Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Lily Dempster, Founder of One Small Step (part 2)

Transcript

6 quick questions with Lily Dempster, Founder of One Small Step (part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why are you doing this every day?
• 0:18
  I guess I really care about the world. Like I don't want there to be a needless amount of human suffering or, you know, for the planet to sort of burn. I find I'm pretty emotionally connected to the potential impacts of climate change and so it's been a pretty consistent driver of my behaviour for a long time. Yeah, I just really want to feel that I contributed to reducing some of the worst potential impacts of this crisis.
• 0:50
  Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? Look, probably two for different reasons. One was when we got featured by Apple because that was just a really, really nice recognition for like what we'd built and its quality with such a tiny team. Shout out to Remy and Lois, Mark and Tessa, by the way, who've been involved in the business and helped make it what it is.
• 1:14
  Yeah, so that was really nice. That happened super early on and we got a big boost in numbers. But just to have like such a huge company with so many apps out there for them to sort of single us out and say like these guys are good value was really gratifying. And then another marketing moment, which was for a totally different reason, was like I got photographed for Vogue for their like they had this like Vogue codes female future innovators thing and I was one of the finalists and like
• 1:41
  I'd just never been in like a photo shoot before and it was really weird. And I, but I enjoyed it for the novelty. That's amazing. They had me dressed like Hillary Clinton in this like powder blue suit. Like that was like four sizes too big. Like looking at the camera with fan wind. Oh my God. That's just fun for the spectacle of it in hindsight. I love that for you. Congrats. Thanks.
• 2:05
  Question number three is what's your go-to business resource when it comes to like a book or a podcast or a newsletter or something that you're consuming? Yeah, I've said this on a few podcasts, so it's the same answer as before, which is the book Principles by Ray Dalio. So that's just like this gigantic book about how to make better decisions in business. I think it's really good. And that's what I'd recommend.
• 2:30
  Yep, a classic out of tea reading list. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
• 2:41
  Yeah, I would say that one is to be less, have lower expectations in terms of winning the day, like the fact that life's a journey and there's going to be days where I'm really productive and other days where I'm less productive. I'm not a machine. I'm a human being. And so is everybody listening. You're a human being. So you're going to have ups and downs and having some self-compassion around that and some gentleness.
• 3:06
  has actually really helped me to perform better counterintuitively. So, you know, I tended to be a bit of a slave driver in the past with my kind of task list and really pushing myself to do a lot every day. And now if I'm tired, I rest, I take breaks, sort of check in on my energy. That means that I can actually maintain a pretty good pace and my output's solid, but I'm also not stressed and exhausted. So yeah, I would say take the pressure off and be
• 3:36
  That's a bit of a heuristic. I feel like we're all in this race, but it's just with ourselves. And when you catch yourself, you know, getting into the fluster and the craziness of it all, you realize like, hang on, it's just me that I'm trying to like push against myself. And you need to take yourself away from that.
• 3:57
  Yeah, for sure. And also something that helped me with tricking my own mind was like rest is really crucial for productivity, you know, that you need to take time off. You need to have solid leisure time when you're away from thinking about your business. It actually improves the speed at which you can execute. So it's a necessary part of high performance. Love that. Very good. Question number five is what has been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you?
• 4:25
  There's one, but I won't talk about it. I don't want to poo on anyone publicly. Sorry for that phrasing. I think worst money mistake. I think it's just about, like, honestly, hiring or bringing people in to do work that I felt like I couldn't do. But in hindsight, maybe it would have been better if I just kind of struggled along for a bit longer. Like, I think my view on...
• 4:54
  recruitment now, whether you're dealing with contractors or employees, is you want to hire someone at the point where you're like, I literally can't do this piece of work anymore. There's no space or I'm just terrible at it. But I think going through that kind of learning curve, especially when you're
• 5:10
  an entrepreneur, like there are just really big costs associated with having payroll, having headcount. And you also then have a responsibility to your staff, you know, that you're providing them gainful employment. You want to give them job security. And it's a really big outgoing cost of a business, especially a business like mine with so little overheads is the staff costs. So just being really, really thoughtful about hiring staff.
• 5:33
  and only hiring when it's absolutely critically necessary. And then you try and get by as much as you can prior to that without bringing anybody in. Because typically you can find automations, workarounds, you know, you'll have a learning curve where you get faster at things over time. It forces you to ruthlessly prioritize and it keeps your burn rate low. So, you know, don't do the company building, mission building pieces where you're adding headcount unless you can cover all of those costs. And you know that you're going to be able to cover them into the future.
• 6:03
  Absolutely. That's a really good one. And I feel like you can get sucked into this trap of, you know, the glamorous side of having a really big business and lots of people and all happening, but actually it can really be a downfall. And it's so common, you know, companies that are much bigger than mine,
• 6:21
  They have a bit of a boost in revenue. They get excited and they go, okay, we've got to grow the business with staff so that they can grow the business more. And then they end up hiring beyond their means because they think they're going to make it up with an increase in revenue that they haven't validated. Something like the economic conditions shift. Suddenly they have to lay off 20 people.
• 6:41
  So, you know, that's such a common experience with startups. And I think it's easy to make that mistake of going, well, I need these people because it's going to help us grow. And that's like, great, but how can you, how do you, from a defensive standpoint, make sure that their salary is going to be covered and you've actually validated that already? I think that especially in the current economy, that's a more sensible way to go about hiring. Yeah.
• 7:07
  Absolutely. And question number six, last question. What is just a crazy story, good or bad that you've had from this journey in building a business?
• 7:19
  I don't want to complain about the sexism stuff because I've been really lucky and I have a huge number of really fantastic men supporting me. Like most of my investors are men. Most of my mentors have been men. They've all been wonderful. But every now and then I have a conversation with someone that is just like sort of ridiculous, like telling me the most basic stuff, you know, like what a mobile app is and how app retention works. I'm like, you know, I'm the CEO of a mobile app company.
• 7:47
  And so just stuff like that where it really boggles your brain when it's just two people in a room and you're like, I can't believe this person is telling me this. Like they think they're being helpful, but actually it's just that unconscious bias where. So stuff like that, I think, has been infuriating and funny. One of the nicest things about running your own business is that you have more autonomy in who you choose to work with. So, you know, the.
• 8:11
  the Steve mansplainer in the office, you're like, well, I don't have to work with Steve necessarily. You have more choice around that. And shout out to the Steves. Like often it's not deliberate and they probably just need someone to gently take them aside. But, you know, yeah. Classic mansplaining. Hate it. Absolutely hate it. And for me, it's been the exception, not the rule. Most people that I've encountered have not behaved that way.
• 8:36
  But yeah, it definitely sticks out as outrageous when it's that egregious. Absolutely. Lily, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and share your journey with One Small Step. I'm such a cheerleader and I'm excited to see where you go with this. Thank you so much. It was really nice chatting.
• 9:00
  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.
• 9:25
  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.
• 9:47
  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. Thank you.
• 10:03
  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.
• 10:27
  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.
• 10:50
  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. Thank you.