CHAOS THEORY
“What I wish I’d known about business when I was starting out is mainly that nobody knows what they’re doing – I thought it was just me,” says Anika Cook of The Gently Unfurling Sneak.
Anika makes wondrous women’s and men’s wear, accessories, giclee prints and cards featuring fabulously surreal, vintage inspired collage-and-illustration based prints, mysterious geometric forms and a sublime sense of the absurd. She’s about six years into running The Sneak full-time. Her healthy, idiosyncratic little business now sports a studio-shop in Queensberry Street, North Melbourne as well as two part-time staff, production help from a small, ethically-run factory in Bali, and an enduring presence at a couple of Australia’s best design markets. She sells her wares online, in her shop, and via a small network of stockists.
Weirdly, Anika says that in her 13 years as a maker, this is the first time an interview has focussed on the business skills that sustain her.
“As an art/craft/design business, I sometimes feel like we exist in a sort of nowhere land,” she says. “We’re not seen as serious businesses by the general business community, or our way of doing business is not relevant to them. And we don’t have exhibition-based practices so we’re not necessarily acknowledged by the fine art community either.
“Our practices are often viewed as fun or hobbies. The administrative, financial and logistical hard work is rarely explored in interviews. But a mix of business and design is what I deal with on a day-to-day basis. This is the first time I’ve felt that an interviewer has really tried to get a full snapshot of what I do.
“Most questions I get from strangers involve logistics, like what is it that I do all day and how do I make money? When I read interviews with other makers, those are the kinds of things I want to know. There’s a real need for this kind of series.”
NO IDEA
After nearly a decade hacking her own path through the business jungle, Anika’s grown comfortable with uncertainty.
“I think I started with zero business nous,” she says. “I just didn’t know anything about business. I rocked up to Rose Street Artists Market with a bunch of things that I’d made and just started selling them. And I actually think that that was a nice way to start. Because I didn’t have any business skills but I also didn’t know that I should have all these business skills. I probably would have scared myself off if I’d thought of it as a big huge thing.”
She concedes she was very unsure about what she was doing for quite some time.
I didn’t get any more sure. I just got more comfortable with being unsure.
“I wish I knew at the beginning that that was okay. I think it’s helpful to know you can structure things however you like.”
CREATIVE WHAT?
Gymnastics, marine biology, film making, photography: all seemed like more probable career paths than fashion design when Anika was growing up. Even at uni. Even when she was studying a BA in Creative Arts.
When I was growing up I don’t think I knew that creative businesses existed.
“I didn’t know anyone who had one. I knew people who were certainly creative and did a lot of craftwork but it was always … hobbies. It was never something that they did full-time as a job.”
EUREKA
Anika found her creative niche via endless photo montage assignments at Melbourne Uni in 2003.
“A very nice tutor suggested to me that I might want to try collage because I kept submitting photo montages for my photography assignments,” she laughs. “Then I hit collage and I just kind of never looked back.”
Good old CAE, Melbourne’s original home of short-course heaven, played its part too. Anika had a ball learning screen printing basics at a weekend course and spent months noodling around at home on cheap equipment. She wound up with a stack of screen printed T-shirts, totes and badges and decided to try her luck selling them at Rose Street in Fitzroy. They sold. She made more. She sold more. She tried more markets. They went off like a frog in a sock too. You get the picture.
LOW EXPECTATIONS
Starting small expecting nothing beyond a bit of pocket money was central to her early success at design markets. “I didn’t really think I was starting a business,” Anika says.
I just thought I was making a few little things and selling them for a bit of extra cash.
NAME CALLING
Dreaming up a memorable name for her burgeoning range. Renting shared space at River Studios in West Melbourne. Branching into wholesaling via fashion and design boutiques. Embracing digital printing. Working with local manufacturers to create rapidly changing ranges. Forking out money for a website that showed she meant business and created a channel for online sales. All this came after uni, as the idea of a regular day job gradually came to seem more fanciful than devoting herself fully to this accidental business-in-the-making.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
“I started out with a lot of spreadsheets and I eventually bought a copy of MYOB and started using that to track all of my sales and expenses,” Anika says.
