Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The concept of starting at the end: Female founders should speak up when it comes to money goals.

Transcript

The concept of starting at the end: Female founders should speak up when it comes to money goals. · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey everyone and welcome back. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today is a super snappy quick episode with my thoughts on starting at the end and an update on the non-alc brand. Let's get straight into it. This is me for Female Startup Club.
• 0:18
  Oh, hey. Howdy. Welcome back to today's episode with moi. It's a solo episode and I'm going to be doing a little quick spiel on why we should be starting at the end, what we should be thinking about when we set our goals, and a quick recap on the non-alc brand. So, I'm going to be
• 0:41
  I know I've said this before, but I feel like there's this weird thing when it comes to business and entrepreneurship that prevents women from saying that one of their goals is to sell a business for life-changing money. It's like we have this...
• 0:57
  weird taboo thing on the back of our heads that says we shouldn't talk about money and that you should start a business purely that you're truly passionate about and you shouldn't care about the money side of things because it isn't ladylike or you know whatever it is but that is total bullshit and it's so old-fashioned and you know for me
• 1:21
  Yes, I do want to work on projects that bring me fulfillment. I want to do things that bring me contentment and happiness. No doubt. I'm definitely not saying otherwise. And, you know, I am working on things that bring me joy, like Female Startup Club. And I really enjoy the journey because you've lost if you don't enjoy the journey. And I definitely want to work on things that are impactful in the world. But...
• 1:48
  Having said all of that, I also want to build a business that one day can get acquired for life-changing money. And I don't think there should be any shame in that. And I think we should actually shout really loudly about that, like from the rooftops more than ever, now more than ever, because female founders are at this point in history where we should be speaking up about these money goals really loud and clear and saying
• 2:16
  I don't know, going after it. Now's the time. So with this little ramble in mind, today I want to talk about this concept of starting where you finish and figuring out your end goal. So I was listening to this episode of My First Million last week on our drive back from Switzerland, which, by the way, also happens to be a potty in the HubSpot podcast network. You should totally check it out.
• 2:42
  And Sam and Sean were interviewing this guy called Rob Durdick, who, if you don't know who he is, he started his life as a pro skateboarder, like way back in the day. And he went on to do a number of different things. But long story short, he has basically sold a few different businesses. I feel like he said maybe he started and sold 17 or something like that. A bunch of different businesses anyway, that netted him around $400 million.
• 3:10
  And he was saying that his approach to business is to start at the end. So if you want to sell a business for $10 million, what's the roadmap look like? Or what's the blueprint to actually get there? What revenue do you need to hit each year?
• 3:26
  How much do you need to, you know, have in capital in the bank to hit those targets? What's the plan for capital right through to acquisition? Are you meant to focus on profit? Are you meant to focus on growth at all costs? And obviously these answers vary depending on where you're based. Like I know that in the UK, there's more of a focus around building a profitable brand, focusing on your EBITDA. EBITDA?
• 3:51
  You know what I'm saying? I can't say that word. Whereas in the US, they focus a lot more on growth at all costs. And, you know, I was just talking to a friend of mine in M&A who is based in the US and he was saying like, you know, if you want to follow that roadmap in the US, you need to grow at all costs. You need to not focus on profitability. And there's a different blueprint to the blueprint in the UK. So obviously it varies. Yeah.
• 4:16
  But basically understanding what that roadmap looks like for where you are or the market that you're following. And then you can have all these things and you can start to look before you even get started, essentially, to build out your financial roadmap to getting there.
• 4:31
  And I'm not saying that you need to have all the answers figured out of how you're actually going to get that capital or how you're actually going to get that investment. But just having a general idea at least sets you on this path to success towards your goals. And the thing is, is that I speak to so many founders, both on and off the show,
• 4:54
  Some who have built for lifestyle and some who have built to sell. But it feels like to me that a lot of the times I'm talking to these founders, they didn't necessarily start with that specific end goal in mind. It was more something that was in cruise control, figuring it out along the way, you know, going with the flow, totally my vibe.
• 5:16
  But if you set a clear goal of, hey, I want to sell this business for $10 million, for example, and you give yourself that goal, you can then just reverse engineer your plan, your plan to capital, and get started on that journey.
• 5:32
  And of course, maybe along that road, you iterate, maybe your goals actually change, et cetera. But if you still have that North Star of like, hey, here's why I'm doing what I'm doing. But here's also this number that I have in mind. If I'm going to pursue an exit, you can figure it out backwards.
