Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / ​​The Price of Success: Erin Deering Reflects on Building a $200M Swimwear Business, Triangl, and the Personal Costs to her Mental Health (Part 1)

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​​The Price of Success: Erin Deering Reflects on Building a $200M Swimwear Business, Triangl, and the Personal Costs to her Mental Health (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Erin Deering for Female Startup Club. Hi, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. If you're new here, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast, where we interview some of the world's most successful founders in business.
• 0:25
  We chat with entrepreneurs who happen to be women about all things money, marketing, and mistakes, and we dive deep into the blueprint that got them to where they are today. Today, we're chatting with Erin Deering, who is the founder of a cult swimwear brand you probably recognize called Triangle. It's one of those crazy stories that has so many highs.
• 0:48
  It gained instant cult status within its first year of business. It was all over our social media feeds. It grew to a $200 million valuation. And from the outside, everything looked amazing. But on the flip side, Erin wasn't living her best life and she was struggling. In this episode, Erin shares the story of her highs, but also of the lows and what it took to exit the business and follow her instincts.
• 1:18
  It's actually quite rare to hear founders go so deep into the lows. And this is one of those episodes we can all learn a lot from. So I hope you love it just as much as I did.
• 1:31
  And while I've got you here, if you want even more content from us, we send out an email every Monday that features strategies you can implement into your business, job opportunities at female-founded startups, all the best news about women-led startups and women in business, as well as grants and other fun stuff that's worth knowing. It's totally free and you can subscribe at femalestartupclub.com.
• 1:58
  Let's get into today's episode. This is Erin Deering for Female Startup Club.
• 2:04
  Erin, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, Zerrin, thanks for having me on. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I feel like I've been someone who's, you know, been sporting your swimwear from back in the very early days. I have a memory of like, or maybe it's not a memory, it's a photo of me wearing the yellow, no, not the yellow, the orange neoprene bikini. Black binding. Bondi beach vibes. Yeah. With the black binding. Ooh, yep. Yep.
• 2:33
  the early days for anyone tuning in at the moment who might not know yet who you are or what you're up to do you want to give us a little bit in introduction yeah perfect so i am the co-founder of triangle swimwear we co-founded the business my co-partner co-partner co-founder at the time we co-founded that business in 2001
• 2:55
  12 in Hong Kong had phenomenal growth. We launched our business at the same time as Instagram kind of did, I guess. So it was a very fortunate acceleration of our business. And then I exited the brand. I was living overseas, Hong Kong, moved to Monaco, experienced some pretty crazy growth journey, mental health, everything. It was like a life within an eight year period. And then I exited the business in 2018.
• 3:23
  and have returned back home and spent the last four years doing a bunch of other stuff. Oh, my gosh. I know you're here. I know. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.
• 3:33
  I feel like you have so many learnings to share with the journey of Triangle, especially in the early days. You know, you were just saying you started when Instagram was new. And even though TikTok isn't new now, it still is this platform that's, you know, it's giving everyone a lot of opportunities. So I'd love to go to that early time, circa 2011, circa 2012, when you were starting to think about Triangle and that light bulb moment that happened for you and getting started.
• 3:59
  Yeah, so we came up with the idea on our second date. This was in 2011. So I met Craig in 2011, right at the end, sort of at the end of 2011. And then that was a very quick courtship. We went on our second date at the beach and came up with the idea. Essentially, then I had gone around the stores trying to find a bikini that morning to sort of, you know, impress him.
• 4:22
  And couldn't find anything. And so when I got down to the beach, I did find a bikini, but everything was sort of pricey, the surf brands, which is lower or more luxurious, sort of over $100 price point. So we saw a really big gap in the market back then, especially in Australia for a fashion-focused kind of swimwear label or just a bikini even. So came up with that idea, conceptualised it. You know, we did it initially as obviously like a side hustle and we had full-time jobs online.
• 4:52
  I was working in e-com in customer care and Craig was a designer. So he was always, everyone gets a bit confused. Sometimes they assume that I'm the designer, but it was actually Craig. He was the bikini man and I was the marketing, social media, customer care. We pretty much was just him and I for three or four years. It was actually insane. We would be having these big meetings in New York with private equity years later. And they'd be like, so tell us about your team. And we were like, yeah, that's the team.
• 5:20
  They were like dumbfounded. This is what we were doing. Our revenue was sort of like getting up over $100 million. And they're like,
• 5:28
  not like could not it was it was it was unfathomable yeah it was insane we had a shit I know I know we had a supply chain like office in Hong Kong we had a merchandiser and we had about three or four others then that were facilitating that churn of the manufacturing and sampling and logistics in that respect but the design the creative direction the marketing the PR the
• 5:53
  social media, the customer care that, I mean, we had a customer care team, but I was on the, at the top of it. It was all us. It was all just, it was just the two of us. And it was a very interesting learning in terms of scaling and how great it was to be lean. And it was us and we're taking so much of the profits because there's no one else. And it was like, yay. But when you are lacking so much infrastructure as we were, it ended up actually being quite detrimental to the continued growth of the brand because,
• 6:20
  We had everything stored, you know, Craig had everything and I had everything. So even getting it out of our heads, which we had no time to do because it was so busy, was a whole process. So that was a very interesting and it's something that I would definitely do again if I had my time over as you start to scale and grow to definitely find the right people to bring in because it was too much. It was too much for two people.
• 6:44
  Yeah. And I guess as well, like even on the, on a smaller scale, just documenting workflow, documenting processes, documenting everything from the get go. So the day you need anyone to come in, you're able to just be like, here, read this, read this manual. Yeah. And like, we had none of that. We had not, we had a customer care manual.
