In this exciting episode of the Natupreneur Movement, we speak to the founder of Fem21, Meah Robertson. The incredible herb and food formula behind Fem21 was created for her own needs. She has since grown it into a global brand simply by following her passion.
Having grown up in the natural health world, Meah right knew from the beginning that her path straight out of school was Naturopathy. This candid conversation explores the role tenacity and doing-what-it-takes has made in Meah’s life and the creation of something she truly believes in.
T: Hey everybody! Welcome to another episode of the Natupreneur Movement. This week, I am super excited as I always am because I get to interview some of the coolest Natupreneuers and people who influence the Natupreneur community.
When I first met this person, I was super excited to meet her. Because it’s incredible to watch somebody create something innovative in their life, then in their business, and then in the profession that you just don’t really expect! A lot of time and effort goes into creating a business. But to get something that’s innovative off the ground and do it so quickly after being through qualification, I found it super inspiring.
So I am really super excited to chat today to Meah from Fem21. How are you doing?
M: Good Tammy, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I feel totally honoured to be part of your natupreneur crew. I hope through my story and experience I can help to inspire other naturopaths to follow their passion in what they want to do in their business and to help others.
T: So how did you get to become a naturopath in the first place?
Growing Up In A Natural Health Household
M: Oh, this is a going way back. My mum and dad were both very holistic in their philosophy on health and life. I was born in Cannes. My father was a chiropractor and my mother a nutritionist. They ran a chiropractic clinic up in Cannes, very successful.
T: Wow, it’s in the genes, right?
M: Yeah, yeah. So I remember being involved in taking appointments and mum would trouble me down to the health food store. I was just always around it. Mum and dad never implemented Western medicine with us growing up. We were quite sheltered from that. If we were ever sick, we would fast and juice and do all sorts of natural medicines as opposed to any medication or intervention from the doctors.
Soaking Up Knowledge In The Health Food Store
So I was just sort of surrounded by that growing up. When I was sixteen, I started working at the health food store that I’d been going to since I was really little. Mum got me a job there and I started on Thursday nights and Saturdays, cleaning shelves, tidying stock, mopping floors, and serving customers.
I really found everything in there so interesting. Reading the backs of labels and brochures. Talking to people and helping them find stuff. Then they would come back and say, “Oh, I’m feeling really good.”
You’re just learning, soaking up from the customers and also the women that I was working with there. It was like I had five extra Aunties. Very lovely. One of them was a naturopath and she was just like an angel. I thought, “Wow! If I can be like you when I grow up, that’s my ultimate.” Her capacity to help people so thoroughly was really inspiring.
So really from an early age of 14 or 15, I knew what I wanted to do as a naturopath.
T: Wow. That is rare and exciting.
M: I haven’t veered from that path and I’m 37 now. So that was a while ago and I still love it. Every day it’s exciting. It’s so rewarding to get feedback from people as to how you’re making a difference in their life and on their journey.
T: That’s awesome! Such an invaluable experience. I spent some time in a health food shop when I first came out of my qualification and there is such a steep learning curve for us who have never experienced that before. Having experienced that environment of thinking on your feet and having to switch on caring compassion right there. Then for the people who are there and finding the right thing for them while they’re walking through. It takes a different skillset from what we’re actually taught in our qualification. So having it before you even started, it must have been incredible.
Following Her Passion Into Naturopathy
So having that experience must have been extraordinary. Then you finished your qualification and what happened then? Because finishing a qualification and going straight into naturopathy from school. That’s a different way of going about it from the people you probably went to college with, right?
M: Yeah, so when I was 19, I moved down to the Gold Coast to start naturopathy. I did have a year off in between school and studying my degree. I really wanted to save some money so I could set myself up on the Gold Coast. So I was working my butt off. I actually had at one stage six jobs going at the same time.
T: Commitment.
Doing What It Takes = Working 6 Jobs
M: I was working at:
- a health food store
- mum and dad’s chiropractic clinic
- in a dress shop
- belly dancing
- a juice bar
- and an Apple store as a receptionist
I was juggling morning and night shift.
T: Talk about doing what it takes! I look back on some of the things that I did to get through my degree. It really gives you a great standing for entrepreneurship when you just keep trying to figure it out and do what it takes to get the thing off the ground.
Following Her Passion To The Gold Coast
M: Before I started my degree, I knew what I wanted to do. But I knew that I had to have some money behind me to do it because I wanted to do it on my own.
So I bought a unit on the Gold Coast. It was that time on the Coast where a first-time buyers grant was available and it was before the property boom happened So I was able to set myself up. Mum and dad were guarantors for me and my loan. Then I was able to work and pay for my degree and have a place to live, which was important!
