Episode 404: Radhika Mayani of Left-handesign
In this episode, Fiona chats with Radhika Mayani of Left-handesign. They talk about Radhika’s journey as an entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of resilience, self-belief, and understanding diverse market behaviours across different territories. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Doing everything in the early stages of entrepreneurship
Conducting thorough research and asking questions
Utilizing Google and various tech platforms
Finding inspiration from podcasts and books
Implementing sustainability measures
Staying true to the business mission
Overcoming challenges while transitioning to new countries
Learning and evolving through cultural differences and life experiences
Navigating family perceptions
Understanding diverse buyer behaviours
Engaging with customers through social media platforms
Future Plans for Left-handesign
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When you start a business, you do it for the cause and the impact, but obviously for the profits. We are a sustainable company for profits as well because we need to sustain ourselves, pay bills, make new products and do different things. It's a fine line. You've got to find that edge, what is working and what is not working. For instance, when I started, I had individual products selling in Singapore, but in Australia, the sets are doing very well. It's just deep-diving into the whole model. What you are offering is, and you keep reiterating that and just keep changing and twisting and turning and even those slightest changes, what you make will affect it.
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Welcome to episode 404 of my Daily Business podcast. Today is an interview episode and if you've ever considered how you might create something that helps the environment, then today's episode is for you because this is just such an interesting brand. Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that if you are looking to start a podcast if you're looking to understand your money, if you're looking to figure out your marketing, if you want to get something published in the media, you can find a bunch of our courses over at mydailybusiness.com/courses. We have short courses, longer courses, and courses for all stages of business. If you are interested in that and you are thinking, I'd like to do a bit of deep diving into a particular area of business, you can go on over and check if we've got a course that will help you. Let's get into today's interview episode.
Today I'm talking to Radhika Mayani of Left Hand Design, and we connected through social media through Instagram. When I went and had a look at her profile and what she was doing, I was just like, “What?” I could not believe what she was creating, but also that it hadn't been created and that it's like, that is such a good idea. I had to have her on the podcast. In today's podcast, we talk about all sorts of things Radhika has lived in lots of different places, including Australia now, but also lived in other parts of the world and what it's been like to bring a business from a different country into this country. Also, what it's like to educate people about something that they've never seen before. Plantable stationery is not a common thing and hopefully, in the future, it will become just stock standard, but for most people, there's an element of education around it.
I think this is important to consider, especially if you are a service base in something newer or a product base, like Left Hand Design that needs a bit of education in addition to what you're selling because it's new and different and alternative. I love that we talk about all of that. We also talk about the actual product development of these plantable pencils and plantable pens. How do you get people to buy that stuff when they've never used this stuff before? What does it all look like? We talk about so many things in today's conversation, and I know it's going to be an interesting one, whether your business is in that environmentally sustainable stage or space, or whether it's something that you have considered in your business as to how you can reduce your impact on the environment. Here it is, my interview with the multiple award-winning founder of Left Hand Design, Radhika Mayani.
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Welcome Radhika to the podcast. How are you?
I'm good. Thank you so much for having me here.
I'm excited to get into this. I know we had this scheduled a while ago and it's so exciting to finally have you on. How are you feeling about life right now?
It's been exciting because I have moved from Singapore to Australia and it's been nine months. Yes, it's been fun, but overwhelming at the same time. Because you're moving homes and a business with you.
Yes. Huge. What prompted the move? I know I'm putting you on the spot there.
We have been travelling from Singapore to Australia for a long time, and we've always loved whenever we've travelled in, whether it was Gold Coast or Melbourne or Sydney, and it's like, if we get this opportunity, we would love to come and settle in here. But the main reason that triggered this was we got our global talent individual visa, which is predominantly basically if you are in these eight sectors, and I fall into the circular economy. We applied through that and I got my PR very fast, let's just put it that way. I think it just triggered us why did we move then? I think that was one of our big reasons to move.
Congrats. Years ago I moved to the UK. I was born in the UK and I also had Irish heritage and my husband was born here in Australia. We had everything in case we didn't get into the UK and then we got to the UK and then we spent four years trying to get him residency and the paperwork, it just never stops.
