Latest / The Curve / RTC98: What women want (to search online) with Diem founder, Emma Bates

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RTC98: What women want (to search online) with Diem founder, Emma Bates · The Curve

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Welcome to Raising the Curve, a podcast designed to teach you everything you need to know
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to be better with your money. And the wise words of Amy Schumer were slipping carrots into
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the brownie recipe. I don't really get the saying. It's kind of like eating vegetables that actually
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taste good. You know, I'm like staring at the brownie too. Are you on the script?
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It's basically like saying, investing in finance can be boring, but it totally doesn't need to be.
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Okay, okay, so we're making it fun by putting the carrot.
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Okay, the vegetables are good for you. It's the brownie recipe.
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Okay, we got there. We got there. Okay, okay.
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Well, you've really got a finance way. Yeah, one of us has to.
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This is a joke. Okay, come and learn alongside me from Vick Harris, ex-fund manager.
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Well, I'm going to ask all the questions that you wish you could.
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And I'm going to be eating all the brownie you wish you could.
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No, it's so not the joke, Vick.
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Okay, just come and talk and learn and laugh with us, because together we really can raise the curve.
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We've basically got one of Vick's sisters on the podcast.
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Kind of, right? Yeah, pretty much.
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You've sort of related to her. Yeah, kind of like family. She's my sister's
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husband's brother's partner. Nice. Yeah, God, that taught me a lot.
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Just kind of like a sister sister. Sister in law, sister in law law.
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I don't know if it's a thing. Yeah, anyway, she is a 30 year old and she's born in the UK,
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actually, but she now lives in New York. And she has created this incredible business called DM,
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which is DIEM. And it's all about empowering. It's like a search engine for women and for
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non-binary folk. And it's all about building community. It's a search engine for the social stuff
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that you wouldn't find on Google. So like, what is it like to have an abortion? What if you need
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a morning after pill? What should sex feel like? Really intense taboo conversations that you
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actually can't find really anywhere else in the internet. It's super regulated. There's a lot
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of AI integration now, but essentially the way that it works is it's, what do they say?
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They say it's like, if WhatsApp and Reddit had a baby, if Reddit chat GPT and your girls group chat
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had a baby, that's what DM would be. And it's such a good summary. The reason we wanted to speak
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to Emma is not only has she founded an amazing business. She's actually a similar age to us, but also
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her perspective on raising money, on paying yourself when you work for yourself. There was so many
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interesting conversations. And she was really open about what that's like running a business and how
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yeah, how your personal money values can infiltrate through and to the way that you lead teams.
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It was a super fascinating chat and we actually made a little trip all the way to Bristol for it.
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Yeah, met her mum and dad did it in the house. She was visiting from New York and we were like,
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oh, welcome to you. We're actually I was like, so I was like, I'm never into Bristol.
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I really wanted to go. But yeah, it's a great chat and we will throw to her now.
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Yeah. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
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We also just need to apologise for the fact that we're both wearing all white outfits. Looks
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like we've come straight from I'm bringing the colour. Yeah, yeah, it looks like we've just joined a
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Colton. We're wearing white tops and white bottoms. It's actually the Curves Community Program.
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We take, you know, really troubled youth and help them find the path. Emma's
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company issue. Why don't you introduce it? Because I'm sure we were just talking before this
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podcast, like sometimes you can get a little bit unenthused with the same story when you're talking
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about yourself. But I think if we try, it's not going to sound as cool. I'll try. Yeah, so DM
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is we're building a search engine that is inspired. We say it's inspired by the way women have
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talked for centuries. What that really means is that it's when you go to search, you get community
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answers, you get things that are sort of like more social proof than your average, like webpage
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that you might get delivered to you from Google. And the idea is really that we are on a mission
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to close the gender information gap, which you guys obviously know a lot about. And the more that
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people talk within the platform, the better our technology gets. So our AI model, which powers
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our search bar, is trained on women's conversations and more inclusive resources. And so basically,
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the more stories that are shared, the better the results will be for everyone moving forward.
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Beyond searches, you basically ask a question, then you can post it for other people to weigh in.
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And what I love is, again, which you've shared before. I we did a lot of research before
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getting here today, but you had an experience with the morning after pill, which kind of is what
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spiraled you into thinking, how is there not more socially stamped and appropriate and personal
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information when it comes to things that involve our bodies, sexuality, all kinds of, I guess,
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more traditional taboo conversations. How did you, when that happened? Because I think a lot of,
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you're either entrepreneurial or maybe that's not the way that your brain works. As soon as you
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had that experience, did you think there's really a business opportunity here or a void that needs
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to be filled? Like, how did that process go from your experience to now having DM built?
