Prue & Kate

Kate: Growing up on the farm in Gisborne gave us a great work ethic – knowing you can achieve so many great results by working hard. With our brother, Ben, we spent most of our time outdoors and on the farm, inventing games, playing in the river, riding our horses, eeling with our parents. We both worked on the farm with Dad in the holidays. It also taught us resilience, independence and gratitude, which have helped us enormously in running our own business today.

Prue: Kate came to me and said, “Let’s look at doing a business together. ”She understood I was unhappy in my corporate role. My career was the biggest thing in my life – I didn’t have the kind of personal life I wanted, and I couldn’t get myself out of this cycle. We started Foxtrot Home in 2017, and in 2020 I left my full-time job.

Kate: I had such an amazing feeling about Foxtrot Home from the start. I’m pretty stubborn and I was absolutely convinced it would work. Prue and I are a little bit different in that respect. She’s risk averse, and I take way too many risks. I was conscious I was pushing her to change her career – she had to come to that realisation on her own. Covid was a time of strong growth for online business. So, she found out I was right – older sisters usually are! Now we are here for the long term. Slow, steady and strong, plugging away, enjoying ourselves and maintaining the amazing relationships we have with our customers.

Prue: Yeah, she was right! It was like leaping into the unknown, but it’s gone from strength to strength. When we started the business seven years ago, one of our principles was that we needed it tob e able to work around our lives, and not the other way around. The flexibility you have with your own business means you can choose what to work on, and when. Time can be allocated differently.

Kate: Not being bricks-and-mortar has allowed us this freedom in terms of how we allocate our time. It’s one of the pillars of the business. The underlying principle has always been, “How do we make balanced lives for ourselves? How do we achieve the goals we want to without work dominating our lives?”

Prue: Kate and I both experienced depression from quite an early age. I had some issues in my teens, but it wasn’t till I reached my early twenties that things became difficult for me. With the benefit of years of experience, knowing myself a lot better and having the support of a wonderful family – my sister included – I can manage things a lot better. It’s knowing yourself and what you need to do when you start feeling down.

Kate: My earliest memory of having clinical depression was when I was sixteen. Back then, Prue and I didn’t support each other; we didn’t know each other well. But we’ve become very close since our mid-twenties. And with this closeness, and with maturity, we are able to be empathetic and supportive of each other’s ups and downs.

Prue: Having my own business has helped my mental health immeasurably. If one of us is feeling down, we have a quick conversation like, “I can’t do this today,” or, “I need some time out,” and it’s just not an issue for the other person. After years of managing our mental health, we know that sometimes we need to prioritise taking the time we need to not feel stressed, to rest and to feel better. Until having this more flexible work style, I never knew the joy of simple things like just being able to walk my dog during the day. It’s about being able to do things in the moment that you know are going to help you heal. It’s a freedom I didn’t have in my corporate roles. Kate and I take turns at taking the reins of the business if we must, and that’s been important – to have the flexibility to support each other through the not-so-good days.

Kate: Prue has been incredible as I’ve had to step back. Not only did we have the floods last year, my husband and I took over our parents’ Tairāwhiti farm last February. Two weeks in, we got hammered with the flood. Prue and I decided to open our warehouse in Waipukurau to collect flood donations. It got used as a hub in Central Hawke’s Bay for people to come in and pick up supplies and get gear they needed when their houses had been damaged. Poor Prue had to step back for a while the previous year when she had breast cancer.

Prue: I can’t even tell you how different it is from my old life. It’s stressful having your own business. But it’s a different type of stress. You have more control, and you really have that passion to drive you. We’ve created a business and a lifestyle we love and are immensely proud of. I get to work with my sister every day, which is amazing because we’re really close.

Shepherdess first met Kate and Prue in our Takurua Winter 2020 Edition, where they spoke about starting a side hustle from behind the farm gate.