A 7-year-old’s idea for clothing firm rakes in more than $100k profits

The Victorian child wasn't interested in making cupcakes and selling them for money and her push to do something new has paid off.

A Victorian family have made more than $100,000 from a business venture launched last year thanks to the words of their then-seven-year-old daughter.

Olivia ‘Oli’ Lawrence, from Donnybrook in Melbourne, was obsessed with colourful, patterned, bright leggings.

“I thought it [the leggings phase] was going to pass,” her mother, Jo Lawrence, told news.com.au.

“But then I thought there might be a bit of demand in this.”

In June last year, Ms Lawrence launched Oli Wood, a quirky leggings brand for kids with designs that have been given the tick of approval by her daughter.

The business is doing so well that Ms Lawrence has quit her day job as a contractor to work on the brand full-time, starting from the new financial year, on July 1.

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Oli Lawrence was just seven when she came up with a genius business idea.

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Ms Lawrence, 42, was driven to start the clothes line because of five words uttered by daughter.

“I’m going to space camp,” Oli used to tell people when they asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up.

Space camp, based in the US, and for Year Nine students, was going to cost the Lawrence family a whopping $10,000 to $12,000.

“She would say, ‘I’m going to space camp,’” Ms Lawrence said.

“It was [going to be] expensive.”

Instead, she suggested that Oli save up some money by selling things at market stalls and making cupcakes.

That way “she knows she’s going to have to save up, we’re not just going to hand over the money”.

It was here that Oli suggested the colourful leggings idea.

Oli Wood has made the Lawrences a six-figure income in the past year, on top of their day jobs.

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The company has turned over more than six figures in revenue since its June 2020 launch – and that’s even after being put out of business amid Melbourne’s second lockdown.

To this day, Ms Lawrence has only spent $90 on advertising.

It took 18 months to launch the leggings, after creating them, finding the right supplier in China and licensing artists’ designs around the world to be printed onto the product.

During that time, Oli would often wear samples and “without even realising it”, she was advertising the company to the wider world.

“People kept asking my daughter where she gets her leggings,” Ms Lawrence said.

Oli came up with the lucrative business idea.

On the day that Oli Wood launched, on June 19 last year, they were overwhelmed with orders.

Ms Lawrence had “never expected” it to take off the way it did.

She had viewed the business as a “bit of a write-off” and had planned to buy the lowest minimum order that they could.

“But we kept coming too far to go back,” she said.

The company recently had its first sales in the US and New Zealand.

Ten stores in Australia have approached them and now stock their shops with the unique leggings.

“We’re even in the shopping centre and we spot people with these leggings on,” Ms Lawrence said.

The leggings sell for $24.99, and are hugely popular with young girls.

Ms Lawrence and her daughter spent painstaking hours creating the “perfect” set of leggings.

Her daughter “was really really fussy” and it took 11 attempts before she was satisfied that the product was comfortable.

“Oli was sick of riding her bike with her knickers showing at the back (so) we added more height,” Ms Lawrence said.

They also added more length to the pants, so that kids can wear them even when they get taller.

Since then, they’ve added a line for boys and also a women’s range.

They also plan to go wholesale, by finding a warehouse in Australia so that they can ship everything locally.

The high turnover rate means Ms Lawrence needs to switch from being a sole trader business into a company.

The prices on the leggings are set to jump as she included GST into the price.

Oli choosing designs prior to the company’s launch.

The mum thinks her daughter is a secret weapon, because Oli gives her insight into what children will like.

In terms of designs: “Oli decides all that,” Ms Lawrence said.

“Sometimes I push [a design] and it doesn’t do that well.

“The ones I think that won’t do well [that are chosen by Oli] end up being a bestseller.

“[She] always proves me wrong.”

Jo Lawrence is the driving force behind the new business.

That said, Ms Lawrence said there are a lot of elements to the business that Oli, now 11, can’t do.

“She doesn’t deal with the factories,” the Melbourne mum said.

“She loves to hand-write as many notes as she can. Sometimes I think she does that to get out of the hard work.

“I’m the one with the bags under the eyes.”

Oli’s entrepreneurial skills are in her blood.

At the age of 14, Ms Lawrence left school to start work as a hairdresser.

By age 17, she had purchased her first salon.

Since then, she’s made a living out of flipping businesses for profit, and working in a contracting role to help start-up companies.

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