Speaker 1: Welcome to the mentor. I'm Marke Boris.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting at the bar going back to the hotel,
Speaker 2: sitting at the bar with Sean Johnson and his partner,
Speaker 2: and at a phone call come through from my sister
Speaker 2: and her been a ragby league founder, had thought she
Speaker 2: wanted to speak about the game, and I left it.
Speaker 2: I didn't answer it because I wasn't really in the
Speaker 2: mood to speak about rugby league at the time, and
Speaker 2: it was the end of the year and it's enjoying
Speaker 2: having a sparkling water and a red wine at the bar.
Speaker 2: And then she ran me back straight away and I
Speaker 2: knew something was up. I answered the call and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: what's Hey Mendes, so that's my sister's name.
Speaker 3: What's what's happened? She's like his dad, and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: what's happened?
Speaker 2: And she's like, he's taken his own life, his dad,
Speaker 2: he's committed suicide.
Speaker 1: And your biological father, yeah, my.
Speaker 2: Biological father, who I hadn't spoken until spoken to since
Speaker 2: I was twenty one I was now thirty at the time,
Speaker 2: sat there and just broke down in tears, like I
Speaker 2: don't I didn't even know what I was.
Speaker 1: It was just like a shock for start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know my dad, My dad was a
Speaker 2: good guy, but it was just a useless father. And
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of carried this chip on my
Speaker 2: shoulder as a young kid, like like you kind of
Speaker 2: mumba lamas, but you kind of fucked my childhood. Now
Speaker 2: you know, you're throwing the spanner in the works, and
Speaker 2: you're fucking fuck with me in my adulthood as well,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I sat there and
Speaker 2: I had all this these these thoughts going through my head,
Speaker 2: and you know, I had I had to break the
Speaker 2: news to someone else, and I told Sean and I
Speaker 2: had to go up to my room, and then before
Speaker 2: I knew it, the whole squad was in my room.
Speaker 2: David Kobell, included the managers, everyone, and everyone was just
Speaker 2: there kind.
Speaker 3: Of helping me out, and and I hopped on.
Speaker 2: They were the logistics out so I could get back
Speaker 2: to Christich for the funeral, And so I got back
Speaker 2: to christ Church. Through this whole next two days of
Speaker 2: traveling from London to christ Church, so much thoughts were
Speaker 2: going through my head. I was about to go back
Speaker 2: home to a family that's part of me that I
Speaker 2: haven't seen for nearly twenty odd years. And that was
Speaker 2: a bit of a mind a mine, mind.
Speaker 3: Fuck within itself.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, I get myself, me and my sister
Speaker 2: get at ourself prepared for.
Speaker 3: The funeral and walking to the funeral, and.
Speaker 2: Here's my half brother who's basically four or five years
Speaker 2: younger than me, looks like my twin, and I haven't
Speaker 2: seen him since I'm seven. So that's my first shock.
Speaker 2: See obviously, see my dad, and you know, see my
Speaker 2: aunties who I haven't seen since I was a young kid.
Speaker 2: And I'm basically four with a room full of strangers.
Speaker 2: But there's this part, there's there's this still part of
Speaker 2: me that's in this room. And throughout the day, as
Speaker 2: I went from the few uneral to my dad's grave site,
Speaker 2: I actually found out my dad, my grandfather, and my
Speaker 2: great grandfather had all taken.
Speaker 3: Their own lives.
Speaker 1: Wow, and on your dad's side.
Speaker 3: On my dad's side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the only thing that we share in common
Speaker 2: is the same middle name, and that's Earl. And as
Speaker 2: a young kid, I used to hate that middle name.
Speaker 4: All of you had the same middle name, great grandfather, grandfather, dad,
Speaker 4: and you and.
Speaker 2: Me and I found that out during that day. And
Speaker 2: as a kid, the middle name. I don't know whether
Speaker 2: it was just to do with the association with my
Speaker 2: dad because I thought he was useless.
Speaker 3: As a kid.
Speaker 2: Like when I was a kid, I hated the middle name.