• 7:03
  because that was really important and my tone of voice that I sort of had held so tightly in the early days of triangle nurturing that customer, I set that up properly when we handed that over and that was the only manual that we had. There was no brand identity, there was no set of values
• 7:20
  you know, logos or set of colors. I mean, black and white essentially anyway, which is pretty easy, but there was nothing. There was no, there was nothing. There was no, it was literally up in my brain and in Craig's brain. So it wasn't really a great way to do it. No.
• 7:36
  But it worked, it worked. In the beginning, you know, if you were to dig into that kind of blueprint from the early years, for me as an outsider and for everyone I'm sure who was buying the brand and seeing what was happening on social media, it really felt like you had that moment of,
• 7:52
  overnight success. I'm sure that's not the case in terms of how hard you worked and, and everything like that, but that's what it looked like on the outside. What was the blueprint for you in starting to gain that traction? Like how did it take off? When did it take off? What was that kind of moment that things started to spiral?
• 8:10
  Yeah, well, actually, I'm writing a book at the moment. And so I've just sort of written that bit, which is really, it's really highlighted that everything was kind of condensed in that first year, everything. So even though it wasn't overnight success in the sense of it was sort of six months to this point and a few months to that, it was so we were like working around the clock, you know, like 20 hour days, and we were in China for weeks at a time, and then back to Hong Kong, and then China and Hong Kong, and then
• 8:38
  you know, just like manic trying to get this thing off the ground. And so it was an overnight success when I remember that. I'm like, oh, this all did happen in 2013. It felt like five years in one for us. It was like just that was the level of work we applied. That's why we moved to Hong Kong was to have
• 8:58
  complete focus on building this brand. So for us, you know, and because I've just written it, I can be quite clear on the timeline now. It was, you know, we were profitable sort of from the start. I mean, it was tiny. It was sort of, you know, when we launched, we launched with Nylon Spandex, not even Neoprene, and that was...
• 9:14
  at the end of December and that was like fine it was cool it was cute it was summer in Australia so I was just selling to my friends I came back to Australia to kind of like sell and it was all like la-di-da and then Craig brought to me the well actually we looked at neoprene before I went back to Australia but then he said look I really feel that we need something else like we need another we need a hook I think every business it's really important to find your hook
• 9:40
  And I think product is the hook is probably the safest one because that's what people are going to buy. And we needed that. We felt like Nile and Spandex wasn't just going to get that something. You know, this was before the word viral even existed. So, you know, in that kind of way. So it was that we were trying to find something viral, but we didn't actually know it was a bit of a hook. So he...
• 9:59
  brought the neoprene around again and said, you know, what about this? And I remember fitting it and just thinking, this feels so amazing on. It was so flat on the body and it was like bikinis never looked the same as they did on because they were flimsy and they moved and...
• 10:17
  And if your breasts were a little bit lopsided, that would show in an eye on aesthetics bikini. But the neoprene was like, and if you had no boobs, it didn't even matter because the black biting was so distracting that it just kind of looked like a nice little triangle. It just looked beautiful.
• 10:33
  good. I remember when I first tried them on and I was like, this is different. This is actually really special. And whether it was that self-belief that Craig and I both had that really started to get that energy flowing, I'm a big believer in the flow of energy. And I was so wholeheartedly behind this bikini in terms of how it was going to make women feel that it really initially took off. And when I say take off, as in like, we sold like one a day, it's online, one day. And then
• 11:00
  maybe two, two days later, and then maybe three a week after that. So the growth was so tiny, but it was growing. And I think that's really important too. And, of course, it was in a short timeline, but you could still apply that. As long as you're growing, even if it's not like overnight or like 100 and then 400 and then 600, it can be one to two. Maybe go back to one again, but then to three. And you can kind of see that what you're doing is working. And we got that.
• 11:29
  feeling pretty early on and then obviously our influences and building those relationships organically and our gifting strategy which you know we were known I don't know any other brand that
• 11:42
  was doing that at the time. No one. Everyone was sending out things with, and people still do, and I get that you would, but gifting without an obligation to post and that me, you know, I was so intent on building relationships with every single, I wanted, when I gifted a bikini to a girl, whether she had whatever many followers or who she was, I really wanted to know what she thought. I really wanted her to believe in a product too, so I set everything up for that to happen.
• 12:09
  And then that kind of got that momentum going. And, of course, they started sharing and we started sharing on our page. And it was just a lot of things that worked for us. You know, bikinis had this, you know, invoked summer and holiday and escapism and, you
• 12:25
  buying them felt fun and online was also like fun like it wasn't a necessity when we went online you know it was like a fun new like oh I've never bought you know the amount of people that were like I've never bought anything online let alone a bikini and so I knew I had this this power in nurturing these people into trusting me and trusting the brand and there's a lot of power in that and I still would say they apply to today's climate for sure.
• 12:51
  Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. I'm wondering for you, like, because you were, you were like 27, 28 at this time. What was the money piece of this? Because, you know, yes, you were starting small with one piece here selling one piece there, but you know, you're in China, you're obviously investing in the manufacturing, you're investing in the supply chain. What was your investment in the beginning? And kind of like you said, you were working full time at the same time
• 13:20
  Yeah, so we were working full time in Melbourne and then we made the decision to move to Hong Kong. And so there were a few reasons why I wanted to do this. Firstly, being near the supply chain, we manufactured in China. So that was just like a bit of a no-brainer to be close to that process. It was going to be quicker.
