“Never in my wildest imagination did I think we would be up here doing this,” Moon-Haven Natural Products owner Leonie Gully said as she received the 2005 FBA Family Business Awards first generation prize.
“Never in my wildest imagination did I think we would be up here doing this,” Moon-Haven Natural Products owner Leonie Gully said as she received the 2005 FBA Family Business Awards first generation prize.
Moon-Haven’s success is based on the passion to help others, Mrs Gully told the audience during the question and answer session that followed the award presentation, a passion that drives Moon-Haven Natural Products and its manufacturing arm, Margaret River Natural Soap Co.
Mrs Gully and her husband, Eric, started Moon-Haven in 1998 in Cowaramup in the South West.
Mrs Gully said Moon-Haven was borne out of the necessity of finding relief for Fibromyalgia Syndrome (a musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder), with which she was diagnosed in 1998.
Frustrated at the little relief from the pain brought by prescribed medicines, Mrs Gully started researching herbal and aroma-therapy-based products and set about making a salve.
“When necessity comes knocking on your door you go looking for whatever you can to deal with it,” she said.
“Finding something to help me with my pain turned into a passion, and that passion turned into a business. It’s just fantastic.”
Now, more than 18 months after Moon-Haven opened its retail doors in 2002, the company is quickly outgrowing its manufacturing premises, with plans under way to acquire industrial land in Cowaramup to establish a separate facility.
“We pride ourselves on finding solutions for skin care problems, eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, and because the Fybromyalgia is quite multi-faceted you have some quite distinct skin sensitivities.
“So, if I can find solutions that help me, then there are a lot of people out there who have those same problems that I can help.”
Moon-Haven has a team of 11 staff, which includes Mrs Gully’s father and two sons. And although the Gully boys are in their 20s, Leonie would like her sons to get some life experience and, one day, for the business to be passed on to them.
“It’s vital that family remain in the business,” Mrs Gully said.
“We’re not young people and our children are being nurtured to come into the business.
“But it is very important for them to go out there and get some life skills first.
“They’re in their early 20s and we look after them on a part-time basis. They come and work for us, we nurture them along and make sure they get their life skills.
“But they know their future lies with us if they want it, but they very much have to be qualified before they get there.”
An innovative streak and the ability to produce quality products has been one key to Moon-Haven’s success and is something Mrs Gully believes is integral for any small business wanting to make a market impact.
Innovation in a micro-business such as Moon-Haven is a necessity, according to Mrs Gully.
“We don’t have the resources that large corporations have acquired over time,” she said.
“We have to find and scrape together every last resource that we can get, and if we can use it in an innovative way, then all the better for us.”
And after taking guests on a wonderful journey of the Moon-Haven story to date, Mrs Gully thanked her family, which included all members of her staff, because “the Moon-Haven family is more than blood relations”.
An exciting future awaits the Gully family, with a backlog of new products in the research and development phase and plans for expansion, including duplicating or franchising of the Moon-Haven concept and retail store into other tourist areas.
Strategic planning is under way and expansion into the wholesale soap market and private label manufacturing are being developed as a growth pathway.
Moon-Haven has received its first commercial private label orders and is developing marketing materials and further strategies to move into this field.
Adding to its success in the FBA Family Business Awards, Moon-Haven was also one of six finalists in the micro-business category of the Telstra Small Business Awards announced last week.
And while Moon-Haven did not win the award, Mrs Gully was ecstatic to have made it as a finalist.
"It doesn’t matter that we didn’t win, we are ... listening to other fantastic success stories and celebrating being a small business," she said.