Speaker 2: I felt like it gave me bad energy. And whenever
Speaker 2: someone would ask me, what's your middle name, I would
Speaker 2: say I don't have one. I'd always go like, I
Speaker 2: don't have one. And basically that was the turning point
Speaker 2: in my life. I continue to play rugby league for
Speaker 2: the next two years, but I felt like my job
Speaker 2: when I felt my dream was starting to turn into
Speaker 2: a job. And I believe when you when your dream
Speaker 2: starts to turn into a job, it's.
Speaker 3: Time to walk away.
Speaker 2: That's that's the sport, that's life, that's the universe tapping
Speaker 2: on your shoulder saying hey, like you need to go
Speaker 2: find something else and.
Speaker 1: Tap out, tap out.
Speaker 2: And you know, when I was a kid, when I'd
Speaker 2: hang out with my dad, he was real stylish kind
Speaker 2: of dude, had a great great the way he dressed,
Speaker 2: did great dress sense. He you know, wore Levi as
Speaker 2: with the Chuck Taylor's had the leather jacket, the Harley Davison,
Speaker 2: whereas all my mate's friends they would wear the track
Speaker 2: the footy tracksuits and stuff like that. So I used
Speaker 2: to be quite embarrassed by the way my dad dressed,
Speaker 2: but he was quite hip. So I guess that's where
Speaker 2: it sort of came into the.
Speaker 1: Other days, the dreams with the belt exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, tucked it off the polo, you know
Speaker 2: that look exactly exactly. And so I'd sort of come
Speaker 2: to this point in my life where I was about
Speaker 2: to leave Manly. I've been offered a three year deal
Speaker 2: to go to Purpen Youong, to play the cat Lands
Speaker 2: over in the south of France.
Speaker 3: I was meant to leave on the Friday. On the Wednesday, I.
Speaker 2: Decided I'd retire. I just felt like I couldn't take
Speaker 2: over this because I had two years to kind of
Speaker 2: digest what had gone on, and my form had kind
Speaker 2: of fallen off the back to the wards, the back
Speaker 2: end of the year, my back into the career, so
Speaker 2: I knew it was just time to let go. What
Speaker 2: year we're doing man twenty seventeen eighteen, so towards the
Speaker 2: back end of then, and I thought to myself like, listen,
Speaker 2: there's a great opportunity to go to France and just
Speaker 2: kind of finish off your career as a working holidays.
Speaker 1: I think SKD was there, Yeah, he was a few.
Speaker 3: Of the boys there, piers, he would have been there
Speaker 3: filling up.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a few.
Speaker 3: Kind of boys there.
Speaker 2: But deep down inside me, there was just something that
Speaker 2: was holding me back and I felt like taking that with.
Speaker 3: Me the suicide.
Speaker 2: Over there to a non speaking English country, trying to
Speaker 2: get therapy. And then also outside of RGULA League, my
Speaker 2: hobby was fashion and love sneakers, love clothing, and I
Speaker 2: saw it. I saw a niche kind of movement in
Speaker 2: the market where you know, I've lived one dream and
Speaker 2: once you've lived your dream and you've broken through that
Speaker 2: like dream atmosphere and you kind of I don't know
Speaker 2: what it is, but you feel like you can do anything.
Speaker 2: If you really want to do something, you'll go and
Speaker 2: do it. And like I said before, like I'd rather
Speaker 2: found out something I want to do than I don't
Speaker 2: want to do. So I retired on the Wednesday. On
Speaker 2: the Monday, I started up earls at the same time
Speaker 2: parallel with getting a job at SkyTV, so SkyTV is
Speaker 2: over here at Fox Sports in New Zealand at Sky Sports.
Speaker 2: So I was gone back every Wednesday and I was
Speaker 2: doing all the Warriors home games. I was commentary and
Speaker 2: reporting and started up Earls.
Speaker 1: But what was it was going to be?
Speaker 4: Like, Like, I get the brand, I understand with the
Speaker 4: name camera, but what was your like what skews were
Speaker 4: you going to be running with?
Speaker 1: What do you well?
Speaker 2: I basically, I basically the reason I came to clothing
Speaker 2: is because that was my passion.
Speaker 3: The name. I remember.