• 13:37
  We could sample quicker. Back then, you know, sampling to and from Australia was just a long process. And we just really wanted to focus on the business and not have the distraction of our lives in Melbourne and give it our all. So we moved to Hong Kong. We quit our jobs. We sold everything we had, which wasn't much. Craig was actually bankrupt at the time. So I was living paycheck to paycheck. So was he. He had a bankruptcy behind him. So he had no money. I had no money. So we made about $10,000 in total to move overseas with.
• 14:06
  And then we spent that really quickly in the first few months of living because Hong Kong's cost of living is quite high. So even with our canned soup and our, you know, canned tuna and everything in a can because there was, I know, fresh food in Hong Kong really and fresh food was astronomically expensive so we were just living off crap. Oh, my God. And, yeah, it was wild. But I made actually some really good canned soup recipes. I'd, like, mix them in with, like, a bit of veggie. It was great.
• 14:34
  We had no hot water in our apartment. Oh, my God. So we're in a four-story walk-up in central Hong Kong, great location, but no hot water. So we had to switch on the hot water heater to wait 15 minutes to have a shower. And the shower was literally in the same room as the toilet and the shower head was on the toilet. Like it would spray onto the toilet. It was just the most insane place to live. But we loved it because it felt so exciting.
• 14:59
  For us. Startup life. Yeah, I know. It's like, yeah, we're doing something amazing. And you're like literally slumming it. So we spent that 10 grand pretty quickly. Craig did a little bit of other design work here or there to bring money in, but there was not enough money.
• 15:15
  to put in a manufacturing order. It just wasn't. We needed like four, I think it was $4,000. And we just could not get that. We couldn't get that money whilst living in Hong Kong. So we were in a bit of a predicament and it was about September, 2012. And we were sitting on the steps in Hong Kong and we were like, we don't have any money. What do we do?
• 15:38
  couldn't borrow money from a bank, couldn't get jobs in Hong Kong to even sort of get that going because we didn't have the visa when we were allowed. So we ended up asking all our friends and family to borrow some money. And luckily, Craig, being 10 years older than me, had friends that had, you know, they were my age now, so 38.
• 15:57
  And they had careers and they had houses and they had lives and more money. So they generously loaned us. It was $25,000 to start Aussie and that was enough to get a production run going and be smart to sort of have enough to live off and do one more production run and give it that kind of, I think we sort of said like six months of like having a real crack. And thank God that putting that production run in,
• 16:23
  and launching and then putting that little neoprene order in and having that money for it worked. And we were able to pay them back sort of, I think, in March in 2013 and then move forward. So it was pretty much cash flow positive from day one. But we did take on a tiny bit of debt from friends to start it.
• 16:40
  It's funny, like in hindsight, that you took it on as debt and not as, you know, giving some equity of the business to your friends. I bet you they're annoyed that they didn't ask for you. But no, no, they were so generous. It was really one of those, you know, they made triangle, you know, without them. You know, my parents said no. Craig's parents said no. My friends had no money. No one else really. And, you know, my parents believed in me, but they didn't believe in me.
• 17:09
  And rightly so. I mean, my parents don't have that sort of disposable money. And they'd already been drip feeding me little bits here and there for the six, sort of four months we'd been there to like, you know, get a wax or like, you know, get a haircut or whatever it was. So they were kind of like, no, like this is not going anywhere and you need to come home and get a job. So we were like, no. Anyway, so it was very, very fortunate. Very, very grateful for our friends for doing that.
• 17:39
  Oh my gosh. Hell yeah. Shout out to them. Shout out to those friends. So you invest 25,000. That gives you a little bit of a runway for the first order, the second order, and just kind of like getting by. This is when you start doing the gifting. You start kind of like spreading on, obviously Instagram is like having its moment back in those years. And then at some point you start reaching bigger celebrities. Is that what comes next as the kind of like the next big pivotal moment that happens for you?
• 18:09
  Yeah, look, it kind of did. Yeah, it was, I'm just, you know, I'm just like running through it quickly in my head. It was, we were kind of already getting some good traction in the Australian market. But our bikinis, we could feel a few people that were, we could feel a little bit of interest in the States, like just a tiny bit. And then we'd never planned to go international. We were very content with being an Australian brand. We never even looked at the States.
• 18:33
  And then when we did look, we were like, oh, that's a much bigger pool over there. The market is phenomenally big for swimwear. And they were just, you know, they're just, they're the girls that are, you know, they got their summers and then they go away for spring break and then they might go away over Christmas.
• 18:49
  Christmas and so they're just like living in their bikinis um and so we started to kind of reach out to to American girls and we actually would just I mean we were just what what we did in the approach that I took with finding these girls was finding girls that were in swimwear that lived in bikinis that were in the areas that were wearing it that
• 19:10
  were already like talking about swimwear or totally. And they weren't girls with big followings. You know, they were, as they know now, like micro-influencers back then. I said that really. Back then they were just like girls with small followings. And they were the ones, you know, and we had this kind of like, I still really believe in word of mouth marketing. So when I would gift...
• 19:30
  one girl that was in, especially in the States, because this, we felt we really needed to like, you know, spread. And I would give one girl and say, do you have any friends that, that like, that are like swimwear girls too, because I'll give them too. So then they would all get together and they would discuss what they wanted. And then they would be like, Oh my gosh, you're so excited. And they would all put their little order in and then they'd get them and they'd all wear them together. And that's, I think why that kind of viral movement of,
• 19:55
  girls all wearing triangle together on the beach. And I still saw it. I was down in lawn over summer and there's, there were like groups of 13, 14 year old girls still wearing triangle because that has kind of carried on. And it was something that I was so mindful to set up in that way of, you know, cause gifting was like not, like it was, that was our entire marketing budget. Like we didn't do anything within our PR.
