Meet Becca Stern – Mustard Made

Becca and Jess Stern are the sister duo behind lust-worthy locker brand, Mustard Made. Here, REGGIE speaks with Becca about where it all began.

 

How did Mustard Made begin? We’d love to hear the story so far…

My sister Jess and I had spoken for years about starting a business together. It was one of those long-term dreams that had always been something we wanted to do ‘someday’. Then Jess came out to Australia to meet my newborn son, Ellis, in 2017 and on one long walk along the beach we started to really brainstorm what a business might look like. I had recently read an article about ‘whisper ideas’, the kind of idea that is so timely that you have to whisper it in case anyone hears and beats you to it. But what the article said is that these ideas aren’t usually the businesses that are most successful. What is more likely to succeed is when you find an idea that is something only you could do. Which brought us to my love of vintage lockers. I had collected a few old lockers that I found in antique shops and flea markets over the years. They were so beautiful, but they were never very functional. We could see the potential to reimagine them into something that married both the beauty and the practicality. Six months later we were in China, with baby Ellis along for the ride, and six months after that we launched our first products at a trade show in Sydney.

From the sunny shores of Newcastle to a global brand – what’s been your biggest biz challenge along the way?

To be honest one of the biggest challenges we faced initially was that Mustard grew so much faster than we anticipated. We started out with the intention of building something big, but big to us was still pretty small! We very quickly had to throw our plans out the window and reassess, because it all scaled so much more quickly than we thought it would. That one is definitely a nice problem to have. There have been plenty of other bumps in the road over the last six and half years. I’d say the biggest ongoing challenge we face is living in opposite time zones. Half our team is asleep while the other is working, so we’ve really had to find effective ways of communicating and collaborating across our global team.

And your biggest biz high so far? 

When the time came for us to plan our Pride celebrations for 2024 we decided to attempt something a little adventurous and very special – we created our first limited-edition product, The Rainbow Standard. Our rainbow locker was launched with 50% of all sales to be donated to LGBTIQ advocacy group Outright International. We had no idea how amazing it would truly become! We sold out of The Rainbow Standard in Australia in only a few hours and globally within a week, prompting us to quickly extend the campaign to include an additional product run by pre-order.  One of the proudest moments of my life was donating $75,400 to Outright and the incredibly important work they do for the LGBTIQ community around the globe.

Our core audience is women aged 25-45 – they’re mamas and sisters and daughters and small business owners – in short, many spinning plates. How do you handle it?

I think any working parent will tell you that with all those plates spinning in the air there are definitely times when one or more of them will fall. But one of the benefits of having our own business is that we have been able to shape our week around what works best for us and our families. Both my husband, Jono, and Jess’ husband Marc, now work in the business and that has meant we have so much more support and flexibility to manage the work/parent juggle. There are times when we don’t get the balance right, but having each other and a supportive team around us makes it easier.

You’ve just released The Glass Collection and The Ledge – divine additions to your rainbow-coloured offering. What would you like us to highlight about these new kids on the block?

Twenty Twenty Four has been a game changer for us. We’ve introduced two new categories –  The Ledge, our collection of floating shelves and The Glass Collection, which really marks a new era for Mustard as a brand. We started planning our collection of fluted glass lockers almost two years ago and we knew it was going to be a launch that represented how much Mustard has ‘grown-up’ as a brand since we launched six-and-a-half years ago. As a brand that has, up until now, focused on metal products, introducing glass into our product range is an exciting step. Once we had our product designs locked in, I started to think about how we could celebrate bringing them into the world, and of course, what goes better with a celebration than champagne! We love a double meaning, so making champagne flutes to celebrate our fluted glass collection just felt like it was meant to be.  As long-time lovers of their beautiful glassware, FAZEEK was the dream brand for us to create a product collaboration with! And that is how we came to create The Flutes, a limited-edition, celebratory piece that brings together FAZEEK’s iconic design with Mustard’s signature colour palette. The fact that we could bring together two Australian, female-founded businesses, both of which are growing on the global stage felt like an opportunity too good to miss. We’re so thrilled that our customers obviously love The Glass Collection as much as we do!

Next steps from here for Mustard Made?

This year has been a big one for Mustard in terms of the evolution of our product line, but there is so much more still to come! We have some very exciting plans and ideas for continuing to grow, but nothing I can share just yet! You will have to stay tuned for more news to come.

If you had one piece of advice for someone considering launching a business, what would it be?

When you first start out building a brand it’s easy to look around at the existing market and get caught up in the way it looks like things ‘should’ be done. Like there are certain ways that you ‘should’ position yourself, social media marketing trends you ‘should’ follow – that there is a set playbook that you must follow in order to be successful in your industry. One thing we’ve learned along our journey so far is that we can make our own rules, and for us that means being ourselves, and sticking to that. So, my advice would be to invest time in getting really clear on what your brand is, and what it isn’t, and then stick to it.

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