She called in her dad, with his “good business brain”, to help her make the transition. It was easier than she expected. “Once I knew what all the terms meant that did come fairly naturally because I’m generally pretty organised,” she says.
As her business and finances became more complex, she came to rely on MYOB for more functionality. “Now that I have employees it also deals with my payroll and well as inventory and things like that,” she says.
You need to have systems in place so that you can just do it on a day-to-day basis and it doesn’t take up all of your time.
Getting the accounts nailed left her more time for fun stuff. It also gave her useful numbers to crunch when eventually she had to decide whether to fork out for a pricier studio offering more space to expand her little empire.
CALCULATED RISK
Anika discovered her current studio on Queensberry Street a few years back. It was bigger and more expensive than her shared studio and came with a mildly terrifying three-year commercial lease. But its front section could easily be converted into a little shop, giving the entire space an appealing open-studio vibe.
Having accurate numbers to crunch at that point proved immensely reassuring. No prizes for guessing they stacked up, though Anika kept a decent Plan B up her sleeve. “Retail has not been going great in the past few years so it’s not really an obvious thing to do,” she says. “But the numbers were safe enough that I thought it would probably not fail completely. And also the studio was big enough that I thought, ‘If it goes really, really badly I’ll be able to sub-let and have some other people in here’. That was my back-up plan.” She dived in, signed on, and made the horrible paint and carpet a distant memory.
It was the right move. Opening the shop for just four (shortish) days a week leaves time to work on the rest of the business, and has attracted a whole new market of loyal locals delighted to have locally designed fashion on their doorstep.
These days two part-time employees help Anika with the sales/admin/production juggle, and there’s not a sub-letter in sight. “It’s really lovely,” she says. “We feel like we’re part of the community now.”
SAY WHAT?
Learning how to communicate – with suppliers, stockists and customers – was trickier than mastering MYOB. “It’s more a case of trial and error,” Anika says. “Basically of making mistakes and thinking, ‘I really should have dealt with that better’, and then doing it better the next time. It’s a constant process of learning. I’m sure that still happens.”
MENTORS & SOUNDING BOARDS
Small business media and mentors, with their focus on corporate values, aren’t much use to Anika. “I did look for a business mentor for a while,” she says. “They didn’t really understand what kind of business I was doing. They kind of thought if I was a fashion designer it’s either you make everything in-house and do it all and sell through your shop, or you make everything in China and just sell it at a huge profit. They didn’t seem to think there was a way in between.”
She taps into informal networks of like-minded creatives when she needs a sounding board: mates from design markets or Melbourne’s much loved Creative Women’s Circle.
“I’ve got a network of people who run similar business to me and we often get together and ask each other questions,” she says. “Even something like, ‘So how do you work out GST on fabric that you’ve imported?’ and other little things that you might spend all day trying to figure out on your own.”
Sometimes they vent. “It’s a very common thing that if I’m having a bad day I’ll text someone and say, ‘I can’t believe this has just happened’,” she says. “And they’ll have had a similar experience and will understand exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Building a network like that did take a long time,” Anika says. “We’ll get together at events or just when I see them around town and we’ll all have those kinds of discussions because everyone’s got something on their mind that they need advice about. That never goes away. You always need help with something.”
“Before I opened the studio-shop it was quite a lot of extra rent and so I was incredibly stressed out about whether that was a good decision. And it was a three-year lease, so that was very nerve-wracking. And a commercial lease, which is a whole different kettle of fish. I remember going to a Creative Women’s Circle morning tea and just laying that out there and saying to people, ‘What should I do?’ And they all said, ‘You should do it’. That made me feel a lot better. And I just thought, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna do that’.
It’s incredibly helpful to have people like that who know what you’re talking about and where you’re coming from and give you really, really excellent advice.
“It’s priceless really.”
INSPIRATION
Anika’s forever asking questions, and makes a point of attending talks and workshops by organisations like Craft Victoria to pick up fresh ideas from makers she admires.
Madeleine Dore’s long-running interview series Extraordinary Routines is another source of inspiration. She rewards herself with a read after knocking over some crappy task she’s been putting off.