• 20:17
  We didn't do any other ads, anything, anything. There was no money going into marketing other than through the cost of the bikini. And the cost of the bikini was pretty cheap. And then to send it, it was just kind of a no-brainer for us.
• 20:30
  And also I think by targeting pockets of girls, you have overlap in followers. The person who's following that, you know, one of those girls probably actually follows three of those girls. So then the consumer is having a moment of like, this brand is everywhere. Like I'm seeing it all over my feed. They're all kind of, or these girls are all together. They're all wearing it. Like it's that multi kind of moment touch point for the brand. Yeah. And it really worked. And it was a strategy that,
• 21:00
  sort of wasn't my it wasn't my goal to have that sort of flow on effect my goal was just to make all these girls feel good and just gift more girls it wasn't really that thought out but it ended up being this whole strategy that is still not even like practically applied by triangle it just is what's happening now because it was set up so strongly in the start to be that way
• 21:22
  And so when we were gifting these groups of girls and that was kind of working and we were like, this is great and that sentiment's strong and, you know, and our followers were just growing and that was lovely and we decided to reach out to because we never wanted to pay. So we had to be really clever about finding any of the bigger girls. So we were like, let's just go after one big fish and let's just like focus on getting her. So we picked Kendall Jenner. So we didn't want the Kardashians. They were already...
• 21:50
  hugely successful in their own right and demanding lots of money for things. And so it was like Kylie and Kendall who were very young and Kylie was beautiful, but not really a bikini girl in that vibe. And you can kind of see how they've gone. Like we've got that right. Kendall was like the active, sporty, just starting out modeling, really like just, you know, young, but like just cool and edgy and whatever. So we were like, let's go after her. So we're like, well, let's gift all her friends.
• 22:17
  and not her and to see if she wants, if she ends up like taking the bait and reaching out for one. So we gifted like six or seven of her friends. I went like trawling through the depths of Instagram, finding all her friends that she'd ever been posting, looking at tagged photos. I think they were tagged photos around then or tags or whatever it was. And I had a list of about six of them. And two of them were actually Bella Headed and Hayley Baldwin, now Bieber. And they were
• 22:46
  unknowns back then and they were part of her crew and they were all girls in their bikinis and blah blah blah. So I giffed all of them and they were like, absolutely, because Triangle had enough of a name. Like just on a DM? Yeah, no, no, actually, because there were no DMs back then. So you had to write a comment on a photo and hope that they saw it and say, oh, hi, it's, you know, I would either say, hi, you know, it's Erin from Triangle or
• 23:15
  I'd love to get in touch. Can you email me, erin at triangle.com? Or I would say, hi, it's Erin at triangle. Could you please let me know your email address? Like here, depending on the size of the girls following. Oh, my God, that's crazy. Yeah, and then I would just wait for them to email me. A simpler time. A simpler time. And so they all email, like, hi, you reached out to me, blah, blah, blah.
• 23:35
  We ended up having to stop that strategy because it became incoming. Like it was like a, it was everyone wanted a bikini. Yeah. Everyone's like, I've got that email. How do I be a triangle girl? How do I be a triangle girl? Whereas at the start, it was like, you'd be a triangle girl. Anyway, so we did that and we gifted them all.
• 23:51
  they wore them and Hayley and Bella wore them. And I feel like I think one was Charlotte, I can't remember the other names. And they were all wearing them. And obviously they're wearing them together and Kendall's sitting there probably around the pool going, I'm the most famous person here. You know, thinking, or not even that, but just thinking, why was I left out? Like, this is not fair. Why was I left out? I feel like maybe they, maybe they forgot. And so one morning I woke up and I had an email from like this random Gmail. Like it was like,
• 24:19
  Ken face killer. It was something like that and I just knew straight away it was her because it was so her kind of kooky aesthetic. And she was like, oh, hi, it's Kendall. All my friends have been wearing your bikinis and they're really cool. Can I get some too? And I was like, holy shit, that works? Yeah, and that was literally our...
• 24:40
  like acceleration into the states that was really put us on the map and cemented us in that market as being a brand that was that was i think you know it was like it didn't this is the thing it doesn't take away from the product and it doesn't because you can have people post things celebrities and it doesn't really do much but that just accelerated the trust in the brand that's all that it really did because the product was still the hero and the experience of getting a bikini and
• 25:07
  wearing it and that was still the hero you know the marketing strategy was just the strategy to put trust into our very very new brand putting out a bikini in a fabric that no one had really seen for a very long time because new print had been done in the 80s there's a body glove um swimwear they've been doing it so it wasn't a new fabric it just hadn't been brought into our generation so it just accelerated so interesting yeah it just it just built trust you know I think
• 25:36
  When you apply that logic with your marketing strategies of building trust with them as opposed to getting sales, then it will shift who you target a lot and who you reach out to. Because I've always been thinking, like, how does this apply now? Because it was so much easier back then. It's so much harder now. But the logic to a lot of our application of why we did things is definitely applicable to 2023, I feel, for sure. Yeah.
• 26:04
  As you were kind of on that up, you've had this moment, now you're on a global level. What was happening with copycats? Because I feel like it happens a lot in business. The moment you start to kind of like hit that snowball, everything starts to change. And so I imagine it was happening a lot for you. What was your approach to copycats and how did you deal with it? Yeah, so we were...
• 26:33
  copied in every aspect of the business. You know, it wasn't just the product, but everyone was copying our strategy and our Instagram page and putting up like everything, you know, like copying our gifting email word for word and like quite well-known companies were starting to do this, although they didn't continue with it. That was frustrating, but also like, well, we have a point in difference. So when they started copying the product...
