Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Live Podcast: We Asked 4 Highly Successful Women in CPG About Ambition, Growth & Personal Wealth

Transcript

Live Podcast: We Asked 4 Highly Successful Women in CPG About Ambition, Growth & Personal Wealth · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Oh my God, how cool.
• 0:03
  How cool are birthdays?
• 0:05
  I love this for me and for you guys, but also just for me.
• 0:11
  Okay.
• 0:12
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 0:14
  Oh my God, I feel like...
• 0:17
  It is so nice to be able to celebrate with such an amazing, incredible, iconic, talented group of women, both from the speakers to the people making it possible and to everyone in this room.
• 0:29
  I'm just so happy to be here.
• 0:31
  It is our seventh birthday for Female Startup Club.
• 0:38
  But it's actually the very first time that we've had a birthday party.
• 0:41
  So I'm like, oh my God, hi.
• 0:42
  Hi.
• 0:44
  you will sing me happy birthday.
• 0:46
  No, I'm kidding.
• 0:47
  But it is a real pleasure to be here.
• 0:49
  And it's also just so important.
• 0:52
  Someone was saying this to me earlier.
• 0:54
  It's really important to celebrate the milestones and kind of what you're going through instead of kind of just ticking off the next thing and the next thing.
• 1:02
  And whoever said that really resonated with me.
• 1:05
  And I was like, yes, we need to celebrate those things.
• 1:08
  And
• 1:10
  I'm excited to celebrate where Female Startup Club started from.
• 1:13
  You know, we started the podcast in 2019, seven years ago.
• 1:17
  And at the time, I was a bit lost trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
• 1:24
  Very nervous, very shy, very introverted, still am.
• 1:29
  And I started the podcast like with this allergic reaction to public speaking and the idea of starting the podcast.
• 1:38
  And here we are now doing this kind of thing, which still kind of makes me nervous, but I'm like, wow, look where we've come.
• 1:44
  This is crazy.
• 1:45
  Yeah.
• 1:45
  So thank you for being here and being part of our birthday.
• 1:51
  Female Startup Club started as a podcast for female founders and women in e-commerce.
• 1:57
  And so this is a little bit of a joy to celebrate women in e-commerce.
• 2:03
  Okay, so the podcast, it's quite literally changed my life.
• 2:06
  It has introduced me to so many people who are here tonight in the room.
• 2:10
  I met Sarah through TikTok back in maybe early 2020.
• 2:16
  And I've met Bronte through Techstars because of the podcast.
• 2:21
  I'm meeting Katerina tonight because of the podcast.
• 2:24
  And Anna, I've met years ago through the VC world.
• 2:28
  And it's just so crazy when these things like bring amazing people together.
• 2:32
  So I want you all to do a little bit of an introduction and tell us who you are, what you're up to and some like good dot points.
• 2:41
  You know, the ones that you know that I want you to say.
• 2:44
  Not the like low-key ones, like the baller ones.
• 2:47
  All right.
• 2:48
  So I'm Anna.
• 2:50
  I'm the founder and CEO of Laika.
• 2:52
  We do freshly cooked dog food.
• 2:54
  And we've also just launched a cat food brand called Tiger.
• 2:59
  So hopefully you guys see that around very soon.
• 3:01
  Yeah.
• 3:03
  Okay, all the dog points.
• 3:05
  We are doing over 200 million revenue and we serve over 100,000 dogs in Australia, which is... That's a good one.
• 3:17
  First dog was my own Laika who just turned 17.
• 3:19
  So it's, yeah, very much reflection time for me as well to get to this scale.
• 3:24
  Super excited to be here to celebrate Female Founding Club's seventh birthday.
• 3:29
  Sweeties role model, like her.
• 3:31
  I'm like 17, 21, 31.
• 3:38
  Hi, I'm Katarina or Kata.
• 3:42
  I own Wine Not The Brand and we do wine pouches, which is the most revolutionary thing to happen to wine ever because I am putting wine in essentially yoga pouches, single serve.
• 3:53
  Yeah.
• 3:54
  So our mission is to essentially take over the world with a new packaging format, which has been very, very interesting.
• 4:02
  We appeared on Shark Tank.
• 4:03
  We got a deal.
• 4:05
  And prior to that, I was a global top 1% salesperson in a network marketing industry.
• 4:11
  So I had a team of about 300 people who were turning over about 1.3 million in sales a month and decided to leave all that and start again.
• 4:19
  So this is business take two.
• 4:23
  Yay.
• 4:23
  Yay.
• 4:26
  Hello, everyone.
• 4:27
  I am Bronte Campbell.
• 4:28
  I have a very different background from most people in the room.
• 4:34
  I used to joke that I wore more clothes to bed than I did during my job because I was an Olympic swimmer for many, many years.
• 4:42
  I've been to four Olympic Games and won three Olympic gold medals.
• 4:46
  But now I've switched into e-com.
• 4:49
  And I run a sustainable activewear company called Earthletica, building clothes that are better for the planet, but more importantly, better for the people wearing it
• 4:58
  chemical-free, low-tox, all that stuff you've seen in the news recently, getting all that nasty stuff out of your clothing.
• 5:04
  So women can sweat in peace because, my God, we're all badass and everyone's sweating and working hard, and that shouldn't be the thing that's poisoning you.
• 5:13
  So Athletica was how I met Dune, and we've been in market for about two years.
• 5:19
  So we're very little.
• 5:21
  We're not doing 200 million a year.
• 5:22
  Yes.
• 5:24
  Yes.
• 5:25
  We're very, that's a 14 year journey.
• 5:28
  We're on a two year journey and learning lots along the way.
• 5:32
  I just did my investor update today.
• 5:34
  So I've got some figures top of mind for me from this time last year for this three months.
• 5:40
  We're up 300%.
• 5:41
  So we're learning fast and that's exciting.
• 5:46
  Hello, I'm Sarah.
• 5:47
  I'm the co-founder of Contour Cube, which is the world's first ice facial tool.
• 5:52
  And we really kind of recreated a new category of skincare called chilled skincare.
• 5:58
  And I actually met Dune, as she said, on TikTok.
• 6:00
  And she is actually my biggest hype girl because one of the TikToks that went really viral, she immediately was like, let's jump on a TikTok live.
• 6:07
  And I was like, oh, my God, I've never done a TikTok live before.
• 6:10
  And I was like super stressed.
• 6:11
  But that was like so supportive from like day one.
• 6:15
  But yeah, that virality really took us to...
• 6:18
  really like crazy places.
• 6:20
  So we've had like over a billion views across our social channels, which is really, really wild.
• 6:26
  We ended up on Shark Tank as well.
• 6:29
  And I think just being able to go on Shark Tank and use that content to our advantage was like another massive thing for us.
• 6:37
  And yeah, we've just been selling globally since we started.
• 6:40
  We landed in the hands of Kendall Jenner, which I keep talking about.
• 6:43
  And it's like, shut up.
• 6:44
  That happened once.
• 6:45
  And it's like, no, wait, it happened once.
• 6:48
  But then we were in the Kardashian Jenner gift guide the year after.
• 6:50
  So it was like twice.
• 6:51
  Okay.
• 6:54
  So yeah, that's me.
• 6:55
  Did you mention the billion views and grocery content?
• 6:57
  I did.
• 6:58
  Yeah.
• 6:58
  Okay, great.
• 6:59
  I was like, that's a lot.
• 7:00
  We need to say that.
• 7:02
  Okay.
• 7:02
  So tonight we are going to be having a candid discussion around ambition and money and what it actually takes to build a bigger business.
• 7:11
  Okay.
• 7:12
  And I think the bigger question underneath all of that is how do we as ambitious founders, as ambitious women build bigger, more valuable businesses, but without losing sight of the life that we're trying to create and what our overarching goals are, what our North Star is.
• 7:31
  And I think it's a particularly interesting question for this room because we're not talking about, you know, ambition in the abstract.
• 7:38
  We're talking about women who are actually building, navigating growth, customers, money, risk, and the decisions that come with scaling these types of businesses.
• 7:49
  So I'm excited to get into it.