“I adore that website,” she says. “It’s just really wonderful to pick up ideas about ways to work. Probably a big part of when I decided to stick to business hours … was looking at that and realising that a lot of people who were interviewed give themselves a whole day off a week, or they start work at midday every day, or whatever it is – they’ve figured out what works for them and they just do it and they don’t feel guilty about it. That’s always immensely reassuring.”
TECHNOPHILIA
Trello has won Anika’s heart. Shockingly it has overtaken sticky notes as her preferred method of communication. She and her staff use Trello to track what they’re working on and share everything from to-do lists to progress on an upcoming collection. Bye-bye unnecessary meetings.
“It’s sort of like a visual board on your phone,” Anika says. “It’s been fantastic because it means it’s not in your head anymore. It’s actually written down somewhere and not on a million pieces of paper that get lost, but in a nice little format that looks good. And you can put pictures on there, which is important for a visual person.”
BAD ADVICE
“In the past I’ve had suppliers or customers or stockists or whatever who have not really got what I do and have tried to sort of force me into a different kind of box,” Anika says.
I’ve gone along with it because I’ve thought, ‘Oh well, you take every opportunity and every customer’. It wasn’t the right thing for my business or for my designs.
“I think it takes a long time to learn to say no, particularly because I’m quite polite and I don’t like confrontation at all. Now if someone says, ‘Can we have this in this different colour?’ and it’s a colour that I hate or think would look awful, I will say, ‘Look, we don’t do that’ or, ‘We don’t actually do custom designs’. So it’s a process of learning to be firm and polite but to say ‘Nuh’.”
BRAND AWARENESS
Learning to understand her brand’s essence and how best to honour it commercially has helped with the yeses and nos.
“I’ve had people say, ‘You should go for designs that have the broadest appeal’, which is really the more boring designs,” Anika says. “Like, I should only do plain clothing or only plain tailored shirts because people need work shirts and things. And for a while I thought, ‘Maybe I should do that because I could get more sales and it might be more profitable that way’.
I’ve come to realise my designs are on the weirder side and my customers like that. If I give them something boring they’re not going to buy it.
“For a while there I thought that because people were giving me that advice I should follow it. Now I’ve decided that it is what it is, the customer likes it, I’ve got that niche and I have to be respectful of that.”
THE SAD TRUTH ABOUT PROFIT
Profitability is central to Anika’s enterprise, whether she likes it or not. “I have stopped making things that are not profitable enough,” she says, “which is always really heartbreaking. Or I’ll only make a couple of those things, because they will end up being so expensive that I know only a few people will be able to buy them. I think that’s one of those things that you just kind of have to do to have a sustainable business.”
I often think to myself, ‘I can maybe re-visit that later if I can find a way to make the numbers better’.
“And sometimes that does happen. A new production method will come up and I’ll be able to do something. But quite often we have to either not do something or change it quite dramatically so that it can be made and sold profitably. It’s sad.”
“Sometimes I’ll make one for me and I’ll be happy with that.”
USEFUL MISTAKES
Oh, there’ve been plenty. “I can get really specific, like, ‘You should never get fabric printed by people who have only ever printed on paper’,” Anika laughs. “I did some printing with some people who’d just got a fabric printer and they printed it all off-grain, because they didn’t know what grain was. They sent it to me and it was hundreds and hundreds of metres and I couldn’t use any of it. So we had to have a big discussion about that.”
“Production mistakes are always happening and I’m definitely always learning. In terms of bigger picture things I’ve learned to rein in the new designs and the new tangents that I go on. For a long time I was always doing something really different for every new collection. That inevitably brought up problems in production because I’d never done that before and neither had my manufacturers. So we always had little things we ran into which increased the time it took to make things. So I’ve learned to introduce new things a bit more slowly, and definitely to take the time to give those ideas the full exploration that they need.”
BURN OUT & BUSINESS HOURS
Like so many creatives, and business folk generally, and creative business folk in particular, Anika went into business working all hours. Late into the night. Much of the weekend. She burned out regularly until she finally said ‘enough’. Instituting strict business hours made her happier, healthier and noticeably more productive.