Exactly.
Congrats on getting it and getting here, because I get how in Australia in particular, I think we're one of the hardest countries, well done.
No, it was a breeze for us. But the work had already been done in the business. It's an intensive process you need a nomination and all of this, so there are lots of goals behind the whole process. There are a lot of forms and a lot of questions that need to be filled out. But overall, if that got us in, it was just like, for us, it just worked out.
Yes. Everything was aligned. Tell us about your business, because you've just mentioned it there and you've hinted at the circular economy, but what is the business? When did you start and how did you come up with this?
I started Left Hand Design in 2017 back in Singapore. And it's been a wild ride. Sustainability or the issue of waste, was there lying, but it was never in the forefront. I started Left Hand Design because I used to work in the hospitality sector and have worked for the last two to three years. And what I saw was the amount of waste, what was happening at the hotel front. When you walk in in a hotel, everything's pretty, it smells good, and everybody's smiling, but at the back end there's a lot of mess, whether it's food waste, toiletries, stationary, basically it's a waste. And when I looked into it I was like, what is happening to this waste, whether it's being recycled or whether it's being disposed of properly? In a hotel, the turnover is very fast, guests check in and check out.
The span is shorter, but the waste is more than what they have left with. It just got me thinking about how can we tackle this problem. If I have to introduce and reintroduce my business, I need to make sure that it solves a problem. Then just create a pretty-looking brand, which is out there already. A lot of people are doing stationary, but I wanted to do stationary differently. And why stationery? Because I love stationery. I'm obsessed with notebooks, and books when I travel I always take things and carry things for my inspiration and that's how everything came around.
Sorry, I'm going to put you on the spot here. I have just stayed in two hotels in the last two weeks. One in Sydney, and one in Melbourne. I always think that like even opening the soap packet and opening things, I think, am I going to use this soap once to wash my hands and then the soap will be thrown out the packet, the plastic that it came in will be thrown out. With that, like even like little shampoo bottles, do they reuse the shampoo bottles or is everything just thrown out most of the time?
They try to refill it as much as possible, but now I think things have changed. Those pump bottles have come in. Things have changed then back in 2017. And in Asia, when you travel a lot, you see so many things. Now I think they're changing the way they operate and use things. The bottles now, these coolers are introduced on every floor. The bottles are provided in the room where you can go and refill your water, which is great, instead of having plastic bottles in Singapore. Also, there are a few places where they started giving you glass bottles. You can keep replenishing the water as you go, so you don't have to change the bottles anymore. I think initiatives are coming in where the companies are taking sustainability and how to consume and recycle, reuse and repurpose things are on amending now.
Then how did you decide that you were going to do this? I love stationery as well. I always buy way too much of it. I reckon I've just recently moved our office from one part of the house to another part, and I was like, here are at least 12 notebooks that I have not even opened they are so pretty that I'm like, I'll save it for something. It's like, what are you saving it for? Just use it. I would love to have a stationary brand, but it's one thing to think about it and then another to make it happen. How did that happen?
That's a good question because I keep reminding myself how I started. Secondly, I love nature, so I was like, how can I marry stationary with nature and find a solution with it? What I did was I used to be in the hotels, then I worked with an interior design firm after that. And then in 2016 I tried to juggle both, like I introduced FSC Certified stationery, so it was not plantable stationery from day one. I started with FSC Certified stationery using the best handmade paper and all of that. But I kept pushing myself and I said, this is not enough. It needs something more like it did well on my website and people loved it and all that. It did a lot of customisation and all of that. But I said something is missing here.
If I have to create a revolutionary brand, make a statement and make a positive impact, it needs more. Then eventually I decided to quit my job, although my husband was not very excited. Now my mom was excited about it. It's like, why do you have to quit your job to do another hobby business? That's what they said at that time. It made me mad. I was like that's it. I'm going to quit my job. I didn't even tell my husband, my mom or anyone. I came home and that's it. I'm not going to work. And then he's looking at me and he's like, “Well done.” Another creative hobby. That's great. And I was like, “No, it's not.” And that's when I put two and two together and I'm like, it was more of an inward journey of what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to create.
