Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / I just interviewed one of my dream guests, Jo Malone!

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I just interviewed one of my dream guests, Jo Malone! · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

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Let's take this show on the road. Imagine a world where gender equality is the norm and women have equal access to the same financial opportunities regardless of our personal circumstances. Hi, I'm Dune, founder of Female Startup Club and your personal hype girl. This is the pod for you. If you're starting a side hustle,
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scaling your biz or looking for inspo. We cover venture capital, personal finance, selling your biz and keeping your mental health in check from entrepreneurs like Refinery29's co-founder Piera Gelati and Ju Ru, who sold Hero Cosmetics for $650 million. Slide into my DMs if there's a question you want answered and let's get into today's episode.
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Our guest today is a true icon in every sense of the word, not only in the world of fragrance and creativity, but also in business and entrepreneurship. Jo founded and sold Jo Malone London, leaving the brand in 2006. And even though she's no longer associated with the Jo Malone brand or its products,
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She now, 20 years later, has done it all again, creating Jo Loves into another much-loved brand that reflects her passion for innovation and storytelling. Jo, welcome to the show.
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Hello, everybody. Hi, Dean. How are you? All good? Oh, my gosh. I'm so great. I'm so happy to be here with you. It's my first podcast back for the new year. So, you know, I'm very excited. Is it? Mine too. Yeah. Oh, I love that for us. I wanted to tell you a funny story, actually, before we jump into the episode, because I was talking to a friend recently and I was sharing that this is my first podcast back for the year and I was really excited. I was excited to meet you.
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And it randomly reminded me of this story and this really vivid moment that I had, and I'd totally forgotten about it. So I'd love to share it with you. Basically, for context, my husband and I got stranded in London during the pandemic, and we were staying on a friend's couch for like four months as newlyweds, super random. Anyway, during that time, that's when I started Female Startup Club. So I'm kind of coming up to my fifth birthday with the show now. And I was literally recording it on my friend's bedroom floor when I started it.
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No grand plans, had no experience, all the things. Anyway, so it's early 2020. I've started the show. And I remember this moment. I was, at the time, religiously listening to Guy Raz. And I was in the bath listening to your episode. And I had thought to myself, and it was a thought because the whole circumstances of us staying there were really weird. It lodged in my brain that I thought to myself...
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wow, imagine if one day Jo Malone comes on my podcast and I get to that point. Wouldn't that just be so cool? And now here we are. And here we are.
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Yeah. Be careful what you wish for. I mean, this is like a really full circle moment for me. And so I'm just really excited and I'm really equally proud of myself for getting to this point. So thanks for being here. Yeah. Good for you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Well done, you. Well done, me. And thank you. And you are in what part of the world right now?
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So I now live in Dubai. So I'm in Dubai. I call it my beloved Dubai. I literally adore this place and I feel very privileged and very blessed to be living here. Oh, my gosh. Tell me why. Why do you love it so much? What is your favorite thing about Dubai or things?
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I love the creativity. So I'm totally in love with creativity, which I know we're going to talk about later. But it's the opportunity. So creativity and opportunity together, that's what changes the world. And I think it's it's like oxygen here. You know, people are they want to build, they want to create, they want to change the world. They want to make the world a better place. And I think all those things.
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The adventure as well. I think every week, every day I get up, I look outside and I'm overlooking the sea, by the way. So I call it my blue office. When I have a blue office, I can always think very fluidly. And I get up and I think, OK, what's going to happen today? What are we going to do today?
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What is the part of the day that's unknown that's going to change my destiny or someone else's? So it's a great attitude. I feel like I'm having my gap year as an older person. Ha ha.
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Great. Well, gap year it is. Love that. I'm excited to get into it and hear more about your story, especially how you got started with Joe Loves. I think I'd love to kind of rewind to a little bit of that prequel zone. I am very fascinated about the
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the prequel of people's lives and why people are the way that they are and, you know, the lens in which we see the world. So I'd love to start by just asking you how you really describe yourself as a person. And you've already mentioned, you know, you're so creative and you see the world through that creativity. But who are you as a person and why do you think you are that way? Who am I as a person? I think I'm, I think when I was younger, I think I was very insecure. Yeah.
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And actually, that insecurity has stayed with me, but I've learned to bring the best out. Because insecurity doesn't necessarily always mean negativity. Insecurity can often mean vulnerability. And vulnerability can actually be a great asset. Or naivety. Naivety, vulnerability, all of those things. And I think when I was younger, I was terrified about...
