BYOND, at a glance

→ The agency: boutique PR and communications, Sydney based, working across beauty, fashion, wellness, food and beverage, hospitality and travel.

→ The founder: Pardis Mahdavi. She’s worked on brands like ghd, Ole Henriksen, Crown Sydney, Lululemon and VEGAMOUR’s launch into Australia.

→ What they do: media relations, influencer partnerships, events and founder profiling, with every account senior-led.

→ The proof: BYOND Showings, their first in-person event, brought 13 brands and 200+ guests into one room and went on to generate 400+ pieces of coverage.

“Who, specifically?”

That’s the first thing Pardis asks every founder who comes to her saying they just need people to know who they are. Her follow-up is my favourite line in the whole interview: “Awareness on its own is a very expensive way to feel busy.”

Every brand I speak to right now wants cut-through, and most of them haven’t decided who they’re trying to cut through to. Pardis makes that decision first, then gives every single thing a brand does a job. A brand trying to get into retail needs a completely different plan from one chasing sales or a founder who wants a profile, and getting that wrong is how visibility budgets quietly disappear.

I met Pardis at an HSR Aussie Angels event in Sydney, and she has been showing up ever since. Somewhere between all those rooms she became a genuine friend and our go-to girl for anything PR, and she’s now one of our MOODY Sydney city leads. We love her, and when she talks about getting the right fifty people in a room, she’s speaking from experience.

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01 — Give every tactic a job

Her first job with any brand is getting specific. “I want to know who the brand needs to reach, what they want those people to do once they know about it, and why they should care right now.” Once those answers exist, she says, “the strategy gets sharper, the story gets clearer and the budget goes much further.”

Ask Pardis what strategy-led PR actually means and she gets very practical, very fast. “Nothing goes out because ‘that’s what you do at launch.’” Before her team pitches a single journalist, they agree with the brand on what it needs most, whether that’s sales, stockists, credibility or a founder profile. Then each tactic is assigned a role in getting there.

“A beauty editor exclusive might be there to build credibility, a creator gifting round to drive sales, and a founder interview to open doors with retailers.”

Compare that to the press release sent to a list and left to chance. Nobody can tell you whether it worked, because nobody decided what it was for.

She’s also refreshingly honest about what PR can’t do. “PR isn’t marketing. Marketing is designed to drive a sale today. PR builds the brand people choose tomorrow.” So BYOND agrees KPIs with every client up front, usually a monthly target for quality coverage in the titles their customers actually read, watch or listen to. Alongside that, she watches for the signs a brand is growing: more people searching for it, more followers, inbound interest from media, retailers and creators, and the brand coming up in conversation without anyone pitching it.

Her most generous line in the whole interview is this one: “Not every brand needs PR, or is ready for it yet. If what you need is immediate sales, paid marketing might be the better investment right now.” I love that a publicist said that out loud.

→ So what: before you spend a dollar on visibility, write down the one thing you need it to do this quarter. If you can’t, that’s your first job.

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02 — How you actually get press in 2026

According to Pardis, getting coverage starts with the story, because a product launch on its own is rarely news. Her team digs for the angle before a single email goes out, “because it’s the difference between a reply and a delete.”

Journalists agree. In Muck Rack’s State of Journalism 2026 survey, 43% said it was rare to get a pitch relevant to their beat, yet 86% said at least some of their work started with one. So the pitch still works when it’s done properly. Here’s Pardis’s version, which I’d screenshot:

1. Find the angle only you can tell. A milestone, a surprising number, a founder with real expertise, or a link to something people are already talking about.

2. Pick the person, not the list. Every journalist has their own beat, audience and way they like to receive stories.

3. Make it easy to say yes. Strong imagery ready to go, a founder who’s available and samples on hand.

4. Use the first hit. “Coverage builds credibility, and credibility makes the next pitch easier.”

The founder piece is where she gets really good. “Media can’t interview a product, but they can interview a person with a point of view.” What makes a founder interesting isn’t the origin story, it’s what they know that people would pay to learn. Her example is REN Haircare’s Renee Marshall, a master colourist with decades behind the chair, which makes her an expert on breakage, scalp health and the at-home blowout rather than “a founder with a brush”. Founders who can comment on the wider conversation in their category, not only their own product, are the ones media come back to.

New media was the bit I was most curious about. About one in three journalists now publish independently, per Muck Rack’s first State of Creator Journalism report. “Substack writers, podcast hosts and creators have built communities that trust their taste, and that trust is what makes them so powerful for brands,” Pardis says.

“Their audiences treat a mention as a personal recommendation, so the approach has to feel personal too.” That means thinking about what genuinely fits their world rather than sending the same pitch you’d send a masthead, and it’s “often a conversation over time, not a single email.” Mastheads still carry the credibility, the business stories and the gift guides that drive sales. Her summary is the cleanest description of a modern media plan I’ve read:

“The masthead gives you the headline, and new media gives you the conversation. When the two work together, a brand feels like it’s everywhere.”

03 — Make your customers feel like insiders

When I asked what’s actually getting cut-through, I expected her to pick between stunts, IRL and AI content. She went straight to IRL, and specifically to community.

“Customers want to feel like influencers and be treated like them.”