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I think it was a combination of both. Like, I had always wanted to build a company that could have
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some sort of social impact as well as scaling to be a large business. And that really had come
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from when I was at university. I wrote my thesis in gender and sexual based violence and in
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regions of conflict. And I was just like, it was the first time that I think I actually genuinely
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learned about gender inequality. I had never really known about it before. At least in a more like
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visceral way. So from that, I'd always kind of been like, okay, what could it be? And like,
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I never really had an idea of what it could be. And then after this experience, basically was like,
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huh, why is my search experience in direct contrast to the way that I know that we as women
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look for answers in real life? Like, why can't I find stories? Why? I know that those conversations
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happen, whether they be in a WhatsApp group over dinner in some like obscure forum or subreddit.
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But none of it's searchable. It's not in a place where people actually care about those conversations
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from a technological standpoint. Yeah. So from that, and then the more that my co-founder,
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Divya and I dove into it, we sort of realized that on a macro level that conversations that women
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typically have with each other have historically been written off as gossipy or not important. And
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that actually plays into how we as individuals think about the value of those conversations. And as
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sort of consequence, communication structures in our social platforms haven't been built in a way
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that a searchable, scalable, where that data is really being valued and recognized in the way
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that it should be. So, yeah, from a more macro perspective tied with that personal experience,
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we were like, okay, I think there's something here. I love how you describe, I think it's on
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the Instagram bio, how you described them as a Reddit chat GPT and your girl group chat,
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how to baby. So I'm like, you're like, oh, I know exactly what it is now. I remember I was trying
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to find it to a friend yesterday. And then I read that and I was like, oh my god, this is so true,
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it just sums it up completely. I was actually a review someone gave us.
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We should use our review for our podcast. One of them was like, it was so funny, it was on readers
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as well. They were like, yeah, not a bad podcast, pretty good for women that don't know anything.
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One of them's pretty clued up. The other has no idea or something.
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I was like, you're like, not wrong. Really not wrong actually, quite on point. I was wondering,
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what other ideas did you have before starting DM that you kind of been, or how do you decide
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to then take this one and run with it? And I guess, were there any ideas that you started to run
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with and you were like, oh gosh, I need to ditch this and this isn't going to work.
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I never actually had any other things that I wanted to pursue as companies. I'd always been like,
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oh, this feels wrong, but I've also always worked in startups. So I've kind of always worked in
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the early stages of like ideation or executing on someone else's idea. DM itself has like sort of
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changed in how the product has come to life over the last couple of years, but the mission has
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always been like the same or like this idea of accessing community knowledge has always been at
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the core of what we want to do. So I'd say we've like definitely moved through iterations like
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from a product experience perspective, but yeah, no other like big ideas. Yeah.
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I think that's really important to remember as well. And I remember that when we started the curve,
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what we started the curve as and what it is today is so different to what I would have thought it
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would have been. You know, it's kind of, it's the great thing about running your own business
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and being entrepreneurs that you can just, you know, you can pivot different ways and take
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advantage of different opportunities, but also don't get so concerned if it's if it's not what
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you expected it to be. It's almost like listening to your audience and what do they want and what
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is the community want and kind of pivoting in that sense. Yeah. And people always say what they
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things that they want, but they actually want different things. So you have to like take it
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take it with a grain of salt. Yeah. Why do you think that there's so much? I mean, you talk about
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loving history and you know, history when it comes to women and how we've evolved as a society.
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Why do you think a lot of those conversations about sex, money, friendships, relationships
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are still so to do? And why is it so important for you to change that?
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I think the reason they're so taboo is that just anyone who's not a white street man has been
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made to feel as though their experience in the world isn't normal. And so there's a really
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interesting statistic which says it came from an internal Google report and it's basically 70%
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of Google searches that start with the words, is it normal, pertain to female health experiences,
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which is like billions of searches like every year. And you're like, okay, well, if you think
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about that more deeply, that's a very shocking statistic. But what's more shocking is that all
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of those people in some way think they're abnormal. And the reason that we think that and that plays
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into our confidence that plays into how we show up in the world, it plays into like how we like
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want to advocate for ourselves, maybe in the doctor's office or at work or elsewhere because we're like,
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well, I'm not normal. So like, I can't ask for this thing or maybe I shouldn't push too hard against
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a doctor or someone else who's my superior because maybe they know better than me. And some of
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the times show they do. But a lot of the time it's actually rooted in like very biased data. And
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that I think is why to me it's I feel very passionate about trying to create a space on the internet
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where you don't have judgment where you can just write those internal things that you're like,
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I don't know where else to type this. And we've had people write into the platform being like,
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I wrote this in Google, but I didn't get an answer. I was hoping someone here could help me
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or something like that. And you're just like, okay, it needs like these spaces do need to exist.
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But I think that yeah, the reason they are so taboo is because everyone other than like white men
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have essentially been othered. And as a result, we think that those things we aren't allowed to talk
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about. I'm keen to know about, I guess, yeah, being a female and tech and kind of the challenges
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that that, because it is kind of like being a female and finance, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, very similar.