• 26:56
  It was really, really hard. It's, you know, I work with a lot of brands now in advisory, an advisory role, and that is a huge thing for a brand having to deal with this part of it because it's so frustrating and it takes so much time and energy away from what you want to be doing to focus on it and you have to kind of weigh up
• 27:17
  Do I go after the copycats or do I ignore it? And, you know, we were getting people messaging us, you know, and emailing going, I just wanted to show you like, because we were such that like small brand mentality that people were like, these brands are copying you. And we were like, don't tell us. We don't want to know. Like we just wanted to be like earmuffs because,
• 27:35
  you know, in a way you can't stop them. You cannot stop copycats. You really can't. And this is where we landed on after, you know, we always seem to find them at like 10 o'clock at night. And then, and it was always just about to go to bed. And then we were up until one or two, like, like, you're so angry and you want to like call them or like turn up at their house and they're like, why are you copying me? But that's not going to change anything. Like copycats
• 28:03
  will never go away. They just won't. Especially in the clothing industry or industries that aren't heavily regulated, they're not going to go away because they can do what they're doing. And
• 28:13
  Or the advice that I would give to people that have to deal with this, because at some point, if you have a successful brand, you will be copied at some, you know, in some, whether it's product or strategy or whatever it is, you know, it's focus on being the innovator and focus on innovation. Because if you, for us, it was like, okay, great, they're copying that. And that's really annoying. It's our bestseller. And it is really...
• 28:36
  probably taking away sales but we have to aid back that our product is more superior and build our name and our brand to a point where they don't want the copycat and the other thing is you there will always be a percentage of people that will buy a copy brand and not care you know it's like the people that buy fake Chanel or
• 28:55
  You know, I like that's just, you know, that's just people that do that. And they don't, it's not even, it's actually not even anything wrong with these people that buy these fake brands. They just don't have that value on things. So in that way, they value other things. So they're like, I don't care, I'll buy a fake. So you can't stop the customer from buying them and you can't stop the people from making them. So all you can control is what you can control, which is focusing on what is going to accelerate, grow, move.
• 29:24
  Innovate your brand and your product offering and don't get stuck in focusing on that side because that's when they're winning, you know, it's just like a waste of time. For you, like when you look back in hindsight now and for anyone listening, what are the steps you can take to protect your brand?
• 29:44
  Yeah, look, this is tricky because it's quite expensive to register trademarks and designs and go down the legal path. And I love lawyers. I can love them, but they are there to make money and they'll tell you. They're the winners in all of this.
• 30:02
  Yeah, they're like, oh, and they're like, even I was advising one of my clients and she had someone totally copying her brand. And she was like, I spoke to my solicitor and he's just going to draft this email and it's just going to be like, and I was like, do not send that email because he's saying it to you. And they're well-intentioned, but this is what lawyers and solicitors do. This is good advice as well, I think for anyone that's sort of,
• 30:25
  thinking about doing this, they might tell you it's a letter and all the solicitors are now going to hate me, but like they might tell you it's just a letter. It's just a one-off letter. And it's just to say, I'm here and I'm watching you and I'm noticing you. That solicitor wants the other person to get their solicitor to then write back and start a fight because that's how they make money. Like solicitors and lawyers, they have business. This is their business. So they're not actually there to protect you. They are, but they're not. They're actually there to
• 30:55
  doing, you know, billable hours and making their own money. So unless it's necessary, and sometimes it is, to send a formal letter to say, you know, you're actually violating a trademark or you're doing this and like a cease and desist, sometimes they're necessary. Or a patent or something like that.
• 31:13
  Yeah, get advice before you start jumping in because once you touch your toe into going down, not only trademarks and registering, you know, because that's sometimes necessary, but also so costly and can keep going forever because it can be like class this and class that and in this jurisdiction and in this jurisdiction.
• 31:36
  And then they're like, and then do you want to register your trademark? But that person actually owns that trademark, but they only own it in class this and class this. So do you want to challenge? And it's like, it's a whole, it is so much, it took so much for us. I mean, sometimes it's necessary, but for us, it took so much time away from innovation and from creation and,
• 31:59
  you have to find what works for you and you have to kind of almost assess each jurisdiction and go, well, do I care if Jamaica don't?
• 32:09
  You know, like if someone, like, do or, you know, so you have to kind of pick your target markets and get your, you know, I'd say if you have a unique name, getting it registered is probably smart. But, again, maybe not necessary. It's just, it's a really tricky one. And I'm probably not the authority on best practice today and going forward. But what I will say is to get as much advice as possible before you undertake legal processes in any stage of your business.
• 32:38
  That, I mean, it's just like, how much money do you have? Because they'll take it all. Because that's just how they operate. Yeah. And also, how much energy do you have? Because it's the energy suck. It's the draining and the anxiety and the thinking about it and the endless loop in your head that's like, why, why, why, why? And so that's also just like not worth it.
• 33:03
  in terms of, yeah, questioning, is it worth it? And why are you doing it? Yeah, exactly. And being really clear, again, coming back to what your why is. And it might be necessary for you and it might not be. And often you will end up getting caught out in the one thing that you didn't do.
• 33:23
  is the one thing that becomes a problem. And all the other things that you did actually didn't matter at all. So it's just setting aside the right amount of time and the right amount of money and getting the right advice from people outside your solicitor. Because they...
• 33:39
  They are giving advice that is great and from a legal perspective. And I still do this now. I trust my solicitors implicitly, but I will still get advice from people that are not them because they're just wired in a different way as they're supposed to be.