Speaker 2: I was up on College Street in Sydney, just by
Speaker 2: High Park, and I pulled over the side of the
Speaker 2: road and I was like, I'm going to start this
Speaker 2: thing called Earl's Collection because basically I didn't have a
Speaker 2: relationship with my dad, you know, through my adulthood, and
Speaker 2: I always thought i'd have a I would have an
Speaker 2: adult conversation with him and let bygones be bygones, build
Speaker 2: a bridge and we can both move on and just
Speaker 2: live life, you know what I mean, and find out
Speaker 2: about his childhood. But for obvious reasons, that didn't get
Speaker 2: to happen. So I thought I would honor him and
Speaker 2: take this negative, this really negative cloud of this name
Speaker 2: and try and turn it into something positive. So I
Speaker 2: had named it El's Collection, and I was sick of
Speaker 2: buying other people's clothing. It's beending lots of money on
Speaker 2: high end clothing. When I felt the quality and basically
Speaker 2: felt like I could create that myself.
Speaker 3: So reached out to.
Speaker 2: A mate who put me in touch with a production
Speaker 2: company in China, and you know, within six months, I'd
Speaker 2: launched a forteen piece collection and I was on my
Speaker 2: journey to start with El's.
Speaker 4: Collection, to take me through a good forwarding piece collection.
Speaker 4: So what are we talking about?
Speaker 5: These?
Speaker 1: You know strides?
Speaker 2: We started with teas teas, these basketball shorts which became
Speaker 2: a craze.
Speaker 1: And can you describe those?
Speaker 3: So basketball short?
Speaker 1: I know what a basket that you're.
Speaker 2: So basically we had these they called the Earl short,
Speaker 2: basically just a nice premium bit of polyesamesh with Earl's
Speaker 2: kind of applicate across the front and would change the
Speaker 2: colors out. And it got to the point mark where
Speaker 2: you know, like we're doing like twelve hundred peers in
Speaker 2: three minutes. I put them up online and they just disappear.
Speaker 1: And how did everyone know about it?
Speaker 2: Well, just like I guess the first fan, my first
Speaker 2: customer base and the brand Awinness I got was that
Speaker 2: rugby league fan. So basically, at the time, the people
Speaker 2: that followed me through rugby League were going to come on.
Speaker 1: This journey with me with where they're following you.
Speaker 3: Although followed me from New Zealand.
Speaker 1: That's I don't know what what platform Facebook.
Speaker 2: Instagram, Facebook, you know, Twitter, stuff like that, and then
Speaker 2: we had no marketing or anything. I knew nothing. I
Speaker 2: absolutely knew nothing. I knew nothing about clothing. All I
Speaker 2: knew was I had a good I felt like I
Speaker 2: had a good eye, and I was going to teach
Speaker 2: myself how to use Photoshop illustrator and learned to design
Speaker 2: a fourteen piece collection and put it together shoot it.
Speaker 2: I shot my first shoot up in China ge Joe.
Speaker 2: Just randomly happened. I was going up there to check
Speaker 2: check the factories and then yeah, I just thought, let's
Speaker 2: just give.
Speaker 3: This a go.
Speaker 1: So shorts, T shirts, what else?
Speaker 2: Switch shirts, hoodies, socks, hats, So start off with that.
Speaker 2: So just a small range bit of forty.
Speaker 1: Piece nearly accessories as well.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly and.
Speaker 4: I to stop me, but did you have you must
Speaker 4: have had a fairly big a reasonable audience from me
Speaker 4: forty days, so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not too bad.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say the biggest, the biggest following, but a
Speaker 2: lot of people knew, like outside of regular league the
Speaker 2: eighty minutes. I loved clothing I love and I'd always
Speaker 2: like take photos of fits and that that I put
Speaker 2: up on my Instagram. And you know, I'm from the
Speaker 2: era of like living my adulthood.
Speaker 3: With no social media.
Speaker 2: Then also this thing coming through with social media and
Speaker 2: you're getting used to it, you know. I'd go to
Speaker 2: like Warriors functions and I'll wear a cardigan and Ivan Claire.
Speaker 2: He would always come up to me with a smile
Speaker 2: on his face, saying, fuck, what are you wearing there?
Speaker 4: Mate?