• 7:51
  But before we do...
• 7:53
  I first want to say a big thank you to the people who have made this night very possible.
• 7:58
  Omni Send, would you like to stand up?
• 8:01
  These two beautiful women wanted to be part of Female Startup Club's seventh birthday.
• 8:09
  They have flown all the way from Lithuania.
• 8:12
  So if you haven't met them, they came just for this.
• 8:15
  They're going to be
• 8:17
  In town for the week, they need lots of nice hosts and lots of women in e-commerce to chat to.
• 8:22
  So please introduce yourselves afterwards.
• 8:25
  And thank you so much.
• 8:26
  I've worked with OmniSend multiple times now, and they are just a treat to work with.
• 8:32
  So thank you so much.
• 8:34
  And of course, a big thank you to The Pillars, who is hosting us tonight.
• 8:38
  This is a beautiful co-working space, as you can see, beautiful event space.
• 8:43
  And they are
• 8:46
  the best.
• 8:46
  So talk to them afterwards.
• 8:49
  Okay, let's start with ambition.
• 8:51
  I want to kind of start there because we often talk about it as if it's just about wanting more, but actually everyone's more has a different meaning.
• 9:01
  So I think it's about understanding like what does more mean for you, especially when you've already achieved a lot.
• 9:09
  And so Bronte, we're going to start with you.
• 9:12
  You've already achieved things that
• 9:15
  Most people would consider the absolute pinnacle of their career.
• 9:19
  You've been to four Olympic games.
• 9:21
  She has competed on her period.
• 9:23
  She told me on the podcast, I'm allowed to say that.
• 9:26
  She's an absolute badass.
• 9:28
  You're now building something completely different.
• 9:31
  How has your definition of success changed since you've started Athletica?
• 9:38
  I love that you say completed on your period like I chose that.
• 9:41
  The date is set.
• 9:43
  I can't change it.
• 9:45
  Yes, it actually hasn't changed.
• 9:47
  I really love this question because the exact same personal goal that I have was the same goal that took me.
• 9:56
  I worked at EY doing business consulting.
• 10:00
  It's the same goal that took me from that to then going back into the pool.
• 10:04
  I had a slight break after 2021 Olympics.
• 10:08
  broke for 80 months, then came back and trained for Paris, went to Paris, came back and then full-time into Athletica.
• 10:16
  I was building Athletica sort of on the sides while I was training for Paris and then full-time back into it.
• 10:21
  And, um, it's the same goal.
• 10:23
  It's to relentlessly pursue the things I'm passionate about.
• 10:26
  And the same, like a North, we talk about a North star, like that's a North star for me, which is like,
• 10:32
  I got to relentlessly pursue the things that I'm passionate about.
• 10:35
  And that took me to my fourth Olympic Games.
• 10:38
  But it equally took me to building a company that I really believe that the world needs.
• 10:42
  And so I only came, I really only came to that, that clarity around what my personal mission should be.
• 10:49
  I only really came to that.
• 10:51
  like maybe in like 2019.
• 10:53
  So after many years before that, I was like, oh, my goal is to like do this specific time or like do this specific race, which is not, it's not always possible to hit those very fine metrics.
• 11:06
  So for me to have like a broader goal, that's sort of like, okay, this is like a guiding thing of, as I step outside of sport, what else can I actually do?
• 11:13
  And
• 11:16
  very sweet to say it's, it's a pinnacle of career to go to Olympics.
• 11:20
  Like the worst thing I can possibly imagine in my life is that I look back at the Olympic games and I say like, that was the best time in my life because I was 20 when I would, no, I was 18 when I went to my first Olympic games.
• 11:33
  Like to me, that's like looking at high school and being like, that's the best time in my life.
• 11:36
  Like I want my life to be bigger and better and like more exciting as I go through it, not less.
• 11:41
  So in some ways it's,
• 11:43
  There's some things that I'll never get from anything else that I got in the pool.
• 11:47
  And I know that.
• 11:48
  But the relentless pursuit, like it's the pursuit.
• 11:52
  I found that in swimming, it was like the pursuit of progress and the pursuit of doing something difficult and the pursuit of something that I believed in.
• 11:59
  Like that was the bit that I really loved.
• 12:01
  And if I could fall in love with that bit, then the result didn't matter as much.
• 12:05
  And the result is not assured.
• 12:08
  It's really, really not.
• 12:09
  And it's defined by 0.01 of a second.
• 12:12
  Like I literally, I came fourth in 2016 in the 100 freestyle by 0.05 of a second.
• 12:18
  When you blink, that's 0.1, so it's half of that.
• 12:21
  Like that's what I'm talking about.
• 12:22
  So I can't be in love with the result.
• 12:25
  I have to be in love with the progress and the process of it.
• 12:27
  And so that's sort of been more of my, the guidance of, I started out with really finite goals,
• 12:34
  go to my first Olympic games.
• 12:36
  That was a goal for a very long time.
• 12:37
  I went to my first Olympic games when I was 18.
• 12:39
  Then it was like, I want to win an Olympic medal.
• 12:41
  Then that happened in 2016.
• 12:43
  I want to break a world record.
• 12:44
  That also happened.
• 12:44
  So there was like those sort of goals, but it was when I got to, yeah, like you said very nicely, like a North star, that's like the same thing that can take me through multiple things in my life.
• 12:56
  And also I know that I might get to a time where that doesn't work anymore.
• 12:59
  Like relentlessly pursuing the things that I'm passionate about,
• 13:03
  There might be a time where relentless is too hard of a words and I might want to take a step back.
• 13:07
  But right now I still feel like relentless is the right words and I'm really happy to be in that space.
• 13:13
  What I'm hearing is you love that we meet on Fridays at Icebergs and hang out and have coffee and that's part of the journey.
• 13:20
  That's my favourite part of the journey.
• 13:21
  That's fun.
• 13:22
  That's my favourite part of the week.
• 13:24
  I'm going to throw it to the panel now to ask anyone who's interested in going next, what bigger actually means to you?
• 13:33
  Oh, Sarah's got the mic, so she's going to go first.
• 13:34
  I guess I got the mic.
• 13:37
  I think at the beginning, it was really obvious what bigger meant to me.
• 13:40
  It was like, okay, cool.
• 13:41
  More views, more sales, launching into more countries.
• 13:45
  Let's get into more retailers.
• 13:47
  Let's have this massive revenue number.
• 13:50
  But I think that my definition of bigger has definitely changed.
• 13:54
  And now I just really want to focus on growing a business that's scalable and profitable.
• 13:59
  Yeah.
• 14:01
  And like anyone can buy revenue.
• 14:02
  I was just like thinking about this the other day.
• 14:04
  I'm like, you can buy revenue by just throwing your money into meta ads, but it's not necessarily going to be profitable.
• 14:10
  You can throw, you can discount your products and you can get revenue there, but it's not going to be profitable either.
• 14:14
  So it's kind of like just bigger to me now just means growing and scaling a profitable business.
• 14:22
  Yeah, I think that's a really interesting topic and question.
• 14:26
  I think for me, the North Star has always been animals.
• 14:29
  I love dogs.
• 14:31
  I love cats.
• 14:32
  I love horses.
• 14:32
  I love them all.
• 14:34
  And I'm really passionate about helping them live longer and healthier lives.
• 14:38
  So I think the pretty cool thing is that that's never done.
• 14:42
  There's always more we can do.
• 14:44
  So yeah, that makes me truly happy.
• 14:46
  I think the other thing I've learned over time is the impact on others.
• 14:49
  And as a leader, I think I get a lot of
• 14:52
  I guess my ambition comes in seeing people in my team succeed, whether that's in their own goals or, you know, going on to whatever they're doing next.
• 15:00
  And I think that's another one where it's truly endless.
• 15:04
  I think a lot of what you were saying, Bronte, around enjoying the process versus the end outcome.
• 15:09
  Like there really is an end outcome and you need to find that purpose and that and I guess the joy working towards your ambition.
• 15:18
  And that way, the cool thing is like you're never done really.
• 15:22
  Yeah, I'm just digesting what everyone's saying because it's so different.