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I'm sure. I haven't I've actually found my gender to probably be an advantage in a lot of ways,
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certainly in how we think about the business, how we think about growing it, how we think about
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the opportunity, like if I were a man, I wouldn't even know this opportunity existed. So I think
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that there's a lot of advantages. And I don't, I do think that we also have a team that's
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predominantly women. So like, I do think that we have a competitive advantage from that perspective.
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I would say unfortunately, the data, certainly when it comes to, if you choose to raise money
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from venture capital firms is really terrible. Like, this is like a very, at least in my circles,
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a very overstated fact now. But I think it's like, it's gone down over the last three years. A couple
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of years ago, I think it was 2.9% of all venture funding went to female lead teams or female only
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teams, founders rather, which is absolutely correct. Do you think that's a function of
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there being so few female founded businesses? No, it's just generally where the money is at.
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Well, it's, it's, it's white men deciding where the money goes and yeah. Yeah, or even like
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beyond that, it's not like, there's a lot of, or not a lot of, but increasing numbers of
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GPs and like associates at venture funds who are women. But it's more like a lot of the time,
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I think that the connection, like basically you raise money if you have the right connections
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and it's all like, and you know how to play the game. If you don't have access to people who know
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how to play the game and teach you about it, then you're less likely to be able to like,
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actually go and raise because it's a very specific way that you successfully raise venture money
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that is like really not talked about unless you like go through it. And historically like all of
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these sort of very successful men who come out of Ivy League institutions, then go and work for
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venture capital funds or they start their own companies and they have access to all of these people
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who were their friends. It like just naturally proliferates from there and it's not that the,
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it's not changing, but it's changing very slowly and over the last couple of years as there's been
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more uncertainty in the economy, the percentage of total venture funding that's sort of going
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towards. Okay, very intimate. The percentage is getting lower because people don't want to take
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as much risk and like women led founders are risky. Oh no, I guess I'm just interested in terms of
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the, when you were talking about venture capital, I think there's probably people listening who
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maybe even heard of that term before because before I was in business, I had no idea what it was.
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And so for those who were like, what even is getting money from venture capital, could you maybe
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just scale it back a little bit in terms of the explanation of what you mean by getting money
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and funding for female CEOs in your experience with that? Yeah, so I think, I mean, there's like
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multiple ways, obviously, that you can fund a business whether it be like loans or debt or
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friends and family or whoever, angel investors, who basically are just like code for rich individuals,
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and or there's venture capital and there's a bunch of others, but venture capital and venture
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capital funds essentially are they raise money under the guise of being able to back put small amounts
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or as you scale large amounts of money into a large number of companies with the bet that one of
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them will make up essentially all of the returns needed for the others failing. And so it's this
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sort of like very technically high risk investment strategy that can reap huge returns like every
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company like an Uber or a Facebook or any of these sort of big tech companies have all raised
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venture capital funding, like that's how they got to the scale that they got to. And what is
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problematic is that a lot of the funds still to this day, the most like the biggest funds with the
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most amount of cash to not only sway like other people investing in you, like because as soon as
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you get one big investor, everyone else wants to invest, but also like just like have more capital
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to deploy or run by men. And from your experience with DM, has it been when was it funded and how did
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you go about that and like how many people have you pitched to in the venture capital space?
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We our first funding actually came via an accelerator program. So we did the text stars,
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New York accelerator a couple of years ago. And around that, we used them as sort of the younger
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investor to get angel investors to come in. And then we raised a pre-seed round, which is essentially
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just like your first round where you bring in institutional money, which is venture capital money.
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And it's pre-seed just for those, those don't know, pre-seed is just when you kind of have an idea,
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but the business hasn't really generated revenue use. It's like pre-business. Exactly.
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So it's like you have various proof points, but you haven't like found what you would call
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product market fit. Yeah. And so typically there's like angel round, which is the first one I
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mentioned. There's pre-seed, there's seed round, which comes after the pre-seed. Now there's a seed
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plus round. And then you go into like series A, series B, series C. And those are the ones where
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you raise lots and lots of money. Why can't they just call it round one, round two?
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I don't know. I think it's, I mean, it's all like the same as coded finance language that make it
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more confusing when it's actually very simple. Because we've had conversations with people around
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the idea of investing. And they're like, yeah, yeah, so when you seed, when you buy one,
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I'm always just like, yeah, yeah, we'll be seeding. We'll be seeding. We'll be seeding.
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Not like we've seeded the business. Yeah, we've just planted, we've planted some trees and
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we've got some some vows growing, like not like what you're talking about. Yeah. But I think what's
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interesting is that there are very specific benchmarks that you need to achieve. But what is
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frustrating is that with changing like macroeconomic scenarios, like a lot of those benchmarks change
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as the funds who are supposed to still invest what they say that they've they're meant to at these
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stages are like taking a less risky approach. So basically the benchmarks for companies get higher.
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Can I ask Helma, and you can also you can say no, we're not allowed. This isn't public knowledge.
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How much has been invested in your company from, you know, as a totals, do you have any idea?