The brands doing well right now, in her words, “are putting their customers at the centre, building a status system where their VIPs feel special, recognised and rewarded.” That might be first access to a launch, an invite to an intimate event or “a gift that makes them feel chosen.” Then comes the line every founder should stick on their wall: “When a customer feels like an insider, they talk about the brand the way an influencer would, and that word of mouth is worth more than any paid post.”

What’s overrated? Paying an influencer because she sold out someone else’s product. Her influencer ladder is the most useful thing in this piece if you’re working with a small budget:

→ Start with contra. Partner with a range of creators and see who genuinely connects with the brand and whose audience responds. “That stage tells you more than any media kit can.”

→ Then pay one or two. Put your money behind paid posts with the creators who already supported you organically. “They already like the product, their audience has already seen it, and the content feels real because it is.”

→ Only then, an ambassador. It’s the most valuable creator relationship a brand can have, and the biggest commitment. “Never jump straight into an ambassadorship without knowing how that creator’s audience responds to your brand.”

Her test for events is brutal in the best way: “If the same message could land in an email, it probably doesn’t need an event.” The pretty-photos problem “happens when the styling is planned before the story,” so BYOND starts with what every guest should walk away with, “whether that’s a story to write, content to share or a genuine connection with the brand.” Then it’s the guest list. “Who’s in the room matters just as much. Fifty of the right people will always do more than two hundred of the wrong ones.” The work doesn’t stop when the doors close either: “The follow-up is where most of the coverage is won.”

She put all of it to work at BYOND Showings, a showroom-style event in Rose Bay that brought media, influencers and tastemakers together with 13 brands, including Napoleon Perdis, REN Haircare, Àerre and Wilhelmina Studio.

“The idea was simple: create a room where brands could connect directly with the people who shape what gets covered, posted and bought, and where discovery felt genuine rather than staged.” Her verdict on why it worked is three words long: “the guest list.” More than 200 people came through, including editors from Vogue Australia, AFR, Mamamia and News.com.au, plus creators like Jules Robinson, Jadee and Phoebe Spiller. The event generated more than 400 pieces of coverage with a reach of over 12 million.

I did the maths on that, because I can’t help myself. Four hundred pieces across thirteen brands averages out at roughly 30 pieces of coverage per brand from a single event, which is a serious return on one room. The part most people wouldn’t know is the lead time: it took two to three months to plan from scratch. “If you want it done well, start planning early.”

04 — How to hire a PR agency (and when not to)

Bookmark this one if you’re weighing up whether it’s time. Pardis says you’re ready when four things line up:

→ A story worth telling. A launch, a milestone, a founder with something to say or a move into a new market gives media a reason to care.

→ You know who you are. A clear message, a clear look and a clear idea of who the brand is for. “If that’s still shifting, it’s worth getting right first, because media will notice.”

→ You can commit. PR builds over time and the real momentum usually comes after a few months. If the budget only stretches to one month, a focused project might suit you better than a retainer.

→ You’re ready for attention. If a story takes off, can you keep up with stock, orders and enquiries? “Great coverage for a product people can’t get their hands on is a missed opportunity.”

When you’re choosing an agency, look for one that “asks about your business before it talks about its contacts”, knows your category, and is honest with you. “A good agency will tell you what’s realistic, even when it’s not what you want to hear.” Her red flags are the two I’d underline: anyone who guarantees coverage (”editorial can’t be bought, so nobody can promise it”), and the agency where the senior team wows you in the pitch and then hands you to someone you’ve never met once you sign. She’d add one more test that founders forget: “Chemistry matters too. You’ll be sharing your brand’s biggest moments with this team, so you should genuinely enjoy working with them.”

That last one is exactly why BYOND is boutique by design. The people who build your strategy are the same people talking to media every day, there are no layers of approval between a good idea and getting it out the door, and the scope fits the brand, whether that’s a retainer, a launch, media only or an influencer focus. A new client’s first weeks go into strategy and a press kit, plus a one-on-one session for founder-led brands to dig out the angles “the founder hadn’t thought twice about.” Then it’s introductions to media and creators, and weekly updates on what’s landed and what’s next. “Larger agencies do brilliant work at scale,” she says, “but for brands that want a partner who’s genuinely invested and moves at their pace, boutique is the difference.”

Rapid fire with Pardis

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

What’s the mood right now? “Growth.” The team and the client roster are both expanding heading into 2027.

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Hand-delivering samples across Sydney on a Friday night so an editor had them for her Saturday morning shoot. “My client wasn’t missing out on that coverage.”

What do you want most? A 30 Under 30 list, ideally before she turns 30. Pardis, consider this your nomination.

What are ambitious women spending too much time on, and not enough? Too much time comparing themselves to other people’s highlight reels. Not enough time celebrating their own wins, out loud.

Advice to you five years ago? “Back yourself sooner. You’ll never feel completely ready, and that’s okay.”

What do you want the MOODY girls to find you for? Anything that gets a brand talked about: launches, media coverage, founder profiles, influencer and brand partnerships, and events with a reason to exist. Plus honest advice if you’re not sure you’re ready. “I’d rather tell you to wait than sell you something you don’t need.”

Where can we find you? @byondagency_ and @pardismahdavi on Instagram, and byond-agency.com.

The ask

Pardis told me exactly who she’d love to hear from after reading this.

→ Australian brands ready for their next big chapter, whether that’s a launch, a new category or finally getting the recognition they deserve at home. Beauty, fashion, wellness and hospitality are where she feels most at home.