I never had a business plan from day one, and I still don't, I mean now I do, but I don't have it when you are in that idea phase. When I went to India, I took three to four months on a trip to India. I've never done that in a long, long time. It was more of meeting the right people, manufacturers and India is amazing, in terms of manufacturing and artisans and terms of art and culture. I just had to go back and reroute myself into what I wanted to do. That gave me a lot of perspective. And I met this NGO in Delhi who did this amazing stuff where they supported a village.
I started with that. They made handmade plantable pencils, which supported a rural village where women used to work with children and get educated, and there were only women working there. I was like, “This is amazing.” I have these products and it's supporting and it's so much positivity, which is going on here already, and how can I showcase this to the world? That's how the whole journey began. I don't work with them now, I work with somebody else, but that's how it kick-started our process of sustainable plantable pencils. I started with the plantable pencils, then I went into plantable pens.
One by one, I introduce products every six months and do not have one goal because people never understand the waste problem. Nobody understood sustainability. Nobody understood why we need to save the planet. Why do we need to plant the stationary when why do I need to add another layer to this process? There were a lot of questions that came around that, and I think it was more of an understanding that I needed to create an education and awareness drive more than selling a product. Eventually, it'll sell, but it's going to take longer than I had anticipated. I had to pivot all my business around it.
Just because we've mentioned it, can you explain, I know you've won awards and we'll get into that, but when you say plantable pencil even, what does that mean?
It means it's like a normal pencil. It's made out of recycled newspapers. Recycled newspapers are the newspapers that are taken from households. They are cleaned up and then they are rolled into these pencils. The lead, that we use is it's lead-free. We don't use lead at all. This is a graphite and clay mix.
Amazing.
We make it thick enough so that it's nice and dark. It's like in good HB colour pencil. A black one. And then the seeds are embedded at the bottom. This capsule is a dissolvable capsule, which you the tablets which we pop in there's the same material. Which is wrapped around here. And the seeds are embedded in that. And that's it. We use vegan plantable dyes to dye the colour because I wanted something unique where we could work with corporates as well, where they could customize it. These designs are bespoke for Left Hand Design. Once you finish using them, when it reaches that point where you can't use them anymore, instead of chucking them into the waste bin, you put them in the soil and plant them and they grow into different herbs like tomato, chilli, and spinach. We've got 13 herbs now.
That is so cool. And for anyone listening, I will try and put this in a video. You were just showing us what looked like a very normal pencil and then the part at the end where usually you'd have an eraser that is where the seeds are kept. A lot of people, I mean, I think this is amazing and hats off to you that this wasn't, I'm assuming a very easy process.
No, it is not.
You've gone through so much. But so many people want to create a sustainable business or they are working in fashion or products or anything like that. But then the idea of profitability comes up, you're going to have to spend more time. Even when you said before the marketing, there's a whole bunch of education that needs to be done in that marketing. It's not a straight look at the pretty pencils, buy a pretty pencil you've got to explain how it all works. What advice do you have for people who might be listening to this and thinking, that's amazing, but how does she go with profitability? Or what does she think of if they're thinking, I'd like to be more sustainable, but it's all just too hard.
When you start a business, you do it for the cause and the impact, but obviously for the profits. We are a sustainable company for profits as well because we need to sustain ourselves, pay bills, make new products and do different things. It's a fine line. You've got to find that edge, what is working and what is not working. For instance, when I started, I had individual products selling in Singapore, but in Australia, the sets are doing very well. It's just deep-diving into the whole model. What you are offering is, and you keep reiterating that and just keep changing and twisting and turning and even those slightest changes, what you make will affect it.
For example, I will just show you the pens, which we had for the last six and a half years. Again, the same thing. They're made out of recycled craft paper and the seeds are here, this is Okra. Now these are transparent ones and are new pens, which are not online. Especially, these are exclusively on the podcast right now. Are these pens? Now these pens are coloured caps and the seeds are on the top, not at the bottom. For Australia, we have completely changed the design of the pen. This is the before and that's the after like the new ones.
