Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Your Hype Girl is LIVE & my takeaway from Lil Ahenkan (aka Flex Mami)... “Differentiate Yourself, Girl”

Transcript

Your Hype Girl is LIVE & my takeaway from Lil Ahenkan (aka Flex Mami)... “Differentiate Yourself, Girl” · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Oh, hello, it's Dune here, your host and Hype Girl, launching straight into today's episode because I just cannot wait a second longer. I cannot believe it. I actually cannot freaking believe it. Today is the day that my book, Your Hype Girl, officially enters the world.
• 0:23
  I am officially a published author. What the actual heck? That is so freaking crazy. And it's all because of you. Literally because you choose to listen to this show. You're listening into this episode right now. It's literally because of you. These past few days have just been such a total whirlwind, starting with our first launch party last Thursday night.
• 0:51
  together with a handful of you beautiful souls who tune into the show, some incredible founders that I've met in recent times. Well, not even in recent times, just in general times. Some of my oldest and most cherished friends from home in Australia and a lot of new friends as well. I'm so grateful to have met in more recent years. We all got to celebrate together in person and we
• 1:19
  Whoa. Today is one of those days that is a milestone moment, a milestone moment in my life. So thank you so much. I'm so grateful for you. I'm just all over the shop. I'm so excited. I can't keep my thoughts straight. Oh my God. Oh my God.
• 1:37
  Wow. Holy freaking moly. So seeing as this is the first time I'm releasing a book, obviously, and I don't really know how these things usually go down, I have been stalling like you wouldn't believe on the type of content to put out during this week on the show. And,
• 1:57
  And I have been given a few different ideas here and there, all amazing, all great, fine. But I really wanted to mix things up. So I was kind of thinking, why not take you through a few chapters and the key learnings directly from the book and how I've either applied that to my own life or a direct story that I've experienced professionally or personally and kind of like my take on the takeaway, if that makes sense.
• 2:26
  First, I wanted to start with kind of a bit of a recap because we have had a lot of growth recently. And if you're new here, you might not actually know how we've gotten here. You might not have followed along from all the episodes that we've been through. So I want to step you through exactly how we got here because it has been a freaking journey. A journey.
• 2:50
  And I am the queen of iterating, pivoting, changing the goals, changing the directions, doing all the different things. But I'm going to save you all of that and just give you the short version of this story.
• 3:03
  So a few years ago, I was building a direct-to-consumer brand. It was called Kinks. It was a jewelry brand, very sparkly, very cute, very fun. But I was struggling to figure out the next steps or what I was meant to be doing to grow because –
• 3:22
  From the outside, things were great. You know, it was getting impressed. It was getting on influences, like we were having sales. But I couldn't figure out that next phase and that next kind of leap up.
• 3:34
  And around that same time, I was talking to a lot of my girlfriends who were also founders, asking them questions about their strategies when it comes to things like growth and hiring and challenges and all that kind of stuff. And around that same time, again, I was also reading Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, which is such a great book.
• 3:56
  But I found myself wondering where all the women were with that same direct, no bullshit approach to business.
• 4:06
  So I decided to do something about it. I started casually creating episodes of this very show that you're listening to right now. And when I say casually, I like mean really casually, very casual, like one per month kind of casual. But after the pandemic hit and I decided to totally like lean into it, it quickly started to gain traction. Thanks to you, obviously.
• 4:34
  So your hype girl has been this thing that's always been in the back of my mind. I was so inspired by what Tim has built and created for himself that I was thinking like, why not me too? Why couldn't I also do that kind of thing? A book series was always going to be an extension of Female Startup Club and part of the plan. But I didn't know when. It was just one of those things that you put it in the back of your mind. It's tucked in there. Who knows when it's going to come out? You know what I'm talking about.
• 5:05
  You know those tiny little things that you have in the – well, not little. Those big goals that you have tucked away and they're kind of like always for a future time or a future date. You know those ones. So fast forward to last January, 2021.
• 5:19
  I set my, I think it's called, I feel like people say big, hairy, audacious goal. I think that's it. They say you set a big, hairy, audacious goal. Is that it? I don't know. Anyway, I set my big, hairy, audacious goal and it was to publish the first book and essentially figure out the ultimate plan of how to get there.
• 5:41
  And here we are. Here we are. Oh, my freaking God. Your hype girl is literally what it sounds like. It's your hype girl for whenever you need it. It's the stories of 51 mega talented women in the e-com world who are pioneering the future of self-driven, self-made success and creativity.
• 6:04
  This book is designed to be a powerful resource, a great read, something to loan to a girlfriend, and your ultimate blueprint for business. It's the kind of book that you don't need to read cover to cover. You can just pick it up, flip open any page, and get a dose of inspo and good stuff. I want you to pick up a highlighter or a pen. I want you to scribble through it, take notes, add sticky post-it notes to the pages, and come back to them later.
• 6:34
  It's there for whenever you need it over and over again. Every single woman in this book is your hype girl, as am I, and we are all rooting for your success.
• 6:48
  And one more thing, this launch date, this week, this day, it isn't by chance. As we enter Women's History Month and International Women's Day is coming upon us, this is our celebration of all women in business or future women in business. It's for all of us. You, me, all of us. I am opening up the book. I am turning to...
• 7:20
  Chapter 30. It is titled A Lil Magic, and I bet you can guess who it's about. This episode, well, this chapter, I should say, is about Lil Ahenken, who you might also know as Flex Mummy.