• 15:26
  But I also spent over 10 years as a coach working with women in business.
• 15:31
  And I'm just reflecting and thinking about you guys in the room.
• 15:34
  Like, what does bigger mean for you?
• 15:36
  And I think for me, and if you can relate to this, I spent a lot of time comparing myself online to different businesses, different industries.
• 15:46
  Some people that I see here today, I follow you, P.S.
• 15:47
  Hey, I'm just digesting what everyone's saying.
• 15:50
  And comparing myself, but I think bigger for me is less about the revenue, like you said, more about the profit, but also the how, what does that mean for you?
• 16:03
  Does it mean more profit, but at the sacrifice of your family, time with your husband, your health, your sleep?
• 16:12
  And I think
• 16:13
  For me, it's been adjusting the goals to the whole lifestyle, not just the profit, but what that looks like long term.
• 16:21
  So we decided to pivot from building a brand to taking over the world and actually just building the whole category and just owning the whole pie.
• 16:27
  So that's kind of bigger for me.
• 16:29
  Love that.
• 16:31
  great.
• 16:33
  I think we touched on something that is the next flow on topic, which is around growth and what is actually unlocking that next stage.
• 16:43
  We all know that e-commerce can be deceptively simple from the outside.
• 16:48
  It's like...
• 16:48
  sell more products, acquire more customers, grow, grow, grow.
• 16:52
  But then every stage of growth does create a different set of problems.
• 16:56
  And kind of what Sarah was touching on with meta being kind of like, yes, it's a strategy and a lever that you can pull, but then what is the ripple on effect of that?
• 17:05
  And so, Sarah, this question is for you.
• 17:08
  You've built Contour Cube to a billion views across your content and you have a huge customer community.
• 17:15
  But growth at that level inevitably creates a different set of challenges.
• 17:19
  What has been the hardest growth problem that you're solving now?
• 17:24
  I think when we started the business, we obviously had no idea what we're doing.
• 17:27
  And I was like, yeah, we can sell this one product forever.
• 17:30
  And I can just like continuously post content.
• 17:33
  And like, we don't need to do any paid ads.
• 17:35
  It's just purely organic.
• 17:37
  And we're just like making sales.
• 17:38
  Like it was a crazy, crazy time.
• 17:39
  And people were buying like multiple products.
• 17:42
  They were buying bundles.
• 17:44
  They were coming back for gifting.
• 17:45
  They were buying multiple products to like, you know,
• 17:48
  color coordinate their recipes, which is really cool.
• 17:50
  Like, you know, freezing all these different kinds of ingredients in their cubes.
• 17:53
  I'm like, wow.
• 17:55
  But then it gets to a point, it's like, if you have one contour cube, maybe if you have multiple contour cubes, you probably don't need any more contour cubes.
• 18:03
  So I was like, okay, I think the biggest thing for us was like, what comes next?
• 18:07
  And so I guess from seeing all these people, like, you know, freezing all these cool things in their cubes, we're like, okay, obviously there's this like want and need for like...
• 18:15
  skincare-infused ice facials.
• 18:18
  So that's when we decided to launch our freezable serums.
• 18:21
  So we formulated these new serums made in Korea that you could add to your cube and freeze.
• 18:26
  And that just kind of changed our business like overnight.
• 18:29
  So what maybe started off as something that was like $50 in AOV doubled to like $100 in AOV.
• 18:36
  It's kind of interesting that we just added so much value to that initial product.
• 18:40
  And people are just like, why would I buy the cube if I don't buy the serum, which kind of makes a lot of sense now.
• 18:47
  So, yeah, it's been like new product development.
• 18:49
  I think that's been the biggest challenge that we've kind of like pivoted into.
• 18:55
  And this is a follow on question.
• 18:57
  to you or to anyone else who wants to go.
• 18:59
  But what has been the biggest bottleneck to growth?
• 19:02
  And so in your case, with product development, what has that meant that's been the challenge of that?
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:08
  So like skincare, I guess, is another completely different ballgame.
• 19:11
  So like the lead times are longer, the MOQs are like bigger and like, you know, there's all these compliance things around skincare.
• 19:17
  So it's not like we can...
• 19:18
  go to market as quickly as we did when we came up with the idea for Contour Cube.
• 19:22
  So like tools and that kind of thing are a lot easier than skincare.
• 19:26
  So that's probably one of the challenges we're facing at the moment.
• 19:30
  But then again, it's like, what else can we launch?
• 19:32
  That's not just skincare.
• 19:33
  What other tools can we do?
• 19:36
  Does it have to be ice therapy?
• 19:37
  Maybe not.
• 19:38
  We
• 19:40
  I was just talking to somebody in business as well, and there were like no categories kind of off limits.
• 19:46
  So just really thinking about what we could launch next.
• 19:48
  That doesn't take that long, I guess.
• 19:51
  That sounds exciting.
• 19:53
  And so for our other beautiful women here, customers, capital, team, ops, supply chain, brand, something else, what has been your biggest bottlenecks for growth for anyone that wants to go?
• 20:06
  For us, we launched about five years early.
• 20:08
  Yeah.
• 20:09
  And we're waiting for industry to catch up.
• 20:13
  So there's government regulation that goes on with it.
• 20:15
  There's packaging compliance.
• 20:17
  The wine industry, as we know, love them, are very traditional and do not like change.
• 20:22
  The screw cap was revolutionary and now I'm doing it again.
• 20:27
  So for us, the biggest bottleneck has been timing.
• 20:30
  But what we've done in that time is actually establish ourselves as the only option.
• 20:36
  So that as these contracts come back, they go.
• 20:39
  have to go through us to get anywhere.
• 20:42
  So timing has been a real issue.
• 20:45
  And I know a lot of you will be in a business that feels stuck and stagnant.
• 20:49
  And what I've learned through this process is that if your business is stuck right now, it is because you are stuck.
• 20:59
  And if you can just turn inwards and grow yourself, new opportunities, new thoughts, new ideas, new
• 21:10
  Yeah, I think reflecting on this question, I think...
• 21:15
  I really see that team or some sort of cultural people thing is always the blocker.
• 21:22
  I think Sarah, you're the one who said just before that basically anyone can take a bunch of money, put it into meta, generate revenue, right?
• 21:29
  Essentially, building a business is taking capital and driving, turning that capital to create value for customers and then hopefully bring back profit to yourself.
• 21:39
  So literally nothing is off the table.
• 21:41
  Yeah.
• 21:42
  And therefore, it comes back to you and the team.
• 21:45
  And yeah, I did a HBS, like a Harvard Business School case study earlier this year.
• 21:52
  And what they did was look at the most successful American companies publicly listed.
• 21:58
  But I think, you know, a lot of what they're doing still applies to even smaller scale companies.
• 22:02
  And they looked at what are the factors that made those businesses the most successful?
• 22:07
  Like, was it the industry?
• 22:08
  Was it the CEO?
• 22:08
  Like, what was it?
• 22:11
  And what they found was four things were attributed to business success quite unanimously.
• 22:18
  The first one is setting a clear strategy.
• 22:20
  The second one was the power of great execution.
• 22:23
  The third one was a high-performing team culture.
• 22:25
  And the fourth one was organizational simplicity and how easy things are to get done.
• 22:31
  So literally all those four things point to team.
• 22:34
  So yeah, that's kind of my big realization.
• 22:36
  I feel like I've learned the lesson over and over again as we've grown as well, that how much the people around you and yourself really matter.
• 22:44
  If kind of the world of business, in theory, nothing is off the table if you have the capital.
• 22:50
  That's very funny you say that because I feel like as a member of the team, I am sometimes the blocker.
• 22:56
  Just like upskilling and getting the knowledge ready to go.
• 22:58
  Like I live a lot of my life and what I have coined the capability gap between like what I'm actually capable of doing and what I want to execute.
• 23:06
  And I live in this like gap and I'm like, I just want to close it as quickly as possible.
• 23:11
  There's some laughter.
• 23:11
  I think some people know about this gap.
• 23:13
  And I mean, I don't.
• 23:18
  Team is the best thing to be able to pull around that.