Okay. So everything's in the cap, and then you just have the pen.
Exactly. Everything is in the gas, it's just 10% plastic. And the rest is everything's bio. It goes into the soil. You can also put it in the recycling bin or you can put it in the soil and the caps are here. Another twist to this is this is a cap, which you can remove. Throw the seeds into the pot, add in your favourite seeds if you want, close the cap and keep reusing it.
Wow, that's so cool.
These are our latest pens, which are not online. I need to do a photo shoot and all of that. It just arrived in Australia and we did it for the trade show last week at the AGHA. We were shown to people around and we got good feedback on that as well. I'm excited to upload this on our website soon.
That's so exciting. I can imagine why, but you received a lot of these fantastic awards and a lot of media. I used to work as a journalist and I can instantly see how many hooks and angles you have. That's in Singapore and Australia. What advice would you have for other people or other things did you work with a PR agency or did you just go, I'm so passionate about this, I will just go out and start myself. How have you got the media?
In Singapore, it was all organic. I have not reached out to you because when you're a solo entrepreneur, there are so many things going on in the backend, you need to make this business work. First is making it work, then be a little bit profitable and then you keep building on that. There are a lot of layers to it. I always thought that the product was the hero. Whatever business you do, whether it's a service business or a product business, that should be your hero. I still keep giving 500% in it because that's what I'm passionate about. I just let the product do the talking and let people get attention. And then media came to me and it's like, we want to write this, and we want to award you with this. If you're open to this and business times or in Singapore, everybody came to me and was like, we want to write this article about you. I was like, of course. I think one thing led to the other, and then we just got, I've never hired a media or a PR person in Singapore. In Australia, we started organically and then I had a PR because Australia is way more mature and way different from Singapore as a market.
Okay. What's been the hardest part of this outside of your partner and your mother being like, what are you doing? What has been challenging for you? And then how did you work through those challenges?
Once you start a business, it's a challenge. It's an everyday challenge. It just doesn't go away. And as you grow and as you scale, I think these milestones you put for yourself, like, I want to do this, then I want to do that. I think you just set up those standards and those milestones for yourself. And then as you go, obviously there will be challenges because some will be fulfilled, some will be knocked down, and some will be rejected. How do you cope with that on a personal level? Is something you've got to deal with. These are punches and blows, which has come along the way. It's been hard. Especially moving businesses and homes has been the hardest part for me right now. It is affecting my business at this point as well because revenue has just slowed down the whole process for me.
It's going to take a year for me to come up with these 8 or 9 months and it's reestablishing myself in a new market. It's like starting from zero again. That's what I feel. But I'm just being positive and I keep connecting to my why. Why did I start this in the first place? Why did I quit my job? Why did I have this amazing product, which is yours in front of me? I see it every day and just makes me happy. It's just pushing through. Every single day.
I think moving house alone is so disruptive. We moved house last year. It was months and months of packing. It just never seems to stop. Like from March till September, we were packing or unpacking or it was like the whole year, but let alone also moving countries. I've done that as well. Even I was moving from Australia to London and then back after five years or four years and they're very similar cultures your same language, same a lot of it's very similar. London has so many Australians in it, so it's not even the same. Singapore to Australia is a massive change.
It's a massive change. Everything like food, culture whether t's, e loved it. We came in winter last year and we'd love it. We've not had winter for the last 12 years in Singapore.
I've only travelled through Singapore briefly, but I have a couple of clients in Singapore and I have a woman from Australia who is wonderful and lives in Singapore. She was just like everything in Singapore is set up for family. She's like, you can just find food. You can go down and get your dinner. You don't have to cook lunch, dinner, or breakfast, everything's done. It's easy. And then she's like, you come back here so much harder. These incredible restaurants are open all the time.