Speaker 2: That's fucking terrible, do you know what I mean? But
Speaker 2: I always stuck true to who I was, and that's
Speaker 2: what he loved about me the most. And we'd go
Speaker 2: on footy trips and all the boys would hassle me
Speaker 2: about wearing you know, like Cardigan's tight jeans and all,
Speaker 2: you know, all the craze, and then they'd get me
Speaker 2: one on one. They'd be like, hey, Louis, can you
Speaker 2: take me shopping? My missus ask if I could dress
Speaker 2: a little bit like you're a little bit more so
Speaker 2: I'll start to see the boys sort of accept me
Speaker 2: for who I was. And you know, I just thought
Speaker 2: to myself, it's just still a fording piece collection. See
Speaker 2: how it goes. Dropped it and it sold out pretty
Speaker 2: much within a month.
Speaker 1: J King to a rising tide.
Speaker 4: So you rising tider is health nutrition or health span lifespan,
Speaker 4: which is about nutrition and nutrition is about making sure
Speaker 4: you have the right balance of everything you need, whether
Speaker 4: it's what you whether it's through what you eat or
Speaker 4: what your supplement with what you eat, along with all
Speaker 4: the other stuff sleep, blah, exercise. But it is a
Speaker 4: big rising tide in particular in the States and is starting
Speaker 4: to hit here a bit a little bit less. So
Speaker 4: this big deal in the US, and everybody wants to
Speaker 4: live longer.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to look.
Speaker 5: But also for people who I mean, investors are definitely
Speaker 5: interested invitament companies.
Speaker 6: They love that.
Speaker 5: But it is interesting again like for people listening, you
Speaker 5: can get so defeated by one investor turning you down.
Speaker 6: It's just like again, just keep going.
Speaker 1: Would you say, then, Jess.
Speaker 4: That's critical for entrepreneurs who might be thinking about a
Speaker 4: journey doesn't have to be invited with whatever they're thinking
Speaker 4: about that they should always try and find themselves a
Speaker 4: co founder.
Speaker 5: I think, I have to say, I think about people
Speaker 5: who may be doing this by themselves, and I think
Speaker 5: it's tough. I think, as I said, yes, say, my
Speaker 5: husband was having just a bit of a hard mental
Speaker 5: day in terms of managing something literally on the website,
Speaker 5: and he was defeated by it. And I'm able to
Speaker 5: say to him, but look how many visitors we had
Speaker 5: to the website, or like, think of the positives and
Speaker 5: sort of cheer him up and boost him up. I
Speaker 5: think having a co founder is incredibly supportive through the
Speaker 5: hardship of this journey.
Speaker 6: I mean, as you know, and as you say all
Speaker 6: the time.
Speaker 5: On this podcast, this is tough, tough, tough, tough stuff,
Speaker 5: and so having that sounding board at all times and
Speaker 5: that emotional support. I mean, the other side of it
Speaker 5: is being very strict on boundaries. He's my husband, and
Speaker 5: I do put my marriage first.
Speaker 6: My mom's a relationship counsel and therapist.
Speaker 5: I've been brought up in a home where that must
Speaker 5: come first, and so I'm sort of strict about it,
Speaker 5: strict boundaries, and it's not easy to have those strict
Speaker 5: I mean, it's not easy to be strict with that
Speaker 5: because business is so demanding and it's global and it's
Speaker 5: an office in la in London and Sydney. I mean
Speaker 5: the time zones of speaking to people. You speak to
Speaker 5: people early in the morning and then late at night.
Speaker 5: But having that companion to pick you up on the
Speaker 5: hard days is pretty amazing because as we say, like,
Speaker 5: you've just got to keep going, as my dad would say,
Speaker 5: you've got to keep boxing.
Speaker 1: Twenty four seven.
Speaker 4: It's a tough one, yeah, But I mean, I guess
Speaker 4: it comes down just to how you structure it out
Speaker 4: and how you manage it.
Speaker 1: And you're right if you have the right partner.
Speaker 6: But I think you're exactly an understanding partner.
