Meet the Women Behind the Magic: Heather & Kirsten, the founders of Pole Junkie

Hey everyone, Kheanna here 💖 You may or may not know this, but I'm a sucker for success stories. There's nothing more inspiring and motivational! Last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the founders of Pole Junkie, Kirsten & Heather. In this interview, we delve into their journey of bringing their vision of Pole Junkie to life. These boss babes are incredibly inspirational, and I hope their story helps you in the next step of your journey. Enjoy!

How did you two meet?

Kirsten: We met at a finance careers event and I recognised Heather’s name because I was on the board of our University Pole Club and Heather was a member. We got chatting and started the general pole dancers conversation of “what’s your favourite move?” etc and by the time we’d left that night after a few wines, we’d decided we were going to perform together in the university pole show which was coming up in a couple of months.

How did you come up with the idea of starting Pole Junkie?

Heather: Over a good cup of coffee. We’d graduated from University and were both working in our grad jobs. Kirsten was trying to order some polewear from the USA and she was moaning about how much customs she’d had to pay.  

Kirsten: We didn’t know sizes and you couldn’t really return stuff either. I’d done a group order with a couple of friends so I knew people wanted this stuff, it just wasn’t easily accessible.

Heather: We just sort of had this Eureka moment. I mean, I claim I said it and Kirsten claims she said it *both laugh together*

Kirsten: I’d thought about it before.

Heather: I had too!

Kirsten: I just knew you’d be the person I could do it with *both laugh*

Heather: … and then we were like, “someone should take this on. Wait, we should take this on!” And it just snowballed from there. We finished our coffee and ordered another one out of excitement. Then, full of caffeine, we went for this big walk where we were talking about who we could get in touch with, how we could start doing it...

Kirsten: Like how much we’d need to invest, how could we get funding for it, etc. And then we went back to my flat and sent an email to the first supplier the same day.

Heather: So that was in October and then I think by November, we’d made our initial investment which was every penny we had. We borrowed some more and just got going from there and started making the website - something neither of us had experience with.

Kirsten: It was fun. Every night after work, we were with each other working on it:   brainstorming name ideas, items to stock, events we’d attend to get our name out there. I think I’ve still got the endless mind map diagrams now. We were so excited about what we were building.

Heather: A lot of wine was consumed in those few months. 

Do you think that when you put all your eggs in one basket, it resonates with that quote “pressure makes diamonds”? Like you just need to make it happen because at this point, you’ve used up all your savings, you’ve borrowed money and it’s pretty much like sink or swim. Is that how it felt for you both? 

Heather: Completely. For the first 9 months, we still worked full-time in our own jobs so we were finishing our day, then responding to customer emails, packing orders, dropping them off…    

Kirsten: It wasn’t even just at the end of the day, I remember doing post office runs on my lunch break and sneakily responding to customers during work. When we quit our jobs and finally took that leap, we had to make it work because we had no income. It was a pretty scary step to take but Heather pushed the idea and she was right - we had to put our all into it to see if we could make it work.

Heather: I think there’s a real difference between time and energy. If you’re working all these hours and doing this full-time job as well, you don’t have the energy to feel creative about how you can progress things beyond that. I certainly felt a switch: it was 9 months after we’d launched the website,  I left my full-time job and I just suddenly had so much more to put into it. I’m so glad that we did that - It was the right move. Everything has happened at the right time. It would have been too difficult to start it and not have something else for income because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pay my rent. It was just one of those things we had to go with when it felt like the right moment. It was a risk but a worthwhile one. 

When did you decide it was time to grow your team and start hiring employees?

Heather: Again, I would say it was when we realised our energy to push the business forward was running out because we were tied down to still stopping at the same time everyday to make sure we were picking and packing the orders, replying to all the customer service emails, etc. We were getting to a point where in order for us to grow, we need to feel creative enough to do it. We took our time though, our first hire was almost two years after we started setting up the website. 

Kirsten: Sharon, who works with us on our branding, had said to us early on that we needed to think more about working on the brand than working in the brand. It’s easy to get wrapped up in keeping the cogs going…

You stock a variety of different brands from all over the world. What do you look for in these brands you want to work with?

Kirsten: We want something that’s different. Sustainability is very important to us and a lot of our brands are now choosing to use sustainable fabrics which is great to see.

We also look for brands that cater to a large size range and that use diverse models in their campaigns. That’s something that we really love to see and it’s important to keep pushing the industry in a positive direction. 

It’s clear that one of the brand’s missions is to take better care of the planet. What are some things that you’ve implemented in the business to ensure you are staying environmentally conscious? 

Kirsten: The biggest change we made was replacing our plastic mailbags with fully sustainable, compostable paper mailbags.

Heather: I  was taking a reusable bag to do my own shopping everyday, and then I was thinking, “why am I shipping out all of our orders in thick plastic mailbags when I’m so conscious about saving one?” 

We also asked all of our brands to send items without plastic wrapping. Our smaller brands were able to immediately remove this from their packing process, while some of the larger brands were less capable of doing so but many are now moving towards a compostable version. 