You get help there. That's why people live in Singapore. Have kids raise them and then they just leave because it's so convenient when you have help. We've come from India, Indian House World, we've always had help growing up, but we've lived out for so long that now it doesn't matter to us. But my sister, for example, I cannot even think of living without help. There you go. She comes on a holiday, to sit with me, and she's freaked out already because of how she's going to manage everything.
My mother-in-law and my Father-in-Law, are both from India. I remember talking to her about her curry. She makes the most amazing curries. I was like, did you just grow up knowing? She's like, I never cooked a curry until I moved to Australia. I didn't have to. Somebody else always cooked it for me. She was like, I got jars and was like, let's figure this out. And because she's like, I didn't have somebody cooking for me. Speaking of help, let's say in support and everything else, with your business and particularly being a sustainable business, did you have mentors or people that supported you in terms of, this person has also gone down the sustainable path, or this person knows about, paper or craft or like where did you get that information? Or did you just listen to podcasts, or read books? How did that happen?
For me, In 2017, I never used to listen to many podcasts back in the day because I thought, I could not listen to anyone talking for so long, and how am I going to go? It was hard for me back then, but I think I have done everything from ground zero. I have learned everything. I have deep-dived into research. I have deep dived into why it needs to be this, why not that, what paper, and what materials? Researching every single bit of what goes into the product, and I think I was more passionate about it. Everybody's passion is different and the way they do research is different. But for me, I had to do everything. Forming a company to do my accounting.
Especially for the first two years, if you don't do everything, you are not an entrepreneur. You have to do everything in your business. When you know it, you can outsource it because then you know what to expect out of the service or the business or the product or whoever. But unless you are not clear yourself, you cannot delegate to anyone. I think it's very important for any entrepreneur to get into the nitty-gritty and the smallest details possible. How, what, when ask questions. I've spoken to so many manufacturers across China, in India, and I asked them the silliest or the stupidest or the toughest question, and they don't like me for it. I was like, I don't care if you don't like it, but I need to know this because if I have to sell it to a consumer, and if that consumer's going to ask me, I need to have an answer to it. And if I don't have an answer, then there's a problem. The product is not right. There's something hidden and I don't like hidden things. I need transparency from my manufacturers so that I can give my transparency to the end per user. For me, it is very important to do every research possible. And I guess Google is my friend.
Google is the way, like a lot of people, that's how they've built their business. Googling it, finding things all the time. I'm like how I grew up without the internet. I was at university when the internet came out in the mainstream, at the end of 12. I just think, how did anyone like hats off to people who had businesses before the internet? Because you can find out everything quickly.
I know.
You can also find a whole bunch of other people, like even on Instagram, that you can then send a message to and be like, how did you do this? Or what did you do for this? Also with having the businesses you've got Australia, Singapore, then you've got stuff, is it still made in India?
Yes. It, they are.
Three different territories that you're dealing with. What tech are you using or how do you communicate? Is it all through email? Do you use Slack? What are the platforms that have been beneficial for your building this business?
For me, email is number one. Number two is Canva, I love Canva completely. ChatGPT these days is my best friend. I also use Notion a lot. Which is a great app as well. Sometimes I love the traditional way of writing things so I make a list every day or maybe every three days and then see what needs to be done. I do all my to-dos in my diaries. Now, I listen to a lot of podcasts, Spotify and Apple are my go-to, if I'm just going down for a walk, I'm listening to podcasts a lot.
Amazing. And have you ever had any books or films or anything else that you would be like, that did help me or that inspired me outside of what you've already mentioned?
Yes. Marketing business books overall help. But I think podcasts are something which I had lean into if I'm having, because sometimes you don't have so much time to read, and I would rather just listen in when I'm driving, I just listen to a podcast. I love Founder a lot. There's another local one, which is the Behind the Brand. Which is pretty nice as well. Diary of the CEO.
Steven Bartlett.
Which is amazing. Also, I love Add to Cart, which is quite nice and does all the ecomms. I do a little bit of business, a little bit more on relations and all of that. Different kinds just to see what I'm going through at that point and what I need to hear. A mix of all of that.
