Small Business Inside Track Q&A Sinéad Duffy, Yogandha

Sinéad Duffy is the founder of Yogandha, a range of natural body and mood boosting aromatherapy oils. With a background in human rights work, Sinéad discovered the benefits of aromatics during her training as a yoga teacher in India.

She spent three years meditating and blending the oils, before setting up the business in 2011. The products are sold online, as well as in retailers across 13 countries such as Harvey Nichols, Liberty, and Avoca.

What sets your business apart from the competition? There are no mind-body products like this on the market, so that's why I had to make one. We're hoping to bring back together wellness and beauty. You put them on your skin, and they work pharmacologically, physically, psychologically, and on every level really. It takes literally a minute to put on one of these products and smell it, and you feel this deep relaxation, connection, and this beautiful deep feeling within a minute.

What was the best piece of business advice you have received? It would probably be flexibility, but also holding true to your ideas and your vision. There are two expressions my dad always said to me. One is 'you can achieve anything if you get up early enough in the morning', so I have that set as my alarm in the morning. The other one is 'if you find something you love doing, you'll never work a day in your life'. I'm working so hard but it's pure fun.

What is the biggest mistake you have made in business? There's been no major one as yet and all the minor ones I just see as opportunities to do better. I'm very quick when something goes wrong to jump on the solution super quick. The learning curve is just unbelievably steep. Half of the time I really feel like I don't know what I'm doing but at the same time I'm very passionate about learning. In a way I think the yoga keeps me balanced. I know I can do anything and that there's nothing that will be too big of an obstacle.

What is your major success to date? When people tell me how the products make them feel, it just completely blows me away. Someone told me recently she puts Yogandha Ground on her temples and it totally cures her migraines. I always find that people have an intuition about how to use the product. The obvious on-paper successes are getting into Harvey Nichols and Liberty, and now Avoca. But for me, it's when people access this old wisdom they have by using the products, or just incorporate elements of self-care into their day.

Whom do you most admire in business and why? My dad. It's probably one of the reasons I'm not daunted by anything, because I've seen him build three businesses. He started Emo Oil, and I always think it's quite funny that we're both in the oil business. I'm super proud of him. He's retired now and he's now my business partner. He helps me so much but also, he's just my inspiration having seen that.

Based on your experience in the downturn, are the banks in Ireland open for business? We haven't had to go to the banks at all luckily, as my dad started financing us and we've also been quite lucky with funding. Our local enterprise office gave us a start-up grant and we've got an export grant, so we haven't gone for money for expansion yet. I probably will have to this year but we'll see.

What one piece of advice would you give to the Government to help stimulate the economy? JobBridge has been really helpful for us, and we've had three now. They're full-time for nine months so it's enough time to create a job, which is great. For the Government, I'd love if there were greater policies on wellness; for people to be aware of how important their own role is in health.

I’d also love if yoga could be taught in schools and if companies could be encouraged to have yoga classes and to encourage more wellness in the office, even just for the knock on benefits of less sick days. A lot of anti-stress initiatives can be done easily and they don’t cost anything.

What has been the biggest challenge you have had to face? My biggest challenge at the moment is how to build a brand on a shoestring budget. We're a very small brand; I still make the products by hand and my dad does the bottling. And now I'm physically located in Harvey Nichols between Trilogy and REN, these huge powerhouses. It's a whole different world and there's a completely new language for me to learn.

How do you see the short-term future for your business? We'd like to grow in Ireland because we're 95 per cent export but also for people to be aware of the benefits of the products. It kind of saddens me that we're mostly export, and I'd love to be bigger here but we just don't have as strong a tradition of self-care and wellness as yet. I'd love for it to be a key element in the role of wellness in Ireland and globally, and for people to view the products as tools of empowerment.

What is your business worth and would you sell it? We're growing really fast and doubling sales year on year so I couldn't value it because of that; it's a totally unique brand. Everything about it is authentic and congruent, so it's quite hard to put a value on it. I wouldn't sell it though, not now. It's still my baby very much, and I'm just having far too much fun for that.

In conversation with Kirstin Campbell

*This article was amended on Wednesday August 12th to correct a misspelling.