• 7:40
  She's one of Australia's favorite women, and she's certainly one of mine too. And I know that it's a big title, but I feel like I'm not alone on this. She's something of a millennial entrepreneurial whirlwind. She's so many cool things at once. Startup entrepreneur, TV presenter, reality TV star, DJ, author, DIY guru, social commentator, media influencer, podcaster. Oh my God. All the things.
• 8:08
  And she's also the CEO and founder of Flex Factory. And Flex Factory houses the super popular conversation card, which is called Reflex. And this represents her passion for promoting conversations around mental health, identity, and intersectionality.
• 8:25
  She is not shy about using her platform to tackle taboo topics. Everything from body positivity and sexual liberation to identity and critical thinking, all in the name of giving her followers the tools that they need to be their best selves.
• 8:44
  And so here's the takeaway, obviously straight from the book as well. Differentiate yourself, girl. Around 2018, Lil was enjoying a super successful career as a DJ and MTV presenter. But she began to look to the future, wanting to transition to a career less reliant on the hype and the trend. She looked towards the fast-growing world of social media influencers and
• 9:10
  And her approach is an inspirational one as she wasn't deterred by not fitting into the typical influencer mold of bikini bodies and inspirational quotes. Instead, with her infectious Lil confidence, as we call it, you'll know if you follow her, she created a space that was truly herself.
• 9:33
  And she says, I don't like to compete where I don't compare. And there was a very specific look for an influencer that I didn't have. And so I was like, I need to make my own land. I need to do something completely different.
• 9:48
  So considering her strengths, she realized that she had always been the type of person that likes to have big conversations, those deep, deep conversations. She enjoyed asking hypothetical questions and was interested in understanding the way that people think.
• 10:04
  So she began really simply posting daily questions and sharing the responses on her Instagram. She was starting a dialogue. She wasn't just a body and entertainment, you know, posting outfit pictures. She was kind of going deeper than that and being a facilitator of something far bigger. She was helping people build their understanding of the world and to think critically.
• 10:29
  So I have a few reflections on how I've applied this takeaway to my life, differentiate yourself, girl, but I'm going to focus on that by way of a story.
• 10:43
  Because why be the same when you can be different, right? And let me tell you, I have always liked to try things a little differently. And I have this story that I love to tell because it's one of those memories I look back on and just lol to myself. And you might have heard me share it before, but alas, I am going to share it anyway because I am. Okay, so when I was very early on, starting out in my career, I was,
• 11:13
  trying to hustle to get internships or jobs or whatever. Something I loved to do was stand out in job applications. So when you think about someone applying for a job, especially cool ones, think about how many resumes and applications managers within the business will get.
• 11:33
  Hundreds, maybe even thousands. Imagine a really cool job at like TikTok. It must just be like totally nuts. Even if it's a small business, it must be totally nuts. And you can imagine that everyone does the exact same thing. They send their resume to XYZ email or they upload it to the same portal as everybody else.
• 11:55
  And for me, I was always thinking, well, if everyone else is doing that, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do something different.
• 12:04
  So one day there was this internship or a job, I can't remember, something that I was super excited about. And to apply, you needed to send your resume and your portfolio to an email called yocheckthisshitoutatlaundrycreative.com. Standard, fine. Now, at the time, I knew that they had this huge glass box style office that was built overlooking a boardwalk along the river. And I knew this because I would run past it every day.
• 12:30
  At the time, I'd been working on this indie magazine that was really cool, kind of doing all the things, copywriting, layout, design, fun stuff. So I thought to myself, okay, well, what if I show them this RIL somehow in real life? RIL.
• 12:49
  So I go home, take apart the magazines. I put them up in this kind of like huge spread in three lines across my mirror, looking like a huge sign. And I painted, yo, check this shit out, www.donosheen.com. I painted it. I put like sequins all around it. So it was really big and bold and like looking super fun.
• 13:12
  And now this next part, I don't actually know if this is illegal or not, but it probably is. But I kind of operate under that like ask for forgiveness, not permission energy. So I can't say that you should do this kind of thing, but you know, whatever. Basically, I text my friend being like, yo, do you want to come and help me deface a building at 3 a.m.?
• 13:34
  And of course, he was totally down to help. So at 3 a.m., we creep down to this big glass office, which is so bizarre, thinking back, and stick up this huge sign on the outside so that when they walk into the office in the morning, they see this like plastered on the wall. Side note, I also left a little note for security asking them not to take it down and then basically went home to crawl back into bed.
• 14:04
  As I hoped, it was a total smash hit. And the point of this takeaway is that when you're doing something, like literally anything, whether it's pitching a buyer,
• 14:16
  sending an email, creating new packaging for your epic products or your approach to content online like Flex, instead of doing what you would normally do, automatically revert to asking yourself, how could I differentiate myself? How could I go against the grain right now in this small moment or this huge moment or whatever moment it is and be totally different to shine extra bright?
• 14:43
  And that's what I'm going to leave you with. If you enjoyed this mini episode, you are going to love your hype girl. This week, we have a celebration offer running until Friday. So make sure you jump onto femalestartupclub.com or search yourhypegirl directly via Amazon to make sure you are part of our first readers. From Friday evening, the price will jump back up to the usual price. So take advantage of it now while you can.
• 15:12
  And if you're feeling really vibey and you want to help the hype and be part of my Hype Girl crew, it's to leave the best review you've ever left in your entire life after you purchase. I hope you have the most magical day. Thank you for tuning in and speak soon.
• 15:50
  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.
• 16:15
  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.
• 16:37
  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.