• 33:54
  And they have different goals to you. Unless it's an in-house legal counsel. Yeah, exactly. If you can have your own sort of full-time on staff, then great. That's going to be good. But otherwise, just get the advice from other people that you trust.
• 34:11
  Yeah, I love that. That's great advice. I want to switch gears a little bit because we've been talking about, you know, the success of Triangle and how you're on this up. You've got everything working in your favor. It's wildly successful. You know, you said you were building it. It was a hundred million dollars in revenue. I read somewhere that you were selling like 2000 units a day. It's highly profitable. You're on the rich list. Everything is looking great on the outside. Yeah.
• 34:38
  But on the inside, you were struggling and you were actually going in the opposite direction with your mental health. Can you tell us about that time and what was happening on your personal kind of lens? Yeah. So, you know, when we launched Triangle, I was only 27. And at that time...
• 34:59
  I had no awareness of self. I feel like that, you know, and that was 10 years ago and I think in 10 years things have shifted so much already and mindfulness and wellness and self-discovery and all that has come more into the mainstream. But back then it hadn't. And so I had no understanding of really who I was. And so I went 100 miles an hour at Triangle
• 35:28
  and made that my identity, which is I still feel fairly necessary when you're going out of business and want to make it succeed. You definitely have to lose yourself a little bit in making it work because you have to give everything to it. But because I've done no other work on myself or was not at the same time doing anything in learning about work
• 35:49
  You know, it was really just like a self-worth pace. And when you become tied up so much in your business and the stresses and the overwhelm and everything falls on you and it was, it sort of, I just kind of started to, it was like the business started to get more successful. And because I was so tied up in its success, when it started to, you know,
• 36:13
  overtake me as it did because it became a hugely successful business that I was running. And I'm like, and I had no one to guide me through that process that I trusted. You know, Craig was 10 years older, but still in it as much as me, but had 10 more years of life experience to handle it than me. And I was just there.
• 36:34
  feeling like, you know, when the business was a startup and I was doing everything myself and it was manageable and I was watching these things happen and I was like, yeah, and it was so great and it felt amazing and it was just the best feeling in the world. Every time my phone dinged with getting a sale, it was like, yeah, and I felt that, like you're by core. But then once the business started to become more successful and therefore relied on me perhaps a little bit less,
• 37:03
  or relied on me to upskill to rise with the business and not knowing how to or who and what my skills were and it became all really, and there was no time to sit even and think about this.
• 37:19
  And then combining that with having a baby literally in the busiest, biggest year we had, that was our big, you know, $200 million valuation year. It was just not sustainable. And I started to blame everything around me. I had no accountability over what was happening with me. And so I attached everything else to it. Like it was Craig, it's Craig, it's him, he's toxic and this and that.
• 37:45
  It's the business and I hate the business and business did this to me. And so I had no skills or there was nothing that I was doing to bring myself back to me. So it just got worse. And combine that with the fact that we were very isolated, we didn't have any friends or family around us. We were living overseas on our own.
• 38:10
  And like a complete lack of connection. And then the fact also, no, it was just that we had a complete lack of connection. And I just couldn't, I just, I just felt, I also just felt too much shame to tell anyone
• 38:27
  because I was living this dream life and I was Miss Multi-Millionaire and Miss Triangle and living the dream. And so I was like, how can I tell anyone back home that I'm miserable? Like what an arsehole. What's that saying? Like no one likes a sad billionaire either. Like everyone's like, what do you mean? Like you have it all. And you're like, how come I feel this way? This sucks. Yeah. And so combine the business outgrowing me, no connection with anyone,
• 38:55
  And having too much shame to tell anyone I was sad, I was. It was just the worst experience. I mean, there were times of fun in there for sure and joy. And it wasn't like I wasn't like every day, but it was that going to bed every night and just lying there and thinking, God.
• 39:11
  Why do I not feel like this is it? How on earth? How can this not be it? You know, it was and then the way that made me feel, which was so awful, because I was thinking if I don't feel good now, I'm never going to be happy. I'm never going to feel good because this is the best I should be ever feeling. And then having to unpack all of that eventually when I had a total breakdown and come back to realising that it actually isn't anything external.
• 39:41
  that really makes a difference in who you are. But that was, I had to really experience that to a point where it was so loud I couldn't ignore it because it was just too, it was just too obvious that I was having a breakdown and it was coming from in here. And I couldn't fix it with money and cars and clothes. Even I tried.
• 40:03
  Holy shit. That's so crazy. And also so powerful to, to have the courage to say, you know what, I am going to step away and, you know, take the, take the control back for my life and go on this journey to make sure I turn it around. So I'm wondering how you turned it around.
• 40:22
  What's the secret sauce? What's the recipe? Look, I wish I had, I wish I could say it was something you could just do. And you know what? It's two things. It's like for someone like me or for anyone that is feeling like this, that's already in a business or in a part of their life where they feel like they've neglected themselves.
• 40:41
  It just is going to take time and it's trying. For me, it was just trying a bunch of different things and being really honest with myself as to where I was and starting to share it with people that I loved and trusted. And then what I found really helpful was sitting with people in a more... I went down a more spiritual, mindful path because...
• 41:08
  Those people used to just say to me, you are amazing. You actually are the most amazing person. And when I didn't feel that and I had someone telling me that, it really helped cultivate this. I think I can, if they believe in me, then there must be something here that I need, that I can work with. Like, you know, it was so, it was like that little light at the end of the tunnel
• 41:34
  And I know everyone says in the self, in the, in, you know, it always about you and you have to feel it in self belief and self worth, but it really, really was important for, and not just, and it wasn't friends and family that they would kind of say that anyway. And I was like, no, whatever. But when people that were,
• 41:50
  professionals and more, this is a lot more common in a spiritual sort of healing space, would say things like you've got a beautiful, you know, your energy is really special or, you know, you are, and because everyone, you know, if you do believe in these things, everyone is special. We are all unbelievably magical beings that are here to do great things.
