The future is yours to reimagine and reinvent - with Melissa Pepers of Bonbo Co

How did you come up with your business idea? We know that approximately 50% of our mums in our community start a business in an entirely new field. Who says that we don't like challenges? Business designer, futurist, mother of one and founder of Bonbo Co, Melissa Pepers, has made a business out of helping other business owners discover their business niche. 

Can you please share your pitch with us?

“I have a company that's focused on shaping industries through unique business ideas. So working with me, either yourself or with others, involves replacing status quos that completely transform entire areas. It might be an industry, it might be a jurisdiction, it might be for a particular demographic. My organisation does this around three different initiatives.”

What do you love most about being a woman who runs her own business?

“There's something about the feminine energy. That's not to say that I haven't met masculine energies that do this, but it just seems so much bigger with the way women work. There's a big element of pleasure and play in the way that we work that I think is quite uncommon or something that's particularly special and I would love to see nourished a lot more in that space is something where we can sit in pleasure and create things that feel good and sit in this space that feels really good. I really think that lifts the energy of everyone around us. It's not even just opening doors, it's just the way a really funny gift feels or something unexpected, just any kind of element of pleasure like that. I think women really nail that very naturally.”

How do you look at digital networking and what do you think is a great digital connection? 

“Community is essential in so many ways for me personally, but also just for business success. As a business owner, whether it's scalable or not, you want to put yourself, your energy, your vision, your dreams in front of as many people that can say yes as possible, so that at the end of say, a month. When you're thinking of joining a community, you want to think about alignment. Seeing Mums and Co was so good because I was a mum of a not yet one year old at that time, I was navigating these huge changes in the business. 

When I saw Mums and Co, I was like, “that’s aligned”. So you can say yes because you know that it's the right sort of opportunity, but that alignment goes such a long way and you just know, once you join it's going to be awesome.”

What are some of the ways you’ve considered risk as you’ve grown? 

“The first is to understand when you're doing new things that are unknown unknowns, unexpected hurdles that will come along the way. If you're looking at that in your own business right now as you listen to us, firstly, what can be a great way to test a change is to create a single product, even if it's a standalone separate brand, which called a Challenger Brand in my kind of zone, a separate offering or brand that explores this challenge.

You can kind of test at a small level without interrupting your whole business on more than a time factor. Then if that goes really well, if you're pretty sure that it was risky beforehand and you want to test it, test to that small level and play there, and eventually you work out, okay, this is sweet, this is how to do it.”

Want to know more about how Melissa Pepers can help you to create the next big thing in business?

Are you looking to start a business but aren’t sure how to differentiate yourself in the marketplace? Want to explore possibilities of inventing a new or reinventing an existing business? Excited to think outside of the box and push the bounds of what is the norm in business? 

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