Speaker 5: But I think, and I've heard you say in your podcast,
Speaker 5: I think I do believe that when you have your
Speaker 5: own company and you wanted to succeed it is twenty
Speaker 5: four seven, I think I have. I've seen it with
Speaker 5: my dad, I sort of saw with my grandmother. I've
Speaker 5: seen it with sorry people like you. I've seen it
Speaker 5: with all the If I look at all the successful
Speaker 5: people in my life or who I've known, I've met,
Speaker 5: they're at twenty four seven, and so it's sort of
Speaker 5: like you have to stomach that. You have to stomach
Speaker 5: that this is going to be a twenty four seven situation.
Speaker 5: It was hard for me initially to stomach. I think
Speaker 5: I was very protective of my personal life, of my
Speaker 5: marriage and let's have boundaries, you know. But then there
Speaker 5: comes a time where you realize, if we want to succeed,
Speaker 5: we're going to have to give it out everything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually you're talking about disrupt your business. The
Speaker 4: more disrupting the business into the marketplace, the more you
Speaker 4: just write the marketplace generally speaking, the more disrupt.
Speaker 5: Your lifeptions disruption everywhere.
Speaker 6: I think you're right and be prepared for it.
Speaker 4: And if you're prepared for it, then there's no surprise.
Speaker 4: You're okay, yeah, and you'll be fine.
Speaker 5: There does come a moment in business, don't you think,
Speaker 5: where you sort of I think the first couple years
Speaker 5: is tough, and then there comes a moment where you.
Speaker 6: Realize this is how it has to be.
Speaker 5: And I think when you come but when you surrender
Speaker 5: to that and you accept it, it becomes almost easier
Speaker 5: because I was sort of like rejecting this twenty four seven.
Speaker 5: This is so demanding, this is so intense, this is crazy,
Speaker 5: this is hard. But sort of when you come to
Speaker 5: terms and make peace with it, this is the reality
Speaker 5: of what it is to build a brand, especially a
Speaker 5: brand that's going to disrupt an industry. This is the
Speaker 5: way it has to be, and you come to peace
Speaker 5: with it, it almost sort of I don't know, relaxes
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, I just take the view, not only is it
Speaker 1: the way it has to be, this way it is.
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 4: That's the way it is, and if you don't like it,
Speaker 4: to leave. If you do like it, stay in and
Speaker 4: talk to me about work life balance and all that shite.
Speaker 1: There is a rubbish.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think with building a brand when it's your own, like,
Speaker 5: it's different when you're working for when you're building your
Speaker 5: own brand, go with it. There's no there is no
Speaker 5: perfect work life balance.
Speaker 4: Back feel like, you know, they give ship my work
Speaker 4: life balance and no good And I'm not talking to
Speaker 4: my kids enough and I'm doing my parents, my brother's sister.
Speaker 4: Then I just, oh, should I haven't spend for a while,
Speaker 4: But ago and do a bit exactly.
Speaker 6: And a couple of breaks like weekends.
Speaker 5: You know, my husband I would take one break a
Speaker 5: year over Christmas because we close the office, like taking
Speaker 5: breaks when we can just to reset our minds. I
Speaker 5: actually think it sometimes has made me better at my
Speaker 5: job to take that two week break at the end
Speaker 5: of the year, just to reset, refresh.
Speaker 6: But yeah, this is relentless. This is obsessive.
Speaker 5: This is having a no pad next to your bed
Speaker 5: every night because you wake up at three in the
Speaker 5: morning down the ideas. This is going at the same
Speaker 5: staff member all day, all day until the banner is
Speaker 5: on the website. This is checking the website fifty times
Speaker 5: a day until it's perfect because you've seen that the
Speaker 5: arrow button is falling underneath the wrong line. This is
Speaker 5: staff problems. This is hr This is relentless. I think
Speaker 5: I'm a strong girl. I think I'll weather through the
Speaker 5: storm and I'll do my best to keep going.
Speaker 1: You've got to try and.
Speaker 4: Make sure you sort of detach yourself, and we hear
Speaker 4: this in the Buddhism all the time about this not
Speaker 4: attaching yourself to things, whether it's material things or conceptual
Speaker 4: things as well. So you've got to sort of basically
Speaker 4: detach yourself from the business you're working in.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and you do that by grounding yourself in who
Speaker 7: you are without their business.
Speaker 1: So your own values, your own values.
