By HTE Founder, Erin Hughes.
There is something deeply uncomfortable about becoming a beginner again.
Especially when you have spent years becoming very good at what you do.
For Tess Robinson, that moment came after selling the agency she had spent 15 years building. Her career had been shaped by brands, creativity, strategy and problem-solving. She knew the territory. She knew her strengths.
Then she chose to leave it.
“The biggest leap was choosing growth over comfort,” Tess says. “I could have stayed in an industry where I knew exactly what I was doing. Instead, I chose to become a beginner again.”
It is a phrase that comes up more than once when Tess talks about this chapter of her life. And perhaps that is because Land Lab is not simply the story of launching another wellness brand.
It is the story of what can happen when experience meets curiosity.
Asking a better question
Land Lab is a science-led supplement brand exploring Australian native botanicals through evidence-based nutrition.
Its beginnings can be traced back to a question Tess and her co-founder found themselves asking: why were some of the world’s most nutrient-dense Australian native ingredients almost entirely absent from modern supplements?
Alongside that question was another ambition: to rethink maternal nutrition through the lens of health equity.
Today, Land Lab brings together Australian native ingredients, scientific research and considered formulations, with a particular focus on women.
But Tess is clear that she wasn’t interested in simply putting another product into an already crowded wellness category.
“I’ve never been interested in creating more products,” she says. “I’ve always been interested in creating better ones.”
That distinction matters.
Wellness is a space filled with products competing for women’s attention. Land Lab’s proposition is that women are increasingly prepared to look beyond beautiful packaging and broad promises and ask harder questions about what is actually inside the products they take.
For Tess, that means beginning with evidence.
When not being the expert becomes an advantage
Moving into a science-led category meant accepting something Tess hadn’t experienced for some time: she wasn’t necessarily going to be the most knowledgeable person in the room.
“There’s something incredibly humbling about walking into rooms where you’re no longer the expert,” she says.
Rather than resisting that discomfort, she found herself drawn to it. “It’s uncomfortable, but I genuinely love that feeling.”
“Every chapter of my life has started with curiosity, and Land Lab has been no different.”
Her previous career, however, hasn’t been discarded.
Tess describes Land Lab as an evolution rather than a complete departure. The same fascination with creativity and problem-solving that shaped her first career remains. The problem has simply changed.
Today, she is applying design and strategic thinking to a category with the potential, as she sees it, to improve women’s health.
And she isn’t doing it alone.
Different minds, shared purpose
One of Land Lab’s strengths lies in the difference between its founders.
Tess comes from a brand and strategy background. Her co-founder is a doctor.
Rather than trying to think alike, they have learned to value the tension created by approaching the same question from different directions.
“The best partnerships aren’t built on being similar,” Tess says. “They’re built on bringing different strengths to the table.”
Those differences inevitably mean challenging one another.
But agreement, Tess has discovered, isn’t the same thing as trust.
“Trust isn’t about agreeing on everything. It’s about knowing you’re both trying to build the best possible outcome.”
It is a deceptively simple philosophy, and one that extends beyond partnership.
Creating something better often requires being willing to have your own thinking challenged.
Businesses are chapters, not identities
There was another lesson Tess had to learn before Land Lab could become this next chapter.
She had to let go of the last one.
Selling the agency she had built over 15 years forced her to confront how closely her identity had become connected to her work.
“For a long time those two things had become intertwined,” she says.
Stepping away changed that.
“Letting go reminded me that businesses are chapters, not identities.”
There is freedom in that idea.
We spend enormous portions of our lives answering the question What do you do? as though the answer tells people who we are.
A successful career can make that distinction even harder. Expertise becomes comfortable. Reputation accumulates. Starting again means relinquishing some of the certainty we have spent years building.
For Tess, selling her agency created space.
“It gave me permission to become a beginner again, which has been one of the most rewarding parts of this next chapter.”
Perhaps reinvention isn’t always about becoming someone new.
Sometimes it is about discovering that we are allowed to leave behind something we were very good at.
The reality behind building something
Of course, the romantic version of entrepreneurship rarely resembles Tuesday afternoon.
“Far less glamour than Instagram would have you believe,” Tess says of life behind Land Lab.
Most days involve strategy, spreadsheets, manufacturing, product development, regulatory conversations, problem-solving and an endless stream of decisions most customers will never know were made.
There is no single breakthrough moment.
“Building a business isn’t one big breakthrough. It’s thousands of small decisions made consistently over a very long period of time.”
That same belief shapes the advice Tess gives to women who have an idea they haven’t yet acted upon.
Don’t wait for confidence.
“Confidence isn’t usually what comes first, action is.”
It runs counter to the idea that we should wait until we feel completely ready before beginning something significant.
Tess’s experience suggests readiness may arrive later.
“Start before you think you’re ready, stay curious, and let your first version be imperfect.”
Protecting momentum
If consistency builds a business, Tess believes momentum protects creativity.
“I swear by the power of momentum,” she says.
She describes those periods when ideas begin bubbling, one good thing leads to another and there is a palpable sense that something is building.
“When you’re in flow, when ideas are bubbling and there’s a sense that something is building, it becomes contagious.”
Rather than constantly searching for balance, Tess has learned to recognise those periods and protect them.
“I’ve realised creativity needs that momentum. Once I find that rhythm, everything starts to flow, and I’m obsessed with protecting it.”
There is something useful in that idea beyond entrepreneurship.
Perhaps we don’t always need to begin with certainty, confidence or a perfectly mapped destination.
Sometimes we need enough movement to discover where we’re going.
Asking more of wellness
For Tess, one of the most rewarding parts of Land Lab has been seeing women respond to the care behind its formulations.
“We believed women were ready to ask more of wellness brands,” she says, “and it’s been incredibly rewarding to watch that resonate.”
But there is a personal measure of success too.
Land Lab feels aligned with the things Tess now wants her work to stand for.
“Land Lab isn’t just a business to me. It’s an opportunity to contribute to better outcomes for women while proving that commercial success and meaningful impact can exist side by side.”
That might be what makes this chapter different.
Tess hasn’t abandoned the skills built over her first 15 years. She has brought them with her. The brand-building, strategic thinking, creativity and problem-solving remain.
What she left behind was the requirement to keep being the person who already knew all the answers.
And perhaps that is one of the most underrated forms of courage in a career.
Not having a brilliant idea.
Not feeling completely confident.
Not waiting for the perfect moment.
Simply being willing, after years of becoming an expert, to walk into a new room and become curious again.
Because as Tess has discovered, confidence doesn’t necessarily create action.
Sometimes action is what creates confidence.
Discover Land Lab here.