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Yeah, it's 3.7 million. And is that US or US, apart from some angels for the UK base?
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Gosh, that's just for seeking congratulations. That's amazing because I can't even imagine how much.
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I mean, do you have to pitch heaps to get a yes? Like how does it work in terms of the yes, no
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head rate? Yes, you pitch a lot of people and it's incredibly emotionally draining. I mean,
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we were talking about this a little bit earlier. I think we've pitched across three, so we've done
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three rounds across the three rounds. I honestly think I've pitched like between two to three
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hundred people, both from funds and individuals. And how many said yes? Yeah. Well, how many do you
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have in the on our cap table? I think it's around 45. Amazing. But like, a lot of those are
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individuals like we've got five funds and then the rest is sort of angels. But to have, you know,
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45 people that believe in the company to the point where they're putting their money on the table
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going to say build the search engine like that's incredible. Yeah, it's quite satisfying.
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I also think there's something to be said when you're pitching to predominantly male investors,
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who I can imagine would give their two cents worth, you know, as they say, hey, we're not interested,
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but you should change this or you should do this or because we've found that, even we're not even
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pitching and we have, yeah, we have unsolicited advice. Unsolicited advice, exactly. And some is good
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and some is not so good, but I think if you've spoken to over 200 people, you know, how do you
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know exactly what you're trying to say? So I'm just going to button here. How do you differentiate
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between the advice you take on board and the advice that you let just wash over you? Is that right,
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that? Yes, thank you. Sorry. I'm on some pretty hard drugs at the moment. And I feel like I just
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really can't get my words out. Sorry, prescription, prescription drugs. She's not shooting up
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high on a Monday morning. No, the, it's a good question. It's very hard to stomach a lot of feedback
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and nose. I think that most companies have built off the back of sheer stubbornness, at least
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arzures a lot of the time outside of passion, obviously, and a genuine business opportunity.
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But truly, like the more people say no to me, I'm like, I'm going to fucking prove you wrong.
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Like I'm going to, like, you're going to be sorry that you said that. And, and so I think that
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really it's about assessing why the person's advice might be valuable to you. And I'll sort of
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preface all of this, like, our last round investor wise was actually majority male. So like,
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there are male investors who do genuinely see the opportunity, like our lead was male,
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our second biggest investor also male. And I think that I think that men do get it. You just have
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to show them in a different via data via like actual uses metrics via all of this sort of stuff.
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But to your question around like how to decide if they have the right advice, it's more about like
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are they advising you on something that they actually know about? Like can you use their advice
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as like a resource as a tool? Like have they built a company like this before? Have they done this?
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Have they solved this one specific problem that you're trying to solve? Like maybe it's like market,
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like a acquisition funnel or maybe it's a fundraising advice, piece of fundraising advice. So it's
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really just like, do they have the qualification to give you the advice? And in which case I would
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listen to it, I don't tend to listen to anyone when it comes to like vision. But I do listen
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apart from a team obviously. But I do listen to people when it's more practical. Yeah, I do like
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that point around, you know, there is a lot of men out there that are super supportive of women
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and I don't want this to ever be a podcast that's, you know, the I hate men club because I found
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that in my career. We found that with, sorry, I just touched your boot. We're sharing microphones.
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It's really hard to like react on something. But I was like, oh, yep, yep, and I'm also not wearing a
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bra. Sorry. But there is yes, a lot of men that are super supportive of that. And we've found
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that, you know, with our business, we've just signed an advisor who is super helpful. He's about,
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you know, there is definitely men out there that are super helpful and can help lift up you
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in your business as well. Because this is a financial podcast, I was interested in terms of,
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you know, how do you pay yourself as a founder? And again, you don't have to
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and in terms of staff and like before, you know, I guess, how do you get people in in the
22:38
beginning, particularly staff to have the vision, you know, when I assume a startup salary is
22:44
not amazing. Well, you know, in terms of yeah, and what do you pay yourself and in that kind of
22:50
stuff? Um, yeah. So basically, I think that's one thing that is a little bit easier to decide
22:57
because certainly for pre-revenue, pre-product market for various investment stages of business,
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pre-seed, series A, there are actually quite a lot of standard data around the benchmarks that
23:08
founders are sort of expected to pay themselves. There is still an unfortunate group of investors
23:16
who believe that you should be paid nothing kind of thing, but that's a completely unsustainable
23:20
choice unless you come from a lot of wealth. So myself and my co-founder, we get, we pay each other,
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pay each other, pay ourselves 100K a year salary, which is basically the minimum honestly in
23:33
New York that you can earn at the moment without like being in debt. That was going to be the
23:38
next question because like, the friends of ours who have been there are like, gone, it's about
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$45 for one beer and you're like, yes. What are people in New York earning to be able to survive
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there? Well, that's the thing, like, so many, like, as
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as an aside, so many of our, like, my friends who earn like huge salaries, like a couple of 100,000
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and for context for those who don't live in New York and are like 100Ks an amazing salary. I'm
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like, yes, it is, but in New York, like, my apartment is $6,000 a month. And like, I split up with
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my boyfriend who I live with, but that's 3K each. That's a lot of money. That's like basically half
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your salary every single month. It's like, there's just like, there's no way to live otherwise and
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this rents keep going up, like, inflation's going up and all of like every, even friends, I have
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to earn like 300K and are paying 3K a month or whatever for their apartment. They're like, yeah,
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I don't know who's paying for this because, like, I'm struggling. And no one has, like,
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savings, really. And it's like a whole thing. So yeah, we chose to pay ourselves 100K.
