Life Stages: 'I sold my home at 32 to start my dream business'
Life Stages is 9Honey's latest series that aims to find out when people made their biggest purchases and the journey to saving along the way.
- Goal: Start a business
- Time Frame: One year
- Fun Saving Tip: Take a HUGE risk
Rhian Allen was six months pregnant with her first child when she decided to sell her family home in order to start her dream business.
"I woke up one morning and was determined to help mums feel healthy and fabulous again," she tells 9Honey.
"After I decided that's what I'm going to do, I wrote my plan out and quickly realised I had no money to do it."
Rhian Allen launched The Healthy Mummy ten years ago to help mums regain their bodies - and confidence. Supplied
Allen found herself at a crossroads: go back to the life she always knew, or take a risk and launch her dream business?
In the final weeks of her second trimester, Allen was inspired to launch her business, now known as The Healthy Mummy, after discovering no health and wellness groups who directly supported new mums existed.
But before creating a globally-recognised company that is followed by over 1.5 million mums and turned over $22 million last year alone, Allen took the biggest financial risk of her life.
"I had just quit my job and I was pregnant, so I told my husband that we needed to sell our house," she says.
Surprisingly, Allen's husband didn't argue with her on the idea, and within a few months the couple were renting once again.
After 12 years in the corporate field and a new baby in her arms, Allen had no job, no owned home, and had $300,000 to invest in her dream company.
Allen, who was 32 at the time, maintains being 'calm' was vital in keeping her sights set on success.
Rhian Allen was six months pregnant when she decided to sell her home to start a business. Instagram
"I kept telling myself that I was young enough to fix my world if it all came crashing down," she shares.
"It was risky, but I was kind of like, 'I may as well do it'."
What began as a Facebook group with a few hundred mums completing workout programs and connecting to an online community soon spread into a global empire.
Within two years of launching, Allen's husband also quit his job to join the business. The pair now employ more than 150 people across Australia, America and the UK, all motivated to help mums feel healthy again.
Celebrating 10 years since launching her business, Allen admits saving for her life dream relied solely on taking a massive risk.
"I had the money that came from the life my husband and I had built together, and it got us through the first three years of the business," she says.
Allen admits, however, that her business wasn't automatically profitable.
"We didn't make money for the first three years," she explains.
"Hiring nutritionists, health experts, fitness planners, the lot is expensive, but I wanted to do it right."
While Allen's profits now clock six figure-plus sums a month, at the beginning of her new life stage, belief in her vision was more important than money when it came to her achieving success.
The mum of two made $22 million alone in 2019. Instagram
"I wanted to create a business that put the customers on a pedestal and ask them what they want all the time," she explains.
"They need to know we're here to help them and their voice matter. If it was just about making money, I wouldn't be happy, and it wouldn't have been successful."
The intimate nature of her program is where Allen has found her glory.
In what she calls a "grassroots" approach to business, the mum has invested just as much of herself as she has her personal finances from the family home.
"I'm very much focused on the grassroots, the customer and reinvesting in the business all the time," she says.
With an online, supportive community that posts images of transformations and positive success stories, Allen maintains being "passionate" is key to achieving your goal.
"That passion will carry you through," she adds.
