Yahoo Finance Aussie couple's bright idea grows from $350 to $10 million
A lightbulb moment took this Aussie couple's idea and scaled it to becoming a global manufacturer of custom LED Neon lights with expansion into the US and UK. Based in Geelong on the outskirts of Melbourne, Jake and Jess Mundy have grown their business in just three years from $350 to an eight figure business. Yahoo Finance caught up with Jake Mundy to hear how Custom Neon started.
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How did you start the business?
JM: Custom Neon started from the idea of getting a sign for our son Jagger's room and doing some research into where to buy a neon sign we found the process wasn't that great. Also a lot of companies weren't getting back to us, so we purchased a sign for Jagger's room and really loved it and tried to convince Jess to get some more for our wedding.
We were getting married in May of 2018 (we’d bought the first sign in April) and we wanted to fill our wedding with a whole lot of neon signs because they were so cool and I convinced Jess that after the wedding, we could resell or hire them out to get our money back and use the content from our wedding to to be able to advertise.
So at the same time that we ordered those signs I went out to my network of local businesses and asked if they wanted neon signs for their businesses at cost price. By putting in a big order it was cheaper, and from the content we made an Instagram page.
That's how it all started.
Then through Instagram DM’s we were able to give quick quotes... then all of a sudden it became an online business rather than Jess's maternity leave project.
What were you doing before you started the business?
JM: Jess worked in HR at CottonOn in recruiting. I dropped out of school, became an Optus store manager at Optus then a business sales executive at Telstra. After that I quit my full time job to work for myself.
I bought a Dog Lovers page with 400,000 followers on Facebook and worked out how to be an affiliate marketer using that audience. I would use other people's products on my page and get a commission or royalty for selling products when they click the links that I provided.
My pop was a potato farmer back in the day, my uncle is a multimillionaire who owned many different pubs and my dad is into selling caravans and 'flipping' other items. Selling is in my blood. I know that because school wasn't for me I was going to have to find something else to do.
What have been some of the biggest milestones in your business?
JM: We provided custom signs for Paris Hilton's wedding (three to four signs). She contacted us over a year ago, we kept in touch and then she hit us up at the last minute asking for neon signs for her wedding. We will be doing some more stuff with Paris soon.
Our online tool represents 60 per cent of our sales. You can go on and type in exactly what you want: pick your colour, pick your font, pick your size and check out.
Elon Musk himself or one of his team members did exactly that and it wasn't until he posted it on Twitter that we realised he was a customer.
Not only have we grown the business to $10 million in the past year, we’re now also market leaders in the space and as a result are seeing more and more celebrities purchase from Custom Neon.
What makes your business successful?
The most successful part of our business is our partnership.
Jess is the integrator and I am the visionary. I like to push the business forward and 'go hard' and she likes to go ‘well that’s great but you need this process in place and have you thought about this?’
We balance each other out well. And as Jess would say, if it was her business, it'd be a small really well run Geelong business; and If it was my business, it would be a huge business with a whole lot of whiplash and inconsistent growth.
But when we work together, it's a recipe for success.
What have been some of the biggest lessons in business?
The biggest lesson I've learned is to surround yourself with a good network of people. People that are like-minded and you can bounce ideas off .
Also, I've learned not to do everything at once. At one point in my life I had two car washes, two cold pressed juice stores, eight gold-training pop up stores in shopping centres around Melbourne, teeth whitening and an online business with 100 staff.
I was trying to take on the world and do too much. So what I've learned, especially through Custom Neon is to focus on the one thing and give it your all and do it well.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
The world's your oyster and have a crack.
Online business is where it’s at for the moment. E-commerce has jumped $26.7 trillion since COVID started. There's so much opportunity in the online e-commerce space, so my advice is just have a crack and take some risks. The risks can be calculated but you don't want to be too calculated that you lose your entrepreneurial flair and spirit.
What plans do you have for the future?
Around 71 per cent of our sales come from the United States now (Australia is just under 30 per cent). We just put on five new team members in the US that are training in our West Hollywood office.
In May Jess and I are going over to the states for a month with the kids (plus my sister to help babysit) to set up manufacturing in America and expand the manufacturing facility to make it our main hub.
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