I’m a self-made multi-millionaire – people told me I was crazy for investing my life savings into my very simple idea
A woman, to the shock of all her friends, made the risky decision to invest all her life savings in a carpet business, but it paid off in the millions.
Alexandra Tanya Weller, 37, from Sydney, Australia, left her job and made a life-changing decision and has now revealed she’s made £13million in just one year.
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The Australian entrepreneur founded the online carpet company Miss Amara in 2014, which has enjoyed rapid success thanks largely to its best-selling range of stain-resistant carpets.
Now the e-commerce company has expanded from Down Under into the global market – Hong Kong in 2017, New Zealand in 2019 and then the US in 2020.
In the past financial year, Miss Amara generated sales of £13million with her innovative products that can either be washed or repel liquids, so there’s no need to worry about stains.
Back in 2014, Alexandra Tanya noticed how difficult it was to buy rugs online, while her husband Aaron was seeing a huge search volume for rugs.
“The problem was that the experience of buying a carpet online at the time was ‘awful’,” she said Smart company.
“Our competitors had thousands of SKUs, but they were all product photos, there were no inspirational photos of carpets in beautiful rooms.”
“Most people have never bought a rug and are overwhelmed and put it in the basket that’s too hard,” added Alexandra.
So she and her husband took the plunge and invested most of their £26,700 savings into their own business, making beautiful rugs and delivering them to people’s homes.
“We both thought there must be something there – the current solution (at the time) was clearly broken,” the couple said online mail.
They started out as a small drop shipping operation, initially using stock from local Australian retailers before expanding the business and developing their own ranges.
Alexandra planned to use washable rugs after the birth of her baby, but quickly realized that she didn’t want to sacrifice the look and feel of a rug.
This idea helped her create the relatively new, luxurious-looking washable range so her kids could have a “soft, beautiful platform for their little feet to play on.”
Did you know it would work? “To be honest no – we didn’t know if it would work, it seemed like we wanted to tackle all the problems of the carpet market from all fronts.”
“We had so many ideals and it was ambitious,” said the founders.
“For five years we received no salary and lived on our savings. Luckily for us, things changed at that point.”
Nowadays it is not uncommon for Miss Amara collections to sell out on the day of their launch and the company continues to exceed their goals.
Their washable, stain-resistant and hypoallergenic rugs are instrumental in setting the company apart from the competition.
But the key to their success, according to the couple, is that “we really listen to our customers.”
“We have entire ranges based on the lifestyles and habits of our customers.
“Every design decision, right down to the properties of the fibers we select, are based on what our customers say and the style of interiors they desire,” they say.
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