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not being accepted or being on my own now, it doesn't bother me at all. So I think I've, and I think a lot of people as they age would say the same thing. You know, you become less worried about people that like you and concentrate more about the people that you do like being with. You know, you build your own world. I'm very creative. I am a loner, which people find very strange about me because I love a party and I love people.
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But I couldn't do that. I don't live a glitzy life at all. I'm a very down to earth. I think my roots, my working class roots are very strong still within me. I'm very happily married. I've been married to the same man for 38 years. He's my business partner. We have a beautiful son. I love being a mum, by the way.
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Being a mum, I didn't think I would. I didn't think I would enjoy motherhood at all. I adored and adore being a mum. And I'm very mother hen. I love to cook. I love to gather. I love nothing more than people around the table. The door knocks and someone says, I'm on my own. It's Friday night. Can I come and have a drink? You come in, you come eat. You know, very, very actually Middle Eastern hospitality.
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I love to cook. I really love it. I think if I didn't do what I do, I'd either be a cook, a hairdresser. I love fashion. I love I love I suppose any creativity, whether it's in food, whether it's in fashion, music. And I adore animals. So we as a family have a conservation project in South Africa in a place called Tula Tula.
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It started out as 12 rescued elephants and it's now today one of the biggest and most amazing successful conservation projects, just two hours outside of Durban. So we have rhino, elephants, we have cheetah now, hyena. It's a proper kind of really great project.
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Wow, that sounds incredible. And it really sounds, you know, from every aspect of your life, you're expressing yourself through food, through fashion, through the way that you host, through your businesses, and now also through your conservation project. That's so fascinating. Earlier, when you were saying, you know, naivety and vulnerability, that's something, naivety, especially comes up
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a lot on the show and kind of people say things like, had I have known, I probably wouldn't have gone on the journey. You know, I was naive and that actually pushed me forward because it's harder than you think. And I wonder from your perspective, if you were, you know, giving advice or sharing to someone who is in that early stage of building a business, listening to the show right now, like, I know that it's always, you know, people say,
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Over time, you figure things out and it gets easier and da-da-da-da-da. And it's easier said than done, though. So I'm wondering, you know, your advice on managing the naivety and the vulnerability and the – what you were saying about how it gets easier as you get older almost.
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What I would say is don't be frightened of mistakes. Okay, so if you are building your business from scratch, from day one, you're going to make mistakes. It's part and parcel. And actually, those mistakes are so valuable to you. So there's a wonderful quote by Nelson Mandela, which I love this. He says, I either win or I learn.
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Either way, I'm a winner. And I love that, you know, because from someone like him to be able to have that attitude. But I think that comes with age. I think that comes with, you know, first time you graze your knees as a child and you scream. Well, does it really hurt that much? I think it's the shock of it. And then you scream, but then you jump up and it's forgotten. Yeah.
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And I think, you know, when you're a young entrepreneur and you're starting out, you have this big vision and dream and you see the end goal where you want to be like really quickly. I think that is so refreshing to keep hold of, keep hold of that youthful child spirit within you, because that is always how I build a business. I always look at the end goal. But the steps along the way, you know, often failure is the doorstep to success.
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Because failure will help you look at something in a completely different fashion. And you'll learn something from it. And then you suddenly think, actually, do you know what? If I did that, that, and that, I can still get to the destination, but in a different way. So embrace that. Don't be frightened of it. Don't be frightened to change your mind. Don't be frightened to change the plot and the plan.
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And just because something doesn't work, life is teaching you and it's making you a retail or an entrepreneurial warrior. That's what it's doing. It's building your muscle. It's building your sustainability, your resilience within you. So don't be frightened of those things. No one's responsibility to make your dream happen but you.
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Don't think it's someone else's job or someone else's responsibility. It's not. It's yours. You want it. You've got to go after it. And so you have to be brave. You have to be strong. And don't be frightened to hear the word no. You'll hear it many times. Every time you hear no, look at that as training yourself for the yes.
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But one of the reasons I did the BBC Maestro course was exactly because of this. And when I was first asked to do, it's like four hours content. And because of my lack of education, that's another thing. Don't be frightened that you haven't gone to university.
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And you haven't got – I didn't go to uni, didn't go to college. I don't have any qualifications, including I can't drive a car. Okay, so I have nothing along – I can't spit a computer on.
