AS a mum-of-three with lengthy retail experience, Tegan Mudryk understands the chop and change of growing a business and family.
Which is why, when she opened her latest venture at Merry Go Round in Railway Street, Merewether, she was determined to launch a collaboration store that "builds up" entrepreneurial women.
"I love local businesses and there are so many talented women out there with passion and drive but they find it so hard to get a bricks and mortar store because it is so expensive," she says.
"To have a place that helps women come to life has been amazing ... it's given the girls in-store the extra push they need. Because I know, sometimes it can be like, 'It's too hard, the timing isn't right', but all the ladies have taken a chance and they are going amazingly.
"The perfect result for me is for them to come to me and say, 'Tegan, I am big enough to go out on my own'."
Mrs Mudryk has done a "bit of everything" over the years, including completing and interior design diploma, working in construction and kitchens, dabbling in photography and running her first kids clothes store, Birds N Bees, in Morpeth.
She saw the vacant Merry Go Round in 2014 but the timing was wrong. In June last year it came up again and she launched her collective.
There are four Hunter lifestyle/clothing businesses now in store - Stonewolf Vintage, Bliss Box Australia, Little Miss Flossy and Four Anchors. Pikaloo Flower Bar moves in at the weekend, and White Witch Designs joins in April. Each brand creator works once a week in store, there are no lock-in contracts and trade is six days.
There is a wait list of brands keen to join.
In a nod to the store's history as a home to many maternity and kidswear shops, and its "incredibly supportive" founder, Margaret Gibberd, Mrs Mudryk is having its original signage restored.
Her vision is to help women build their brands for better or worse: "They can come in, find what works and doesn't, because sometimes it doesn't work when you think it will and you have to change mentality and it makes you a better business owner," she says.
