1 year in business

Location: –

Contact Name: Natalie Harrison

Website: www.kiri10.com

Business mission and vision:
Kiri10 is here to give women going through menopause, illness struggles or stress the power to understand their own health better. To feel confident enough to open up and find a support network which will help you feel heard and listened to. We are all unique; going through our own individual journeys, but understanding the vital parts of our health is essential to our overall well-being.
Menopause, illness struggles and stress show up in many different ways: fatigue, brain fog, low energy, confusion, forgetfulness, or lack of concentration, sleep issues, mental health challenges, hair loss, brittle nails, skin concerns, joint / muscle pain, loss of sex drive and more.
As many of us do, we learn to just “live” with these symptoms, it’s easy to ignore them or convince ourselves it’s because of other life factors. At Kiri10 we want to open up the conversation and remove the “taboo” around speaking up and finding support when you need it most.
Our aim is to empower you to better understand your body, your health and learn to love you for you. Our hope is that by starting to have these open, honest conversations we can all obtain greater insights into how to support and manage our symptoms so that we can start thriving and not just surviving.
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“We are a keratin based supplement brand.”

My compassion and own experience to connect to other women struggling with health concerns.

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I was struggling with my own health journey, I was introduced to our first flagship product by a friend, I quickly discovered it did wonders for my own confidence in regards to my hair loss and wanted to share this with the rest of NZ women.

During the development stages of Kiri10, I knew something wasn’t right with my health. I was incredibly tired all the time, to the point where I was sleeping most of the day and the brain fog was debilitating, this resulted in heightened anxiety and depression. I had a massive amount of passion to grow Kiri10, but it wasn’t moving forward due to my lack of brain power and fatigue.

After a visit to my GP in early 2022, I was diagnosed with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic fatigue syndrome). She discovered I had developed this after I had Glandular Fever when I was 19, it had been present most of my life (this was like a light bulb moment when I look back over my 20’s). It had flared up and become more severe with the added pressure and stress of starting a business.

My GP put me in touch with some support groups and nurses who helped me better understand this illness and what that meant for me and my future. It has been very tough learning to pace myself as I’m an activator, so a natural “all or nothing” personality. I am now slowly understanding how better to read my body and my early warning signs.

Through the discovery of my own self-care and what that looked like for me, the research lead me into menopause and what this journey looks like for a lot of women. I learnt a lot of women feel like they’re alone or felt like it was “still too taboo” to discuss openly about. I sympathised, as many of my own symptoms are similar to menopausal ones and not many people understand Chronic Fatigue. Connecting with others, gave me a sense of belonging and validation.

My aim is to spread love, kindness, support and create a network for women to openly discuss how they’re feeling, if they’re struggling with a chronic illness, menopause or with general life.

I have made significant changes to my lifestyle including giving up alcohol, which was a big part of socialising and networking for me.

Working on my mindset to become the best version of myself has certainly been the hardest part, I’ve struggled with anxiety and imposter syndrome my whole life, as a business owner this heightened and I felt like “I wasn’t good enough” to run or own a business.

Changing my mindset to be kinder to myself has resulted in me being an overall better business owner, meaning I can now help more women suffering with their own health concerns.

I could have easily have given up, there were quite a few times I nearly did; but I have always a passion for helping others, I knew by overcoming and learning more about my own health, would inherently be able to help others to not feel alone, if I can help at least one person seek help and support then I’ve already created success in my eyes.

For me it’s the reviews of our products. Hearing how they’ve really helped provide confidence back to women who were struggling with hair loss and it had really affected their ability to even be happy about themselves.

The skill set I have learnt along the way, I built the website myself and I get so many comments from people asking who built it as it’s beautiful and very easy to navigate.

Just me, I’m a woman of many hats.

SEO, all other aspects of the business I am learning to do myself either by myself or with the help of coaches.

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We have plenty of reviews coming in about how wonderful our products are but on top of that how easy the website is and how lovely the customer service is.
I was also lucky enough to have a customer accept a video testimonial for us, see below.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC89LnzOcADZqMYDzSH6eatg

With my health concerns, being able to create my own working hours is crucial. I also get so much mentally knowing I am helping women.

We often provide gift boxes for local fundraising events, so far we’ve done around 4 and my aim is to increase these as we grow. I have lots in mind I want to do for the future to help in regards to community and charities.

Through my business networking group we are currently running a fundraising event for Nurse Maude, all the men are growing mustaches – as a business we will be helping to promote this as much as possible.

I am doing a help course this week to improve my fatigue, once I can I plan to donate some of my time to volunteer and support charities around Christchurch.

I believe I have covered everything above. Thank you for the opportunity to enter myself and my business for this award.

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