It’s hard not to feel a sense of pride when you see a small Australian business simply smashing it. So when I stumbled across One Tiny Tribe, I couldn’t help but fall in love with their simple, modern and fun-loving prints and the fact that they are absolutely killin’ it on Instagram.
Then, I discovered their ‘Messy Collection’ – totally adorable – and I decided I had to speak to the owner Branka to find out more about One Tiny Tribe‘s spectacular growth, as it claims its spot in the ‘best of’ Aussie homewares landscape. Take a read!
– What were you doing before OTT?
Before One Tiny Tribe I spent years crafting my skills in digital user experience and conversion optimisation. I’m a digital copywriter by trade and still do freelance digital strategy on the side, but One Tiny Tribe has definitely taken over most of my time.
– What made you start OTT?
When I went on maternity leave for the second time, I fell into the world of children’s interior design. I was both amazed at the vast array of amazing styles and products, but also shocked at the amount of poor quality products in this industry. What really made me take the jump was the incredible support of the hand-made community. I’ve always appreciated – and for a while now have been part of – start ups, so I decided to give it a go and kick off my own. I saw a niche in the market for well-designed and quality produced prints that have a down-to-earth, nature-y, adventurous, and inspirational theme, so I went for it.
– What’s your favourite thing about what you do?
This is going to sound cliche, but my favourite part is seeing my work in people’s homes. It’s truly mind-blowing. The market I’m in now is hugely over-populated and with the likes of big businesses such as Kmart and Typo blatantly ripping off the “little guys” it’s harder and harder to operate. So when I see that someone has chosen to put one of my prints in their home, office, or nursery, over all the other artwork they could have picked for that space – it’s the highest possible honour I can get.
– What has been the most exciting or rewarding part of the journey so far?
When I started One Tiny Tribe I was on maternity leave. I went back to working full-time 6 months after my daughter was born. I continued to work full-time, operate One Tiny Tribe, and juggle two small kids for 18 months – when I was finally able to leave my full-time job. So for now, the most rewarding part has been the ability to leave the job where I was working for someone else and to work for myself – on my own terms.
– Who else helps you with OTT – i.e. staff, contractors etc?
Right now it’s just me. My husband helps me package orders sometimes and I have the best developer in the world who helps with the website functioning when he’s available. But for the most part I’m the CEO, the canteen lady, the Ops manager, the customer service dudette, the social media curator, the marketing exec and the accountant (I especially suck at that last job – I’m severely underpaid 😉 ).
– What’s in store for OTT in 2016 and beyond?
New products have been in the pipeline for a while, but at this stage it’s looking like they’ll have to get pushed back to the second half of the year. The extremely exciting part are the several collaborations One Tiny Tribe has coming up with some unbelievable people I’ve met over the last 12 months. Until I’m allowed to share more about that, however, it’s head down bum up for me to try to grow the business and really get One Tiny Tribe out to there as an up and coming Australian company.
Big, big thanks to Branka for sharing your story – I’m very excited to see your collaborations roll out!
These people know a thing or too about appealing homeware collections. We provide original artworks to interior designers, collectors and lovers of beautiful things – https://artfuly.com/products