Kirsten: We also offset ourselves and our employees’ carbon footprint by donating to Ecologi monthly to plant trees.

What is your favourite part about working in the pole industry?

Kirsten: For me, it’s working in an industry that I am really passionate about. The industry has grown so much in the last 6 years and is so much more accessible now. It’s also great to see brands becoming more diverse - something we really champion and push for.

Heather: The industry and community are really inspiring. There’s a lot of activism, it’s a very vocal group of people, and I’m constantly inspired by how much change can be made by the pole community, which then can be reflected by the industry. 

What are the pros and cons of being your own boss? 

Heather: One of the major pros for me is working with my best friend. 

Kirsten: Aww same babes!

Heather: Sometimes I think that I would be unemployable, especially now, because I love being decisive and driven and just be able to make a change like that *snaps fingers*. For me, that is definitely one of the pros as well as seeing immediate results - I suppose good and bad. Being at the top of the chain, if we have an idea or decide to do something, we can just do it and see if it works or not. 

Kirsten: If we’ve done a big campaign, and we see that play out and be a success, it’s such a great feeling. For instance, after a successful Black Friday campaign, we’ll both be like, “Yes! That was amazing!”. It’s that feeling… even if you’re really tired and you’ve worked every hour - that feeling is worth it. 

What about the cons?

Kirsten: Burnout life. *both laugh*

It’s very difficult to switch off. We’ve just opened our second warehouse in the Netherlands because of Brexit which was a massive undertaking. We set what some people suggested was an unrealistic time frame so we were working crazy hours to get it up and running in time. 

Heather: For me it’s not having someone above us to turn to for support. Kirsten and I are in the same boat - we support each other but we don’t know all the answers. We have to learn how to do everything. Maybe we could do with a mentor! Please apply within… 

Do you ever experience moments of self-doubt? If so, how do you overcome them?

Heather: If we use the Netherlands set up as an example for that, there were definitely days where I was thinking, “I don’t know how to do this, what on earth was I playing at thinking I could do this? I don’t know how to open up a business overseas.” It was intense. Probably a bit of imposter syndrome going on there. 

The best way to combat that was creating really detailed lists of everything we needed to do. You should see the Trello board I made. It was a thing of beauty! 

Kirsten: It’s all in the planning. Really breaking it down into small manageable tasks so you can just tick things off so we could feel like we were actually getting somewhere, rather than it just being this mammoth task that we didn’t even know where to start. 

Do you feel that your Maths degree has helped you when it comes to organization?

Kirsten: We haven’t found a use for our algebra skills yet but I think having a mathematical brain makes you good at problem solving. 

Heather: Yeah. Research, problem solving, very good lists... 

Kirsten: Again using the Netherlands set up as example, we took Heather’s massive Trello list and attacked it. Assigned ownership of tasks and set deadlines so it felt more manageable.

Heather: I moved into the warehouse in my van for two months while Kirsten took care of things in the UK and supported the set up remotely. We were a good team and hit our targets - I’m proud of us for doing that.

If you speak to anyone in team Pole Junkie, they will say that I am one of the most impatient people they know... *laughs* I need things to be done yesterday! I ask nicely, but it’s good to have a deadline that is achievable and break it into bite-sized pieces. That’s how we work with our staff as well. 

What are your tips for maintaining a healthy work relationship?

Kirsten: Good Communication is so important. Being the sounding board for each other’s ideas and being open and honest with one another. Recently, we really narrowed down our own responsibilities and job roles so we each have areas we’re in charge of and I think that’s been really important and good for us. 

Heather: I can be guilty for sure of trying to have my finger in every pie that we have. 

 Kirsten: *laughs* I’m the same as well though. 

Heather: It’s good to take ownership of some, and let Kirsten take ownership of others because we physically can’t do it all now. 

Kirsten: Also delegating to our team. While I think it’s important to care about the fine details of our business, it’s also important to be able to delegate those details so we can focus on the bigger picture and driving Pole Junkie forward.

Heather: I would also say, the ability to have difficult conversations and be open. I think it’s important we can come to each other and say, “I’m struggling with this”, and then knowing we can work on it as a team. 

You are both so inspiring to young female entrepreneurs. What advice do you have for people who are wanting to start their own businesses but don’t know where to start? 

Kirsten: Find your niche. People thought we were crazy when we launched a polewear company because it’s perceived to be a small niche industry. It is, but it’s much easier to focus on the niche with a well defined target market than trying to start a broader ‘gym wear’ line where you are competing with so many well established brands.

Heather: Self-belief as well. I never doubted that Pole Junkie wouldn’t work. Our market research was that we couldn't find it. We had a problem and we solved it by starting the business. I think that if you’re considering starting your own business, if it’s solving a problem of something that you want that you can’t quite get - go for it. 

What are your hopes for the future of Pole Junkie? 

Kirsten: I’d love to take a holiday *both laugh* 

To continue to grow the business and become more than just a clothing company. We want to be able to give back in a way - we have a few things in the pipeline that we’ll be bringing into fruition.