This week, we are talking to Alexandra Tanya Waller, the co-founder of Miss Amara, a homegrown rug brand that has made a name for its artistically designed and functional rugs. Together with her husband Aaron Weller, Tanya has steered Miss Amara to exponential growth in just three years, having reached $23M in annual revenue and an international presence that extends up to New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the USA.
SB: What was the inspiration behind Miss Amara?
AW: it was based on our own experience buying a rug. We tried and eventually gave up and when we asked our friends and family they all had a similar experience. We realised that for a lot of customers buying a rug for the first time – it can be an extremely daunting task due to the sheer size of the product. So we had a goal 10 years ago to create the most enjoyable and uncomplicated experience to buying your perfect rug – bringing happiness to every barrier that once was confusing or not particularly fun.
ISB: How do you monitor evolving design trends to keep your products current?
AW: It’s really important to get ahead of the design trends so that our product development cycle of production is far before the trend lands. We do this by immersing ourselves in all things not only in the interior space but the art space, fashion space, and anything really that is related to aesthetics and how people interact with design. My background is architecture so the relationship between people and design is something that’s always at the forefront of my mind. Their opinion is really the only one I care about as trends are nothing if they can’t be accessible to the final customer.
ISB: You’ve seen a 36 per cent sales increase in three years. What changes did you make to your business operations to achieve this?
AW: Whilst we’ve always put our customer first, we’ve worked hard in the past few years to profoundly understand them. We’ve increased our focus on metrics like NPS and invested in highly in-depth voice of customer projects and studies. We want to know everything about our customers and we discovered the need for more robust products that work with our customer’s lifestyles. Our product team doubled down on R and D which resulted in us investing more into broadening our washables range for example. Today this range makes up 25 per cent of our sales and continues to climb. Addressing B2B as a huge opportunity and focusing on this has also been a massive contributor to this uplift.
ISB: What is the dynamic like when it comes to working as a couple?
AW: One thing in our relationship that always stands true is our mutual love for business and respect for entrepreneurship. So we lean into that and it’s become something we enjoy and celebrate. Our values in life and in business are 100 per cent aligned and in a business partnership I think this is the one thing that is the most important factor for success. Another important factor is that our areas of expertise are very separate and whilst we place huge value on each other’s opinions (and often disagree!) we ultimately have the utmost respect for who has the final say in our respective areas. We are hugely proud of being couple co-founders and we openly speak about it being our superpower.
ISB: Where do you envision Miss Amara in the next couple of years?
AW: The business has worked hard on our efforts on B2B. Traditionally we’ve been B2C and we’ve been so blessed in the way the customers and the online market have received us. We are working towards addressing the rest of the market which in reality is fragmented and always will be. Our goal is to get Miss Amara at every place a customer is looking to buy a rug, and the opportunity on a B2B level will continue to be vast and significant. We have also had some exciting product category expansion into areas like beach rugs and playmats, which we are really excited about. We want to produce products that enhance our customer’s lifestyle because ultimately Miss Amara is a lifestyle brand.
ISB: What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in this business journey that a would-be entrepreneur should take to heart?
AW: The best service that you can do for you and your business is to hire the best people in their respective areas of expertise and trust them wholeheartedly. Whilst you want a seat at the table, over time there will be more and more tables, you can’t be at every one, so you want to choose to seat at the right ones! There are staff members in the business that I trust with my life, and I have revelled in their capabilities. This has made me put my full focus into the areas that I am the strongest. As our products power the business we have only benefited exponentially from this.