→ International brands launching in Australia or New Zealand that want a local team who know the market and can make them feel like they’ve always belonged here.

→ The one intro that would change her next 90 days: a marketing director at a major beauty house planning their 2027 launches in Australia.

If that’s you, or you know the person, reply to this email or DM @byondagency_ and I’ll make the intro.

Pardis, thank you for being so generous with your playbook, and for everything you do for this community as our Sydney city lead. This is the PR 101 I wish I’d had years ago.

The question I’m leaving you with: if you had to give every piece of visibility work in your business a single job this quarter, which ones would still make the cut?

Tell me. I read everything.

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Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

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Napoleon Perdis, at a glance

→ The brand: Australian makeup, first store in Paddington in 1995, best known for foundation, primer (“not to prime, is a crime”) and the counter makeover.

→ The operator: Mel Drennan, Managing Director. Ex-THE ICONIC and Catch.com.

→ The bet: fewer, better products, a quarterly subscription called Your Golden Ritual, and getting back onto pharmacy and salon shelves.

“Electric.”

That’s the word Mel Drennan uses for the mood inside Napoleon Perdis right now. The first Your Golden Ritual box sold out, the upgraded foundations have landed, and after eighteen months of rebuilding she says the brand is “finally on the front foot.”

It’s a word you don’t often hear about a brand that went into voluntary administration in January 2019 and was sold to KUBA Investments a few months later. Mel is the one who has been doing the rebuild, and one of the biggest calls she made along the way was not to start again. They properly debated a full rebrand, with a new name and a clean slate, and decided to keep the name. “You can’t manufacture thirty years of trust.”

She came in from the other end of retail entirely, having spent the best part of a decade taking THE ICONIC from startup to market leader and then leading a turnaround at Catch. “I’d done the scale-up story, and this was the more interesting one. I knew what it looked like to build something from nothing. What I hadn’t done was bring an icon back.”

She also walked into one of the most crowded categories in the country. Global beauty is a $450 billion industry, and Mecca alone turned over $1.43 billion in the year to December 2025. Mel’s read on all that noise is the reason I wanted her in this series:

“Beauty is crowded. But it’s crowded with brands asking women for more: more steps, more products, more decisions. I saw room for one that gives back more than it takes.”

I met Mel at a NORA NRF Bring It Home event, where we both had the pleasure of hosting, and I was smitten instantly. We’ve been hanging out in the retail leaders circle ever since, and I am so stoked she’s now part of MOODY. Very few people in Australia have brought a brand back from administration, and Mel has told me she wants the MOODY girls to come and find her for exactly that kind of advice.

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01 — Don’t rebrand. Reintroduce.

Being this recognisable cuts both ways, and Mel is clear-eyed about it. The upside is she never has to introduce herself. “Say ‘Napoleon’ and she already has a memory attached: a first foundation, a counter makeover, the look she wore to her formal.”

I’m one of those women. I wore Napoleon to my high school formal, and while we were still in high school my sister and I did the three-day Napoleon makeup artist course on the Gold Coast. When Mel talks about the counter memory, I know exactly which one she means.

The downside is that most women still picture the brand as it was. Some customers remember the peak, some remember the administration, and plenty just assume it disappeared.

“So the job isn’t building awareness. It’s earning a second look.”

A rebrand would have thrown away recognition that took three decades to build. In Mel’s words, a new name means zero recognition, zero memories, and zero reason to pick you up over the hundred other brands on the shelf. Then she said my favourite line of the whole interview: “The name was never the problem. The business behind it needed rebuilding, and that’s a very different thing. You don’t knock down a house with great bones because the plumbing’s bad.”

So they kept the name and changed who the brand is about. A brand built on one man’s face now puts the spotlight on the woman wearing the product: real women, minimal retouching, every age and life stage. The artistry stays, but it’s been redefined as artist-level performance in a product she can apply herself on a Tuesday morning in under ten minutes. “We didn’t reinvent. We reintroduced. Same attitude, new face, grown up alongside the women who grew up with us.”

02 — Grow properly, not loudly

This is the part that gets my retail brain excited, even though nobody will ever post about it. 2025 was the reset year: a leaner range, stable stock, disciplined pricing, new systems from the ERP to the 3PL, and repaired relationships with retail partners.

Mel doesn’t dress it up.

“None of it is glamorous, but it’s what lets a brand grow properly rather than just loudly.”

Moving to a new ERP and 3PL while the business keeps trading is genuinely hard work, and it decides whether stock actually reaches the shelf when a customer goes looking for it. The range had also grown too big, with too many launches and too much noise, so she cut it back to “fewer ranges, stronger icons” and pointed the whole business at foundation and primer, the two categories where NP loyalty has always been built.

The first proof point landed this year with a foundation upgrade. Same shades she already knows, with higher SPF, smoother application and more skincare in every formula, reworked for the Australian climate, with more shades coming by the end of next year. I love this move, because improving a product she already buys asks very little of a loyal customer. “When she gets a great result every time, she comes back.”

What the business earns goes back into innovation and brand, which Mel describes as “a flywheel, not a campaign.”