• 23:20
  So like now we have a little bit of capital, we can start to get people to close that gap for us because there is some things that I'm not able to do.
• 23:27
  I think for us in a product business in a very...
• 23:32
  it's got to be really perfect and it's going to keep getting iterated on.
• 23:36
  Like if you're wearing active wear, things that are close to your body and close to your skin, it's really important that it feels good, that it looks good, that it's comfortable.
• 23:44
  And if you can't hit all three of those things, then nobody really cares about how ethical it is or how good it is for their body.
• 23:51
  Like you have to do the job that you're supposed to do.
• 23:54
  So those three things have been really difficult.
• 23:56
  And then finding a supply chain that can...
• 23:59
  really manage that and scale with that is, has, was a really big blocker for us.
• 24:03
  We've now managed to do that.
• 24:04
  But for anyone who's building a product business, even an apparel business, like that was like five years of finding our people and five years of like constantly like going out and knocking on doors and like flying over to America and meeting this person and meeting this person until we're finally in a product lab and in the U S who is doing these like incredible things.
• 24:21
  And like the first people in the world to develop a plant-based elastane into an actual fabric, like no one's managed to do that.
• 24:27
  We did it.
• 24:27
  We shouldn't have done it.
• 24:28
  First people in the world to release a tapeless zipper in a jacket, beat North Face by 18 months.
• 24:33
  Like we shouldn't have been able to do that.
• 24:34
  We did that.
• 24:35
  But it's like finding the people that can close the gap.
• 24:37
  Like I personally cannot understand the technology that goes into making.
• 24:43
  a plant-based waterproof membrane or making a dye out of caffeine.
• 24:47
  Like I can't, like discarded coffee grounds.
• 24:49
  Like I can't do that, but it, it's taken a while to find the people that can, and then we've been able to close that gap.
• 24:56
  So that's been closing.
• 24:58
  Some of those gaps has been great.
• 24:59
  And then finding out that there's just like a million others is, is the journey that we're on.
• 25:03
  And then we're just going to live in there and I'm just going to like get comfortable in there.
• 25:07
  Yeah, I live there.
• 25:09
  I live there and it's really annoying.
• 25:10
  I want to move out of there.
• 25:13
  PA wants me to move out of there too.
• 25:17
  I want to move on to kind of the economics of scaling.
• 25:19
  And so when we think about, you know, growth, not just as something that you can do quickly and scale, but what does growth do to the business financially?
• 25:29
  And specifically, this question is for Anna, since she has gotten her company to 200 million ARR.
• 25:34
  My God.
• 25:36
  As Laika has grown, what have you learned about the money side of scaling a business?
• 25:41
  And tell us more about the money side of scaling a business.
• 25:47
  Yeah, I think, gosh, it's been a wild journey.
• 25:51
  And I guess from the start, my ambition, like I mentioned before, like I love animals.
• 25:56
  I just want them all to live forever.
• 25:58
  And it's going to happen one day, guys.
• 26:03
  And therefore, from the start, we've been really focused on growth.
• 26:06
  We wanted to grow our impact.
• 26:07
  We'll venture back.
• 26:08
  So
• 26:09
  it was really around reaching scale.
• 26:11
  I've always been very conscious of, I don't believe in growth at all costs.
• 26:14
  Like we were doing it the right way.
• 26:16
  I'm strong business, you know, fundamentals in economics.
• 26:20
  But then inevitably being venture scale at some point it switches and it's like, okay, now be profitable.
• 26:26
  And, you know, at the end of the day, it's also a great thing as a founder and a leader because then you can control your destiny.
• 26:32
  You don't need to be, you know, tied to a cash, a limited cash runway.
• 26:36
  Yeah.
• 26:36
  You don't need to be, you know, raising money all the time.
• 26:41
  I think what's really surprised me, yes, you mentioned economies of scale, Dune, and that's certainly our type of business.
• 26:48
  Like the more, the bigger we are, the more economies we have, we can build.
• 26:53
  you know, buy meat and veggies for more, I guess, at bigger scale, more procurement discounts, bigger negotiations, et cetera.
• 27:02
  I think what surprised me the most is actually the effort needed to be put into that.
• 27:07
  It doesn't just happen.
• 27:08
  And so much of it is cultural.
• 27:11
  I'd say our team is super growth orientated, like, you know, give our team like a crazy growth target.
• 27:17
  Everyone's like on it and like super buzzed and just like, you know, wanting to make it happen versus an EBITDA target or like a gross margin target.
• 27:25
  And it's like, hmm, this doesn't excite me as much.
• 27:29
  But also it doesn't just happen.
• 27:30
  Like you have to be, you know, doing say negotiation training and figuring out how to go to that supplier and
• 27:37
  get that great deal to then drive to your bottom line and really think about, you know, things like operational, how you execute, streamline, et cetera.
• 27:47
  So I think that's been, yeah, probably my biggest learning is just driving the culture and kind of prioritizing that kind of EBITDA and profitability.
• 27:57
  It's not natural and it's not a given.
• 28:00
  And I look at other companies, like I've been doing a lot of boring reading around
• 28:05
  very cost-efficient companies.
• 28:07
  And one that comes to mind is Ford, which is, you know, who knows how much longer they're going to be around, to be honest, the Teslas and Chinese manufacturers taking over the world.
• 28:15
  But once upon a time, they built the car industry.
• 28:17
  Like they were the first car.
• 28:19
  And their stories around Henry Ford going around and like,
• 28:22
  Savoring, saving every cent and like, you know, being just super, super, um, setting the tone on what cost efficiency looks like and therefore that trickled down the company, but it doesn't just happen.
• 28:33
  Um, so yes, culture and focus, I guess is, is what it comes down to.
• 28:39
  And yeah, we're still on the journey of, of getting really tight there.
• 28:44
  And a follow-up question for you.
• 28:46
  What is the number that you're watching now?
• 28:48
  You know, that you wouldn't have been watching a year ago or when you started?
• 28:54
  I think EBITDA, which is essentially your bottom line.
• 28:58
  Again, we're still focused on expansion.
• 29:03
  We're launching internationally next month.
• 29:05
  We've just launched our Tiger brand.
• 29:07
  But what we've realized is the more, I guess, cash flow we can get from our core business, the more we can reinvest into these new ventures and just how important it is to have that core running really efficiently and well.
• 29:22
  And to anyone else who wants to answer, next kind of follow on question is, what have you stopped spending money on?
• 29:33
  I think we've stopped spending money on like agencies.
• 29:36
  Like I feel like they can always kind of, well, Facebook marketing agencies is one that we've taken back in house.
• 29:42
  And I think as founders, like we're the best people to understand how we can market our own products.
• 29:45
  And like, I feel like sometimes agencies can spin things to make it sound really positive.
• 29:51
  So I think that that's, that was a really important thing for us to take back on.
• 29:54
  We also had a Amazon agency that was helping us for a while.
• 29:58
  Um,
• 29:59
  But again, they weren't really optimizing our Amazon page.
• 30:01
  They were kind of just maintaining it and it really wasn't adding any value to our growth or anything.
• 30:07
  So we kind of stopped spending on that and instead kind of are now working with a consultant that is like an expert in the Amazon platform.
• 30:15
  And she's really looking at all these things that we've never looked at before, like Facebook.
• 30:18
  Apparently, eyes facials are trending for men.
• 30:21
  So, like, you know, targeting our market to that area now.
• 30:24
  And, yeah, all these, like, opportunities on Amazon we never thought of.
• 30:28
  So sometimes you have to do a bit of an audit of, like, you know, what you're spending your money on and then just being like, actually, is that adding value to the business or not?
• 30:36
  And, like, yeah, maybe stop spending on that.
• 30:40
  But, yeah, that's probably the main things.
• 30:42
  I just started spending money, so there's nothing I've stopped yet.
• 30:49
  I was discussing this with my husband and maybe tell me if you can relate.
• 30:53
  I've been self-funded the whole time.
• 30:55
  So I've never accepted funding from anybody else.
• 30:58
  So for us, I've always been a tight ass.
• 31:00
  And I'm really happy because...