• 42:11
  And we all are trying to unlock it at whatever part of our lives we're meant to unlock it at. And so hearing that really gave me some flicker of hope, of like maybe I'll feel happy. And it was a really long journey. It was four years of going hard at it. And it wasn't a living line of growth either. It would be like you think when you start self-work that you're going to just be like wee. And it's actually like you usually go in and you're like, ugh, worse. And then you're kind of like, eh.
• 42:39
  down, up, down, up, down, you know, until you get to a point where you feel like your foundations are so strong.
• 42:45
  that things don't totally rock your world. They'll still bother you, but you'll be able to work through them. And that took four years for me. But anyone that's younger than me that got out, you know, 33, I had two children by then, I had two more during that time. There's a lot else going on. But anyone that's, and this is why I'm so passionate about teaching what I do now, is that anyone that is where I was at the start of Triangle, 27, younger, or like in that discovery phase, it's like...
• 43:14
  Start doing the work now. Like start understanding yourself now and knowing what triggers you and knowing what toxic things you might bring to the table and it's like loving yourself in spite of all of your flaws because you have them, because we all do. Starting to know that, if I'd had that going at the same time with launching Triangle, I would never have gotten myself
• 43:38
  to where it went. It never would have happened. But I was just like floating on a breeze, tied up in every other person's belief of me and felt like a failure at all times. So, yeah, I would say do the work.
• 43:54
  When you say like do the work and, you know, for anyone listening, like what is an actual, like what's a resource people can turn to? Like where can people go to read about their toxic traits or, you know, their self-limiting beliefs or, you know, whatever it might be. Like where do people turn right now if they're listening?
• 44:14
  You know, I'm still, I still find the space a bit confusing and it's, you know, it's either, I think it's like people are still a bit like, oh, one way or the other, like wellness is over there and then commercial success and the real world's over there. And it's like, I feel like we're still working on blending the two as they should be blended.
• 44:34
  And we should find balance between both. If you're really into more hardcore spirituality and wellness, there's, you know, you can do, you know, things that I do is sort of, you can, kinesiology is an amazing one. That is actually a scientifically based practice about muscle testing. And that is, it's kind of when I see my kinesiologist, it's like therapy with a touch of spirituality. You know, like it's, we talk and it's a back and forth. And she asked me what I want to work on.
• 45:04
  But then it has this beautiful, abundant spiritual feeling about it of basically knowing that you're going to come out of it. You don't often come out feeling terrible, but you're going to come out of it knowing that you're growing. And I mean, I hated it for the first year that I did it. And.
• 45:19
  that's something that you have to go into it ready for that as well and knowing what times you want to do it and when and what journey you're on and are you ready and don't force it and there's other you know reiki is another one that you can do and there's so many spiritual things and you just have have you know i'm i'm launching my own podcast you know in a month or so which i will talk on all of these things because the thing is
• 45:41
  I'm not a spiritual person in the definition of what you would say I am. Like, I don't wear crystals. I still wear designer. I still drink wine, you know, but I believe in it so much as part of my modern life.
• 45:56
  And there are other things, you know, for me even, and this is the biggest one and it's so lame and I know it's annoying, but regular exercise, like having a regular routine is really how I actually really started working on myself and valuing myself and having that value to do these things. This is why people kind of are often like, oh, I don't actually want to go in debt.
• 46:19
  doing anything i've just kind of and they're like kind of like throw stones at everything and it's usually because they don't value themselves enough and then they just like can't be bothered so they just move on from it so there's ways you can kind of trick yourself into into having that value and do small things you don't have to go like i did 100 miles an hour into wellness and spirituality you can do small things to make yourself feel better and just be really honest with yourself and admit
• 46:46
  that you are sometimes not a great person because we all are sometimes not a great person. And you know, the truth really does set you free in that way. But yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot, there's not true. There's not, there's, I don't look at a resource and like, fine, obviously I've got my Instagram pages that I follow that I, that I look at, but I,
• 47:05
  I'm also internally referenced now, but when I was externally referencing because I had to, because I needed to, you know, I would just jump onto Google and just start to like read articles about those things. And I only read the things that benefited what I thought about it. So I only did things that I was interested in maybe doing and people that were going to tell me that I was special and great and amazing. It's like, otherwise not interested.
• 47:27
  Lol. I am so excited for your podcast and for you to deep dive on all those kind of topics and talk more about your journey. I'm really excited about that. And I feel like this is a good segue to talk about what you're doing now with your consultancy and, you know, your work now with women and founders. Tell us about it. Yeah. So I, because I'm sort of in both worlds, I am still very much commercially driven and
• 47:53
  logical in my application of strategy. And I work with brands on all of those practical applications of everything, you know, social media and marketing. And I love that. I'm a businesswoman by heart. And it is what gets me so excited to like look at a brand and assist and advise on where they are and whatever journey they're at, you know. But then the side that I'm really passionate about that I also teach is marketing.
• 48:17
  Helping people feel better in that process because life's too short to have a business or work in a business or do anything without enjoying it. Like it's just, it's that simple. It's life is too short and helping people through and supporting people through those challenges in business. What I find is that whenever I get into a business and I start to do advisory work, it always goes personal.
• 48:41
  Because it is. Because they're so closely linked. And once we realise that all these attachments that we have of like work-life balance or different words or whatever they are, once we just drop that whole build up around it and just start to really individually access what it is that makes us feel good and do good in our business and all.
