From bogan to brand strategist
Ok so first, I grew up BOGAN... proper Newcastle bogan, with the heavy Aussie accent to prove it, and I talk fast and I talk with my hands, so if you ever get me on a call just know the flailing is affectionate.
I was the white trash kid who was never going to amount to anything, the one who rocked up to her 2005 year 12 formal on a lead, in an op-shop dress and a studded choker... and somehow that girl ended up writing sales pages for six and seven figure brands at $4k a pop.
My business journey actually started with candles. I thought if I built it they would come, I thought if I had the BEST product they would come... and it was a hard lesson finding out NO ONE gave a sh*t that they were incredible candles, or that I'd spent hours on hours developing every unique scent myself.
That lesson sent me tumbling down the rabbit warren of marketing, copy, SEO and UX, and I never really climbed back out. Then life... well, life'd, and we packed up and moved and travelled for work in a caravan, and my mum took over the candle business, which she still runs to this day.
When I finally went out on my own as a copywriter, ChatGPT was released one month later... which is either the funniest or the worst timing in the history of small business, and I still haven't decided which.
Five years of writing copy later, I closed that business in October 2025 (an AuDHD kid who bites teachers and a husband who works away will do that to a woman), came back radicalised by basic human decency, and rebuilt The Bonnie Wicks around brand first, because I've always said copy is only as good as the brand underneath it.