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but I can build global brands. So don't be frightened of what you don't have. Concentrate on what you do have in order to change the world. And when I was first asked to do BBC Maestro, I was like, I can't do that. All these people are like, you know, they're really clever. They're really intelligent. And then what I realized over the year and a half that they courted me and they kept coming back and they kept coming back. And it was so, I thought they obviously can see something. I can't.
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And they said, we want your perspective on business because it's so different. And so my course is very different. I will give you ways to run a business that no pie charts, no graphs, no CPAs. It's all very much pictorial. It's very much storytelling. It's very much learning. And I've had so many letters and I've had so many letters.
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Mostly from men. Can you believe that? Who said, I have learned so much from this course, how to run a team, how to choose a team, how to bring a creative product to the market, you know, all kind of like little pieces of work.
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wisdom that I've gathered over, my husband and I have gathered over the time, and we put it all into this course. So it's a very alternative. It's if you're dyslexic, dyspraxic, you think differently, you will love what I've put together, like teenagers. And I had a teacher a couple of weeks ago come to me and said, I'm asking my school whether we can bring this in,
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to the O and A level standards so young people can actually learn from your course on how to. So the whole purpose of it is to build you a toolbox for life to think like an entrepreneur. That's the whole point of it.
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So when you're thinking about those lessons, what's one that comes to mind that you could share kind of a little bit of the learning or something from it to get the gist, you know, whether it is about that kind of team building or whether it is about how you bring a creative product to life? What would we expect to see or like learn in that module?
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Well, it's broken up into little pieces. So you can take a year to do it. I would suggest you try and pack it in in 21 days. And I tell you why, because in 21 days, something forms in our brain and it becomes a habit.
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And what we want is that not everyone is an entrepreneur. I don't mean that. But everybody has the ability to think with an entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone does. We're born as children to take a cardboard box and create the most amazing toy out of nothing through imagination. So everybody has it. And as we get older and we're educated, some of that gets lost. Now, for me, because I'm dyslexic, I rely...
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on that childlike thinking because it's my means of communication with the world. So I've honed that and nurtured it. And that toolbox is full for me. So one of the lessons I think is, which I think is one of the best ones, is when I'm looking for a creative or I'm looking for a member of my team, to be honest, my team will look at the CV and,
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They will look at that. I don't ever look at that. I want to know the spirit of the person. I want to know who they are. So if they're coming into my creative team, one of the tests I set, so they come in and we chat and I find out about them, their family, where they come from, what's their story. And as they're talking, I bring out a tray. And the tray has on it about eight white things. So it could be a white comb that comb your hair. It could be a white tissue box.
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It could be a whisk. It could be a white paper basket. Everything is white. And it's just random white notebook. And I say to them, okay, I say this is a tray of things. I'm going to leave the room for 10 minutes. And I want you to pick one product, all of them. It doesn't matter. And I want you to create a story and sell me something in 10 minutes. And I leave the room.
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And then I come back. And honestly, the first two minutes must be awful in that room thinking, but that's what you've come for a job for. You want to be creative? Show me what you're worth. Show me what. And if they get a little nervous, I say, okay, I'll do it first.
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You choose the product that you want me to sell to you. And then what happens after we did that? Then the conversation becomes really real. And I can tell who that person is. And if they pick a product and it's really predictable, they're not for me. But it will be the one that picks up the whisk and says, I'm not.
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How about, you know, we create a whole brand of skincare product that you get all the ingredients and you take this beautiful whisk and you whisk up your face cream. I mean, it's those moments I'm looking for because I think, yeah, that's how my mind thinks. So it's understanding that, like, yeah, out of the box thinking and just it doesn't need to be delivered perfectly or, you know, hard sell it. It needs to be about the beauty in what you see in that object.
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It's like walking through a gallery. OK, it's like looking at a painting and you look at the painting and you stand there. I mean, this has happened to me so many times with especially Monet, you know, the water lilies, Toulouse-Lautrec. And I look at the painting and I imagine what it's like to be in the room as they're painting that thing.
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or that scene, you know, being in the beautiful garden in the south of France as the Impressionists of painting. And I love the thought, well, I know that a lot of those artists would all paint together. Did you know that? They would all sit. They would all sit together and paint the same scene, but with their own spirit, especially the Impressionists were such a cool gang. I would have loved to have been part of their gang. So that's what I'm talking about, using your imagination and painting
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And honing that and allowing yourself to think. And there's no right or wrong. Creativity is not about being right or being wrong. Creativity is about, it's a currency. So you have a bank account and so do I.