• 31:03
  I've just spent a year working with a e-commerce growth coaching company, running growth calls for them.
• 31:09
  And I spoke to maybe 300 founders over a year.
• 31:13
  And the number one thing that I heard is the biggest problem in our industry for women, specifically in e-commerce right now, is everyone's got revenue, no one's got profit.
• 31:26
  That's a huge issue, guys.
• 31:28
  That's not a business, that's a liability.
• 31:31
  So I, yeah, I haven't stripped back on any spending because I never had the money to spend.
• 31:35
  We've always been tight.
• 31:39
  I guess kind of rolling off the back of this, we're talking about, you know, growth and acquisition, you know, for the business growth.
• 31:46
  But when we're talking about customer growth specifically, instead of finding more customers, kind of growing the customers that you do have through retention and LTV, for anyone who wants to answer this question, do you think the best consumer brands of the next decade will be built by being better at acquisition?
• 32:05
  or by being better at keeping their customers for longer and kind of innovating for their existing customer base?
• 32:13
  I think the brands that are going to withstand the weird shit show that is right now are the brands that become three-dimensional.
• 32:22
  And I mean that in the sense that there's so much noise on social media.
• 32:27
  I'm seeing a lot of brands migrate back into the real world.
• 32:31
  Retail,
• 32:32
  trade shows, anything that is touchable, where you can build a relationship, where you become real to the consumer, because that then strengthens the trust that takes them back to your website and continues the sales.
• 32:44
  So that's what I'm seeing as a trend.
• 32:46
  Like this, like this, like us IRL right here.
• 32:50
  Wine pouches are in all of your bags.
• 32:52
  You'll be able to find her details.
• 32:56
  Yeah.
• 32:56
  Oh, look, I, I think we have to
• 32:59
  we have to blow our customers' minds.
• 33:01
  Like I think it's all about product and experience and creating something that people want to talk about.
• 33:07
  Like we track NPS, so, you know, promoters, neutrals, detractors.
• 33:12
  At Likeable, we're really focused on creating product and our service that just builds promoters and people just want to, you know, shout off the roof about their experience.
• 33:22
  One of my favourite books on this is called Power of Moments and it's around creating, yeah, just...
• 33:28
  those moments when your customers lives that they just can't stop talking about.
• 33:32
  And I think we've all been there where we've bought something or had something happen.
• 33:35
  And we're just like, Oh my God, it's amazing.
• 33:37
  I really believe that's how acquisition grows.
• 33:40
  I am in a group chat with one of Anna's VCs and husband.
• 33:45
  And the other day, she water.
• 33:49
  And the other day, one of the guys, I mean, it's sad, but you'll, you'll, this will illustrate the point of, um,
• 33:56
  Anna's strategies, well, strategies, but like just genuine kind of ability to connect with customers in a deeper way.
• 34:03
  One of the guys shared a photo and it's a candle from Laika that says, in loving memory of Tabitha, I think his dog's name was, and his dog had just passed away.
• 34:13
  And Laika knew about it because he...
• 34:17
  had canceled his subscription.
• 34:19
  And, you know, I don't know that about Laika.
• 34:22
  We've never had to have a candle sent to us, but you know, he sent it and it started a conversation in the group chat.
• 34:28
  And it was one of those kind of moments where I was like, wow, like that is so beautiful.
• 34:33
  And like, we were all just then able to talk about it together and like kind of have that moment for him.
• 34:38
  And also for, you know, we were talking with Gigi, like it's just so beautiful and so special to be able to do those kinds of things.
• 34:45
  It's like that's an example of a powerful moment where, oh, my gosh, it breaks my heart to think about the moment someone has to log into their account and to put that like, oh, I just don't even want to say it out aloud.
• 34:57
  But that's something that we kind of realized early on is that
• 35:02
  you know, that's the kind of moment that we need to show up for and be there for our customer.
• 35:06
  And, you know, I guess that WhatsApp group, you know, hopefully a lot of people were touched by that.
• 35:10
  And if they are thinking about, you know, getting a new puppy or something down the road, yeah, that's hopefully we're a brand that kind of comes back into their mind.
• 35:24
  I should screenshot it and send it to you.
• 35:27
  Okay.
• 35:27
  I want to talk about big bets and betting bigger.
• 35:31
  Obviously, as we've said, growth stops being about necessarily having the right answer and starts being about the bigger vision, enjoying the journey, doing things that don't come just at a cost.
• 35:45
  And-
• 35:46
  about making bigger bets and kind of cool, cute, calculated risks.
• 35:50
  So Katarina, this is for you.
• 35:52
  At every stage of growth, there are moments where you have to make a decision before you have enough evidence.
• 35:58
  And obviously you've been saying that, you know, you haven't raised money.
• 36:01
  So you've got to be quite calculated in the big bets that you take.
• 36:05
  What has been one of the biggest bets that you've made in the business, but one that you just genuinely didn't know if it was going to pay off or not?
• 36:15
  I went and decided in my infinite wisdom to buy a wine filling machine, a wine pouch filling machine before the category existed.
• 36:23
  How much is that?
• 36:30
  I own it.
• 36:31
  I love it.
• 36:32
  Do I regret it?
• 36:33
  Maybe.
• 36:34
  Have I found an easier, simpler, cheaper way to do it?
• 36:36
  Yeah.
• 36:38
  But I invested a couple hundred thousand dollars in machinery before the category existed, just purely believing that I could make this happen.
• 36:47
  But silver lining, we're the only ones that own it in Australia.
• 36:53
  So now people have to come through us to do anything in the industry.
• 36:57
  But I had truly no concept of what could go so wrong with that at the time.
• 37:03
  has that become like more successful in kind of making you more conservative or more willing to take risks because it has paid off, even though it was a little bit, you know, tricky one?
• 37:18
  I think more conservative.
• 37:19
  When I originally started the wine company, I was still earning a ton of money through my other business.
• 37:25
  And I think,
• 37:27
  This is going to make me sound really bad, but I'm just going to be honest with you.
• 37:31
  When you're earning that kind of money, you lose perspective of what things cost.
• 37:35
  And it's really easy just to spend it because more is coming.
• 37:40
  No worries.
• 37:40
  And you're not looking at those unit economics like we've all been talking about.
• 37:45
  And when I made the decision to leave that company, I lost a lot of money.
• 37:51
  And all of a sudden, every decision mattered.
• 37:54
  So it made me more frugal, I would say, because now I live inside my spreadsheets to like the scent.
• 38:02
  I know everything that everything costs.
• 38:04
  I never had to know that before.
• 38:08
  For everyone else, there are two options of questions that you can answer.
• 38:12
  Number one, what's a bet that didn't work out for you?
• 38:15
  Or number two, what's a bet that you wish you made earlier if you had have known what you know now?
• 38:22
  Okay, so controversial, but our bet that didn't work out was TikTok Shop.
• 38:29
  So I know that everyone raves about it and everyone is like, it's the most amazing thing ever.
• 38:33
  And someone who's native to the TikTok platform, I was like, cool, I'm going to set it up and it's going to work.
• 38:39
  But it requires so much more capital investment than you think.
• 38:44
  It works on an affiliate model.
• 38:45
  So you basically just gift heaps of product, like hundreds and hundreds of products a month.
• 38:49
  And you're like, cool, I'm going to gift hundreds and hundreds of products a month.
• 38:53
  This is in the US.
• 38:54
  And you send it out and you kind of get very average content created from that.
• 39:01
  The content is then suppressed.
• 39:04
  So TikTok suppresses the content.
• 39:06
  It doesn't let the content have a...
• 39:08
  moment.
• 39:09
  So then they want you to spend money against those videos.
• 39:13
  So they really force you to put marketing behind that.
• 39:18
  And then on top of that, there's commission that you have to pay the affiliates, and then you have to discount really heavily.
• 39:24
  So all of that just kind of blew my mind.
• 39:27
  And I constantly, I feel like I'm rage baiting this, like, ah, like I seriously, I like constantly see people on LinkedIn and they're like,
• 39:34
  look at this, like MediCube just did how, you know, how are millions of stuff on TikTok, right?
