Canberrans watched with bated breath as Aami ‘Mimi’ Mills, local businesswoman and mum of two, was recently dropped into the Shark Tank – and walked away with an infectious grin and $100,000 in funding.
When we met with the titular founder of Mimi & Co, she had just finished packing the flood of orders that followed the episode airing on Monday evening, 25 September.
Mimi & Co’s only warehouse, hidden beneath her actual house, holds thousands of the first one-size-fits-most modern cloth nappy.
Mimi’s design-protected invention fits babies from 2.5 kg to 20 kg, growing with them from birth all the way to potty training.
How? Just look at all those buttons.
In the long-awaited return of reality TV show Shark Tank Australia after a five-year hiatus, Mimi is Canberra’s lone competitor. Considering she was given only three weeks’ notice before appearing on television, and had never formally pitched her business before, we couldn’t have asked for a better champion.
As said by OG Shark Robert Herjavec, Mimi’s “energy is infectious” from the moment she stepped on screen.
“I practised my pitch probably a thousand times … It’s all one take and if you stuff up, you stuff up,” says Mimi. While viewers saw about 10 minutes of the ordeal, in reality, Mimi spent nearly two hours under the spotlight, talking “all things business” with the sharks.
“I was very, very nervous,” says Mimi. “But at the same time, my business is my baby, so it was just like talking about one of your kids to some (very successful) people.”
The design was inspired by the birth of her real baby.
“In 2020, I gave birth to my first son. He was born at a teeny-tiny 2.5 kilos. He was the size of a premature baby but needed the absorbency of a newborn nappy.”
The advice Mimi was given at the hospital was to just use two disposable nappies at once. “That’s a dollar every change, and he’s doing a poo every 40 minutes!”
The average baby goes through 6,000-7,000 nappies until they are potty trained, costing the average family $4,000-$6,000 per child.
“I never ever thought I would use a cloth nappy. It just never crossed my mind. It wasn’t until I had a baby that I realised – number one, that’s a lot of waste; and number two, there is a huge hole in this market.”
Despite being the only shark to never spend a cent on nappies, Founder of ‘The Oodie’ Davie Fogarty went in with fellow Shark Jane Lu, CEO of online retailer Showpo, to fund the full $100,00 in exchange for each getting 15 per cent equity.
Mimi recalls the instant she knew her pitch had grabbed Jane’s attention.
“I gave cloth nappies a go and I must have done it wrong because it just leaked pee everywhere,” said the Shark.
Far from being dissuaded, this was Mimi’s ‘aha’ moment.
“[Jane] has two kids, roughly the same age as my kids,” she says.
“A lot of huge brands, the ones that you can buy really easily, are the ones that don’t offer education.
“That’s what we’re all about. We’re not just a cloth nappy business, we’re a cloth nappy business that provides education and support. In that moment I was like, ‘This is my thing. Jane is my audience.’
“Having her there with the opportunity that she might invest in my brand was amazing,” she smiles.
With a Bachelor of Forensics and a major in textiles, Mimi put her education to good use, ensuring the cloth nappies never leave behind a messy crime scene.
After the episode aired, Jane took to Instagram to name the cloth nappies’ ‘Poonami Protector’ “the thirstiest most premium inserts.”
“Jane could see that that was a huge opportunity. Not just Jane, but Davie, who owns a business which makes a lot of money on a one-size-fits-most product,” says Mimi.
Much like her investor Jane, Mimi built her business from the ground up. A lifelong sewist after getting her first job at Spotlight at age 14, she created the first prototypes herself and began selling them to friends and family.
Before giving birth to her son, Mimi was working full time as the area manager of five stores and was a competitive power lifter.
“Then, all of a sudden, I had my baby and all of that went away – like, all of it. I wasn’t working anymore. I wasn’t power lifting, that’s for sure.
“I think that’s why I was able to hit the ground running.”
She grew her business during the 2020 lockdowns, finding the right manufacturer and growing Mimi & Co’s online community.
“One of the biggest challenges was getting into a market that’s a little bit old school. When people think about cloth nappies, they go ‘Ergh. That’s what my mum used to do. She would put them in a bucket to soak for a couple of days or boil them on our stove’,” smiles Mimi.
“I’m entering as a businesswoman, but at the same time, I’m trying to educate an entire generation. But that’s where we end up winning because I am that generation.
“These people are me. They’re 30-something-year-olds with new babies,” she says. “I am my ideal customer.”
Mimi is the oldest of eight kids. “My mum had me in ’93 and only used cloth nappies. She had her last child when I was 22, and then it was all disposables.
“I have seen an entire shift from cloth nappies to disposables, just in my own family life, and now I can see that completely reversing again.”
A stash of about 24 to 36 modern cloth nappies will last not only the entire time the first baby is in diapers, but also the second and third, saving Aussie parents the $18,000 they might spend on diapers alone by the time the third baby comes around.
Washing the nappies is much like washing dishes – requiring an immediate pre rinse and then a main wash every few days. If you are thinking that seems like an excessive amount of water, think again.
“Washing nappies for three years takes the same amount of water to manufacturer one newborn box of disposable nappies,” says Mimi.
“We want to mainstream cloth nappies. We want to revert everything back so that disposable nappies are the ones you kink your head at,” she smiles.
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