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We probably do need more if we wanted to actually have meaningful financial savings or anything
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like that, but it's fine for right now. And then in terms of team, it obviously depends on
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seniority, what they do, like, whether they're an engineer or designer, sort of marketing with
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their part-time full-time. But yeah, I think that given that most of our employees are women,
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it's very easy for people to, like, want to be part of the mission.
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Yeah. And do you give your staff shares or options, or do you think everyone has options?
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Yeah. So if you're earning around 100K a year and you're saying that your rent is
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essentially half of it. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in a position where you can invest or save
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anything, or do you do other than DM, do you have any investments or any portfolio?
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I have a small, like, small, which I don't tend to, but I do, like, a small, like, retail
25:36
investing portfolio. But I do LVAST, so I'll transfer, like, I think it's literally like $50 or
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something a month that just goes straight out. And I don't know what it does. I haven't actually
25:47
checked on it for a while, but I would like to do more. It's just, like, we, yeah, we literally
25:53
can't technically allow to, like, pay ourselves much more from, like, a runway perspective.
25:57
Yeah. But it's hard because when you're building a business and you're really focusing on the end
26:03
goal, which is never normally driven by a financial return, it's still really hard when you're at an
26:12
age where we know how much we're going to have to pay for and what we want to achieve in life
26:17
from a, the life that you want to live. If you do want to have a family eventually one day,
26:20
if you do want to, I don't know, we were talking about weddings earlier, houses, etc.
26:26
Off mic, by the way, if you're listening, you're like, no, you haven't.
26:31
It's a really hard balance to live in the moment, make the most of what you earn, but they're not
26:35
be progressing towards whatever future. Yeah. And I think that it's, I mean, like, the reason that
26:42
a lot of investors hold this opinion that you shouldn't pay yourself lots as a founder is the idea
26:48
that you own, I mean, we own the majority of the business still. And as and when DM sort of that
26:53
translates into real money and a bank account on upon an exit of some sort, then you get like a huge
27:01
sort of financial, like financial influx, but like that could be like 10 years down the line. And
27:06
so like for 10 years, this idea of you minting to like financially struggle along is just like so
27:12
privileged, like it's such like a, like no one can do that. Yeah, no, that's very true. And I think
27:19
it's, it's also, if you're financially stressed and unhappy the whole time. Yeah, you'll focus on
27:25
the company. Exactly. And if you can't afford to get to the meeting because you can't pay for an
27:29
Uber, it's like, that's going to end up being business detrimental. And so it's, yeah, it is
27:34
finding that balance of having enough to actually survive. But obviously not enough that you're
27:38
just like, yeah, I don't really care about the business. But I also think it comes down to the
27:41
founder because you can tell if a founder is passionate about their purpose and their mission
27:46
or if they're in it for financial gain and just to be paid and whatever. But that's just in it
27:51
for financial gain. I mean, same. But I also think it's a good reminder that investing doesn't just
28:00
have to be in stocks or property or, you know, in, or having cash in the bank and investing,
28:06
you know, in a savings account. It's, it can be investing in businesses. And that is what,
28:10
that's what all three of us are doing right now is that we're investing in something that's
28:15
going to pay off in the long term, hopefully. And so it's just a reminder that yes, we might feel
28:20
like we don't have investments or savings or anything like that. But it is, we're just doing
28:24
it a different way to you right now. So it's just financial journey is different. Yeah. Yeah,
28:28
I often am like, Oh, I have friends I went to school with who have like bought a house, which
28:33
obviously their parents definitely helped them with. But they still bought a house. And a lot of
28:38
them did it themselves too. But I am like, I don't, I don't do that. I don't even know how to do that.
28:46
I wouldn't need to buy the furnishings for the inside of the house. Like I often think about
28:51
how expensive some nice doors look. And I'm like, I probably couldn't buy that door. Yeah.
28:56
I'm kind of like, I go between kind of this, I want to go and do all the fun things. But then I'm
29:01
like, if you are a responsible adult, you would do these things instead. And I'm like, but that's not fun.
29:07
I'm intrigued to know what kind of challenges you had with DM because I just remembered, I don't
29:13
know if it was like a few months ago with the whole banking collapse and the US and the banks. So for
29:18
those of, I don't remember which podcast. SBB. Yeah, SBB Bank. And we did a podcast on it. And the reason
29:25
it was relevant for you was because they had a lot of savings from venture capital companies.