• 39:40
  TikTok shop.
• 39:41
  And I'm like, that's because they're loaded.
• 39:43
  They have so much money.
• 39:44
  They're obviously gifting millions of dollars worth of product to their affiliates and then putting millions of dollars behind it in marketing.
• 39:52
  So like, I don't know.
• 39:54
  It's not, it might just be for my niche, but like it just requires a lot more money than you think.
• 39:59
  So we kind of pull back on that.
• 40:01
  And also it's still not in Australia.
• 40:03
  Yeah.
• 40:03
  I know.
• 40:04
  It's so annoying.
• 40:06
  I've had so many bets that didn't work out.
• 40:08
  I mean, I had a whole other product business that, like, I'm winding up now that was in, like, swim equipment.
• 40:13
  Equipment, like, help with your swimming.
• 40:15
  So, like, pool boys and kickboards and fins and stuff, which is just not a big enough market.
• 40:20
  And also, I can't scale two brands at the same time.
• 40:22
  That's insane.
• 40:24
  So, yes, like, all the time.
• 40:27
  But, like...
• 40:29
  I probably, I'm quite conservative in that I make really small bets and make them tests.
• 40:34
  And then if that works or if it doesn't work, like learn from that and sort of move on.
• 40:40
  Like I...
• 40:43
  I really don't like making really big bets.
• 40:46
  Probably my first business, which was completely self-funded, was quite a big bet up front.
• 40:51
  And that business will wind up, I think I end up losing $10,000 overall from that business, which is like, I'm actually pretty happy with that because of how much I learned during it.
• 40:59
  Sometimes there is the big thing that you have to do.
• 41:02
  And I wouldn't be able to do this business if I hadn't made that business first.
• 41:07
  There's just so much...
• 41:09
  there's just so much I learned around logistics and I was launching on Amazon.
• 41:12
  And in order to be stocked on Amazon, like there are agencies that help you do that because it is like so complicated and so difficult.
• 41:19
  Um, whereas like, it was just like me like trying to figure everything out, but that's like brought all over into my business.
• 41:25
  So I genuinely, like if, if like tomorrow everything fell over, like I have to be kind of okay with that.
• 41:35
  And, um,
• 41:38
  I sound like so corny, but I do think like the only real failure is like failure to try the thing that you really want to do.
• 41:47
  Like the failure to start with a failure to like, that's, that's the only one that's permanent.
• 41:52
  That's the only one that you maybe still think about.
• 41:54
  Yeah.
• 41:54
  Like I've failed a lot in my life.
• 41:56
  I failed like on the sporting field over and over again, but the ability to keep showing up and keep,
• 42:03
  keep having a big dream and chasing it.
• 42:06
  To me, that feels like success, even though each result along the way might not be what I expected.
• 42:13
  Like I also thought that starting an econ business would be a lot easier than it is.
• 42:17
  It's not very easy.
• 42:18
  It's very hard, but that's fine.
• 42:23
  Yeah, I can answer both your questions, what I failed and what I wish I did earlier.
• 42:29
  So we have an investor who's like, you know, big, literally big dog in the pet food industry, like knows the pet's face inside out.
• 42:39
  And many years ago, I came up to them and I was like, hey, I'm thinking about launching cats.
• 42:45
  And they were like,
• 42:46
  why would you do that?
• 42:47
  Cats are so difficult.
• 42:48
  They're so fussy.
• 42:49
  Like, no, no, people don't care about their cats.
• 42:52
  Go dogs.
• 42:52
  I know, I know.
• 42:54
  I know I've got two cats too.
• 42:56
  They're amazing.
• 42:57
  Um, but yeah, do dogs, just do more dog things like do treats and supplements and other things.
• 43:02
  I was like, okay, this person knows what they're doing.
• 43:04
  Like cats seem hard.
• 43:05
  No, no, no.
• 43:06
  Um, so we launched our treats.
• 43:07
  We launched supplements.
• 43:09
  Um, they're doing, I mean, they're doing well, but they're always a very small part of our business.
• 43:13
  Like I know 90, 95% of what we do is our meals.
• 43:17
  Um, and the interesting thing is we, we did launch cats three months ago and, um,
• 43:21
  I think within the next month or two, that's going to be a bigger business than our extras and treats.
• 43:28
  So I was like, hmm, my lesson there is like, there's no such thing as an expert.
• 43:35
  Like you got to do the critical thinking, the work, talk to your customers, definitely take small risks if you can, like pilot things and test things out.
• 43:44
  But just, yeah, I'm like still so annoyed at myself.
• 43:47
  I'm like,
• 43:48
  like, damn.
• 43:49
  And then it's annoying because this kind of, you know, the extras that we do, it's always like, oh, we could do, we could innovate and kind of really lean into them and kind of, but then it's just always a trade-off of opportunity costs.
• 44:02
  Like where does our focus and energy go into?
• 44:05
  And it's never the small thing, right?
• 44:06
  It's always the big thing.
• 44:08
  So now they're kind of hanging over.
• 44:10
  They're amazing.
• 44:10
  Like they're, you know, I don't want to, we've got functional treats for dental health and all this stuff, but yeah.
• 44:17
  are more in demand.
• 44:20
  The cats, the cats, we should have done cats earlier.
• 44:24
  But what's the bet that didn't work out?
• 44:26
  Oh, the extras.
• 44:27
  Yeah.
• 44:28
  It's not that it didn't.
• 44:29
  It's just, it wasn't the best thing for us to do versus other opportunities.
• 44:34
  Okay.
• 44:35
  Let's talk a little bit about building a business that can last and stand the test of time.
• 44:42
  When we talk about building a brand that can grow quickly, it's very different to growing a brand that can last potentially forever.
• 44:50
  So when we're thinking about what creates that difference, what are you doing now?
• 44:55
  And this is for everyone.
• 44:56
  What are you doing now that's creating value five years from now rather than just revenue this quarter?
• 45:03
  And I feel like this is a bit of a recurring theme tonight.
• 45:06
  Yeah.
• 45:07
  Yeah, I mean, I would say like the value creating now is like our customer base and the people that have been there for quite a long time.
• 45:14
  There's people that have been there since the start.
• 45:16
  Now we're bringing new people in.
• 45:17
  The people that I am obsessed with now are like.
• 45:21
  the new people that have just joined.
• 45:22
  And like, if you've just joined either a mailing list or as a first time customer, like I want to provide so much value to you that you want to stay in this for the long term, because it's like five years in the future.
• 45:36
  Like we definitely want to have that, that community being that strong.
• 45:40
  That's, that's what's kept us going for two years without ever advertising is like this core group that just absolutely understand and get what we're doing.
• 45:49
  to the point where like, it's a really tough time economically at the moment.
• 45:52
  It's really hard.
• 45:53
  If you're in retail, it's really hard.
• 45:54
  Anyone who's in the room is in retail knows that like the last year, the last few months have been really difficult, but it's difficult for consumers.
• 46:01
  Like everybody is really struggling at the moment.
• 46:03
  So,
• 46:04
  what is the way that I can like enrich their lives now that's also going to enrich it in the future.
• 46:08
  So for all our first time customers that came on in the last three months, we've been holding like free online workouts like that are 10 minute, like we've done a 45 minute one, a 10 minute one, 30 minute one, to like break up their day and like the, you know, the low points of your day.
• 46:24
  So that's like either like around like four or 5 PM or like sometimes like a little lunchtime, like 20 minute, like,
• 46:30
  energy change that you get from movement.
• 46:33
  And that's like, that's got nothing to do with product.
• 46:36
  Then you have to be wearing the product, but it's something that's like valuable and trying to, trying to get better movement, better mindset.
• 46:44
  And then we can look at like a better product and all of those other things.
• 46:46
  But those, those extra value adds that are a bigger,
• 46:52
  bigger piece of the brand.
• 46:53
  Like I really like our customers, the feeling I want to give them is like joy and optimism about tomorrow because there's so much pessimism about tomorrow.
• 47:02
  And product is one way of doing that.
• 47:03
  Like product that looks after your body, that's like not going to poison you for your entire life.
• 47:07
  That's quite an optimistic thing.