She’s also refreshingly honest about the trading conditions. “Australian retail is a tough place to trade right now, and like a lot of brands our size, protecting cashflow has had to come first.” The global numbers back her up: McKinsey now expects global beauty growth to slow from 7% a year to 5% through 2030. In a market like that, a smaller range also means less cash tied up in stock that isn’t selling.

03 — Out of the aisle and into her bathroom

This is where Mel’s years at THE ICONIC really show. “At THE ICONIC, every click told you something.” A department store counter tells you almost nothing in real time, and by the time sell-through comes back from a partner, Mel says, “the moment has often passed.”

Her answer is Your Golden Ritual, a quarterly subscription. She does a short quiz on her colour profile and coverage, and four times a year a curated edit of full-sized products arrives at her door. That’s over $2,000 of product a year for the equivalent of $2 a day. The idea came from Mel’s own life and her team’s: “So many of us are leaders, mums and jugglers of everything, and beauty had quietly become one more chore on the list.”

The spring box sold out and started shipping in the first week of September. There’s already an early presale open for the summer box, shipping from the first week of December, because they didn’t want anyone missing out a second time. Kelly McCarren and Alisha Bhojwani hosted a live podcast event for the launch, which Mel describes as “the moment it all came together.”

I did the maths on this, because it’s the first thing I’d want to see if I were an investor looking at this business. The equivalent of $2 a day is roughly $730 a year, or about $180 a box, for over $2,000 of full-sized product. For her, that’s an easy yes. For the brand, the mechanics are just as good. A subscription is paid for before the box is built, which helps with cashflow and means you know how much stock to make. Every renewal is a customer you didn’t have to pay to win again, which in retail terms means a lower cost to acquire her and more value from her over time. For a business that has spent the year protecting cashflow, that’s a very sensible format to build.

What interests me most is what the subscription does to the relationship. “We’re not waiting for her to walk past anymore. We’re in her bathroom every season, hearing directly what’s working for her.” Every subscriber hands over her shade and coverage before the first box ships, so the brand holds its own customer data instead of waiting on a retail partner’s reports, and it grows every quarter. Mel’s pulling it into one picture of the customer and using AI so the team spends “less time chasing numbers and more time acting on them.”

She’s not romantic about the data either. “Data will never replace the counter. That’s where she feels special: she sits down, gets a makeover, and has someone’s full attention.” What she’s building is both: “the warmth of the counter and the smarts of the data, working together.”

04 — The contrarian bet

I asked Mel what bet she’s making that the rest of the category isn’t. No hesitation: “That she wants less, not more.”

Most of the category is built on launching more often and selling longer routines. Mel’s bet is that her customer is exhausted by it. “She doesn’t need another product to figure out. She needs fewer ones she can trust, that work every time, and that fit into the life she’s actually living.”

The research is drifting her way. McKinsey says the “more-is-more consumption” era has ceded ground to shoppers who are “value conscious, skeptical of hype.” In Euromonitor’s 2024 Asia Pacific beauty survey, 32.1% said they’d rather buy fewer, higher-quality items.

Every decision in this piece goes back to that one bet: the tighter range, the upgraded hero foundations, a subscription that takes the aisle-standing off her plate. Mel puts all of it through a single question: “does this give her more than it takes?”

“Less noise, more impact. I think that’s where the category is heading, and we want to be the brand that got there first.”

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Rapid fire with Mel

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for the business? Launching a brand-new subscription and a full foundation upgrade within weeks of each other, while still rebuilding the business underneath them. Would she do it again? “Absolutely.”

What’s the mood right now? “We’ve done the hard yards, the launches have landed, and the team can feel the momentum. It’s the growth chapter, and everyone knows it.”

The thing you want most? “For NP to be the comeback story other brands study.” She wants to stand on a stage one day and share all of it, the hard parts and the mistakes included. (Mel, when you’re ready for that stage, I would love to host it.)

When did you realise you were building a community, not just a brand? It started with her team, the people who stayed through the hardest times. “You can’t buy that kind of loyalty.” Then she noticed it everywhere: “Everyone has a memory, and everyone wants to see us back.”

What are ambitious women spending too much time on, and not enough? “Too much time on the small decisions. What to wear, what to buy, which serum, which shade.” Not enough on themselves and each other. “Every great thing I’ve done has come from someone sharing their experience with me.”

Advice to you five years ago? “Take the risks. Not everything will go to plan, and that’s okay. Catch didn’t go the way I’d hoped, and neither did Green Friday, but I learnt more from those chapters than from any win.” Plus: “it’s not all on your shoulders.”

What do you want the MOODY girls to find you for? “To help them grow.” Ecommerce, building a team, a tough chapter, “or just needing someone to say ‘you’ve got this’, come find me.”

Where can we find you? Melissa Drennan on LinkedIn, @napoleonperdis on Instagram, napoleonperdis.com, “and on your doorstep every season with Your Golden Ritual.”

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The ask

The one intro that would change Mel’s next 90 days: pharmacy and salon partners who want Napoleon Perdis back on their shelves.

→ Pharmacy groups. “Pharmacy is where she shops every week.” It’s also where the momentum is. Chemist Warehouse network sales rose 14% to $10.3 billion in FY25, with beauty named among the growth categories.

→ Salon groups. “Salons are where she already trusts an expert’s advice,” which suits a brand built on artistry.

The question I’m leaving you with: what are you still adding to your business that your customer would actually thank you for taking away?