Then how do you track, as you've talked about getting into doing these different trade shows and then you did a lot of customisation and you, and getting in with businesses and everything. Is there a way that you track your sustainability as a business or track that people aren't just buying 300 pens and then they just sit in a box? Or is there a way to track that at all? Like the whole circular economy?
What we've introduced in Australia is we are recycling pens for everyone. For example, over the years have used plastic pens, which are just lying or dried out, or you want to throw them in the waste bin. What you can do is you can put it in a shoebox, send it to us, and we will recycle it for you. We are taking in all your used pens stationary, bureaus and all of that, and then we can recycle it for you. That's one thing we've introduced here. The second thing is we are trying to encourage as many people as possible to use them and grow them. I'm sure from end to end, there will be people who might not be using it or just gifting it or just planting it, which is great. And that's what we want, that they use it and they plant it. This is the new initiative we've introduced here.
That's great. A couple of people I've seen where they're like confetti, but it's seeds that get thrown at it, like New Year's and stuff. But I've never come across anyone that's doing what you're doing. When you pitched to us, Yricka and myself, were like, “This is so interesting and so different.” On that note, and I know I'm putting you on the spot, but how do you protect yourself? Or if other people do it, then that's good too? Or how do you protect your brand?
I do have my trademark in Singapore. But look everything at the end of the day is getting copied. It's like Coke versus Pepsi is as simple as that. They are such close competitors but they still exist in the same market. And they have their shares. Eventually, you cannot escape that. But the thing is, if you are a founder, if you're true to your story if your storytelling is connected to that why and how you share it with the world, it's your baby. It's your story to tell and nobody can take that away from you. Sometimes I do get a little rattled when somebody comes in who's a little cheaper than me or copying my stuff. I was like, you know what? I have to stay in my lane. If I keep doing things in my lane and not get affected by what they are doing, because there are still people who are ordering from me and not from them, though my price might be a little premium or my designs are a little slightly better. But if I'm just being true to myself and my business, I think it's just being true to yourself at the end of the day.
Amazing. I haven't asked you, where did the name come from? Are you lefthanded?
I am. I'm left-handed. I'm left-handed. It's very interesting because left-hand design already existed before 2017. I used to live in Dubai before Singapore. What I used to do is I used to do weekends, I used to work in an advertising agency, but over the weekends I used to do these craft markets, where I used to make handmade cards and greeting cards, and I used to just do markets. That was a hobby. It was not a business, but I used to feel happy and satisfied because I was part of this creative community and handmade stuff and all of that. Left Hand Design had existed then. When I had to fast forward to 27, 15, 20 16 when I wanted to start my own brand, I was like, “What should I name it?” I'm like, it's already there. I just had to use strategies and make it as a business and not as a hobby and make sure that it worked. That's the story of Left Hand Design.
You've lived all over. Again, I feel like I'm putting you on the spot, but if someone's listening to this, and we do have people all over the world, every time I look at the map of where things are downloaded, I'm in shock and gratitude that it's I thought, they'll just be in Australia. And it's like, it is everywhere, every continent almost that people are downloading it. Someone's listening to this and they have moved to a new place. You've just said, you've lived in Singapore, you've lived in Dubai, you've now moved to Australia, and you've been going back and forth in Australia for ages. Have you got any tips for just starting again somewhere else? Because I've mentioned a few times that I've moved overseas, but like I said, the culture's very similar.
I was born in the UK, and I've visited many times. I'd lived there previously. Even though, it was still very hard. I expected it to be a lot easier than it was. There are still massive cultural differences between Australia and the UK. I found it very difficult to get a job. I found all these things that I thought would just be smooth sailing were not. And even then coming back to Australia, I felt like everyone had moved on and I hadn't. I hadn't been in this country for ages, and I lost my contacts and my networks. What would your advice be?
I think when you have an opportunity in front of you to experience things, I don't think you should say no to that. And when we were leaving India for the first time, we were in our twenties, we were young, we were naive we were so full of life. I mean, not that I'm not, now I am more full of life, but it's very different. You will not underestimate, you will not even consider the fail factor. You will not, because the risk you take in your twenties is very different to what you take in your forties. It just completely changes. We just left I had a job, my husband got a transfer, and we just left Dubai and we had the best five years of our lives. When we moved to Singapore, we were a little more risk averse, let's at least get jobs before we moved there.
