HAYDEN
Melbourne Bushfoods
Formed 2019
Hayden Marks, a young entrepreneur from Victoria founded Melbourne Bushfoods in September 2019 with a social mission to bring native ingredients to the forefront of Australian minds and pantries. The business grew rapidly with their unique mix of native ingredient value-added food products including chocolates, teas, spices and herbs.
Hayden entered the program to explore a new and complementary product offering of selling native plant seedlings direct to consumers and was finding it challenging to keep up with demand and the rapid scaling of his business.
MARKS
Since joining, I’ve understood my customer and have the tools to confidently validate new product ideas. We saw direct growth in our business through the learnings we applied from the Ideas2Business program and couldn’t be happier with everything we learnt.
The customised Ideas2Business program recognised Hayden’s need to focus on some of the key fundamentals of running a business (such as implementing correct legal structures, cash management and financial accounting, and supplier procurement strategies) paired with key considerations on how to rapidly scale a business effectively.
Through the program, Hayden identified the need to refine how to position his business within the market to ensure differentiation and reflect his impact purpose around social and financial outcomes to Indigenous communities and groups he is working in partnership with. Value chain mapping and business model design was a new concept to Hayden and since it’s implementation through the program, Hayden has been able to triple his revenue month on month.
Following the program, Hayden has hired a number of team members, is scoping out new manufacturing capabilities and implementing formal arrangements with his suppliers.