Tell me. I read everything.

Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, investors, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

I asked Rach Tucker why she chose beverage. Of all the things a brand strategist with a full-time job could build, why the category with the worst odds, the ugliest working capital and the meanest shelf in the country.

“Naivety? Hahahaha! I wanted to build a brand I was proud of and a product I’d genuinely reach for. I’ve always been fascinated by pleasure, sexual wellness and beverage, and I saw a gap for something that sat between functional wellness and social ritual. Nothing was really owning mood, intimacy and connection. So naturally, I made 20,000 cans.”

So naturally.

Twenty thousand cans. Imported actives, manufacturing, packaging, freight, all of it paid up front and sitting in a warehouse while she goes to her day job. Say that out loud and it sounds like a leap. Spend an hour on how she’s actually built this and it stops sounding like one.

Smooch is a social soda made with functional actives and aphrodisiac herbs. Sultry, moody, magnetic. A sip that brings the spark. Rach calls it “a functional drink, but also a ritual and a tool for connection”, and I want to spend this whole piece on why that second half of the sentence is the entire business.

Before any of the analysis, though, I should tell you how I know her.

Six months later we were celebrating her launch at our Sydney launch party. We could not have been prouder.

If you want to know what a MOODY girl looks like in practice, that’s it. Not the launch. The turning up in between, for months, while it’s still just an idea and a spreadsheet.

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01 — she killed her own best headline

Smooch didn’t start as a mood drink. It started as an arousal drink, which is a spicier, more clippable, more press-friendly thing to be. Rach walked away from it herself:

“Arousal was too tricky a promise. Every body is different, and there is no silver bullet. Smooch was always about creating the conditions for desire to spark. Mood is a clearer promise and a bigger opportunity. Smooch is about helping shift the energy. Feeling more present, playful, sexy and connected.”

Read that as a founder rather than a consumer. She had the louder claim in her hand and traded it for one she can actually deliver, before a single journalist made her.

That’s not a marketing decision. That’s a repeat-purchase decision, and repeat purchase is the whole game. NielsenIQ’s own BASES team went through more than 60,000 product innovations across five countries and found that just 52% of new items reaching national distribution are still growing sales in year two. Drop the distribution threshold to include everything launched and it falls to 33%. Two in three new products are already going backwards by their second birthday.

Which tells you what the buyer is actually watching. Not doors. Velocity. How fast the cans leave each fridge. They give you the shelf on a story and take it back on a number, usually inside one review cycle.

So the promise on the can has to survive contact with a real person on a real Tuesday night. Overclaim and you’ll sell the first one, because the first one is sold by the marketing. You only ever sell the second one if the drink did what you said it would.

02 — the graveyard and the gold rush, at the same time

Let’s not be precious. Beverage is brutal.

It isn’t a small-brand problem either. Alex Cooper’s Unwell Beverages is winding up this month, less than two years after launching in partnership with Nestlé and with Target out front, while the day before that news broke the wider Unwell business took investment from Patrick Whitesell at a $500 million valuation. So this is not a company that ran out of money. This is a company with every advantage available looking at beverage and deciding it wasn’t worth the fridge space. I don’t read that as a failure of ambition. I read it as the category telling the truth about itself, loudly, in public.

Now the other half, because it’s why smart people keep doing this anyway.

PepsiCo acquired Poppi in 2025 for $1.95 billion, or $1.65 billion net of anticipated tax benefits, plus an earnout. A prebiotic soda. Olipop hit a $1.85 billion valuation in a Series C last February, having doubled sales to $400 million and turned profitable. Coca-Cola chose to build rather than buy and launched Simply Pop, its first prebiotic soda, into the same fight.

The no-and-low side is just as loud. Asahi has committed to a 20% sales composition ratio of non- and low-alcohol adult beverages within its major alcohol products by 2030. Diageo took a majority stake in Seedlip in 2019, fully acquired Ritual Zero Proof in 2024, and put €25 million into a dedicated Guinness 0.0 facility at St James’s Gate. Moët Hennessy took a minority stake in French Bloom. Molson Coors partnered with Naked Life, Australia’s biggest non-alc RTD cocktail brand, to take it into the US.

At home, IBISWorld has functional beverage production at $1.0 billion in 2025-26, up 12.3% in a single year, across 117 businesses.

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03 — everyone built the substitute. rach built the occasion.

The Australian numbers are not subtle. AIHW has alcohol available for consumption at 9.8 litres of pure alcohol per person aged 15 and over in 2023-24, down from 10.5 the year before. That’s the biggest single-year drop since the collection started in 1960-61.

It’s generational, not a blip. Flinders University analysed more than two decades of data from over 23,000 Australians and found Gen Z are nearly twenty times more likely to choose not to drink than Baby Boomers, even after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Circana has the share of Australians buying zero-alcohol versions more than doubling since August 2020, and non-alcoholic drinks adding $1.8 billion in sales over the past two years.

Almost everybody read that and built a substitute. Fake beer. Fake gin. The apology version of the thing you used to order, priced like the real one, drunk with a faint sense of loss.

Rach read it as an occasion:

“Drinking is inherently social and ritualistic. Whether it’s wine at dinner, tea and gossip, or a soda with someone you fancy. Smooch is powerful because it is built around that moment of connection, but one that is sexy, sultry, magnetic, a little moody. When people buy Smooch, they’re not just buying a drink. They’re buying into the idea that feeling good, feeling sexy and making space for connection is worth prioritising.”

