Mehru Khan, Studio Meru.

Business

Research-based conscious clothing. studiomeru.com

Worked on

Her Business OS

Time back

About 20 hours a week, her estimate

Replies to enquiries

Same day, often almost immediately

The challenge

Mehru runs Studio Meru, a research-based conscious clothing label. Behind it sat a lot of back-end data that needed clearing before she could start the new chapter she wanted.

She had tried training people to take on parts of her role, and kept getting diluted versions of herself back. So she stopped handing things over, decided to do it all herself, and froze.

I had given up and decided to do it all myself, and was frozen.

What she had tried

Tools like Asana. Outsourcing. Working AI out on her own. None of it stuck, for the same reason each time.

I am one person who had to do it all.

The turning point

It clicked on a proposal. Instead of gathering everything by hand, Mehru pointed her build at the right emails in her inbox, where the conversations had happened, and it filled in the proposal from her past templates.

It saved me so much time and I didn't even have to manually gather the contents of the proposal.

What changed

The admin is cleared. The emails are handled. The tech issues with her email and website that had been frustrating her are sorted. And enquiries get an answer far faster than before: the same day, and sometimes almost immediately.

Asked how much time the build has given back, she put it at four to five hours a day so far.

I'd estimate the build has given me back about 4-5 hours a DAY so far, so 20 a week.

Two things in particular had been stuck for good. Receipts were the first.

The automated logging of receipts directly to my finance sheet has been a game-changer. It used to be the one thing that would constantly stay stuck on my to-do list, and now it's just handled in the background.

The second was a technical problem with her email that she had not been able to get past on her own.

My email DNS server issue was causing so many issues, but I wasn't moving past it until this build helped.

Asked whether it has paid for itself, she said she believes it really has.

The tasks I've been able to get through to unfreeze myself is priceless.

The bigger change is how the days feel.

EXCELLENT headspace, because I'm confident I have the most capable support possible to do my work.

In Mehru's words

It is SO worth it. Imagine something doing all the tasks that no one wants or needs to be doing, leaving you with time to do the work you actually need to be doing.

On what mattered most in the build, she named the time spent understanding her pain points and customising the workflows around them. She described working together as lovely, meticulous, always improving and upgrading, and has already recommended it to others.

Anna realises this is a new language needing to be learnt, and practises a lot of patience and compassion as she trains us on how to use the build.