Melbourne couple make $350k in three months after launching hair care brand

A couple who lost their income in Melbourne’s lockdown has raked in a huge amount after launching a wildly successful new business.

A young couple who lost their income during recent lockdowns in Melbourne are now raking in the cash, after launching a wildly successful hair care business.

Felix Dimitrakis, 22, told news.com.au he and his partner, Victoria Mangonis, 23, decided to focus on their hair care brand Malia Hair after he lost his job as a landscaper’s apprentice earlier this year.

“We were working and studying. We were hating life,” Mr Dimitrakis said. “I was going to work and I couldn’t do it to be honest. I was getting depressed.”

The couple launched Malia Hair in July with a single product, a Watermelon Hair Mask that comes in two sizes and focused on sales through social media.

Mr Dimitrakis said the company is now just shy of reaching $350,000 in sales, three months after their launch — success he attributes to repeat customers and dedicated advertising on social media. He said they successfully identified a gap in the market before launching, after noticing the skincare market had become crowded on Instagram.

“Before this, I was a landscaper, I was an apprentice — I was on the tools every day,” Mr Dimitrakis told news.com.au. “If you’re considering doing something, take the leap of faith.”

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Malia Hair is on track to make $500k in sales in the coming months.

The founders say success came from identifying a gap in the market and focusing on online sales.

The brand is beloved by influencers. Picture: britmanuela

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He said before the coronavirus changed their circumstances, the couple had been working on their hair care brand in the background for about a year and a half.

“When the pandemic hit and I was made unemployed, that’s when we ordered our stock,” he said.

The couple had been looking at the market, and knew they’d wanted to launch their own unique product.

“We started researching on Instagram, where we saw there was a gap in the market.

“We saw that skincare was really inflated — there was so many face masks, serums.”

But Mr Dimitrakis said he and Ms Mangonis saw an opportunity for hair care being sold direct-to-consumer through social media, with the right branding.

The couple then started working with an Australian manufacturer to develop the hair mask.

He said the product went through eight rounds of prototype testing before it was perfected, and during this time they were testing the products on their family and friends.

“We were getting feedback like ‘the scent is too strong’, or like ‘let’s try to reduce the frizz a bit’,” he said.

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Felix Dimitrakis, 22 and his partner Victoria Mangonis, 23, launched Malia Hair in July.

He said the brand approached Instagram influencer Skye Wheatley to help them launch the product, who eventually accepted the offer after initially declining.

“We sent her the mask and she then agreed to help us with the launch,” he said.

Mr Dimitrakis said the Ms Wheatley, who has more than 600,000 Instagram followers, helped them with an “incredible” bump in initial sales.

After launching in July, the brand quickly sold more than $30,000 worth of products within a few weeks.

The former landscaper’s apprentice said he believes their sales are now on track to reach his goal of $500,000 in the coming months as they work through Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.