That’s not a substitute, it’s a category. Hydration, where Unwell went, is the most crowded, most price-compared, most brand-agnostic shelf in the store. Mood, intimacy and connection has no incumbent, no giant defending it and no obvious Coca-Cola line extension waiting to squash it.

She also refuses to do the beachy sunny thing, which I love. Every functional drink in this country looks like a Bondi morning. Smooch looks like 9pm. When you’re the smallest brand in the fridge, distinctiveness is a distribution strategy.

04 — cash flow, and the two buyers who decide

I asked what a fortnight in had taught her that no amount of planning prepared her for.

“Cash flow. What the fuck.”

Correct. Beverage has the working capital profile of a mining project and the margin profile of a snack. You pay for all of it up front, then wait for a warehouse to slowly turn back into money.

The Australian shelf makes that harder. In its February 2025 supermarkets inquiry, the ACCC put Woolworths at 38% of national supermarket grocery sales and Coles at 29%, together roughly 67% of supermarket industry revenue, and called it “an oligopolistic market structure in which Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price.” Two buyers, two-thirds of the market. If both say no, there is no third door at scale, and a founder with 20,000 cans and a term of trade cannot wait out a category review.

So when Rach says the plan is independent grocers, hotels, bars and restaurants, that isn’t a cute starter strategy. It’s the only door in the building, and for a drink selling an occasion it’s the better one anyway. You want someone’s first Smooch to happen at a table with a person they fancy, not under fluorescent lighting next to the Powerade.

Right now it’s smoochdrinks.com and a select few Sydney stockists. Next is more doors, more fridges, more hands.

Ask most founders what they’re chasing and you get an adjective. Ask Rach and you get this:

“2,000 followers, 15 retail doors and 250 online orders by Summer.”

Three numbers and a deadline. That’s not a vibe, that’s a target you can be held to, and she said it out loud in public, which is the part most people won’t do.

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rapid fire with rach

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

What’s the mood right now? “Hustle mood. We’re early, there’s momentum, and I’m determined not to waste it.” Pace, adrenaline, opportunity, figuring it out as she goes. Her word for it: “slightly addictive.”

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for the business? “Lie about my age and wear a ring on my ring finger. Sorrrrry, but sometimes you’ve gotta fake it to be taken seriously.”

What are ambitious women doing too much of, and not enough of? “We need to spend less time building in AI, and more time building in real life. AI can make us faster, but relationships take us further. Go to the lunch. Show up to the drinks. Meet the person. Trust is still the ultimate career accelerator, and you can’t prompt engineer it.”

Advice to yourself five years ago? “Success is infinite. Someone else winning doesn’t mean there’s less left for you. They rise, you rise.”

What do you want the MOODY girls to find you for? Brand strategy, creative thinking, and “the very unglamorous realities of building a CPG brand from scratch.” Selfishly, collaborations: pop-ups, events, creative partnerships, PR, retail introductions. “If our brands could make something more fun together, I want to hear about it.”

The one intro that changes your next 90 days? “Distributors. I’m looking for partners with strong relationships across both retail and foodservice who can help open the right doors. If you know one, send them my way.”

Where can we find you? Rach on LinkedIn. Smooch at @smooch.drinks and smoochdrinks.com.

so here’s where i’ve landed

The received wisdom is that beverage is won on reach. Get famous, get seen, get stocked. Reach is also the single easiest input in the whole model to buy, which is exactly why it decides nothing.

What can’t be bought is an occasion nobody owns and a promise you can actually keep. Rach has both, and she got them by making the unglamorous choice at every fork: kill the louder claim, take the harder doors, say the number out loud.

There’s a line of hers I keep coming back to. Less time building in AI, more time building in real life. You can’t prompt engineer trust. She’s selling a can designed to get two people to sit down together, which means the belief and the product are the same object. That is rarer than it sounds, and it’s usually the difference between a company and a range of flavours.

Twenty thousand cans is a terrifying amount of conviction for a woman doing this around a full-time job. It’s also the good kind of terrifying. She’s already ordered. Now she just has to be right, and she’s building like someone who intends to be.

In February she told a room she was going to do this. By August it existed. That’s the whole point of the room.

Go buy a can. They’re delicious. Better yet, send her a distributor.

Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

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“Reformer is dead.”

That is how Vic opens our conversation. Sitting inside her own reformer studio. Having just removed a third of her machines. Voluntarily.

I’ve been obsessed with Vic and what she’s built at Vicalates for a long time, and I wanted her as the first guest in this series because of that exact sentence. Because while every operator in the country is cramming more beds into more rooms, Vic went from 12 reformers to 8. She shrank her class capacity by a third, lifted her casual rate to $50, and rebuilt the whole studio around what she calls pods: a reformer, a chair, a mat, and a basket of misc (her words, and the best product description I’ve heard all year).

To understand how brave that is, look at the water she’s swimming in. It’s soup. Australia now has 3,823 Pilates and yoga studios, per IBISWorld, and the count is still climbing. Pilates was the most-booked workout on ClassPass for the third year running, with bookings up 66% and the word “Pilates” searched 27 million times on the app in a single year, per the 2025 ClassPass Look Back Report. KX passed 100 studios back in 2023. Strong Pilates, Australian-born, announced this week it’s at 120+ studios across 15 countries with another 200 confirmed. I’ve walked into mega studios with 28 machines in a class. Twenty-eight. You look around and everyone is just flailing.