That was a big step out of my comfort zone. I’m moving from Cannes to the Gold Coast because I didn’t know anybody. I was just in a completely different world. So that was probably the fastest growing up I’ve had to do at 19. I was really headstrong and I knew what I wanted to do, so nothing was going to stop me. It was just about putting all the steps in place to get it done.
When I moved to the Gold Coast, I met my husband pretty early on. So we started dating and that was great. Then at the end of my degree, I was pregnant. I was up there graduating with a huge tummy.
I was working in a health food store on the Gold Coast at the time. And I was like, “Okay, well this is happening and I’m just going to make it work.” So I did have some time off. When I had my first daughter, Ava. She’s now 13, she’ll be 14 this year. I was working in a health food store just on Sundays because I was getting double time on a Sunday and I could do a short shift and still be breastfeeding. I kept my foot in the door that way.
Working At Sharky’s Healing Centre
Then I got a job working at a fertility clinic called Sharky’s Healing Centre. That was based on the Gold Coast and set out by Ruth Sharkey. She had retired when I started there and sold the business to an American lady, Stacey Roberts. I worked with Stacey for five years at Sharky’s. That was my first job out of my qualifications as a naturopath working in clinic.
I’d worked in health food stores and I knew that jam but I really wanted to get into working in the clinic, working one on one with people. And that was a really busy clinic. So that was a fairly steep learning curve because I went from talking to people on the floor and doing a couple of consults in the back room of the health food store, to seeing 11 patients a day, back to back.
T: And all women and all hormonal.
M: It was great and I loved it.
T: Is that where your love of hormones came from?
Journey From PCOS To Fem21
M: It definitely played a big part, 100%. But I would also say it’s from my own personal experience. Law of attraction put me there for a reason. Through my own personal issues hormonally I had developed an interest in that area of women’s health and hormones
Going back to me as a teenager, I had terrible hormonal acne and symptoms of polycystic syndrome. But because we never went to the doctors, I was never diagnosed. So irregular cycles, male pattern hair growth, hormonal acne. It wasn’t until I did my naturopathic degree that I learned to connect all of those dots. So I started on the pill with my now husband, my partner at the time. I did that for about six months and it was just a complete nightmare for me.
I was so anxious and very depressed. At some points, I was even suicidal and thought about gassing myself in the garage. It’s terrible to talk about it.
T: It’s a reality for a lot of people with PMD.
M: So I decided the pill wasn’t for me and went off that. Then I fell pregnant fairly quickly, had a miscarriage and that was two weeks before our wedding. So I found out I was pregnant and we decided to get married and then I had a miscarriage two weeks prior. Then I fell pregnant again three months after we got married. That was coming towards the end of my degree at that time.
I definitely went through a hormonal roller coaster with PCS and then my adverse mental state.
T: To have that personally, and then to have that reiterated by seeing so many clients with so many versions of that story coming through the door. It’s no wonder you got into what you’re into now. Can you tell us a bit about creating a product specifically for women?
Diversifying By Creating A Product
M: After I finished at Sharkey’s after I was there for five years, I went out into practice on my own working with other integrative GPs. Over about two years, my business went from being really, really busy to becoming quite quiet. So I was working with two integrative practitioners. One was doing really, really well. But the other one – no matter how hard I was marketing and pushing, energetically, I just wasn’t meant to be there. So I had time on my hands.
And I started sort of thinking about what else I could do in conjunction with my naturopathic practice. That’s just part of the reason. I absolutely wanted to help people but from a business perspective as well, I wanted to set something up that I could make passive income from. After five years of doing Fem21, there’s nothing passive about it!
T: It’s not passive income. It’s a whole business that you’ve got to pay attention to!
Thinking Outside The Box
M: So I had that intention in mind because when you’re selling your time for money, there’s definitely a limitation on how much you can charge and get patients and all of that. That was my experience at that time anyway. So I thought, “Okay, I’m going to think outside the box to earn an income from my experience personally and professionally.” I came up with a formula for Fem21 and went to my neighbour at the time who was actually a food manufacturer.
T: Wow! I love when opportunity meets serendipity! You know, you plan and plan and plan and then all of a sudden that moment comes where you’re like, “Oh, of course! He’s next door.”
M: Yeah. I’d had that relationship, known him for 10 years prior to doing Fem21 with him. So I went to him with a formula and asked if he would manufacture it for me. He said, “Sure, we can do this.” Because we had that relationship established, it was great. He had me come into the factory, source all of my ingredients, do all my sampling there, get the taste and texture right. Get your dosings all sorted and take as much time as you need. Then started off with a small run, small batches and went from there.