Speaker 7: So what you're kind of and I think that we
Speaker 7: spent so much time thinking about business values. You write
Speaker 7: it up on the wall and we have workshops talking
Speaker 7: about what the values of your business are. Very few
Speaker 7: of us think about what values I am as a person,
Speaker 7: and that is way more important than a business value.
Speaker 1: Give me an example a couple of the value.
Speaker 4: So we're talking about like in terms of usual virtues,
Speaker 4: like I'm respectful, I'm generous.
Speaker 7: Yes, Yeah, there's a bunch of them in the book.
Speaker 7: I've got the top fifty most common ones. So for
Speaker 7: me my values Optimism is a huge value of mine.
Speaker 7: Fairness and equality and community.
Speaker 3: They're kind of like my values and.
Speaker 7: So they're not unique to me, but how I order
Speaker 7: them and how they kind of come to life. And
Speaker 7: you get most of these values from parents, or from mentors,
Speaker 7: or from people that you admire.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So but let's say someone just kicking off, I mean,
Speaker 4: where does that How does a young person or a
Speaker 4: person for that matter, evaluate Let's say the fifty virtues,
Speaker 4: the values or things we stand life stands for. How
Speaker 4: does someone choose because you can't do a fifties to
Speaker 4: a lot? I mean, how would you say to someone,
Speaker 4: go and choose a girl about choosing these things?
Speaker 7: Because a really simple exercise, which would be think of
Speaker 7: someone that you really admire, so someone you look up to.
Speaker 7: It could be someone you know, or it could be
Speaker 7: someone in the media, or it could be someone a celebrity,
Speaker 7: and then start listening out what are the qualities in
Speaker 7: them that you admire, Like, what do you admire.
Speaker 1: In them outside of materiality?
Speaker 7: Outside materiality?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it could be and that's sort of being famous.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like you're looking for the values that make them them,
Speaker 7: So you know, like what's admiral about it? Yeah, you
Speaker 7: want to kind of get to the core. It's not
Speaker 7: about like surface level of they have a nice car. Yeah,
Speaker 7: this is more about they're really freaking honest.
Speaker 4: Oh they've got It's also they've got a hot Instagram page.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, Yeah, it's outside of that. We're trying to
Speaker 7: get to the core. So I call them anchors because
Speaker 7: I want to differentiate them a little bit from work values.
Speaker 7: So an anchor suggests it's something that's at the core
Speaker 7: of somebody, and that is ideally it's someone you know
Speaker 7: because you can you know it could be your parent,
Speaker 7: or it could be an uncle, or it could be
Speaker 7: your boss or something like that. And start listening out
Speaker 7: what are the values that you admire in them, And
Speaker 7: then you then start looking at the top fifty most
Speaker 7: important anchors, and sometimes things jump out at you and
Speaker 7: that's where when it happens. And then you need to
Speaker 7: test this out with your partner or a best friend,
Speaker 7: because you can sometimes say I really value being trustworthy
Speaker 7: and someone says you're a bloody liar. There's not one
Speaker 7: of your values. So it's really important to test it
Speaker 7: out with someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: And so working backwards is sort of a process of
Speaker 4: instead of all of a sudden finding yourself you're sixty
Speaker 4: five and you think, what the fuck have been doing?
Speaker 4: Armal life is giving yourself a fighting chance to not.
Speaker 1: Be in that position when you turn five.
Speaker 4: In other words, recognizing day one, re lease and hopefully
Speaker 4: every day of your life what I'm actually work towards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what am I doing it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Just read just all I want with this book is
Speaker 7: for people to think perspective then yeah, yeah, just get
Speaker 7: a bit of thought, because sometimes I think I call
Speaker 7: it the default mode, is where you just get on
Speaker 7: this treadmill and it pushes you off at sixty five
Speaker 7: and you get there and you realize, I'm too old
Speaker 7: to do those things I've been dreaming of doing since I.
Speaker 1: Was twenty or I didn't save enough money, didn't.
Speaker 7: Save enough money, didn't look after my health, especially that one,
Speaker 7: especially that one, didn't look after relationships. I've got there
Speaker 7: now and I need to try and repair my relationship
Speaker 7: with my kids.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is.