• 47:08
  That's great.
• 47:09
  But there's like another, there's heaps of other ways that we can do that.
• 47:12
  So I don't even know what all of them are yet.
• 47:14
  I'm just starting to unearth them.
• 47:17
  But yeah, that's, that's something that I'm really focused on.
• 47:23
  I think I'm the same.
• 47:25
  Yeah, it's just kind of getting to know our customers better.
• 47:27
  So like we've been like physically emailing our customers that have come back and purchased with us like 13 times.
• 47:33
  They bought the serums 13 times and you're like, wait, why?
• 47:36
  Why though?
• 47:37
  Like, I have no idea why you're buying my serums.
• 47:39
  I can guess why you're buying them.
• 47:40
  But like, you know, we've had feedback for random things like I'm using it for my son's itchiness on his leg.
• 47:47
  I'm like, what?
• 47:47
  That's so random.
• 47:48
  But like.
• 47:49
  I think that's going to help us with like better decision making for like what newness we're going to launch later.
• 47:55
  What else are we doing?
• 47:56
  Yeah, we physically called our customers.
• 47:58
  We physically called them and got them on the phone and offered them like, you know, like we'll give you like a whole like contour cube like gift if you like jump on a call with us.
• 48:05
  That was really nice to speak to them.
• 48:08
  I think just in general, just like building a community like that really back you, I think that will help you always like in the future.
• 48:15
  So like we just started like, to be fair, like our content has been kind of boring.
• 48:21
  Like I'm doing it all myself and like, you know, it can be a little bit, it can be a little bit repetitive, right?
• 48:26
  So now I was like, how can we like re-engage our community again?
• 48:29
  And I kind of was like, hey guys, what do you want us to make?
• 48:33
  And I made this really like interesting video with like, you know, that narrator style content.
• 48:37
  Like this is Sarah.
• 48:38
  No, no, no.
• 48:38
  So anyway, we did that.
• 48:39
  And we're like, what do you want us to make next?
• 48:41
  And they were all jumping in and they're like, oh, you should make this.
• 48:44
  You should make that.
• 48:44
  And I was like, okay, cool.
• 48:47
  We'll go to Korea and make it.
• 48:49
  So like if like 5,000 of you say like we'll go to Korea.
• 48:52
  Oh, 1,000.
• 48:53
  Sorry.
• 48:53
  If you say like, you know.
• 48:55
  You want us to go to Korea and make it?
• 48:56
  We'll do it.
• 48:57
  And then the next day we had like 5,000 people commenting that like, you should go to Korea.
• 49:01
  Okay.
• 49:02
  They think it was their idea, but really we were going to Korea anyway.
• 49:04
  And so like, we booked the flights and they're like, oh my God, no way there, she's going.
• 49:08
  And like, we kind of took them on the whole journey of like coming and building the products with us and creating like serums and showing them all the packaging and all the cool stuff that we were doing in Korea.
• 49:17
  So I think just like bringing in your community and, um,
• 49:22
  into the whole design process, I think is really cool.
• 49:26
  And I think your story at the end of the day, like whenever we set an EDM, sometimes we get feedback that's like, oh, every time I ice my face, I think about you and your mom.
• 49:35
  And I'm like, oh, that's really cute.
• 49:36
  Like, you know, they don't just buy into the product, they're buying into you as people.
• 49:40
  So yeah, customers.
• 49:42
  Cute.
• 49:46
  I have a totally different perspective on this.
• 49:50
  But first, I have a question for you girls.
• 49:52
  Are you all using OmniSend?
• 49:56
  Because you should be.
• 49:57
  With all the EDMs you're sending out, you know, it's like half the price, right?
• 50:01
  Since we're all looking at, like, cost.
• 50:05
  Not even promoting, just switch to OmniSend immediately.
• 50:08
  You'll thank me later.
• 50:10
  Okay, so my asshole perspective on this is I don't have the patience for any of that.
• 50:15
  So does anybody in the room maybe not love the warm and fuzzy community aspect?
• 50:23
  Honestly?
• 50:24
  Okay, me and one other lady.
• 50:28
  So here's what we're doing, my girl.
• 50:31
  To bring our brand into the next five years and protect us and what we're doing for community engagement per se is we've shifted who our community is.
• 50:42
  So I personally do not have the inner soul for the warm and fuzzies that you guys do.
• 50:50
  And I love you for what you do.
• 50:52
  I don't have the patience.
• 50:54
  So I've shifted from individual consumers to government employees.
• 51:01
  Think about it.
• 51:02
  Government employees control bigger budgets.
• 51:06
  And if you have a product, for example, wine pouches that would suit an event like, for example, specifically the Olympics, there's a lot that you can do in that space.
• 51:17
  So for us, I've redirected the focus of our business because I'm tired.
• 51:23
  I want the money now.
• 51:26
  So we're going for the Olympics and bigger contracts, which has worked for my personality.
• 51:31
  It's my strength, my skill set, and it's allowed me to not feel guilty listening to you girls talking about how you love everybody, and I don't.
• 51:41
  What I'm hearing is Contour Cube facials at the Olympics with the Prime Minister.
• 51:48
  Commonwealth Bank is sponsoring it and they need merch.
• 51:51
  If anyone does merch, I will show you the platform to get on to, to get government contracts in preparation for the Olympics because it's happening.
• 51:57
  It's going to be athletic and merch.
• 51:59
  Seriously.
• 52:00
  At the Olympics.
• 52:00
  Seriously, you guys.
• 52:02
  Hello.
• 52:03
  If this happens, you heard it here first in the room.
• 52:07
  We've got to, like, reconnect.
• 52:08
  We've got to do this here.
• 52:09
  Yeah.
• 52:11
  Do you have any comments?
• 52:12
  Would you like to add them?
• 52:15
  She's like, no.
• 52:16
  I know a lot about Olympics.
• 52:18
  And about clothing and Olympics.
• 52:22
  And there is a way smarter way for me to get involved than going through government.
• 52:27
  But only because I'm like deeply enmeshed in that community.
• 52:30
  And I understand like how difficult clothing is at the Olympics.
• 52:34
  Yeah.
• 52:36
  But for like, it is such a big, it is such a big opportunity.
• 52:40
  Like have a look at LA in two years.
• 52:42
  It's already two years away.
• 52:43
  It's going to be massive.
• 52:45
  And because America is so commercial, like look at what happened at the World Cup.
• 52:49
  Look at how different that was from any other World Cup that we've ever had.
• 52:52
  Look at how much more commercial that was.
• 52:54
  I think that that flow on into Brisbane will be really interesting.
• 53:01
  Typically, Olympic contracts are really tight, but everything is getting looser.
• 53:08
  Everything is getting looser.
• 53:10
  Rules around athletes are getting looser.
• 53:12
  There's more and more opportunity than there's ever been in this space.
• 53:15
  It's not just the absolute big players.
• 53:19
  is like a good North Star for me in apparel.
• 53:23
  It is like absolutely not
• 53:26
  it is absolutely not where I want to be at all.
• 53:29
  I want every single person in the stands wearing it.
• 53:31
  I do not want the, it's just not a customer either.
• 53:34
  Like, um, that's sort of like owned by other people, but it is a very, there is so much that goes on.
• 53:40
  Like I would personally never put my money with IOC, International Olympic Committee or AOC, Australian Olympic Committee, because those are, those spaces are just like sort of owned by other people.
• 53:52
  And it's,
• 53:54
  To be honest, I have really strong feelings about how every single athlete along that project line gets completely screwed over and all their images get used and they make nothing.
• 54:03
  And, um...
• 54:06
  they just turn around and say, if you don't like that, you just don't compete.
• 54:10
  It's like, well, it's my dream since I was seven years old.
• 54:12
  So never mind, you can just use my image for your advertising in Propuzi.
• 54:17
  So I have strong feelings about it from that point of view.
• 54:20
  But what I would say is that there's so much that goes on outside Olympics and so many ways to get around it now that never used to be there.
• 54:29
  Every year the contracts get looser, so there's like...
• 54:32
  By the time Brisbane comes, like watch what happens in LA.