I actually had some friends who checked in with me at 5 o’clock every day.
“I had to send them an email at 5pm saying, ‘I am leaving now’, because I didn’t think that I would do it on my own. That’s been really important because you end up far happier and healthier and you do better work. I always thought the longer I was at the studio the more I would get done and it’s just not the case. You’re more miserable. You don’t like being in the studio very much. And you make mistakes.”
CELEBRATING FAILURE
The best business advice Anika’s ever received? Celebrate the f*** ups as well as triumph. “I got this from an old studio-mate,” she says. “She told me, ‘If you’ve had some bad news or something has gone wrong you should celebrate by sitting down and having a bit of cake and a cup of tea. And if you’ve had something really great happen, you’ve had a triumph, you should celebrate by sitting down and having a bit of cake and a cup of tea.’ We’d do that together, and either commiserate or have a little celebration.”
Celebrating the failure is really about marking it and then feeling like you can move on.
“It’s saying, ‘This has happened. That’s okay. We got cake anyway. And now let’s do something else.’ I love that. I still do that.”
“A lot of the time failure is not your fault, it’s just that something bad happened. Or you haven’t sold this thing well because of some reason that has nothing to do with you. It’s not in your control.”
LOCAL VS OFF-SHORE MANUFACTURING
In 2016, after years of feeling wedded to unreliable local manufacturers who didn’t seem to respect her or her business, Anika began manufacturing some of her non-knitwear garments at a small, ethically operated factory in Bali. She couldn’t be happier with the results.
The trigger was an unannounced price hike of 40% by her local manufacturers. She absorbed the hit for one collection and researched alternatives in Australia and overseas. She settled on a Balinese enterprise that prioritised strong environmental practises, progressive working conditions and total transparency in the way they operate.
“Whenever you go off-shore it feels like it’s really hard to know if workers are treated properly and if they’re paid properly and if the working conditions are safe and good and they’re happy,” Anika says. “These guys were up-front about every single aspect of their business.”
Fair wages, profit-sharing, superannuation and healthcare, LED lighting, a ban on plastic bags and provision of free canvas bags for the workers to bring their lunch and belongings in – multiple factors and ongoing innovations have left Anika very comfortable with her choice.
“Their communication with me is brilliant,” she says. “They don’t over-promise. That was a real problem with my manufacturers here.
It’s odd, but one of the reasons for eventually going for these guys in Bali is that they were nice people. And I felt like they were doing good things.
MAKING VS ADMIN
Anika currently spends around half her time making, and half organising. She’d love to bump up the making portion to 100% but knows that’s not feasible.
In recent years she’s introduced new products like purses to keep her hands busier. She structures her week to allow separate time for collaboration and contemplation.
I keep Mondays and Tuesdays for designing – making and doing things where I’m inside my own head – because the shop’s not open and nobody else is here.
“The rest of the week is more about the admin side of things and being in the shop and manufacturing and that kind of thing. It’s probably a decent balance.”
MASTERY IS OVERRATED
I don’t feel like I’ve mastered particular business skills. I feel like I’m good enough at them.
“I’m good enough at the admin. I’m good enough at planning a collection and communicating with people and all of that kind of thing. But you always drop the ball on something, because I guess most of the time it’s mainly me and there’s a lot of balls in the air, and you will just drop something at some point. It’s inevitable. You just have to try to keep on top of things.”
ORGANISATION ISN’T
“I’m definitely a lot more organised than I used to be,” Anika says.
I really think that being organised and pre-planning is the crux of having a successful business like this.
“You do have to have the ideas and be able to carry them out to make the products and get them out there, but everything is underpinned by that organisation.”
RECOGNISING SUCCESS
Endless expansion holds no appeal for someone whose happiness still depends on scratching the creative itch that led her into business in the first place.
“My goals when I started … were just, ‘I’d like to sell these things that I made today’,” Anika says. “And then it was that I wanted to make enough money to be working full-time at the business.
That’s my idea of success still: That I can keep going, and I can pay my rent and pay my employees and pay for next season’s production. I’m happy with that.
“That’s enough for me.”
