Case Studies

Get Positive Productions
Louisa Wood

“I have always had a passion for business and have always been involved in some sort of business venture”

Louisa Wood is a positive young woman who saw a gap in the market and filled it with very positive results. Get Positive Productions, was established by Louisa in 1999, to create her revolutionary product My Diary‘.

Louisa says. “My earliest memories of business were in primary school when I bought cheap scrap fabrics to make scrunchies, which I then sold during recess and lunchtime. I managed to make enough money to buy a racing bike and get into triathlons”.

“To raise funds for interstate cycling/triathlon competitions I achieved huge success by selling fundraising Freddo Frogs, enabling me to buy my first car as well as tickets to three interstate competitions while passing on $500 to Active foundation”. Louisa believes this kind of initiative has been a wonderful lesson in the ongoing learning curve of operating her own business.

Her unique school diary provides students with the tools to keep focused, set and achieve goals, help them study, organise their lives, and develop their self-esteem and confidence, as well as being a valuable educational item….. and a lot of fun.

“In my last year of high school I came up with the idea of re-designing the school diary. No-one I knew would use their school diary, because it was boring and it wouldn’t last the year anyway”, Louisa said. Her A5 sized diary for high school students revolutionised the school diary by turning it into a groovy accessory full of practical and interesting information.

If you’re not in it, you can’t win it, and Louisa has found that entering various youth competitions has provided invaluable help to expand her goals and reach them faster. She won a place in the Murdoch University Summer Business School 1997.

Louisa explains, “During my first year of a Cognitive Science Degree at the University of Western Australia I started writing a business plan. In 1998 I entered the Nescafe Big Break Competition, and to my surprise I was a finalist and was granted $2,000 to continue work on the project. I used the money to design and print 10 prototypes of the diary. I entered the Operation Livewire Competition in 1999, winning a further grant of $3,000 which enabled me to register the business name of Get Positive Productions and commence production. In 2000 I completed the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme to help with my business plan”. Louisa was also the Western Australian winner of the 2001 Australis Self Made Girl competition. In 2001 Louisa won the Micro Business Network’s Special Youth Award and her award winning style is certain to continue well into the future.

To inspire and encourage other young girls to consider starting their own business as a career option Louisa also provided mentoring at Australis Self Made Girl seminars. “My mission is to encourage people to view life positively and use their talents for the greater good” she said.

“In 2000 it became necessary to defer my university degree to work full-time on my business. In my first year 10,000 students from 10 high schools in Perth replaced their old diary with My Diary‘. In 2001 and 2002 sales doubled to 20,000 diaries, and sales for 2003 were 30,000 with an expanding market into the Eastern States of Australia with over 70,000 being sold in 2004”, explained Louisa.

If all this activity isn’t enough, Louisa has also developed online economics tutoring on her website, which enables students to download easy to read study notes regarding their Year 12 economics course.

And Louisa, along with Frances Pratt worked with the Small Business Development Corporation on the wording and content for the Young Business Network website.

Louisa amazing business success has been achieved through a combination of personal initiative, tenacity, the ability to set goals and implement her business plan, and above all…... the desire have a go.

If you want to contact Louisa about her diaries or on-line tutoring service, you can contact her on (08) 9243 6840, email louisa@getpositive.com.au, or visit her colourful website at www.getpositive.com.au