‘I’d take out loans’: 33yo invested everything into her sexual wellness brand
A young Aussie has revealed the $50,000 reason she doesn’t own a home in 2024.
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Alisha Williams doesn’t own a home because she took a $50,000 risk in 2020.
The 33-year-old, who has a background in marketing and communication, launched her sexual wellness business, Rosewell, with what could have been her house deposit.
Ms Williams wanted to sell sex toys to women without it feeling sleazy. It was a tough sell when she launched in 2020; sexual wellness wasn’t in the Zeitgeist.
“I grew up when anything to do with sexual wellness wasn’t comfortable,” she told news.com.au.
Ms Williams wanted to take the stigma away from women’s pleasure, but when she started planning the business in 2019, she was met with more blank looks than anything else.
She was trying to explain she wanted to create a sex-toy store that felt like “walking into Mecca”, and people just couldn’t picture it.
“They were imagining a bright pink jelly dildo,” she said.
“Five years ago! It was incredibly uncomfortable to tell someone what I was working on.”
Ms Williams worked three jobs to fund her own business, and she has yet to take on any external capital from investors.
The business is completely female-founded, which is important to her. She wants to be in control because she feels she understands what women want, but that has meant she’s had to shoulder the entire financial burden that comes with that.
“I’d take out loans and pay them back as quickly as I could,” she said.
Ms Williams said investing so much in her business was a scary decision.
She wasn’t paying herself superannuation, and it was a huge risk that all “hinged” on her idea being right.
“It isn’t just the money you’re putting in. It is the opportunity cost of not earning a meaningful income elsewhere,” she explained.
“My initial investment was between $50,000 to $70,000.”
Ms Williams said her business venture was particularly expensive because it involved a physical product that required time and money to create, test, and refine.
“I still don’t own a home. Everything goes into the business,” she said.
The 33-year-old is still in a tricky spot where any financial business wins are funnelled back into the company.
“The business can be doing well, but personally, I could be earning more working for someone else,” she said.
Ms Williams said running a business is also much harder than being an employee, saying “it is 10 times harder than doing a job because there’s no boundaries or stable salary”.
All sorts of expenses come up with a business as well. When she opened her physical store in Melbourne, she had to fork out for the bond and paying three months’ rent upfront.
“It was a $40,000 bill,” she said.
She’s also transparent about the tough times that come with success.
She recently spoke online about being gutted after her plan to have a co-director had completely “fallen” through and left her in the lurch.
Ms Williams took to social media to share that she was experiencing what she deemed a “fail”, but she wanted to be honest about it,
“I’ve been doing this for four years now. If you’d have told me today on our four-year anniversary what I’d be doing,” she said.
“I’d have properly cried.”
Ms Williams said being honest online can be tough because if you’re a CEO, you want to appear “successful” and “aspirational” because it can help the brand.
However, she wants to show people the reality because “no one really talks about it,” and she thinks it is important.
Even though things are hard, it does feel worth it.
She said she feels “proud” of the impact she’s had on other women who use the products and love them.
It isn’t uncommon for her to get emails from women thanking her for creating products that make them feel more comfortable with their sexuality and bodies.
Originally published as ‘I’d take out loans’: 33yo invested everything into her sexual wellness brand
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