The difference it makes, especially in a business setting. But you should just be kind and nice to people. And that's what people want. Like, I comment on all of my customers, I comment on their photos all the time. Like I'm their friend. Like I chat to them in my DMs like I've got some of them as Facebook friends now. And it is all just about showing an interest in people and not just showing interest in sales. And then the sales just come naturally once you've built that connection with your community.
And unless people say that Instagram isn't a community, because people are following you. It's a community, like my little community that I've got. I've just hit 2000 followers last week. And I would say 70% of those followers, I actually tracked them. It is a community in my opinion. But yeah, so Instagram, show your face and be kind. Yeah, my that my three-pointers.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:47
I love that. I really love that. What feedback Would you like to share with the listeners on our tool communities? So Women In Sustainable Business and the Eco business Growth Club on Facebook? So how have they helped you to sort of position yourself and get yourself ready for the group that has come?
Nicole Broad 24:05
Women In Sustainable Business is absolutely amazing. There are so many inspiring women and I know there are a few men now as well. But there are so many inspiring women there, reading their stories, and listening to their wins. Like I love it when you do the "Can we have your wins for the week?" That's my favourite. I love reading people's wins. And when you also you just so often go onto Facebook and see someone popping up a question on women in state or business or on Eco-Business Growth hub. You see, you see someone putting on a question you think I was wondering that the other day?
Yeah. So you don't even have to ask the question. Just scroll down. Just scroll down and read it and you'll probably find your answer. And I saw I think I joined at Christmas time because I took part in the January challenge right. Then I joined the Eco business Growth Club straight away. And that is Like that group just magnified. I feel like everyone knows each other in the club. But all of the members were just jumped at the chance of helping anyone. And that is the best thing. Like, again, it's the community thing that was talking about with Instagram. Like, it's just being kind and giving that free advice. That might be something that you know that you think is normal knowledge but there's someone that doesn't know it. Yeah, and vice versa. Yeah. And yeah, it's just a beautiful little community to be a part of.
Katherine Ann Byam 25:33
Nicole, it's been such a pleasure to hear your story to see your growth. So I feel like I've been there from when basically almost the beginning and see, see you flourish and see The Fruit Moth grow into the brand that it has become. And I wish you continued success.
Nicole Broad 25:50
Thank you so much, Katherine.