Let's stabilize a little bit because we are in our thirties now, not in our twenties. And then when we moved to Australia in our forties, it's completely different because now I have a business to launch so I think we've grown, evolved from every country we've lived in, and we have learned a lot. We failed in Singapore for the first year. I never even got a job for the longest time. I was, it was horrible for me because I had a stable and great job in Dubai. I had to leave that and move with my husband as a trailing spouse. It was hard because culturally it's very different from Dubai or India. I was like, how am I going to live in this country and how I'm going to survive?
But then I got my hotel job, like the first one I started with. Everything was fine. I just felt settled then in my second year. But everything is a challenge. You just have to be up for it. If you don't face those experiences or challenges or those wins, you will not learn or not grow as a person and what you are meant to do in the long run. I guess if you're young in your twenties starting out, I say just go for it. It just can't get better than that if you are aware of it, and I guess just staying to your roots and understanding what's right and wrong for you, It's basic. Basic life skills and you are good to go.
Great advice. What are you most proud of from your journey in business so far?
I started this venture in Singapore, and I've had the best six years of my time in Singapore. I mean, I cannot even imagine where I would be without that. The experiences and the opportunities I've got there. I hated it in my first year, but when I left, I had a business with me. You can imagine the shift, here is what has happened. I think it's on that person how resilient or how you want to make it work. I think that has been pretty amazing. And moving to Australia with something which I'm very proud of is the work that has gone into building the brand. Some days are hard. Right now we are facing a lot of tough time because the moving countries, the revenue's dropped. All of that has happened, but there's just it's an amazing journey. I think it's just experiencing it through and through completely.
Another thing is making a product which is good for the environment and when somebody uses it or somebody posts it on Instagram, LinkedIn or anywhere, it just makes me so happy that they believe in this and they believe in using these kinds of products. Which matters the most it just makes me happy.
Congrats. If people are listening to this and they're thinking, we need some more stationary and I should check that out, or she's got a great story. How can they connect with you? And also what's happening next for Left Hand Design once you've caught your breath from moving?
I guess it's going to be more on working on the products and the product offerings. We've done a lot of gifts and sets, which is doing very well. Working on expanding into the distribution of it now, working hard on getting the right and working with the right partners. That's going to be next. Getting ourselves many certifications because all of this takes time. We are a carbon-neutral company now. I think it's like one by one you go through, you take one certification, then you go to the next because costs are involved, there's a process and all of that. Getting ourselves certified and all of that's going to be crucial, and you can reach out to us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. We are everywhere. We are on TikTok as well. We've got a small following, but we are there.
Everyone does, I have a tiny following, but I'm enjoying TikTok so it feels new. Even though I've been on there for a couple of years. But I just feel like it's great to hear that you're doing it. because I think a lot of people are just shying away from not even touching it.
Exactly. In Singapore, nobody used to talk about TikTok or anything like that, but moving to Australia it's completely different. We need to be present there as well. I had to have a content team who worked with me and took care of all of this. Yes, give us a follow. If you want to say hi to me, reach out to me on LinkedIn at Radhika Mayani.
Amazing. We'll link to everything on all of the socials on our podcast show notes. But thank you so much for your time and congrats on everything you're doing. I just think it's amazing to see people when they've got an idea and then they create it. And now you are global and it's amazing.
Thank you so much for having me, and it was amazing talking to you. Drop by and say hi on Instagram.
Okay. Bye.
Bye. Thanks.
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So much in that conversation and so many things that Radhika just casually puts in there, but you're like, actually there's so much time and effort and education that she's had to go through to bring this business to life and to be part of change that is bettering the entire world and the planet. I mean, it's massive. Many of us, as I talked about in that conversation, have an idea, but we don't follow it through and create this whole new business that is going to transform and has already transformed so many places where they were previously using single-use plastic and now there's an alternative that is so much better. Radhika has kindly shared a discount code. If you are keen to get in on this and maybe get some custom pencils or pens or stationery for your next event or anything else that you've got going on, you can use the discount code, “Green Fingers 10” for a discount, and we'll link to that in the show notes as well.
