ARTICLE
If you can’t find something, start it. It doesn’t need to be perfect. In today’s episode, Fiona talks to Sarah Thornton of The Finders Keepers. Sarah talks about her business, the challenges have they come up against, tips to business owners, and so much more! Tune in here to listen.
Sarah heads up the Finders Keepers team alongside her business partner and co-founder BFF Brooke Johnston. From her time in the trenches of building a small business, she understands how to build (and scale) a brand all the way from the nitty gritty to high level creative direction. From her background as a designer selling behind a market stall, to wearing many different business hats, she brings a wealth of gathered knowledge to her role as Managing Director.
Sarah oversees and drives key areas alongside her killer team and believes everyone should be their own leader. She also believes that good design is KEY to a strong brand, and strong organisation is an integral part of running the (best) show. Sarah is constantly thinking outside the square and vision planning. Her passion for authentic design, community connection and strategy has her developing new and innovative projects in her sleep.
The Finders Keepers was founded in the summer of 2008 in Sydney, by young designers and friends, Brooke Johnston and Sarah Thornton. They both now live and work in the beautiful Northern Rivers of NSW.
The aim for Brooke and Sarah was simple: to create a marketplace that was a supportive environment for like-minded, independent designers to sell their work. Brooke and Sarah bucked the markets trend with a vision of an event that didn’t exist at the time; somewhere they wanted to shop, which also happened to combine everything they loved under one roof.
You can listen to the full podcast here and other interviews of business owners, entrepreneurs, authors and Business profit leaders who share their experiences with host Fiona Kallickey and the Daily Business Coach audience
On how she and her co-founder got inspiration for the business, Sarah had this to say
“And earlier Brooke, my business partner and I were designers. So, we come from a design background ourselves and the inspiration was really just to put on something fun that we wanted to go to at the time, Brooke had just started a jewellery label and was just kind of struggling to find places, to show her work and be appreciated by like-minded audience. we wanted to do something fun with some friends, and it was really casual. We started really small and didn’t really think much of it and just thought, we’ll put it on this market. And maybe people will come. Maybe they won’t and we’ll have music and wine and all the fun things. And it definitely was the biggest success that we could have ever imagined.”
sARAH tHORNTON
Sarah’s personal mission is to “empower others to do great things”, she has this to say about how finder’s keepers was built around helping the creative community
“And then we were like, people really like this, let’s kind of make it a bit more of a business and then went part-time and then eventually it just kept getting bigger and bigger and full-time job. And we now have eight staff as well. So, it’s definitely turned into something bigger than what we anticipated and just found a community in that as well. A lot of the designers grew up with us and established their business from very early days and have now gone on to do amazing things. So, it felt like we could never really let it go because there was a need for it. And we just wanted to keep supporting our community.”
SARAH THORNTON
The COVID 19 pandemic was really a challenging period for businesses around the world, for Finders Keepers, it was an opportunity to quickly iterate their business model, Sarah had this to say about COVID impact and how finders keepers pulled through the pandemic
“So definitely I’m pretty proud that we’re still standing today. I just didn’t think that just happened, we did rely on job keeper as a lot of small businesses did. And we are really lucky that we had that and we were able to survive and just minimize our workload and everything immediately in terms of overhead expenses, just to survive that period. And I got really good at cash flow projections, which is now a skill that I have for any scenario. And I think that really got us through to just be able to know what we had to do to survive, and what’s the bare minimum room to survive on. But luckily our community is amazing and we always put them first and I think the strength of them getting us through it and supporting us and not pulling out and asking for refunds straight away, or just being able to support us in other areas of the business is something that we’ve just really seen as the silver lining during this period. And knowing that they’re there to support us to get through the other end has been one of the best things about it. And we were lucky as well because we started to operate online so we could shift to that quite quickly. But we definitely have learned so much during the last two years. And I think a lot of small businesses probably can relate to that one.”
SARAH THORNTON
Sarah is proud of what finders keepers have done for small businesses in the last 14 years and she had this say about her business journey and the impact she and her co-founder Brooke Johnston have made in the community
“I guess I’m proud of all the small businesses that we’ve helped over the years. I’m like a proud parent watching the little ducklings grow and where they go from here is always amazing. It’s nice to be part of that and know that we’ve had some kind of impact on them as a small business, I guess, from a personal level I’m proud of like surviving the pandemic. Because it was really probably the hardest thing that we’ve ever been through most personally and as a business and knowing that I could keep it going and keep the team employed and knowing that we’re able to have a full calendar of events this year is pretty exciting. I’m proud of us for getting this far, even though it’s been a bumpy journey, we wanna keep doing what we love”.
You can listen to the full podcast here and other interviews of business owners, entrepreneurs, authors and Business profit leaders who share their experiences with host Fiona Kallickey and the Daily Business Coach audience
Host / Podcast Bio
Fiona has almost two decades experience working with large and small brands in senior content and marketing roles and has also been a published journalist since 2002.
Fiona was raised by incredible parents who promoted education and kindness as two of the most important facets of life. It’s these beliefs that fuel My Daily Business Coach – which offers free education via daily Instagram posts and an insightful weekly email, as well as affordable public workshops, eBooks and custom consulting and business coaching packages.
My Daily Business Coach is a consultancy that helps business owners (and their teams) understand, create, analyse and improve their marketing, branding, content and overall business strategies.
Want to be a guest on our podcast? Please contact us hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com with Podcast Guest in the subject line.
Guest Bio
Sarah heads up the Finders Keepers team alongside her business partner and co-founder BFF Brooke. From her time in the trenches of building a small business, she now understands how to build (and scale) a brand all the way from the nitty gritty to high level creative direction. From her background as a designer selling behind a market stall, to wearing many different business hats, she brings a wealth of gathered knowledge to her role as Managing Director.
Sarah oversees and drives key areas alongside her killer team and believes everyone should be their own leader. She also believes that good design is KEY to a strong brand, and strong organization is an integral part of running the (best) show. Sarah is constantly thinking outside the square and vision planning. Her passion for authentic design, community connection and strategy has her developing new and innovative projects in her sleep.
Resources and Links Mentioned in the Show:
- My Daily Business Coach Shop
- My Daily Business Coach Free Weekly Planner
- My Daily Business Coach Waitlist
- Sarah Thornton
- Brooke Johnson
- The Finders Keepers
- Creative Business Summit
- 16personality.com
- MySpace
- Pru Chapman
- Owners Collective
- Liane Moriarty
- Asana
- thefinderskeepers.com/summit
