"I’m just deciding what success looks like for me."
And at the moment, having an amazing job and working with an amazing team in a creative field with happy customers was "priceless" for Wānaka businesswoman Emma Hasler.
Mrs Hasler and her business Botanic Press have won the creative arts category in this year’s NZI Rural Women NZ Business Awards. She is also a finalist in the entrepreneur of the year category in the Grand Business South Awards.
She was "very humbled" by that acknowledgement, joking she never went anywhere, yet she had two award functions to attend in consecutive weeks next month.
Botanic Press, which specialised in preserving flowers and bouquets from significant life events, particularly weddings, has been a fast-growing success story.
Four years ago, after the birth of her second child, Mrs Hasler decided not to return to work as a physiotherapist. She had always wanted to pursue a more creative path.
Growing up, she always wanted to work with people and had dreams of being a doctor. When she did not get in to medicine, she studied physiotherapy as a back-up, planning to return and study post-graduate medicine.
But then she "discovered life"; she met her now husband Chris, went travelling and found that physiotherapy, where she specialised in brain injuries, was an "awesome job".
Having parked the medicine dream, she later looked to do something creative. She told her friends she was going to start a business, but she did not know what it was.
After her son’s birth, Mrs Hasler was ready for it. During the nights while looking after him — he cried a lot and had bad colic — she turned to flowers for happiness and realised the business needed to be about flowers.
Discovering pressed flower earrings on Etsy, she knew she wanted to do something similar and noticed there was a gap in the market for pressed flower wedding bouquets.
Her bouquet from her wedding in 2014 went mouldy in a bucket while she was on her honeymoon. She had planned her own wedding and loved the creativity and styling involved.
She was looking for something that was timeless, and was passionate about that in her own interior styling.
"I never follow trends, I just buy once, buy right. That’s really important to me in fashion and interiors."
Wanting something that people would cherish, she knew any product had to be "amazing" to break into the market and must include professional framing.
She discovered it was very hard learning how to do it but she could not give up, so she "just kept going", pressing hundreds of flowers in hundreds of different ways until she got the formula right.
Her husband made the presses for her and she ordered bouquets of flowers from florists so she could work with any flower type.
Botanic Press launched in June 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which proved beneficial as there was a focus on New Zealand-made products. The business was inundated from that point.
When it was launched, the Hasler family were living in Christchurch but they moved to Wānaka more than two years ago.
Initially, Mrs Hasler was concerned that she had established the business in Christchurch, which was a larger centre with more weddings, but the pandemic had shown what could be achieved online and it gave her the confidence to move it.
With drop-off locations in both Christchurch and Wānaka, Botanic Press also received bouquets from throughout New Zealand via the overnight courier.
It was less important for the flowers to be in top condition because the bouquets were dismantled and the flowers pressed flat.
The process was extremely slow and time-consuming but the results were "just so worth it".
"It’s a forever piece for people. It’s an investment and it’s very sentimental and it needs to last a lifetime."
Customers could have as much input as they wanted to create the bespoke pressed flower artworks while about half chose to have a surprise that captured a moment in time for them.
It could take up to about four months from the peak wedding months of January to April to complete the finished product so winter was a "massive" time for the team.
There were two contractors in Christchurch, three permanent staff in Wānaka, plus Mrs Hasler, who worked out of premises in Gordon Rd, and a local framing business was used.
Reflecting on the growth of the business, Mrs Hasler said there had not been a lot of time to pause and think about it.
While in Christchurch, she was busy with a 2-year-old and a newborn, while also renovating their house.
Her family thought she was "absolutely bonkers" while her husband had been very supportive — "obviously it took over our lives, our house".
Now, she realised it had been a "huge achievement".
"They are just so happy," she said.
Wānaka attracted eloping couples from all over the world and they were often her favourite couples who were so happy to be able to send their flowers back to their home country.
"It’s really special to get to see frames being opened in New York, Ireland and Switzerland, and hear their stories. That’s our favourite warm fuzzies.
"We often call it Cute Couple Thursday — they often get married mid-week. Sometimes we are the first to know. Every couple is special to us."
A photograph of the bouquet was taken before the design was started and photographs were also obtained from the wedding which gave the team "a feel of the day".
It had been a "massive year" this year for the company and she was now consolidating the vision which had happened very fast.
Rather than pursuing further growth, she was "keeping things as is for now" as her husband was travelling a lot for work and they had a young family.
She loved doing the drop-offs and pick-ups and being present in her children’s lives.
It was getting to the point in the business that, if it grew any larger, she would need to travel more and work fulltime and that was not an option now. She also wanted to stay in the creative side of the business.
But she also recognised it did have the potential to grow in the future, possibly with the likes of having an Auckland branch.
"It could be a massive business," she said.
She also made fine art prints and has an exhibition at the moment at the Cardrona Distillery.
Other southern winners in the NZI Rural Women NZ Business Awards were Laura Koot from Real Country in Kingston (innovation category), Haylee-Chanel Simeon from Hayz at the Anchorage in Bluff (bountiful table), and Katherine Wright from Te Anau (rural health and wellness).
The supreme winner will be announced on November 24 during the RWNZ national conference in Christchurch.
The Grand Business South Awards will be held in Dunedin on November 17.