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And that bank account has a creative currency. The only one that can access it is you. This is on the module, by the way, as well. The only one that can access it is you, but it'll only go up in value if you use it. Otherwise, it just stays dormant. But if you invest in that creativity, it starts to affect every single aspect of your life, your relationships. Because, you know, imagine sitting at dinner and you're sitting with your partner that you've been married to for 38 years.
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What are you going to talk about after 38 years? Gary and I never stop talking. Why? Because our days are full of creativity. So there's always a new story. There's always a funny moment. There's always those things that bring us together. And so your life will go up in value. I promise you, 100% it will go up in value.
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Oh my gosh, I love this. I mean, I'm definitely going to be checking out this BBC Maestro course. It sounds phenomenal. I feel like you're speaking my language as someone who last year at 35, I got diagnosed with ADHD and all of a sudden so many things made more sense, so many things that seemingly are simple and so many people are able to understand and get all of these things that I struggle with
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seem to make more sense. And I'm also someone who I need things to make sense for me to be able to like, put it out there kind of thing. And so maybe someone has a very specific way and a format or like rules that apply. But you're like, but why? Why does that matter kind of thing? And we were talking recently, I went through this business accelerator last year at the end of last year called Techstars. And we were talking and someone asked me a question about,
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the business name that I had set up. And I was like, oh yeah, well, you know, people will call their kind of like company, something like, you know, online business, PTYLTD or whatever. And I was like, but that's so boring. It doesn't make any sense. You should call it birthday cake. And that's what, oh, that's right. They were asking me, why did I call it birthday cake? And I was like, well, when I signed my contracts, it should be like really fun to sign the contract. And so that's why I called it birthday cake, PTYLTD, not something
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As I've kind of learned more about my brain and how I operate, I'm like, oh, okay, everything makes more sense. So now I lean more into that kind of thing, which I think is fascinating. So as you're talking, I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds so up my alley.
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I'll tell you another one then. Actually, I have dyslexia very severely. And I also have to straighten everything. Everything has to have order for me. And when I lose control of something or I can't control something, that's when my anxiety... And I have anxiety as well. I...
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I mean, at the moment, it's absolutely fine. It has been for a long time. But that's because I understand it. And once you stop being frightened of something, by the way, anxiety is, you can never control it. But once you stop being frightened of it, it loses its power. And every now and again, I feel her rearing her head actually over the weekend, because I was out of my comfort zone and I was in a farm in Saudi Arabia. But the minute
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The minute I saw the animals, that's my bit where I go back into it. It's all okay. It's all okay. So animals kind of – but when I flick that switch –
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that's when my anxiety will trigger. And then I go into that, I need lists of lists of lists. So my day, I have to have my list. I have to know what I've got to do, when I've got to do it. And I always want to over-deliver. I don't know about you. Having OCD, you must. You always want to do better than your last time, don't you? And I think that's a wonderful attribute, actually, to want to be better in yourself than you were yesterday. That's great. Yeah.
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Yeah. I have a thing about wanting to feel like I've, like, it's such a weird word to put it in this way, but like, I want to be impressive. And then if I don't deliver on the level that I think is impressive, regardless of what anyone else thinks, that doesn't actually matter to me so much. It matters what I think about my output and my performance and things like that. And if I'm then not impressed with it, I get very, very frustrated at myself. And I'm constantly
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Like to me, I'm also a very visual person. So I need to click the pieces together and I need to have it visualized in diagrams and lists and things like that to be able to then click it together. And until it clicks together, which sometimes can take a really long time for something so simple, it will drive me insane. And it's a whole thing. But anyway, I digress. Have you ever watched the movie Queen's Gambit? It's actually a Netflix series. You would love it.
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Oh, I have. Yes, and I do love it. It's been a while, though. I should rewatch that. I loved it at the time. When she looks up at the ceiling, because she's a chess player, isn't she? She's a genius. And actually, business is like chess, by the way, completely. You're moving pieces around the ball the whole time. You need to protect the queen. You need to do that. You need to move all your pieces in order to get to where you need to.
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And I love the way she looks up on the ceiling. And I remember the first time I watched it and I thought, I do that. That is exactly how I think about business. I look up and I'm moving all these pieces around in my head.