Speaker 7: All of that happens by default without thinking. You just
Speaker 7: get on this treadmill and you get off, and that
Speaker 7: to me is like you're just just doing and not thinking.
Speaker 7: So all I want is for people to just like
Speaker 7: have a moment to just reassess and look. And for me,
Speaker 7: that moment was I said I left my job after
Speaker 7: fifteen years. COVID happened, which was a huge global experiment,
Speaker 7: and my dad passed away in twenty twenty one at
Speaker 7: twenty twenty two, and that to me was a hugely
Speaker 7: important moment.
Speaker 1: He was my hero.
Speaker 7: All a lot of the qualities that I have now
Speaker 7: I inherited from him, and that made me reconsider just
Speaker 7: am I happy? What are my values? What's important to me?
Speaker 7: And I live in the life I want to live,
Speaker 7: And those three things happen and that's where the germ
Speaker 7: of this book came from.
Speaker 4: And and before I just we close, its running out
Speaker 4: of top. But like you're exit from Junkie Media, which
Speaker 4: was twenty sixteen sixteen, Yeah, so what was it that
Speaker 4: prompted that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was It was a couple of things. One,
Speaker 7: it was timing, so we could see that there was
Speaker 7: going to be a peak of a market.
Speaker 1: So it was time, yes, potentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was time.
Speaker 7: That was important.
Speaker 3: Two was.
Speaker 7: Myself and a business partner had worked for ourselves the
Speaker 7: whole time, and I felt like we got to the
Speaker 7: limit of what we could teach ourselves and we wanted
Speaker 7: to learn and be part of a bigger company and
Speaker 7: just get those extra business skills that you get. So
Speaker 7: we decided to take it to market. So we got
Speaker 7: an advisor on board. We took it to market. And
Speaker 7: the process is you start off with this list and
Speaker 7: there was like thirty companies and it's all amazing, and
Speaker 7: slowly the list whittles down and whiddles down down about two. Yeah,
Speaker 7: down to about two, and then we got to two
Speaker 7: and they both put in low ball offers or kind
Speaker 7: of weren't that interested, and we were like, Okay, it's
Speaker 7: not the right time, so we took it off the market.
Speaker 7: Then about twelve eighteen months later, within the space of
Speaker 7: a week, both of those two and then another one
Speaker 7: all came back to us independently and said, are you still.
Speaker 1: Interested because the market wasn't right at the course of
Speaker 1: the market.
Speaker 4: They can be the right buyers, you can be the
Speaker 4: right asset, but the market's.
Speaker 1: Got to be right.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: The three things that the company needs to be aligned,
Speaker 7: the acquirer's company and board needs to be aligned, and
Speaker 7: the market.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And we had two of those, but not that third one.
Speaker 4: So that's interesting because you can't force a sile, does
Speaker 4: man Aguja the marketplace determines when people want to buy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And it was the most fascinating lesson when we got
Speaker 7: to call it from the advisor saying, just had a
Speaker 7: call from company X, and then a day or two
Speaker 7: later he's like, you would never leave this, but company
Speaker 7: why is also called And that to us was extraordinary,
Speaker 7: So we then reopened the process just for them. They
Speaker 7: both kind of end up bidding against each other and
Speaker 7: then we.
Speaker 4: Chose one and you went through the usual due diligence
Speaker 4: period what we did.
Speaker 7: And we ended up not going with the company that
Speaker 7: offered the most money.
Speaker 1: And why is that?
Speaker 3: Because we went with a.
Speaker 7: Company that was really aligned with what we wanted. There
Speaker 7: was other factors, especially for what I wanted, staff, an audience,
Speaker 7: staff and audience and also development. I had a three
Speaker 7: year earnout, as my business partner did, and that's three
Speaker 7: years working for someone else, So I wanted it to
Speaker 7: be someone that I wanted to work from and learn from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and most important part about it that are you're right,
Speaker 4: is giving yourself the best possible chance of actually achieving
Speaker 4: the earn out. And that's got to be someone who
Speaker 4: knows what they're doing. But also, I think equally to
Speaker 4: originally I seemply we're aligned on this one, Timbers.
Speaker 1: I like to learn.
