The long version

I grew up in Tasmania in a house that smelled like eucalyptus and tea tree. My parents ran a small natural products business — essential oils, hand-made soaps, candles. I was literally raised behind the market stall, learning to count change before I learned to read.

My dad, Simon, passed away in August 2016 — the same year I started Zea. That timing wasn't a coincidence. He'd spent his life building something real with his hands, and I wanted to carry that forward in my own way.

That upbringing gave me something you can't learn at university: an instinct for what makes people trust a product, and what makes them come back.

In 2016, at 24, I co-founded Zea with Jade McKenzie. We built the world's first Kunzea-based product range — starting with a pain relief cream made from a native Australian plant that most people had never heard of. We believed in it because we'd grown up with it.

Today, Zea products are in Woolworths, 300+ pharmacies, Amazon (AU, UK, Canada), and over 2,000 retail locations nationally. We're a certified B Corp, a 1% for the Planet member, and we're building toward $7 million in revenue.

I studied marketing and business management at the University of Melbourne (first class honours in Advertising & Promotions and Ethical Marketing), but the real education has been the ten years of building — learning to manufacture, scale, fail, and keep going.

Now I'm sharing what I've learned. Through e-commerce advisory, speaking (including my upcoming TEDx talk), and writing, I help other founders and operators figure out the things that took me years to learn the hard way.