29:30
And so instantly I was like, oh my gosh, Emma has has a startup. She might be impacted and then
29:36
found out you were. So can you just kind of explain the story and how do you deal with those kind
29:40
of stresses? Because they saw out of your control. Yeah. Yeah. It's on your head essentially. Yeah.
29:47
Yeah. So all of our company money was in SBB. We now have a slightly more diversified
29:54
banking situation. But I was like, no one told me like, we actually had a few investors being like,
29:59
sorry, that's our bad. We should have told you to put it in multiple bank accounts. And I was like,
30:03
oh, banks. And I was like, okay, like learning on the fly here. But like sure. And it was, yeah,
30:11
it was a really stressful weekend. I was actually on a 15 hour flight through the entire collapse.
30:17
So I landed at five in the morning to like 50 text messages. And I was like, oh, shit.
30:24
Did you have any investors that were like, we need our money or we see or anything?
30:29
No, no. Everyone was very like, everyone was very much in like, we're in it together. We'll help
30:33
you out. You have enough a payroll because it basically the weekend it collapsed was in the US,
30:38
you get paid every two weeks. And so it's usually on like the 15th and like the 30th of the month.
30:42
And this happened right before the net, the middle of the month payroll. And so the main question
30:49
for like most venture funds to their portfolios was like, do you have enough money for payroll?
30:54
Can we like float you money? Can we like, can you can you get debt access to debt? Like do you have
31:00
loans? All of the sort of stuff. We were like, honestly, fine because they issued this like
31:05
insurance thing that we were going to get access to on Monday. And so we would have been able to run
31:08
payroll with just with that money. But yeah, it was, I was like, oh, cool. Well,
31:15
another thing on my resume. No, how to deal with bank collapse. It was something that's
31:20
amazing investors. Like really, I don't really want to super onto it. I mean, we have some good funds.
31:27
Yeah. I would love to talk about weddings and being a bridesmaid and being a bride. It's,
31:35
I guess it's kind of experiencing. Yeah, for those. Yeah, I do. Yes, I do. All three of us.
31:43
Very experienced in becoming a bride. It's sort of experienced in being in relationships in
31:48
people. No, but like, you know, you've just turned 30. Happy birthday, firstly. Thank you.
31:54
Party locked you up. It was, it was very fun. But, you know, I think often as women we get to 30
31:59
and we think, if you see K, I don't have a husband, don't have a house, don't have 17 kids,
32:06
don't have, you know, it's like this weird pressure that we have grown up thinking you get to
32:12
30 and you've got your shits ordered. And by shits ordered, I mean, financially,
32:15
relationship-wise, generally, kids on the way. Society accepted. Yes, thank you. I'm wondering
32:23
when you turned 30, did you have, I don't know, a change of a perception when it comes to marriage
32:29
or what financial success means to you or what will kind of your big revelations around,
32:35
yeah, money, relationship, etc. I don't know why. I might just be because my entire brain space
32:43
has taken up with trying to think of DM things. But I don't really care about children or marriage
32:49
or being engaged or any of those things, at least yet. I'm like, very content with, I think,
32:55
all of those things. The biggest revelations I think I had or things that I thought most about
33:01
were more just like I started to understand sounds really lame, but like the concept of time.
33:07
And like, what age means for everyone in your life, not just you. And I think that I've never,
33:14
I'm like, oh, I'm 30 and that means that like, like my dad's 60th is in a month, for example,
33:20
or like my grandparents are like 90. And I think that like my, I think that I realized the value
33:26
of time rather than anything else. I get asked that question as well, you know, being 34 and it's
33:32
like, oh, you know, when are you going to get married or when are you going to be in a relationship
33:35
even, like in a relationship with myself, with myself, self love. Anyway, no, but it's true,
33:43
but I look at my parents and I see them with my niece and nephew and I'm like, I want that. And
33:48
that's more of the thing that I'm worried about is their time, not so much my time because I,
33:54
I've frozen my eggs. I'm kind of, I'm not concerned about that side of things and I'm
33:58
not sure that this is my time to focus on my business and grow my business. But it's, yeah,
34:03
it's other people's time that I'm like, oh gosh, my dad's nearly 80 and he's not going to be
34:07
running around after my kids if I'm waiting another 10 years, you know, so it's kind of, yeah,
34:13
but then it's also other people's time like us, you know, this is our time to, you know,
34:18
hit down bum up and work on our business. So please don't even fool pregnant.
34:23
Gotta be adding sex to that. But yeah, so I totally get that. Yeah, yeah, it's a real thing. Yeah.
34:32
Can we backtrack to your marriage question, which, and bridesmaid and being a bride, which,
34:37
by the way, really need to swallow my words and not presume that people want any of those things.