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And, you know, sometimes when you see something like that and you think, that is why I do what I do. And when you see other creative people and how it doesn't, because we, I mean, some people say I am on the spectrum. I love living on the spectrum because I'm different, because I'm not going to follow the crowd. You know, I don't walk to someone else's beat of the drum. I create my own drum and my own beat.
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And I think, you know, when I look at children as well, don't knock that out of them in the educational system. If you can see a child that is, you know, walking to it, just ask the question, why? Why are they doing that?
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What is that? Because that one person could be the one that is the next Steve Jobs, is the next David Attenborough. They could be the person that changes the world. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely.
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I want to kind of merge our conversation more into this lens of creativity, specifically creativity and your vision. But I'd love to start with a little bit of backstory to you launching Joe Loves, that kind of light bulb moment. What was it for you and how did you start bringing this to, well, into the world?
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Well, I'd left five years previously. And for your viewers that don't know, once I'd sold Jo Malone London, the cream and black box, as I put it, I sold it to Estee Lauder, the Estee Lauder Corporation. And I thought I was going to stay forever. And three years into it, I was diagnosed with a very, very aggressive form of breast cancer. And I was given nine months to live.
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And so I went through, in fact, I was one of the first women in the world to go through a new protocol, which was a new form of chemotherapy. And in fact, in the last week, my doctor that saved my life, a man called Dr. Larry Norton, was here in Dubai. We had dinner and he told me the true story. So I've been clear now for nearly 20 years.
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And he said at the time, he never told me this. He told me this just a week ago. And it really moved me. And he said at the time when you were diagnosed, you had a very aggressive form. And normal chemotherapy probably would not have worked. It might have done, but we didn't know. And he had this idea and this theory. And he chose 30 women to test this protocol on. We all knew that it was a new protocol, but we had no idea how new it was.
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And today, all of those 30 women that use that protocol are still alive. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible?
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I just got chills. Oh, my God, that's incredible. That is incredible. But what is more incredible is the reason women really survive most of the time now with breast cancer. Not everyone, but very soon it will be everyone. But it's because of wonderful people like Dr. Larry Norton and his teams and all the scientists around the world.
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If I'm, you know, if I'm if I've got no chance, I might as well try. But I was very sick and I lost my sense of smell through chemo, which came back. So one of the reasons I left is because I lost my sense of smell and I lost my sense of identity.
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In those five years where I was prevented from entering the industry, rightly so, it's called a lockout. And I was so sad. I was so empty because a month after I left, my sense of smell came back. So there I was. I was like a prowling tiger. I could smell. I could think.
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But I had nowhere to go. I had no avenue to pour my creativity in. And what I learned about myself in that time was fragrance is not a job or a business to me. It's my best friend. I talk to it every day. My fragrances have personalities. I know what they're capable of. I know what they're not capable of. I know when they're happy. I know when they're sad. I know when they're...
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Grumpy. I mean, they have characteristics like people. And for five years, I wasn't able to create at all. And so why was Joe Loves born? Because I missed my best friend more than anything in the world. And I'm...
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And I love building business. Do you know what? I love making money, but I'm not in love with money, if that makes any sense. Because all money does is give you choice. And it can give you choice and it can give other people choice. It can fulfill your dreams and other people's dreams. So...
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I'm not in love with money, but I love making it. I love the chase of, can I put a deal together? Have I got the ideas? Can I put the pieces together? Can I get it to market? Can I get the consumer to be interested in all of those things? So again, it's all of those pieces of the puzzle that, and that entrepreneurial thinking, that dyslexic thinking helps me to think differently. So I don't follow that business path.
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I'm way over there on the sand dunes with no team thinking, how do I do it? With the baby camel. With the baby camel. Yeah. How do I get this to the next step? So Joe Loves was born around a kitchen table eating spaghetti with my son, my husband. And my husband said to me, what are we going to call ourselves? Because actually you can call me anything you want.
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I today, and I've learned this just recently, by the way, I am not allowed to call myself my own name while holding a bottle of fragrance. I'm not allowed to use my name. How weird is that? That's bizarre. How did you find that out? Did you hold a bottle at the same time? Yeah, and I was wrapped over the knuckles for using your name that I was born with.
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So, and again, if I didn't love what I did, I'd go, don't worry, I'm going to put that down there, there, and I'm going to back off. What did I do? I had to re-look at myself. I mean, this is kind of really recently as well. So I had to re-look at who I was. I'm still Jo. Jo.