• 49:02
  what do I like doing? You know, one thing that, and Craig used to always say this to me and I hated him for it because I was miserable at the time, but now I use it all the time. I'm like, for people, it's like, what is your perfect day? Like today, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be the day in six months or just like, think about, and I couldn't even do this at the time because I was so broken and couldn't even access that. And it was like, oh, I don't know, but I was pretty bad. So most people can still do this. And it's like,
• 49:32
  and look at what you actually don't want in there and then get rid of those things. And there's a lot of freedom in just being honest about what you want to do. And sometimes we're always doing things that we think other people, we get told we're good at that. So we run down with that and then this and then this. And it's like, just do what you want to do. And in business, a lot of that is...
• 49:55
  Then like sometimes we do things that we don't want to do in business, we have to, but just like allowing the space to attach yourself to what actually make like work on what makes you feel good with it and focus on the feel good parts of it. And then the bad stuff won't be like such a bugbear, I guess. Um, yeah.
• 50:14
  Anyway, every business has its different sort of layers to it because every founder is so different to what their needs are. But often they're going into it with the same, they think they all have the same desires and drives and needs. And actually everyone is completely different with what they're looking for.
• 50:34
  what they want to work on, what they feel that they want. You know, it's like, it's like everyone starts a business for a reason. And it's usually a good reason, whether it's the products, right. Or they've really like honed in on their why of the product, or they really like this great product, but they're why they did it. It's so, you know, like all those different things. And then like,
• 50:55
  remembering that at every single point in your day or every day going, this is why I'm doing this. So I'm not going to then do that because that doesn't align with what I'm actually doing this for. And the things that give you energy back, you know, when you're in your zone of genius and then you feel excited and energized because you're enjoying that thing that you're doing instead of being drained and being like, oh, I'm doing this thing that I really shouldn't be doing. I need to delegate.
• 51:20
  Exactly, exactly. And then when you have to do the things that you don't want to do, you have such a buildup of great feelings and great, you know, you can kind of like tackle the thing you don't want to do easily because your whole day has been built around doing what you want to do and knowing that you're doing this because it makes you feel good. And it's just switching people's.
• 51:38
  mentalities and allowing people to be really honest and I always encourage my clients to be really honest with me and they usually are because I can also kick one in I'm like really and like they you know and it's it's been it's really lovely because we we can't afford the world to continue the way it's going with divisiveness and and and lack of connection and and all these things it's
• 52:02
  We have, as founders and people that have businesses, we have a social responsibility to do good and to leave the world in a better place than we arrived to it in. So it's something that I'm really passionate about helping founders unlock that because founders, you know, and anyone, it's anyone that even maybe wants to be a founder or anyone that is in it or, you know, anyone that wants to leave it as well because some people get into a business and they actually want to do this. And it's like just helping step people through that process.
• 52:32
  Because we all, you know, everyone deserves to love what they're doing and love their lives. Absolutely. Gosh. So for anyone listening, it sounds like you're working with a variety of different people. Who is your ideal client right now? Like who are you, who do you want to work with? Who are you kind of like putting your energy towards bringing into your consultancy? It's, you know, obviously it's consumer-led businesses. So anything that's in that space that I'm familiar with.
• 52:59
  And probably in, I like e-com. But you know what? It really, it doesn't matter kind of what they're doing. And I feel like the right people are coming my way in the sense of, it's anyone that feels like they just want something a little bit more out of their lives. And that is their intentions for why they started the business was so pure and good and great. And they want to build on that. You know, I, because I don't teach people how to make money and I don't teach people
• 53:28
  how to get a return on investment of 50% or this. I could not care less in those strategies because it doesn't matter if you're not happy. So I teach practical applications of logic and strategies and doing things that will result in growth, but that will be done in a way to feed you and fuel you in a positive way. So I find that anyone that comes to me is...
• 53:54
  has that understanding and that I'm not getting, so I'm open for anyone that is knowing that, yes, we want to, like, it's okay to want wealth and we want the business to be profitable. Otherwise, what's the point? But to know why you want that wealth or why you want to succeed and have commercial success is really important and will help you align on, it will help you get there rather than just going, oh, I want money.
• 54:16
  I just want to make all this money. How do I do that? Because people come to me for that because they think that that's what I'm going to teach. And it's like, no, it's not. I'm not interested in teaching that. So it's for anyone who just wants more. More out of life. I love that. And we all want more out of life. We do. We all deserve so much more. We deserve everything.
• 54:41
  When you think about the lessons that you've learned in the last decade, building Triangle and what you're doing now, is there anything else that you wish you knew when you were just starting out that you want to leave our listeners with? I would say just be prepared to work harder than you've ever worked and give everything to your business to make it succeed.
• 55:10
  to get out of your comfort zone with it as well. Especially in the early days at Triangle, we had to really eat humble pie to sell the bikini and you have to leave your ego at the door. So that is something that...
• 55:27
  I went into and it was uncomfortable and it like would keep me up at night and knowing that we had to do all these things but it ended up being why we succeeded because we worked so hard so be prepared you know going back to myself I'd be like be prepared to work really really hard but you know especially in those early days feel really good about it and don't compare you know we didn't compare ourselves to anyone else because that we were in a new space but I think everyone now
• 55:54
  is comparing them to everyone else. And it would be just to say, don't, just don't, you know, because no one knows your business better than you. So don't do what someone else has done just because you think it might work better because then you're stepping out of your alignment and it won't work.
• 56:14
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 56:39
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 57:01
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 57:17
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 57:42
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 58:04
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.