• 54:34
  By the time Brisbane comes, it's going to be so much.
• 54:36
  So I think it's really smart.
• 54:37
  The meeting started three years ago.
• 54:39
  Yes, they did.
• 54:41
  But the contracts and like, yeah, it's like the, the athlete contracts are the ones that I look out for.
• 54:47
  Like, what are your opportunities that play outside of the official space is where I go to rather than the official space.
• 54:54
  So I'm like, I don't love everyone.
• 54:57
  I don't love the IOC is the end of that story.
• 55:02
  I want to bring the warm and fuzzies back.
• 55:04
  Okay.
• 55:08
  So customers, yes, we're back to customers and building customer love.
• 55:12
  One of my favorite kind of initiatives that we've got in the team is called the like a zoomies.
• 55:17
  So basically our customer care team, they get a small budget.
• 55:20
  for the year and they can spend it how they like, delighting customers.
• 55:24
  And so it just puts the power in their hands very small.
• 55:27
  It's more the thought that counts.
• 55:29
  I'll give you one example.
• 55:30
  There was a dog that lived on a boat and they were sailing around Australia.
• 55:35
  So they would stop at various ports along the way and sort of every box, they had to change their address and like plan a few ahead and be like, they did a lot for their dog.
• 55:45
  And so one of our customer care team members
• 55:50
  just getting them a little like a life jacket with their name on it.
• 55:54
  So that arrived at one of the ports.
• 55:56
  And then, yeah, it was, they were very surprised, posted it all over socials.
• 56:01
  And yeah, I think we got quite a bit of buzz from that.
• 56:04
  But yeah, just little things like that, that yeah, show we're thinking about our customers.
• 56:09
  It's so fun to hear like what the team comes up with as well.
• 56:13
  Yay, woman.
• 56:13
  Taylor Swift.
• 56:15
  It's very Taylor Swift inspired.
• 56:18
  I feel like she does that kind of stuff too.
• 56:21
  Okay, we're going to wrap it up by bringing it full circle.
• 56:24
  We started by talking about ambition and the life that you wanted to build that's bigger than the business.
• 56:31
  And then we've gone down the business route.
• 56:32
  We've talked about growth.
• 56:33
  We've talked about money.
• 56:34
  We've talked about all these things.
• 56:35
  So when we kind of zoom out and we think more about personal wealth, freedom, or happiness, this is a question for everyone.
• 56:43
  Yeah.
• 56:44
  How do you think about business wealth versus personal wealth?
• 56:47
  And what does financial freedom mean to you now?
• 56:52
  Yeah, this is, it's so wild, the journey I've been on.
• 56:56
  Yeah, I mean, I was born in Ukraine.
• 57:00
  My parents immigrated here.
• 57:01
  We came with very much nothing.
• 57:03
  And growing up, we didn't have very much.
• 57:05
  So it's really weird to be in a position where I am now.
• 57:09
  And I almost can't, I don't really comprehend it really from a wealth side.
• 57:13
  Like I just, it's not something I think about or have entirely processed.
• 57:16
  But I think that's a really weird thing.
• 57:18
  The thing that I've realized the most is like purpose is what matters.
• 57:24
  And I've had, you know, people ask like, why don't you just, you know, this was years ago.
• 57:28
  So why don't you just retire and enjoy life?
• 57:30
  It's like, well, what is enjoying life?
• 57:32
  Like it's doing things that you love and enjoying that.
• 57:35
  and getting up each day with meaning.
• 57:38
  So that to me is, I don't know, my North Star.
• 57:42
  And yeah, I guess I'm just trying to comprehend the money side around it.
• 57:47
  But I think it's a slippery slope and a dangerous path if that's kind of the entire focus that you kind of put your energy towards.
• 57:56
  Yeah.
• 57:56
  And more dogs and cats that live in your house.
• 57:59
  Oh my God.
• 58:00
  And other animals too.
• 58:02
  Another
• 58:06
  Neighbours.
• 58:07
  Yeah.
• 58:08
  And my family are all academics.
• 58:09
  They've all got like multiple PhDs.
• 58:11
  And then I went and became a dancer.
• 58:13
  So my goal has always been to invent something so boring, like the zipper or Velcro.
• 58:20
  That's always been what I wanted to do.
• 58:22
  So I think my driver is building something that's going to outlast me.
• 58:28
  I don't have any kids.
• 58:28
  We're not having kids.
• 58:30
  So for me, I just want to
• 58:36
  It just has to go.
• 58:37
  It has to, there's no other option.
• 58:41
  What is enough?
• 58:42
  I think like when you talk about wealth, like I also, I grew up in Malawi, which is a very small country in Africa.
• 58:50
  Um,
• 58:52
  I saw people that were not, they don't get to like wake up in the morning and decide whether it's, they're going to do a hard thing that day.
• 58:59
  Like their lives are just so hard.
• 59:02
  Like the, the charcoal carriers who carry charcoal overnight because it's illegal so that everybody can get their fires, but they carry it.
• 59:10
  They, they walk 10 hours a night and then they walk back during the day and then they sleep for three hours and they come back and do it.
• 59:14
  Like,
• 59:16
  Not everyone gets to wake up and decide to do something that's hard.
• 59:19
  When I was in training, everyone would say, oh, it's so hard and so much discipline.
• 59:22
  And it is, but it's also like a privilege to be able to do that, to wake up and be able to pursue something that you want to pursue.
• 59:28
  Like the freedom of that, that's enough for me.
• 59:31
  And like enough financial freedom to be able to do that, to be able to take those risks and starting a business is a risk.
• 59:37
  And I'm in a good enough position where I can take that risk.
• 59:39
  And that is enough.
• 59:47
  Okay with it.
• 59:47
  And like, I can't believe that that is a place that we've got to like my family moved here with like the I'm one of five children.
• 59:55
  Dad, no job, mom, no job.
• 59:57
  My brother is cerebral palsy and still requires special care.
• 1:00:00
  Like, I have no idea how they made any of it work.
• 1:00:03
  So yeah.
• 1:00:05
  I don't know.
• 1:00:05
  I just think that, yeah, enough to have freedom to choose the hard things you want to do and not have them forced upon you.
• 1:00:13
  That's like that is.
• 1:00:15
  Yeah, that's that's the goal.
• 1:00:19
  I'm half Hungarian.
• 1:00:23
  Ah, it's an interesting question.
• 1:00:26
  I feel like I see business wealth really separate from my personal wealth.
• 1:00:30
  And like you can have a business that generates you so many millions of dollars, but people think that like you're a millionaire and the millions of dollars are in your bank.
• 1:00:38
  Right.
• 1:00:39
  But I so I see them separately.
• 1:00:40
  I'm like, cool, that's that's a revenue driver.
• 1:00:42
  And it's like.
• 1:00:44
  being put back into the business to grow it.
• 1:00:46
  And then the personal wealth side, it's like, yeah, great.
• 1:00:48
  I can take a wage from that business, but I really think that it comes down to like diversifying and like I can draw a wage from that, but I can also use like my coaching that I do for social media to generate wealth there.
• 1:01:02
  I repurpose all my content onto YouTube shorts.
• 1:01:04
  That pays me as well.
• 1:01:05
  So like, yeah, just personal wealth to me is kind of just diversifying.
• 1:01:10
  And like, yeah, just having loads of different income streams.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah.
• 1:01:14
  I feel like there's a couple of Brizzy girls here too, by the way, now that we're talking about like locations and stuff.
• 1:01:18
  Also in the room, shout out to Brizzy girls.
• 1:01:20
  Yeah.
• 1:01:22
  Would you all please give these wonderful speakers a round of applause?
• 1:01:27
  Thank you so much for sharing so deeply and beautifully.
• 1:01:33
  I'm so grateful to have you here.
• 1:01:34
  What we're going to do now is have a couple of nibbles, a couple of drinks, stick around for a minute, meet the women who are here from OmniSend, mingle with each other, come and say hi to our beautiful speakers.
• 1:01:48
  Thank you so much.
• 1:01:49
  Thank you.
• 1:01:50
  Thank you, everyone.