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And I am still that person. And that person still holds this amazing creativity. So Joe Loves is a love letter to my best friend, really. And I am not going to spend the rest of my life sitting on a beach, although I do sit on a beach a lot of the time. But I've always got my papers in my hand, my notebook, trying to create something, trying to, for myself or for other people,
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Where do you think your love of smell and scent originally came from? I think my dyslexia, when life takes away with one hand, it often gives back with another. I think I developed my sense of smell because it was like my map for life. It was my communication. And I can remember as a child we had –
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We grew up and I grew up on a council estate. So like the projects, the government fund and help fund. So it was a very strong community. But everyone had, although they had no money and sometimes nothing to feed their families with, they all had wonderful gardens.
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They would nurture their gardens. We would grow tomatoes. Yeah, exactly. And we had a garden with roses in and the smell of the apricot rose. But I noticed that I could smell if it was going to rain. I could smell if the dog was sick. I could smell when my mum was making face creams. I could smell if the almond oil wasn't quite right. It had got too hot. So I couldn't follow a formulation reading.
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but I could use my nose and I would sit with these big enamel buckets on the stove and we'd be melting waxes and oils. I'd say, okay, mum, you can add the... And she said, no, test it with the temperature. And I went, no, I can smell it. It's right. And so I got... My nose became my compass for life. And I noticed that...
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And I'm still very much like it. Like if I, I could tell if someone was angry and I didn't want to stand next to them. It was a smell I could smell. I loved the smell of my father's canvases when he was a painter.
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And I could tell the different smells of the colors of the paints when I was mixing them as well. It was, and so I thought everybody could smell like that. And it wasn't until I was older that I realized I had something very unique. Everybody has a jewel, by the way, everybody. You've just got to find it. And the only way you'll find it is if you dig, dig, dig.
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but not to yourself. And that is part of life, is discovering those wonderful jewels about yourself and your children and encouraging them, you know, to find and dig deep. And fragrance and creating fragrance is, I'm probably one of the best in the world at what I do. And I know that. And it's not being big headed because I can't drive, I can't swim, can't do lots of other things, but I can do that.
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I can't drive either, by the way. Well, I've got my driving licence, but I hit parked cars and things, so there's no point. There's no point. And I'm blind in one eye, so I would put myself and others at risk, so it's not worth it. So all of those things, yeah. Makes your superpowers and your jewels very special and,
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I'm wondering for you when you were kind of having the pasta around the dinner table with Gary is your husband's name, right? With Gary and your son. And you were thinking about Joe Loves. And what was that feeling of this kind of new creative project? Because it was a new, totally different brand, a different vibe, all these different things. So it's kind of like a...
34:45
A moment to, again, you've got the canvas that's blank and you can do whatever you want. How was that feeling for you? And what was that approach to creativity when you were starting this new business?
34:57
I think I was scared. I was scared that night, but excited. And I knew I was too young to sit there and regret. And I was too old to start something completely like in a different genre. I knew I had to. I felt my life was unfinished when I left and I.
35:21
I've always felt in my life I was meant for something really big in this world. And still to this day, I haven't achieved it, which is one of the reasons I came to Dubai, to find out what it is. And I still don't know what it is, but I'm getting closer to whatever it is. I know I'm pretty close.
35:40
So, you know, sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And so I was scared and I was nervous, obviously. I could fail in a second. And unlike when everybody else starts their business, you're often under the radar, aren't you? And, you know, you come out and then suddenly the curtains go back. I was on that stage in my underwear. It was like, can you really do this again? And...
36:09
And who are you? Because you can't. I didn't want to follow in my footsteps. I wanted I wanted to be the person that I was because my sense of smell came back very differently after chemo. And I actually asked Larry about that. And he said the neural pathways would have opened up. And because you were fighting for your life, your primeval part of your brain would have been very active.
36:32
Because when we're fighting for our life, the animal instinct comes very powerfully into us. So that could be one of the reasons why.
36:43
And my son was sitting there who was seven at the time. He's now 23. But he was sitting there and he came up with a name. And he was sitting there and he looked like little Harry Potter, had little glasses on. I remember it as though it was yesterday. And Gary said, well, what are you going to call yourself? You can't call yourself your name, obviously. At that point, I still thought I could use my name, but not in a business, obviously.
37:07
And then this little voice goes, call yourself Jo Loves Mum because you love fragrance and fragrance loves you. And it was like out of the mouths of an angel. Oh, and again, that child, you know, childlike view on the world. It's just the simplicity of it. It just makes sense.