So the category is booming and every studio in it is fighting for the same new customer. The instinct in that moment is to defend share: go bigger, add beds, discount the intro pack.

Vic did the opposite, and she said the thing I haven’t stopped thinking about since:

That’s the thesis. Now the mechanics, because everyone romanticises niching down and almost nobody shows you the spreadsheet.

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01 — The maths of going smaller

Here’s what Vic’s numbers were telling her. Retention was fine. Her members had stayed for years. The problem was conversion: with this much choice in the market and a premium price on the door, new customers couldn’t see why Vicalates over the studio two blocks away. When your category commoditises, “good” stops being a differentiator, because good is now the baseline everywhere.

Her answer wasn’t to discount. It was to build something you literally cannot get anywhere else: the original Pilates system, all apparatus, eight people, an instructor who actually knows your name and your dodgy left hip. Fewer spots per class, more classes on the timetable, and the unit economics lift because the product justifies the price.

The casual rate for the new classes is $50. Fifty. “We’ve had so many booked in the last week or two, and no one’s batted an eyelid.”

And the scarcity is doing quiet work too. When classes are full and hard to get into, people book more diligently and the perceived value climbs. Not exclusivity as a velvet rope. Exclusivity because it’s popular.

02 — The customer you have to fire

This is the part nobody wants to say out loud, so Vic said it immediately.

“The wrong customer is always the wrong customer. You can never convert.”

The shopper bouncing between studios on a class pass, hunting the cheapest intro offer, was never going to become a member. Building for her means diluting the product for the people who actually pay your bills. So part of the redesign was being genuinely ready to say goodbye to that customer. In Vic’s words: the girls who get it, and the girls who don’t. Go somewhere else.”

That’s the terrifying bit of niching down. It doesn’t feel like strategy, it feels like turning away revenue. But a niche is defined just as much by who it’s not for as who it is. And the customer you lose was costing you the positioning that wins the customer you want.

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03 — The moat is capability

Here’s my favourite part of the whole model. To teach in Vic’s pods, an instructor has to be comprehensively trained across the full system. Mat, reformer, chair, tower, all of it. Not, as she puts it, a two-day course on the weekend. They have to program across every apparatus and deliver real feedback, class after class.

And this is where Vic’s story collided with mine. She told me everything new she launched this year got copied within months. Girl. Same. My content formats get lifted weekly, and tech companies have started doing tiny mics at conferences. It’s annoying for about a day, and then you remember: being copied is the tax you pay for leading. The only real response is to keep moving onto ground that’s expensive to follow you onto. A vibe can be copied by Thursday. A comprehensively trained team, a decade of craft, a founder with an actual point of view? That takes years, and most competitors won’t pay that price.

04 — The direction of travel says she’s right

One number from the research made me sit up. On ClassPass, reformer bookings grew 71% last year. Mat Pilates grew 114%. The original, machine-optional, fundamentals-first version of the method is now outgrowing the machine that made the boom. The market is already drifting back towards exactly what Vic rebuilt her studio around.

Which reframes the whole eight-pod decision. Being seen and corrected by a skilled human, in a room small enough that she actually can, is not a nostalgic throwback. At eight people, personalisation is real. At twenty-eight, it’s theatre.

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Rapid fire with Vic

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

What are we wearing to work out? Vic, that day: an 80s thong body set over red tights. Navy and red. Her read: the matching set era is fading. “We’re coming into texture. We want layers. Things that don’t look like workout gear.” She reckons even Lululemon is working on a whole “away from body” direction, soft and off the silhouette.

Accessories? “Obnoxious.” We are working out in your boyfriend’s Rolex. I’m wearing mine to her class because mom, I am a rich man. This is binding.

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for the studio? “I have faked some things till I’ve made it. And no one noticed. We’re here now.”

What are ambitious women doing too much of, and not enough of? “Way too much listening and talking to other people, and not enough going into their own head and doing what they want to do. Consult people you actually care about. Listen to them. But their journey is not your journey.”

What’s next in wellness? Rest. Sleep, downtime, low-key breaks. Cold plunge out, human connection in.

Where can we find you? Vicalates on IG, website to book classes in Brisbane or virtually and access our app. Personal IG.

Her rapid fire answers and her business strategy are the same answer. Everyone else’s journey is not your journey. She stopped watching what the other studios were doing and went deeper into the thing only she could do.

Tell me. I read everything.

Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

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Meet Nina Khoury. Nearly five years at SKIMS, the brand that rebuilt an entire category, and she’s just walked away from it to start her own: Sportiv, a brand for women who train, starting in supplements and aiming much, much bigger. Oh, and her wedding was in Vogue Australia this month. Casual.

Full disclosure: Nina and I have only ever met over video call. Doesn’t matter. Obsessed. We were introduced by my gorgeous friend Shannen Thomas of Désordre Boutique in Sydney, our mutual stylist and a fellow superconnector, who knew exactly what she was doing putting us together. Manufacturing serendipity in action, girls.

She’s our first girl of the week under the new name, and I could not have picked a better one. New roof, same format: one woman we all need to know, in her own words.