T: What a gift! That’s one of the biggest things that comes up when thinking about creating our own products. Just the insanity that it takes to get testing done. Then to have to buy sheds and sheds worth of products that you’re not even quite sure what will sell. So many little moments along the way that could have gone a different way but have worked together to create such a cool thing.
M: Yes, I really feel blessed that I had that opportunity to do that and that he was willing to work closely with me there. It probably took, I would say, from idea conception to having it available to sell, just under 12 months.
The Birth Of Fem21
T: So it’s like, that’s like another baby, right?
M: It was another baby! People ask me if I’m going to have another baby. I’ve got two children but they’re older now. But I say, “I did! It’s Fem21!”
So, I was working in clinic, working from home, doing Fem21, and also working with an integrative GP on Mount Tambourine. Plus being a mum and juggling life and I had some family stuff going on with my mother’s health at that time, as well.
It’s sort of hard to explain. I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about this before. But it was really my bubble of excitement and joy and possibility while I was working on it. Because I would drop the design for the label on the website. I’d start writing content for the brochure or play around with how things look. Or giving it out to people to try and you’re working on all of that stuff was my little bit of joy in amongst all of the other day-to-day stuff.
T: Yeah, I really found that personally as well, especially when my kids were super, super young. It was my creative outlet. It was my “me time” when I got to really fully express different things that I wasn’t able to in other parts of my life.
M: Yeah. And I think when you’re excited about something and you’ve got that passion or drive to do it, it just it feels easy. That’s kind of always been my philosophy in life, I suppose.
“If you can see that next step forward, just take it. And if it’s easy and it’s working for you, it’s probably meant to be.”
It builds momentum in that direction. So things just kept coming together and falling into place for me. Then released Fem21 in 2015. I did all of that work myself initially. That’s coming up five years ago now.
It looks different now from when I first started with my own labelling. Just like any business, you evolve. So now I can delegate that to somebody who can do it.
T: That’s actually in their zone of genius, rather than just something that you learned on the weekend from a video.
M: In 2019 I did a rebrand for Fem21.
T: The rebrand was actually what got it on my radar. The rebrand came up on Instagram and I was like, “Wow, what’s all this about!” Then to see actually decent stuff inside of a product like that. I knew it had to be a naturopath who did it. And there you were!
Formulating Fem21
M: I put together the formula really just based on my own hormonal issues with PCOS and then also what I was seeing in practice. There wasn’t really anything on the market at the time when I was formulating it that supported women’s hormonal health holistically. Because of course, in practice, when somebody comes in with issues with their period or acne, you’re not just treating the skin or treating the hormones, you’re treating holistically. So you’re supporting their liver, their adrenals, their kidneys and their detoxification pathways. There wasn’t really anything on the market that did that for hormones holistically.
So I thought, well, why don’t I do something? Why not do something and that’s why Fem21 was created. Obviously, there was a need for it because it’s been really successful. So that’s awesome!
T: I love that. I also love that it’s food orientated. It’s very cool and very inspiring.
3 Tips For Creating A Successful Product
Now there are going to be practitioners out there listening who might have a cream or a tea in mind that they’re creating. Creating a product is a very different skillset from one on one consultations and service. What are your 3 biggest tips for somebody who wants to create a successful product and put it on to the market as a naturopath?
Tip#1: Follow Your Passion And Experience
M: Firstly, do it from your own experience in clinic and personally. Because there’s nothing like having that experience behind you to drive a product that you’ve created. People have asked me to do other products like for men or for pregnancy. And sure I can do that. But there’s just not the passion behind it. So
T: I think in the long run, you can tell. When it’s fully in alignment with you, you’re going to stick with it. And you’re going to go deep rather than shallow with it.
M: So, my first tip is to make sure you’re really passionate about it and your intentions are good. You want to do it to help people, you feel there’s a need. Not just because you’re jumping on some fad bandwagon to make some money.
I think you’ve got to have that passion and right intention behind it of helping people. I’m generalising here, but I would say most naturopaths come from that space. You wouldn’t be in this field if you weren’t all about helping people, finding passion and inspiration, and finding it rewarding to do that.
Tip #2: Get As Much Feedback As Possible
The second tip to doing your own product is to really, really play around with your formulations and get feedback and experience from people who are using it. So if it’s a cream, make sure that plenty of people are trying it and that they’re not having any reactions and that it smells good and feels good. If it’s a tea here, make sure people want to take it, it tastes good and it’s helping them. Try to get it out in that trial phase to as many people as possible because that feedback is just invaluable.