37:25
And he just said it. And so we had to register that name around the world before we made one bottle of fragrance. Everything was – it was like taking a telescope and flipping it around and looking at business from one completely different perspective. And everything I did, I had to question myself. Wow.
37:47
Was I, would people be confused? And at one point, it was like watching eight people play ping pong on one table. It was going backwards and forwards questioning, can I hit that one back? What about that one? And that one. So I had to really be sure to myself. And it wasn't about a business. It was about this business.
38:12
love affair I have with creativity. And once I started to create again, and it started to come back, which took a little time, because I hadn't created for five years. So Pomelo was the first, was our, like our matriarch elephant. Like in our elephant sanctuary, we have Nana. Pomelo is our matriarch. And well, I'm the matriarch, but she's the one that brought me back to life. And from there, from that beach in the Turks and Caicos, I'm the one that
38:38
just walking down the beach with the baby stingray flipping and swimming beside me. The creativity came back and then it came back like, ah. So this is the matriarch. She's born on a beach. She's boho, doesn't really care. She doesn't want to get dressed up. She wears her flip flops the whole time. And she loves, but look at this one. So this is about to launch next year. No, this year we're in 2025. And this,
39:08
So this is pomelo in Dubai, so the Golden Rivers of Oud. And this is a pretty spectacular fragrance. So, yeah, that's our matriarch. So how does something like that come to you? Like you had pomelo from the matriarch elephant in the past.
39:27
that you have in your, in your mind, but then how does it actually kind of come together for you from that storytelling and brand perspective? Like, is it you just sitting dreaming and it comes to you and then you're putting it together or is there a certain framework that you follow? I wish. I wish. And I don't mean like, you know, a Google doc workflow template or something like that. I mean, like, what is your framework for creativity and storytelling? Yeah.
39:55
So I don't believe anyone owns creativity either. You wait for it to whisper in your ear. So I can't control it. I can't demand it. But when it whispers in my ear, I listen. And I think my framework is I'm a storyteller, really. I'm a gatekeeper to scent memories. That's how I look at my job.
40:15
or my life is I'm sitting at that gate and I'm saying to people, this is the story of, and let me, what is your gate? I'm the gatekeeper. Tell me your memory and I will find your gate for you. I will open those doors. And in COVID, my job was so important because I was the gatekeeper to send memories. So within your home, I was able to bring the memories of travel, the memories of your family.
40:43
I was so important during that time. And I look back at COVID and I had a real purpose and I learned a lot about life and myself. But like Pomelo with Oud, so every evening I sit, I can see the sea on the beach right where I'm sitting just here.
41:02
And I go and sit and I watch the sunset and I thank God for the day. And I thank life for the day. I mean, like today it's full of adventure, starting with you and I will go. But tonight I will put my shorts on flip-flops and I'll go and have a glass of wine, probably on the beach. And I watch the sunset and it's a sense of gratefulness and a sense of real contentment.
41:28
absolute contentment in myself. And so pomelo with oud is me sitting on the beach and it's the smells of the sand, the smell of the cologne as a sheikh will walk by and the smell of a wonderful woman in an abaya. And the smell here is, it's not about fragrance, it's culture, it's history, it's identity. Yeah.
41:56
And so I wanted to create pomelo on the beach here in Dubai. And so pomelo with oud is endless possibilities, endless opportunities. I love oud. Oh, I love oud. I love oud. And I've watched it being made as well and harvested. And it is such...
42:16
an artistry. I mean, it's actually not a wood. It's the bacteria that grows on the tree. And you have to, it's actually, oud is not a wood. It grows in wood, but it's not a wood. It's the little pieces in between the wood. They're like tiny little splinters sometimes. And you have to carve them out very patiently by hand. Wow, goodness.
42:41
If you were to give, you know, some advice or some lessons to your 20-year-old self, now that you've been on the journey of life, of business times two, you know, all these types of things. And for our, you know, the women who are listening to the show now, who might be earlier on in that journey, what's the advice you would give your younger self, the 20-year-old Jo? Jo?
43:05
Don't be in such a hurry to get to the next stage. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy. I know, but we do. We do because we're like, yeah, achieved. And what are we doing tomorrow? And just enjoy the moment sometimes. You know what? If you've achieved something with your team, take them all out for, I don't know, a glass of wine and, you know, bread and cheese. It doesn't matter. Take that moment and just say to yourself, I did it.
