The tipping point of believability with Mary Minas and Freya Berwick, co-founders of Sense Of Self

✅How to build an audience before launching

✅Overcoming the adversity that arrives with launching a bathhouse during COVID

✅Leaning on your values as a decision making tool

✅Challenges in finding investors aligned to Mary and Freya’s vision

Sense Of Self came out of Mary and Freya’s dream to create an Australian space that would draw on global practices to meet modern wellness needs in an inclusive way.

The result is Sense Of Self, a contemporary bathhouse and spa with beautiful design and a big mission.

Want to learn more? Listen to the 8th episode of Season 3 of our Wild Hearts podcast. 👇

Episode Highlights from Mary and Freya:

“We have a motto, come as you are, take what you need. And we really stick with that.”

“We built an audience in two ways… Building an audience through events, holding panels and getting experts together and having conversations about social connection, belonging, and our values, and from that we grew an audience as well as an incredible understanding of the ways in which people access these feelings and what they mean to our audience. And secondly, digital marketing.”

“Our audience was everything to us. Because we’d built this audience, and then we were like, shit, we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is, no one is really believing in us, so we signed a lease.”

“We got to the tipping point of believability. Before that we were treated like these two young girls with this big idea of a day spa. And we were like, no, it’s very different from that, and it was only once we had a site, we had customers, and we were absolutely obsessed with it because we’d put everything we have into it that we passed that point where people took us seriously.”

“We thought about everything from the customer’s perspective, and the way that we thought about the customer was someone coming in quite vulnerable, and how we made them feel “held”, but having their boundaries positively pushed.”

“It’s really key to our model to bring these curated, new experiences to people.”