T: A lot of us don’t like getting things wrong. So especially when you’re in a trial phase of anything, it can be really scary to get feedback. Sometimes we don’t want to hear it. But being open and curious about how to make things better, I think is, like you said, invaluable.
Tip #3: Start Small And Evolve
M: The third thing would be just really to start with small steps. You don’t need to have paper money behind you to invest in a huge business outlay. Just start small and then build and evolve as the product builds and evolves. Sure, having those resources that money behind you can be great for doing some marketing and beautiful websites and getting it out there to people. But if you don’t have that money, that resource can be a big block to people not doing something. There is no harm in being humble and starting small.
T: Starting where you’re at and then building from that.
M: You just never know what what’s going to come from it. So I think, yeah, just small steps.
T: This is gold! If you’re listening and you’re considering it, do take this on board. Don’t think that there’s a great glass elevator that magically appears for some of us and we go straight up to the top. It is about starting where you’re at and taking the next step. Then checking what’s working and what’s not. Keep going, next step, checking what’s working and what’s not.
Everybody sees the glitz and glamour of Instagram, but it takes a lot behind the scenes to keep that going. And that brings us back to your first point around passion. It’s very easy to go off track if you’re not passionate about it. So you can tell after five years behind your product, that you are just incredibly passionate about it. So cool.
Enjoying The Results
M: It’s so good. Even this morning and yesterday, waking up to emails and people saying, “Thank you so much. You’ve created a wonderful product. This has happened for me and that’s happened to me and look at my skin! Look at how my cycles are changed.” It’s so rewarding having that feedback from people as to how you’ve helped them in a greater capacity than what you doing one on one in clinic. Because the one on one, you go deep with people, which is awesome, you’re helping people hourly. But just the scale of having a product out there in the marketplace that’s helping people that you’ve never interacted with.
T: Very different feeling.
M: It’s a different feeling. So that’s pretty cool.
Fem21 At NatEx
T: Yeah, awesome! Oh, my goodness. We’re excited because we’ve got Fem21 coming to NatEx, which is really cool. The people who are there going to be able to get the experience of it. I’ve been experiencing it as well. When you make something, it’s different from the experience of serving somebody. So the act of service and that one on one consultation side of things. It’s great to get that instantaneous feedback from people from massage and things like that. But when you’ve made something and you can actually say, “I made that.” That’s a very different experience.
I’m really glad that it’s come to the market. It’s very cool. So Meah, what is in the future for Fem21? And which direction do you want to go now that we are in Vision 2020 mode?
Exclusive Announcement – Fem21 Heads To USA
M: So, here’s an exclusive for you, Tammy. This is the first time I’m announcing this. It’s really exciting as I’ve just got a distribution deal in America for Fem21.
T: Wow! Congratulations! Global domination.
M: So that’s pretty awesome, exciting opportunity to be able to share Fem21 with the American market. We’re just in the early stages of getting set up over there with FDA compliance approvals and label changes, things like that. So yeah. That’s happening in 2020.
T: #GoingGlobal!
M: I’ve had other opportunities come and go in the past with Fem21 to go international. But this is the first opportunity that’s been followed through. I am investing a lot of money at this stage. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel to do it, but I do really think it’s going to be worth it in the long run.
T: That is so exciting, so exciting! So much that happens in the background of these things. And to have such an impact everywhere is just going to be next level. So cool, Meah.
Seeing What Happens Next
M: Thank you. It is really cool. I’m excited to see what this next stage brings. It’s amazing to see it continuing to grow in Australia as people hear about it through word of mouth or socials or whatever and give it a try. And experiencing their own good results with it, then telling other people about it, and just seeing it grow so naturally over the last five years in Australia has been awesome.
So, I’m hoping for a similar experience in the US. We’ll just see how it goes.
T: Well, thank you so much for your time today, Meah. And thank you so much for sharing your gold nuggets of wisdom and the experience that you’ve been having. We are super excited if you aren’t coming already to Natex, we’re going to be experiencing the wonders of Fem21 there, as well. Thanks again.
Learn more about Fem21 at these locations:
Website: www.fem21.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Fem21naturally4women
Instagram: www.instagram.com/_fem21_/
To get in touch with Meah Robertson, visit:
Website: www.lifestartnaturopathics.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lifestartnaturopathics
Take Action
If you found a nugget of wisdom from hearing about Meah’s journey from working one on one in clinic to building a global brand by following her passion, take action on it! And please share this with someone else who needs to hear it. We all have so much to give. The world needs your contributions!
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