If you want to check out where Radhika is and what's happening with Left-handesign, you can find them on Instagram. It's under left_handesign on Instagram. You can also find herself at Radhika Mayani on Instagram. There's also TikTok, LinkedIn, and of course, the Left-handesign website, which is left-handesign.com. But I would love to know what you took away from that. Please don't be a stranger, you can always contact me. I'm sure Radhika would also love to hear from you. I'm going to point out two things that stood out to me as I always do. But there were so many other things that came through as well. The first thing is when Radhika talked about the perception from her family and that they were like, this is another hobby business and go for it.
Let's see how you go. That she had an absolute belief herself in this, and that she didn't let anyone else's opinion infiltrate too much. She talked about it being an inward journey, and she went to India and she spent a few months trying to find the right people. I think sometimes in business we can let ideas go because somebody else says something and they may not mean it in any harsh way at all. Radhika has a very supportive family and she was talking about that later on. But in that particular case, she had this inner belief that this was going to work and she could find the answers and she had that determination to make it happen. I do think that sometimes, whether it's a whole business idea or whether it's just starting something new in your business or putting yourself up for an award or doing something like that, we can listen too much to other people as opposed to trusting ourselves and our instinct and thinking, no, I know what I'm doing and I'm going to go for it.
That is the first thing that stood out to me. And just that determination to, I'm going to investigate this and research, and somebody out there is going to be able to help me make this happen. And she has, and she's won so many awards for it already, so much media. And as she said she's working with all these different companies and so it's working, but it wouldn't have gotten anywhere if she didn't have that inner determination to make it happen. That's the first one. The second thing that stood out from this interview was when Radhika talked about being aware of the different buying behaviours across different territories. I work with businesses quite often that maybe started in Australia and then they launched into New Zealand, some part of Asia Pacific, maybe Hong Kong or Singapore, and then into the US and European markets.
Particularly with the US sometimes there has been a perception that what works in Australia will just work there. Even things like in the US what I've heard is that most people who are in a relationship or living with somebody will have a queen size bed or a double bed, and it's not that common to have a king-size master bed. Whereas in Australia, I would say it's very common to have a king-size master bed. That alone is like, “Okay. That's a huge difference.” And especially when you are selling linen or selling bedding in a different territory. Likewise, I've had other clients wear certain colourways that work well in Australia, and then they've tried those same patterns or textiles in different parts of the world and they haven't worked as well.
It's that a lot of their more basic colour, minimal stuff sells a lot better. It's understanding the different target markets and understanding what works, and what doesn't work, even down to language. I remember always this one time that I was when I was working at Amazon and I was looking after the home and kitchen garden category, home and kitchen. We had inside of that linen. In Australia you can, maybe it was just my upbringing, I'm not sure, but we would call it Manchester. Whereas in England you try and call something Manchester, they're like, do you mean the city? And I'm like, no, what you put on a bed. Just even words are very different. But I remember one particular thing in, in Amazon, we were looking at why carpets weren't selling and we were looking at the different language between rugs, carpets, what else?
There was one other word I can't remember. But there was just such a discrepancy between when we changed the navigation with particular words. Now some of these things, especially at Amazon, were done across multiple locations. Just to understand who you're talking to, it's similar to any audience group you go with, but when you are segmenting by territory, that is a massive thing to look at the different buyer behaviours and understand their audience and not assume that what's working in one territory is going to work somewhere else. I love that she brought that up. Many things to consider from this interview. If you're interested, again, Radhika has been very kind to offer everyone who's listening to this a discount. If you're interested, that discount is “Green Fingers 10”, and you can find all of the lovely stationery over at left-handesign.com. And we'll link to all of that in the show notes that you'll be able to find for this particular episode at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/404. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
