‘My maternity leave side hustle made $110,000 in just one week'
The constant rushing and preparing bottles around the clock inevitably became a problem that needed fixing for the Geelong mum.
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When Melinda began to mix feed her seven-week-old son, Leo, the stress and frustration of having to feed on demand were completely overwhelming.
“I couldn’t figure out why you had to wait until a baby was hungry to make a feed, then they would be crying while you’re trying to cool the bottle down,” the Geelong mum tells Kidspot.
“One minute feels like 20, so you’re more inclined to give them a bottle that’s too hot because you can’t wait for it to cool down enough.”
The constant rushing and preparing bottles around the clock inevitably became a source of tension between her and husband, Aaron.
“We would argue about it,” the 32-year-old says.
“He would say, ‘It’s too hot and I would say, ‘No, it’s not, it’s fine’.”
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The ideal temperature for bottle feeding
When Melinda couldn’t find helpful information online about the ideal formula serving temperature and how best to achieve it, she decided she would invent something herself that would help confused parents like her.
That same week, when Leo was less than three months old, Melinda made contact with Demi, a fellow Geelong mum of a newborn (who until that point had only been a casual acquaintance) and pitched her idea, hoping to form a business partnership.
“We clicked straight away with our parenting styles and feeling that parents were judged unfairly for their choices, so that’s how we bonded,” Melinda says of the beginnings of her maternity leave side hustle.
“We wanted to make something that people would pull out of their bag and feel proud to formula feed with.”
MISSTA - the insulated thermos that solves feeding problems
Together, the duo worked tirelessly for two years - all from small corners of their homes - in creating MISSTA, a double-walled insulated thermos bottle with an inbuilt thermometer.
The user pours the water in, and within seconds, a temperature reading appears.
If the temperature is within the ideal feeding range of 25 to 45 degrees, a green light comes on. When it’s outside that range, a red light comes on.
The product also comes with instructions on how to achieve the temperature, which should be as close to 38 degrees as possible. (FYI, it’s 250 mls of boiling water and 500 mls of sterilised water.)
Unlike other thermoses, there’s no need to pre-fill the vessel with boiling water to heat it up before filling with the drinking water.
“You just fill it up with the right temperature water and it will stay that way for 12 hours,” Melanie explains.
RELATED: Photos show the beautiful bond of bottle feeding
An investment that is paying off
Creating such an innovative product hasn’t come cheap for these two mums.
While they initially expected to shell out $15,000 each to get up and running, that budget has blown out astronomically.
“We’ve had to put in $100,000 each,” Melinda admits.
“We’ve been lucky to be in position to do that, but thankfully it was a gradual expense rather than a one-off big one. We knew we had a product that solved a problem so we were confident.”
MISSTA officially launched in October, 2019, when Melanie and Demi were very much still wet behind the ears as entrepreneurs.
“We had no idea what we were doing and when the orders came through, and I even called Demi to ask if they were real as I struggled to understand that people were spending their hard-earned money on something I created,” Melinda, who was able to step away from her makeup business when MISSTA launched, says.
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In true mumpreneur style, Melinda and Demi’s “business baby” was born in the same year both women also welcomed their second children - a baby girl named Penelope for Melinda, and a baby son named Ollie for Demi.
With the arrival of a new bub, Melinda discovered first hand just how genius her product was.
“It was so surreal,” she says of using it with three-year-old Penelope, and now more recently, her youngest child, Valerie, 1.
“It made life so much easier. I truly appreciated it because I knew how life was before MISSTA came along.”
Incredibly, Melinda says her product is the first of its kind in the world, and she even has an international patent pending to protect her genius idea.
In just three years, MISSTA, which retails for $95, has made a whopping $1.2 million from sales of more than 13,000 bottles through its website and baby outlets.
In just one week in October this year, Melinda and Demi made a jaw-dropping $110,000 after the website became restocked after just one month without product.
“It was a very nice shock but we don’t sit back and pat ourselves on the back,” Melinda says humbly.
There’s no rest for this busy mum, who now works around the clock to keep the business going as well as being home full time with her toddlers.
In fact, for her youngest two children, Melinda admits she had zero maternity leave due to the non-stop demands of her business.
“I remember sitting on the bed after giving birth and being on the phone to Demi who was asking a question about a customer,” she laughs.
“It’s constant. We’ve had no free time because we’ve just always worked while the kids have napped and once they go to bed.”
RELATED: Meet the Mumpreneurs who turned one idea into serious business
The pair are no strangers to making sacrifices, too
This month, Demi missed her youngest son, Archie’s first birthday due to being away for a baby expo.
“She just has to think, ‘He won’t remember it’ and they’ll have a celebration when she gets back,” Melanie says.
“I also have guilt that my mental load is so heavy that I can’t just enjoy a trip to the park sometimes. But we are great at supporting each other so we can have a balance.”
Amidst the many sacrifices, however, are infinitely satisfying rewards.
“The feedback we get makes me cry sometimes because we have built this non-judgemental community online where people feel free,” Melinda says proudly.
“We hoped this would happen but we’re still pinching ourselves that it is.”
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