43:32
I did it. Well done me. And there's nothing wrong in that. And, you know, sometimes a lot of the time in my life, you never say well done. You never take that moment to realize, actually, look where we look where we are. Just stand still for a moment to to recognize that build your team with strength.
43:53
But always employ people that are better than you. Don't be insecure. Don't be frightened about people being able to do a better job than you. And I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't done that. Know your gifts. So for me, both in Jo Malone London and Jo Loves, Gary is my business partner, my husband, best friend. But he has his side. So he's down in the library at the moment.
44:20
And he's doing all of the contracts and everything. He is so good at that. I never interfere. And he doesn't interfere in what I do. And actually, in marriage, we've argued many times. In business, I could say on one hand, the really serious discussions we've had. No more than on one hand, which is, I don't know, which is amazing. Very impressive. Yeah.
44:48
But I think it's, you know, it's that kind of respect. Don't be in too much hurry to sell equity in your company. Again, all of these things in the BBC Maestro course, I go into this, because equity is, you hold on to that as long as you can, because that is your golden ticket. And I hear so often someone says, oh, you know, I need to raise £10,000. I'm going to sell 20% of my company. It's like,
45:14
No, no. Can you do it without that £10,000? Probably. Can you get a bank loan? Do other things, but hold on to the equity of your company. And one of the lessons that we have is called the pizza boardroom. This is a really good one. You're going to love this one. So not everyone can afford a team.
45:36
And today, because of these wonderful tools like AI, you don't need a lot of members in your team. You can put your business idea together and get it to stage one and stage two with very little people. But you sometimes need that human interaction, don't you? So here's an idea.
45:56
Pizza boardroom is about creating your own boardroom for an evening. All it will cost everybody is, or you, is pizza, glass of wine. And you choose 10, 12 people or eight people who you admire. And you, you know, you choose the mum at the gate that you know is a great artist.
46:14
You choose your best friend who you know is so good at writing. So all these different characters. You put together 20 questions. Everyone knows why they're coming. They're coming for a slice of pizza and to be your board for one evening. And you look at your business and you hear all of these different perspectives. And it's called the pizza boardroom. My God, I love that.
46:38
It'll cost you probably under $20 and you will get such wisdom and understanding and who knows, you may even find a member of your team sitting at the pizza boardroom. What's like a gem or a jewel that has come out of a pizza boardroom meeting for you, something unexpected or something that you were like, holy shit, I can't believe I've never seen that before? I think it's...
47:04
A long, long time ago where we launched a skincare line within Jo Malone London. And someone said to me, you're launching six products at a time. It's not a good idea. No, no, no. But it's a whole set. It wasn't a good idea. You have the ability to do two, two and two. So you get three bites of a cherry. Whereas this way, you've only got one, i.e. from a marketing and PR. You've got six stories to tell and you're telling one story.
47:33
They were right. I was wrong and I didn't listen. So it's all of those things. And actually, sometimes in the pizza boardroom, bring the teenager in, bring that, bring the friend of your son and your daughter, because I'm telling you, they will come up with ideas that you can't possibly even think of. Why? Why?
47:53
Because Gen Z, Gen Alpha are probably two of the most exciting generations that we have ever seen. Include them in your boardroom. Actually, not just in pizza boardroom. Bring them into your meetings. Bring them into your boardrooms. Because you know what? Their voices are so pure. And they'll tell you things that are uncomfortable. But far better you hear that in your boardroom or in your meetings than the world tells you.
48:23
Oh my gosh. Yes. This was just the perfect ending to this conversation. The pizza boardroom is definitely going on my list of, you know, things to do now ongoing. That sounds so cool and such a fun kind of great way to bring people together that you respect their opinion and their vibe and their lens to have some fun and get some jewels together.
48:52
Yeah, absolutely. We actually put some questions together. So if any of your listeners want the list of questions, we can send them over to you. We definitely want the list of questions. I'm going to link those for sure. I'll follow up with your team. Gosh, that's amazing. Thank you. You're welcome. Jo, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Female Startup Club podcast, and I'm going to be cheering for you from here, from Australia.
49:20
Oh, thank you so much. What a lovely, honestly, lovely way to start the week on a Monday and you're part of my adventure and I will thank you on the beach tonight and raise a glass to you. Well, if you're ever coming to Sydney or coming to Australia, let me know. I would love to show you around and show you some of my favourite spots on the beach. Yes, please.
50:03
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.
50:28
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50:50
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