34:43
Normally, I'm quite aware of that. I don't know why it came out in that way. So firstly,
34:46
apologies. Secondly, how does that then translate when you see all of your friends getting married,
34:51
the amount of money they spend on weddings, the amount of money you're asked to spend when
34:56
you're a bridesmaid, because I did read a piece that you wrote for DM, which I just, like,
35:02
kindly kissed my computer straight up. I was like, she is just saying exactly. I think I
35:08
ordered it immediately to work and was like, we've got to talk to her about this.
35:11
You've done that probably up teen times. Big fan, big fan, big fan. I'm like, yes, I
35:15
subscribe to DM too, Sophie. Can I have the clipping just of that so I can just put that?
35:21
She wants to use it as your new DM bio. My new DM bio?
35:26
The review. I'll put the review on our front page.
35:29
Yes, the question about, I guess the first question around, like, how do I feel when
35:33
other people get married? I don't know. I'm kind of in two minds. One, I love going to the
35:38
weddings that are insanely opulent and fun and it's fun to go to. It's not like you're there.
35:45
You're like, why am I here? It's so boring. I have free food and free alcohol and hang out with
35:51
friends. Sound shit. That's obviously nice, but at the same time, I think that in this Instagram
36:01
era that we exist in, weddings have just become a performance and there's even friends I have who
36:06
are getting married or have got married are like, I need this and this and this and then they talk
36:10
about it and they're like, wait, why did I need those things? Why did I care about $100,000 worth
36:15
of flowers or how much money I don't think any of them spend that? You're just like, we have created
36:20
this performance and competitive culture around the quality of your wedding and what you do for it
36:26
and how you look and how many outfits you have and that's amazing. It's not sustainable from a
36:31
financial perspective as well. I think the interesting thing is even if you look at the ring,
36:36
well, I have big the ringers. It's all full external. I mean, yes, you look at the ring,
36:40
you think it's beautiful. I think the whole idea of even exposing your love so loudly is an
36:50
interesting concept. Even just the idea that you go and you say your vows in front of everybody,
36:54
you know, I find the whole thing and I'm not bashing weddings. I really do sit there and cry
37:00
because I think they're so beautiful that people are so in love that they want to share that
37:04
with the world. But then when you relate that into how much money spent on rings, on outfits,
37:10
what's expected when you're a bridesmaid, the whole thing becomes so elaborate and you wonder
37:15
what's the purpose behind it. As for my personal choice, I'm like, if my parents or my future husband's
37:22
parents or like my own money that I would be investing into a wedding, I want the money for other
37:27
things. Can I have it for life? It's funny. I remember my 21st. My parents were like, we can pay
37:35
for a birthday party for you or we can give you the money to go traveling. And I was like, I want
37:40
a party. And now I'm like, oh gosh, I would have loved to have gone traveling. Like way more memories.
37:45
Like I was drunk. No, anyone was drunk. No one remembers the night. You're a party, although
37:49
and I think, you know, your birthday is really if you become a bit of a thing. So it doesn't surprise
37:53
me. I'm the same. I have like 12 events. But coming back to the wedding thing, I remember I said
37:57
a wedding and it was torrential rain and I went up to the bride who was a friend of mine and I was
38:02
like, oh, I'm so sorry that it's raining on your wedding day. I hope everything's okay.
38:06
Which in hindsight, I'm just like, why would I say that? But she, you're like, I'm having a horrible
38:11
time for you. I was like, oh no, I was just like, oh yeah, so I say that anyway. And she just
38:17
kind of turned to me and said, she's like, are you kidding? It's my wedding day and I'm here with
38:21
this, with the love of my life. And I was just like, oh my gosh, everything's kind of falling to
38:26
pieces around you in terms of what was the expectation of her wedding. And she, it was just a really
38:33
good reminder that she was genuinely there to marry the guy that she loved. And I was just like, wow,
38:38
here I was being like a capitalist. Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, I got this to the guilty. And I was
38:44
like, you know what? That's what we think should be about. Yeah, it was just a really good reminder.
38:47
I've been to a few this year where I'm like, this was just all about you as a couple and like,
38:52
your friends being there to celebrate you. And it was really nice. I still would choose a $100,000
38:56
to go traveling over a wedding in need out of the way. I don't know, like, or like a nice
39:01
thing. Oh my god, I would just, I honestly, if I had $100,000, my life would be significantly
39:08
different. And I would be 100% choosing that over one day. But then I wonder if people who have
39:14
spent that much luck at the amount they spent and think I wouldn't change that. And that was
39:17
worth every dollar. Because I guess if none of us have been married, we can't at least speak from
39:21
experience. I'd probably have the party. Yeah. $100,000 party. Hell yeah. Yeah, it does sound fun.