• 5:51
  And another thing is that from the very get-go, you can identify the top two or three potential buyers who would be your ideal buyer. So that again, you align everything towards what that company looks for and create a blueprint for that. And obviously it's easier said than done, but this is the things that I'm starting to piece together and figure out the more that I speak to different founders, the more that I speak to people in M&A, the more that I speak to people in private equity, whatever. Okay.
• 6:19
  So recently I was talking to someone at an investment company that essentially acts as the in-between when a brand needs funding to sell their company to the parent company of this investment company. And she was able to give me a handful of insights that I personally need to keep in mind if I want to sell to that parent company. And I'm not actually sure if I can share that information. So I'm not going to right now. I'm actually going to circle back and see whether that was like...
• 6:47
  a conversation that I can talk more openly about. But my point being is that when you start doing this at scale, you can build up that plan and those milestones and you become more familiar with what you need to do to get to where you want to get to. And also just break it down into those tiny steps, those 1% little movements that move you towards the direction that you're going in.
• 7:11
  So basically the point of this short and sweet episode is just to actually ask yourself and spend some time understanding what your true goals are, what your true end goal is for the business that you're already building or the business that you want to start. Maybe it is a lifestyle business that gives you the freedom to do things at your own pace, take a huge salary
• 7:41
  Or maybe it's to sell a business for $10 million. And I'm definitely in the latter camp. But either way, starting with that question of what your end goal is helps you to identify that plan and gives you clarity on how to tackle it.
• 7:57
  And also, let's do more shouting about our money goals to wrap up. I feel like we don't do enough of that. We totally should. We totally need to. It's really important for women to get out there and speak loudly about the money goals and money in general, especially if we want to get to equality because, damn, men talk about it a lot.
• 8:20
  Now, a quick update on the Non-Alc brand. If you've been following along, you will remember that we've officially chosen our name. And I'm so, so, so excited that it's very, very soon. I'm going to reveal it. I'm not going to wait until we get the trademarks back. I think I'm just going to wait until we have...
• 8:42
  like registered the US trademark, but basically we registered and trademarked the brand in the UK, which by the way, was so easy. I did it myself. It took like a handful of minutes to do both. And it cost me literally nothing. Like I think my trademark was 220 pounds. Um,
• 9:02
  Um, so don't spend money doing this in your home country. It's so easy. If you need help personally, reach out to me. We can do it over the phone together. I'll show you exactly how I did it. I can step you through it, literally hold your hand, whatever you need. But it's so easy. Don't hire someone to do it for you. Someone gave me that advice in Hype Club, our private network, and I took it and I
• 9:25
  I'm just so grateful because it really was so easy. I don't know what it's like to do it internationally, which is kind of where I'm at now trying to figure out whether I need help to trademark in the US or if it's something that, again, I can do it myself. And if you have the answer to that, please DM me. I would love some handholding.
• 9:45
  Uh, besides that, we also have our visual identity in progress, which is super, super, super exciting. It's probably going to take a few months to finalize when I was looking at the timeline. Like I, I hope that something's done before the end of the year or like finalized before the end of the year, but I'm kind of not holding my breath on that. These things take time. We will see.
• 10:08
  And most excitingly, most, most, most excitingly, just today we confirmed that at the end of this month in October, I can't remember what day we are now, but like at the end of this month, October, we're able to finally go and see our supplier slash production to finalize the product and formulation and hopefully place an order. So fingers crossed that all goes well, but holy flip
• 10:35
  I'm excited about that one. I just wanted to give you a few of the quick kind of like step-by-step rundowns of what we've been doing to move ourselves forward. It feels so slow. Anyone else who's going through the formulation R&D phase, man, I feel that pain. It's so much slower than I thought. But, you know, I'm also really confident that we're getting really, really close to finalizing and we've got something really special on our hands. So keep in the loop.
• 11:04
  If you have something in particular that you'd love a deep dive into, please hit me up in the DMs or shoot me over an email so I can help the sisterhood out. I would love some topics that you want to know about that you think I might be able to talk about because as you know, these solo episodes are pretty tricky when things are moving at snail's pace on the non-alpha brand.
• 11:32
  And as always, thank you so much for popping me into your ears. You are the absolute best. You guys are my shining stars. I am so grateful that you choose to listen to me three times a week. If you haven't done this already, then please know that a review goes so, so, so far when it comes to the algorithm gods. And that's how we got to the top 10 in the US last week, which is
• 12:02
  please, if you haven't done this already, take a moment, take five seconds, pop into the app and leave us a cheeky review to help other ears find us. I would love that. Okay, that's all for today. Have the best day and see you next week.
• 12:36
  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.
• 13:00
  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.
• 13:23
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