“I was giving robotic responses over the idea behind my brand. She thought turning her challenge into a unique stamp eyeliner was the inspiration behind The Quick Flick - but looking back, she realised starting her business was “very much about ownership”. Hitting rock bottomīefore coming up with the beauty idea, Iris would spend 20 minutes a day struggling to draw her signature wing-tip look on her face. Credit: Iris Smitīy the time she had to sign the contract, five months had passed, Iris decided to reject the offer after she realised her brand had grown into a multi-million dollar business. How her business grew from her tiny apartment in 2017 to a giant warehouse in 2022. In the midst of her hugely successful brand, she says she was struggling immensely behind closed doors. Just three months after launching her products, British-Australian businessman Andrew Banks offered to invest $300,000 - and a deal for 25 per cent of her company. I tried to do everything myself at the start, which I now know is not how you grow a business.” “I was working ridiculously long hours, working from 6am until 1am in the morning. I completely burnt myself out both physically and mentally. “My business and the long hours I worked became an unhealthy addiction to escape my dark life. “I invested $10,000, which was pretty much everything in my bank account at the time, into getting my business off the ground,” she tells 7Life. In early 2017, Iris was juggling her interior architecture degree at university while “spending every free moment” working on her business from the lounge room of her tiny apartment. “There were moments I feared I would become homeless. “That was the hardest part, packing up my entire life into the boot of the car to move in with a friend when most 17 year olds are planning their 18th birthday,” she says. Just one day before she turned 18, she moved out of home due to personal reasons. “As a child, I started to think my parents splitting was a reflection of something that was wrong with me,” she says. Credit: Iris SmitĪfter watching her parents split at a young age, Iris says she felt an “intense self depreciation” and “self-loathing”. You feel like you cannot breathe and slowly suffocate.” She was a 22-year-old student when she scraped together $10,000 from her savings to start her own beauty product called The Quick Flick. It’s indescribable to feel as if there is no way out because you believe you are ‘unfixable’. “It makes me emotional thinking about how dark my life became during that time. My lowest point was when I found myself imagining all the ways I could end it, wishing there was a reset button on my life that I could press. “It was the very start of January 2019 when I wanted to go to bed and never wake up. “I became completely exhausted over the idea of living,” she tells 7Life. “What’s interesting is that many of us in society seek these material assets to obtain happiness, and yet when I obtained them I was more miserable than ever because they gave me zero fulfilment.” ‘I pretended I was happy when I wanted to die’ I had my dream car and apartment, my business was booming, I was more than financially comfortable than the average 22-year-old. “My life sounded good on paper, I had what many would consider the ‘perfect life’ or I seemed ‘very lucky’. Iris Smit has been recognised on the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list. I pretended I was happy when I wanted to die because I saw no way out,” Iris tells 7Life in an exclusive interview. I pretended I was strong when I was struggling. “I was extremely good at wearing a mask and pretending my life was perfect. For more Health & Wellbeing related news and videos check out Health & Wellbeing >įast forward five years, the now 27-year-old, from Perth, has made her debut on the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list after building an astonishing $15 million dollar business.īut her extraordinary rise to the top didn’t come easy as the self-made entrepreneur reflected on her secret battle with mental health after struggling with the darkest moments of her life.
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