Just a few years ago, I was completely and utterly against the idea of Happy Camper Pizza. In fact, I told my partner to get [expletive] when he suggested starting up a pizza truck. 

There I was living in Mumbai, India. This kickass Television Correspondent for the ABC… with a decade working in the media – as a Video Journalist for Associated Press in London, Documentary Maker for Alzjazeera English, and Producer at Channel Seven in Sydney.

Suddenly I found myself with twenty stitches and a newborn baby, financially reliant on a man…and feeling vulnerable. NOT particularly good timing to hear your partner hates his job as an engineer and wants to make pizza for a living. 

But I slowly came around to the idea. We were back in Australia by then and I wai.ls pregnant, with twins!

The Reality of Pizza Dreams

My partner, Remi, built himself a DIY Bunnings pizza oven kit in the garden. Which was highly impractical considering we were renting… He even learnt to weld on You Tube so he could build it on wheels…. And then Googled pizza recipes and invited our friends over as guinea pigs….

It was a combination of his sheer pig-headedness, enthusiasm and my sleep deprivation that made me finally say ‘yes’ to building a food truck. That, and my best friend’s partner committing suicide. Life is too short not to live the life you dream.

I finally came on board and helped come up with the name Happy Camper, as well as the idea to convert a vintage Airstream into a pizza truck… And I gave my partner an ultimatum. If he was going to get an Airstream, then so was I. I somehow convinced him we should travel Australia with two Vintage Airstreams - one our home and the other a pizza truck to pay the bills. So, while the Pizza Truck was being built over in the United States, I imported an Airstream I found on Ebay, and we set-off on a trial run.

We realised within the first 10 seconds the reality of travelling with three kids - who were all under three at the time. It is absolute hell! Yes, there were sunsets at Uluru while we bathed them in the caravan sink... But the flies were goddamn awful and the twins woke-up at least three times a night. EACH! 

That first trip was a disaster. We broke down on a friend's farm in Katherine. And caught Gastro (just imagine three kids with Gastro in a caravan...) After less than 2 months on the road, I packed up and flew home with the kids. Remi drove back our broken caravan.

Dreams change. And it’s important not to be too hard on yourself when things don’t work out. It’s actually the disasters and mistakes that lead to amazing growth.

We came back to Melbourne. It was perfect timing because that very week, Remi had a call from customs to say the Pizza Truck had arrived.  So, he set to work, launching our business while I juggled sole parenting.

The first night of trade, our oven wouldn’t heat properly, our dough roller broke, Remi found himself rolling pizza dough with a wine bottle. When I look back, it's incredible how far we’ve come.

Running a business has been a huge learning curve…  Remi’s original Business Plan consisted of two sheets of paper… He planned to set-up in the street and sell 80 pizzas per day, five days per week, to make the equivalent of his salary. 

Then he realised to make 80 pizzas, you actually need staff! You also need Council Permission. And the reality is, you will never sell that many pizzas in the street.

After 6 months of trading, Remi went back to his engineering job. I remember saying to him, what is wrong with you? If this was my opportunity, I would put everything I have into it. I would be up late every night making this happen. Why are you sitting on the couch watching Game of Thrones? I had done everything I could to help make his dream happen, including confronting my own fears, but at that point he had choked.

For the next 6 months, he worked full-time and spent his weekends in the pizza truck. He hardly saw me, or the kids.

This journey has not been an easy one for our family. There were a few times where I wondered if our relationship would survive. But because we have been honest with each other and tend to both go with the flow, we’ve managed to turn things around.

Remi stopped working on weekends. We employed full-time staff to work in the truck. At that point, we decided building the brand and our sanity was more important than making any money out of the business.

I found myself taking over the day-to-day running of Happy Camper. The more I became involved, the more I cared about making it work. Part of this was initially a deep fear that if the business failed, maybe our relationship would fail too… But it was also the challenge of running my own business, the sense of achievement it gave me, having something else to think about other than children. There was an element of getting my identity back. I didn’t know who I was after giving up my media career… and even though I chose to be at home with the kids, there’s this crazy pressure you feel that being a mother is not enough.

This is now our third year in operation, and we find ourselves turning down work - which is why I convinced Remi to let me buy another 1960’s piece of junk to convert into a pizza truck.

My new baby is Merri the Chevy. She should hopefully be ready to launch next month.

I am so relieved our story has become a happy one that I can share with you all. The last two years have felt like a very long time. Juggling three kids while trying to build a business is the hardest job I’ve ever done. It has been worth it because of what I have learnt about running a business, but more importantly because of what I have learnt about myself through the process.  

Change is scary. It can lead to a bucketful of self-doubt and some really dark moments. 

How to survive it?

If you can just remember that no matter how bad things get, there is always an up on the other side. That putting yourself out of your comfort zone will lead to growth and amazing opportunities. You’ll have good days and bad days. You’ll feel inspired and depressed. But at the end of the day, you need to ask yourself, what is the cost of not taking the leap?

Read more about the making of Sonia Lear as Business Woman here.

Sonia Lear runs Happy Camper Pizza with her partner Remi and is a mum to three children. You can connect with her through her business website or follow Sonia’s adventures of life with a vintage Airstream caravan and three small children on Instagram.