Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Best of ‘22 - 6 Questions with Zara Saleem, Founder of Delhicious (Part 2)

Transcript

Best of ‘22 - 6 Questions with Zara Saleem, Founder of Delhicious (Part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hi, it's just me popping in with a quick message to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful break this festive season. I hope you're able to take some time for yourself to recharge and reset and come back full of energy in 2023.
• 0:15
  Over the next few weeks, our team will all be taking a much-needed break, and you'll be hearing the best episodes from 2022. When I look back over this year, there were just so many amazing episodes. It was near impossible to choose just one handful, but we did, and they're amazing, and I'm sure you're going to love them.
• 0:34
  For now, I'm off to spend some quality time with my mom and my family in Queensland after three whole years of not seeing her. Can you believe it? Three years. Oh my gosh. I'm going to be doing all the little things that are good for my soul over this period and dreaming up my goals for 2023, which you're going to hear about when I come back in January. I'm so looking forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and bringing you more of the good stuff with Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  Welcome back, here are the six quick questions.
• 1:16
  Question number one, what's your why? Why are you doing this every single day? For me, I think my why has always, it's about, it's underpinned with helping people. And I think that's where my teaching side came from. If my business wasn't something that was making a difference to people, I think it would be easier for me to give up. My why is around...
• 1:35
  my customers community and also representing culture which I think is so important and it's about representation for me so my why is to inspire younger generations of you know women of color who can look and think like if she did this and you know it's great to see our heritage and our culture sitting in mass market that's definitely my why I love that it's so important
• 2:01
  Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? I think it would be between our Glossy Box going live. That was amazing. That was an incredible moment for us. And also like when our first videos went viral on TikTok because it was no ad spend, but like where we've gotten to has been totally organic. So marketing wise, we've not spent a penny. And that's been amazing. So I think it would be between those, that feeling of like, oh my gosh, like we're getting somewhere with this, you know? Absolutely.
• 2:31
  Question number three is what's your go-to business resource if you had to choose like a book or a newsletter or a podcast?
• 2:39
  It would definitely be Girls That Invest. Oh my God, I love Sim. She's so great. And Sonia. I mean, she's so great. And actually, when I first started Delicious, she was running a different page at the time. And we were kind of, we chatted at the time. So to see her and how far she's taken something that was so, you know, new to the world. And it's such an amazing, it's such a great concept to make women financially literate. Like, it's just incredible, isn't it? And it's just the way that the investment space is so dominated by men.
• 3:08
  And they just make it so easy to digest and they're fun to listen to. So it would definitely be Girls That Invest. And she's recently got her book out as well. So can't wait to get that. I love it all. I love it all so much. She's coming on the show in October and I'm so excited. Oh, amazing. Oh, my God, that's amazing. Yeah, I think she's so great. That's amazing. Shout out to Sue and Sonia. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy, successful and motivated?
• 3:38
  I think that would, it wouldn't even be around like my to-do list or anything like that. I think as a, like as a woman and as a mother, for me, my wins come from feeling like I haven't just devoted attention to my business and have been present as in my other roles. That for me is so important. Like the days that I'm just an entrepreneur, I'm just, you know, working on the business. I don't feel like I've won the day, but when I've, you know, been able to have a little bit of balance, um,
• 4:04
  And I've, you know, made it like a good dinner for my kids or I've read, you know, I've had the time to sit down, do some reading or whatever it is. Those are my wins. It's having that balance. It's definitely not going to be, you know, it's not about that checklist of I have to do this in the morning or the evening. It's that overall feeling of feeling like I am present in my roles. And that's important to me. So that's definitely how I feel like I've won the day. I love that. So true. So true. Question number five is what has been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you?
• 4:35
  Worst money mistake. You know, I think we've been quite lucky in the sense that everything has been very careful. However, I felt when you skip stages, it leads to issues. So we had a order of some mailer boxes that we placed in order for. We used the factory before. We didn't test the final sample. And they came and they had these tear strips that were just horrendous.
• 5:02
  And we had, I think it was around worth £15,000 worth of stock that we had ordered. And we were like, oh, my God, we did not test the final sample. And now we've got all of these boxes. And they were just kind of like, yeah, well, that's it. You know, there was just no resolution to it. So they weren't totally unusable, but we still had to use them.
• 5:23
  But it still felt like it was such a bad move on our part. We should have been more diligent with the process and we weren't. So I think sometimes if you skip stages, it can lead to a lot of money loss. And for us, it felt like a big loss. Yeah, absolutely. Totally feel that. That's crazy. Yay, yay, yay. Lesson learned. Always test. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
• 5:48
  And question number six, last question. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, that you've had from building this business? I think my only, like, main crazy story, I think our business has been on such a journey. And it's, we've had so many crazy moments. I think the Glossy Box order would be our crazy moment of, you know, like, our neighbors looking out their windows and seeing, like, pallets being delivered. And we would literally be, like, unloading, like, 30 bag kilos of tea, like,
• 6:14
  onto our driveway I think that was really crazy for us and I also think like for me the experience of just being on Dragon's Den was quite crazy too but yeah I think that would probably be it for us I think we've just been on such a journey like it's just been it's just been overall so crazy but I think we had a crazy start so for me it was definitely that that order was just it was just insane
• 6:37
  I love that. This has been so cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Zara, and sharing your journey and all these ups and downs you're going through. I am such a cheerleader. I'm going to be here for whatever you need. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been so fun.
• 6:58
  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.
• 7:22
  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.
• 7:45
  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.
• 8:00
  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.
• 8:25
  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.
• 8:48
  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.