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What are you building right now? After nearly five years at SKIMS, I’ve left to build Sportiv, a brand for women who train. We’re starting in supplements, but the ambition is much bigger: to bring product, science, and an iconic brand to a category that has felt clinical, confusing, or not really built for us. I am this consumer. So we’re building it in real life, with the women we’re building for. Train for life.

The most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Nothing too unhinged yet, but I’m still warming up ;) There are a few people I would love around Sportiv in some way, shape or form, purely because I think they’re brilliant, cool, and culturally very right. Emily Oberg is one. I love what she’s built with Sporty & Rich, the brand is so strong. And RÜFÜS DU SOL, because they are iconic Australians with incredible music and I would love them at an event or two one day. So nothing too unhinged yet. “Yet” being the key word.

What’s the mood right now? Muscle tone is the new status symbol. Not in a body-check way. More because it shows reps. Time. Discipline. Consistency. Probably a good trainer. Definitely a bit of effort. For so long, skinny was the thing. I think we’re moving into an era where strong looks expensive. Muscle is the new flex.

The thing you’re almost embarrassed to admit you want? I’m not really embarrassed to admit what I want. I want full financial freedom. To do what I want, when I want, where I want, with the people I want to do it with. I’m driven by building something big. I’m driven by money. I’m driven by that freedom!

When did you realise you were building a community, not just a brand? Pretty early. Sportiv is built for women who train. Women who lift, run, do Pilates, but also work big jobs, travel, have lives, relationships, and are genuinely trying to figure out what actually works for their body. These women already exist. They’re already doing the work. But they’re piecing it all together themselves: podcasts, group chats, AI, screenshots from friends. That’s where I think Sportiv can be the connective tissue. Products that work for her body. Science tested on her body. A room full of women training for life. That’s why it’s a community. Not just a brand.

What’s something ambitious women are spending too much time on? And not enough time on? Too much time caring what everyone thinks. I think a lot of women are taught very early to be good, but not too good. Strong, but not too strong. Smart, but not too smart. Ambitious, but not intimidating. It’s exhausting. And then I think not enough time alone. Thinking. Creating. Getting clear on what we actually want and how we’re going to build it. Sometimes I say no to things because I need space to think.

One piece of advice for the version of you from five years ago? Be patient. Progress compounds. Show up. Do a great job. Do it again. Do it again when no one is clapping. Do it again when it feels boring. Every successful person I know and respect has built over time. The boring reps work.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Sportiv, always. We’re building a brand for women who train, starting in supplements, with the ambition to become the number one fueling brand for women. So investors, operators, trainers, athletes, scientists, creators, women who train: come find me. And honestly, I’d also love to hear what you want me to talk about more. Building? Training? SKIMS lessons? Founder life? Sportiv? Money? Ambition? Tell me what you want to hear from me!

→ Where to find her? @ninackhoury on Instagram, Nina Khoury on LinkedIn, and @sportivlabs for everything Sportiv.

Who should we feature next? Reply to this email and nominate a girl we all need to know about.

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a Mood.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

From Sydney to London. Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY group chat→

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

Meet Jemma Sbeg. Host of The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast talking millions of us through this decade with the research to back it. Now available on Netflix!!

I met Jem at Domefest, where she was the headline act back home on Aus soil from London for a moment. The girls collectively lost their mind when she bought out her mum as her special guest for the show. She’s even better in person.

What are you actually building right now? Better habits and muscle. Not particularly sexy, but I’ve been on a real longevity journey this past year after some scary health news. It’s been amazing to see how much the body can adjust and transform on new routines, slowly and then seemingly all at once. I’ve been thinking a lot about myself as a mother and grandmother and how I want to move and feel then, not just look now.

The most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Every week I have a ‘shoot your shot’ Wednesday where I send the emails, pitches, articles and DMs to people I’d want to collaborate with in my wildest dreams. I let myself have all the courage and none of the embarrassment for that one day a week, and it’s taught me there’s no shame in asking.

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What are you gossiping about right now? Substack. And the people making their BAG from writing and sharing their thoughts online. I have friends making $100–300k on that platform and they never have to sacrifice their voice, pitch themselves to brands or adhere to someone else’s guidelines. I admire them so much.

The thing you’re most embarrassed to admit? I’m really bad with long-term financial planning. I’m so financially cautious and anxious that I don’t always get my money working for me, even though my mum is literally an economist. Something I need to change this year, that’s for sure.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Science-backed evidence for your 20s and for life. Opinions occasionally, but the research and the empirical evidence for why you feel the way you do always comes first.

When did you realise you’d built a community, not just an audience? My first friendship meet-up. We run these occasionally to get likeminded listeners together, and every single person who came was the coolest person I’d ever met. Smart, talented, motivated, kind. It made me shed a few tears of joy.

What’s something ambitious women are spending too much time on right now? Dating. Most men can’t keep up with ambitious women, or simply don’t want to (someone had to say it). Don’t waste any more of your precious time on a man who has to be a special project. The right person will come along.

→ Where to find her? The Psychology of Your 20s wherever you listen, @thatpsychologypodcast and @jemmasbeg on Instagram, and psychologyofyour20s.com.

Who should we feature next? Reply to this email and nominate an angel we all need to know about.

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join the MOODY chat →

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