39:28
Yeah, I mean, I know we wanted to grab bridesmaids as well. But I think that the amount of money
39:33
that is spent on the wedding definitely let trickles down into the expectation of the bridesmaid
39:38
group. I also, I wrote this in the article, but like, I've been, I will have been bridesmaid twice
39:45
by the end of this year. So once was for my sister a couple of years ago, which was really fun. And
39:49
then the seconds won my best friends in December. And I think like for both of those, I've never
39:56
really had the bridesmaid experience where you're like, oh my god, I've just spent like my entire
40:00
life savings. And I have to buy a dress. And I have to buy a $10,000 like or $4,000 rather
40:07
hen's party. Or I have to let do all of this sort of stuff. I haven't had that from a personal
40:11
experience yet. But like, just the amount even when you live in a different country and like all
40:16
of your friends who don't live in the same country who grew up with get married in Europe. And
40:20
you're like, well, I don't really have an excuse other than saying I'd prefer to keep the money
40:26
for myself. It was funny. I read this meme when it was like destination wedding. And it was like
40:30
definition, a passive aggressive way to get rid of your poor friends. Yeah. Where'd you read that
40:35
bit? Was that on the curve Instagram? Like, we posted that. Just this platform that I follow.
40:42
Everyone should follow. It's really great. Emma, in terms of your personal relationship with money
40:47
and how you view it. And I don't know, not from a business sense, but just more of a everyday
40:53
girl. How do you, yeah, I don't know how do you save some shot up Victoria? Okay, it was a bit
40:59
of a lame moment, but just try and keep it on. I burn, you sweep it under the rug. Yeah. How do
41:04
you relate to money personally? My goal is to have as much money as I possibly can. Love.
41:11
I think we talked about this on a call, maybe a couple of months ago, but you were like,
41:15
I saw an interview where you said you wanted to be a tech billionaire. Is that true? I never
41:18
said yes. I just love the openness of it. Basically, what I want is to unlock financial freedom,
41:26
and not just to buy fun things or go on nice trips, which I also would like, and to have a nice
41:31
house or multiple houses. I would like everything, but the main reason I want to unlock financial
41:39
freedom in like as larger scale as I'm able to is because I want to, like a lot of what I want
41:46
to do professionally and like my impact that I might like to have on the world is rooted in
41:51
like being able to like invest in opportunities. Like I would love, like if I had enough money,
41:58
like I would invest money in like women's health research and like invest in charities,
42:02
invest in like NGOs, like a lot of my like motivation is just like I want to be able to like move
42:08
the needle and having money is power and being able to like spend that power in various ways is
42:15
really exciting to me. I feel like there's just a mic drop moment. I was literally thinking
42:18
him ahead. That'll be a great video for Instagram. Conte, conte, conte. Okay, one last question.
42:26
If you woke up tomorrow and there was a million dollars in your bank account,
42:30
what a dream. What would you do with that? What would I do? Okay, well first of all, I'd buy myself
42:34
something nice. I need specifics here. Like what are you purchasing? I'd buy like most of the row.
42:39
I love that. I would both be on the same floor like fighting each other on the level.
42:45
I feel like notes my back. I mean, I would do that, but I would also, I think I'd take people
42:52
I love on a nice holiday somewhere. I'd invest with details. Somewhere like really tropical,
42:59
like it's sort of not borrower, because I feel like that everyone goes there. They have a lot of money.
43:04
Yeah, like somewhere like that and have like a whole situation. It was funny actually when
43:09
you came back on email and you're like, oh, I'll be in Bristol, but you can come here and record.
43:15
And so I was like, oh my god, I always wanted to go to Bristol. I was like, chill babe. It's not
43:18
the Bahamas. It's not been seen. I genuinely am so excited to come to Bristol. Like everyone says
43:24
it's full of interesting creative people. It's like a small version of love. I feel like that's my
43:29
love. Yeah, it was very, it's very cute, but it was just, I think, the caps lock and the
43:32
exclamation marks. But yeah, no, I mean, somewhere nice on holiday, I would be sensible and
43:40
invests and things. Maybe Vicki can help me with that. Nice.
43:45
And then I think I would like to do something nice for people in my life and then I'd like to
43:49
buy myself nice things. Great answer. Emma, thank you so much for your time for welcoming us
43:55
into your home. And yeah, just sharing, I think, definitely the business side of things and how
44:00
funding works and the importance of knowing that there is potential for us as females, non-binary
44:08
folk, to be successful in business and to know that there's money in venture capital. And just,
44:13
I think the idea that we can also step into the business world and have an impact will be
44:20
really inspiring for a lot of people who have thought about wanting to do that at some stage.
44:24
And yeah, do you got anything else? Yeah, no, thank you. That was really interesting chat.
44:30
She always sounds like she's sarcastic at the end when she says stuff like that, but she genuinely
44:33
means it. Yeah, no, I genuinely don't. Thank you for clarifying. I was offended.
44:37
I was like, fuck, Vicki's a bit of a bitch. And I'll probably see you at Christmas.
44:41
Yeah. Can I come? I'm like, come.
44:46
Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve. These conversations are designed to
44:51
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44:56
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