Fine art of crafting a success story: Kikki.K

WRITING down goals, and a supportive partner who was willing to sell his house, were the starting points of the kikki.K success story.

WRITING down goals, and a supportive partner who was willing to sell his house, were the starting points of the kikki.K success story.

However, this is also a business growth story right out of the box.

This retail stationery supplier now has stores across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, with more than 400 staff in peak periods. Not a bad effort for an idea that was born out of a restless night's sleep and an early morning eureka moment.

Kristina Karlsson was born in Sweden but her entrepreneurial inspiration happened in Melbourne. "Shortly after moving to Australia, I was struggling to find the right career path," she says.

"I was really restless, not knowing what I wanted to do in my life.

" I had lots of ideas but was just bouncing from idea to idea without any direction."

Then one night at about 3am, after she had been tossing and turning, her partner, Paul Lacy, got fed up and encouraged her to grab a pen and paper and make a list of what was important to her that could guide her thinking.

"We created what I now call my 3am list," she says. "It included the following to guide my career choice. I wanted to do something that I was passionate about and [which] would keep me in touch with my family and friends in Sweden.

"It had to have something to do with design and would lead to a business of my own, and that would enable me to make $500 week."

She certainly has exceeded her expectations, with her business named a winner in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards for the products category.

So the 3am list gave her the focus, but how did she wind up in boutique boxes and paper?

"When setting up an office at home I struggled to find the gorgeous stationery products to turn my home office into the organised and inspiring space I wanted," she explains. "I wanted my office to be an extension of my home, my personality and my ideas on fashion and design.

"I could find all this at home in Sweden, but nowhere here in Australia, and that's when the idea for starting kikki.K was born."

Karlsson's business would combine her passion for Swedish design and her love of stationery.

Hers is such a personally driven business experience that even the name of the operation has come from her childhood nickname, Kikki.

Sometimes it is unreal to look at a business success story and think it was just a matter of rolling up the shutters with a great name and a stand-out idea; but that belies the gambles, the worries and the cash challenges that come with the entrepreneur's patch.

Not only did Karlsson's partner sell his house to fund their first store in the Melbourne Central shopping centre in 2001, it was also a tough year for retail with the introduction of the GST, the new tax on the block. And worse still, the Japanese-owned Daimaru, the centre's flagship store, was struggling. It closed before long, and then along came the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Despite these challenges, the shop stood out from the crowd, helped by the uniqueness of its concept.

"The store was really well received and was named Melbourne's most innovative store by the lord mayor," Karlsson says. "We now have more than 50 boutiques across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and a online store that services the world."

Asked how she achieved this formidable feat, she is straight to the point.

"Tough work and perseverance," she says. But there was more: "And, of course, by surrounding ourselves with a talented team of individuals. You certainly can't do it on your own."

It was tough in the early stages because of the usual problem of limited resources. But it was how she dealt with this that provides an important lesson.

"Having limited financial resources to start and grow my business was probably the hardest challenge I faced in getting kikki.K off the ground," she says. "However, I overcame that by being creative, working hard and with 'do it yourself' as my mantra in the early days."

However, she also was helped by combining her group of associates and bartering for assistance.

"I switched on to the power of networking, exchanging favours with other people as a way of getting things done without having to find cash," she explains.

"There were definitely points where things were tough and giving up would've been an easy way out.

However, it was never really an option. When you sell your house to fund the business development, walking away from it all isn't an option."

On the road ahead, Karlsson is determined to take kikki.K to the wider world.

"Our big vision is to have something kikki.K in every stylish life," she says. "We'll need lots of stores around the world to achieve that. We opened our first New Zealand store in Newmarket, Auckland, in 2006 and our first Singapore boutique in ION Orchard last year.

"I've always had a clear vision of opening beautiful kikki.K boutiques around the world in my favourite cities -- New York, Stockholm, Tokyo, Copenhagen, London, Paris -- and that's what we're going to do."

This impressive record has been achieved without franchising, although they have had minority equity partners.

Asked what are the big business lessons she would pass on as tips to up-and-comers, Karlsson sums it up as "vision, plan, network and decisions".

"Along the way so many things occur that can distract from your original vision," she counsels. "If you start out with a clear vision, it will guide you through the ups and downs."

She argues a business plan is essential to achieving your vision.

"Putting it on paper really cements it and gives you direction, but don't be afraid to refine as you go," she adds. And you can't do everything yourself, so find some mentors.

"You'll be surprised by how many people are happy to help."

On decisions, she says go for it.

"You'll have to make a lot of decisions, and welcome this as a positive," she says. "There is no such thing as a bad decision, as all decisions bring new learnings."

Karlsson believes you have to be motivated to stay in the business growth game and win, so what keeps her going?

"My passion for kikki.K has never wavered, which keeps the motivation going," she enthuses.

"Sure there have been many challenging times; however, growing a business involves investing so much of your effort and energy, you sacrifice so much and go through many ups and downs, so you grow a very close emotional and intuitive attachment. I love what I do. Sometimes it's as simple as that."

Finally, many entrepreneurs cite mentors, prominent business leaders or even books that have inspired them to stick to the journey, even when the road gets tough to endure. So, who or what inspires Karlsson?

"My partner, Paul, believed in me from the very beginning," she says. "He helped me discover what it was I wanted to do with my life and he's been along for the ride ever since from the initial business idea, and now he's the company chief executive."

To the outsider, the kikki.K story seems like something out of a Swedish fairytale, but it is a story that this writer has observed at close quarters through the years.

In fact, this is an Aussie business success story driven by two young people who have integrated passion with professionalism and an undying drive to make a business succeed. And they have done it with style.

Peter Switzer is a founding director of Switzer Business Coaching  www.switzer.com.au