Speaker 4: And bench strength is so important. You know, getting a
Speaker 4: really good bench, like you know your buyer who's got
Speaker 4: bench who has ben strength, They've got a lot of experience,
Speaker 4: and shit, you can you can, you can get you
Speaker 4: can gain from that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And so an example of that is I left
Speaker 7: the business after four years. My business partner who came
Speaker 7: is still there eight years later in a big, huge role,
Speaker 7: really kind of enjoying and learning new things. So it
Speaker 7: was a really successful acquisition for them in terms of hires.
Speaker 9: In that case, I do think the two words that
Speaker 9: you've just used, which is real courage and willing to
Speaker 9: just back yourself and give something a go, and that
Speaker 9: mindset of like, what's the worst thing.
Speaker 10: That could happen if this doesn't work?
Speaker 9: So if I head up overseas, what's the worst thing
Speaker 9: that can happen, I just come home if it doesn't,
Speaker 9: you know, if it doesn't work out. So that has
Speaker 9: really helped. So the courage, but the curiosity I think,
Speaker 9: I mean, I think people that know me would describe
Speaker 9: me as a real learning person.
Speaker 10: I'm just always wanting to learn. Hence will love podcasts.
Speaker 9: You know, my family are sick of me going oh
Speaker 9: I was listening to this podcast and blah.
Speaker 10: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 11: They're like enough with the podcast.
Speaker 1: They'll be saying to you now because listen to you
Speaker 1: on the podcast.
Speaker 9: They'll be like, oh, mum, really anyway, So the curiosity,
Speaker 9: So I've always been like, just wonder us, what is
Speaker 9: going on?
Speaker 10: Why is that happening? What's that person doing?
Speaker 9: So Interestingly, the reason I got into the whole McKinsey
Speaker 9: and Company was not because it was the dumb thing
Speaker 9: out of an NBA. It was that someone who knew
Speaker 9: I loved solving problems, was like, oh, you should meet
Speaker 9: so and so, and that person happened to work at
Speaker 9: McKinsey and Company.
Speaker 10: And I was like, what is this thing? What is
Speaker 10: management consulting?
Speaker 11: That sounds really interesting?
Speaker 9: Oh you get to solve different problems every three or
Speaker 9: four months.
Speaker 11: Oh, that sounds like me.
Speaker 10: And so it was.
Speaker 11: It was the curiosity.
Speaker 10: So those two things.
Speaker 1: But how do you in that role?
Speaker 4: Though? So when you see someone suggested something to you,
Speaker 4: was that just an acquaintance lucky lucky that is, or
Speaker 4: was it or did you come about making sure that
Speaker 4: you knew people?
Speaker 9: Well I'm about to come on to that actually, because
Speaker 9: I'd say courage and curiosity. But the two other things
Speaker 9: that have really worked for me. One was and I
Speaker 9: think I worked this out later in the game quite
Speaker 9: frankly than I should have, But the importance of connections,
Speaker 9: and that actually meeting people and being curious about their
Speaker 9: lives and what they're doing, and the importance of connections
Speaker 9: and having that as part of your role or having
Speaker 9: that as part of your day job versus just getting
Speaker 9: so focused on your.
Speaker 1: Task to get out of.
Speaker 9: The weeds and meet people and just be curious. So
Speaker 9: those connections have ultimately paid dividends. But I didn't do
Speaker 9: that to be deliberate a connection. I'm not a networker,
Speaker 9: and in fact I railed against that for years, which
Speaker 9: is why I didn't do as much of it as possible.
Speaker 9: But when I actually worked out the power of connections
Speaker 9: and helping people and they help you, that for me
Speaker 9: has unlocked so much opportunity. And then the final one,
Speaker 9: which does speak to the young twenty four year old
Speaker 9: and it does speak to the type of leader that.
Speaker 10: I want to be, is care.
Speaker 9: So for me, I really care for people, and I
Speaker 9: think you don't want to get yourself in people leadership
Speaker 9: roles if actually you're just doing it for the title,
Speaker 9: or you're just doing it to earn a bit more money.
Speaker 9: I think you do genuinely have to care for people,
Speaker 9: and I think too many leaders get into leadership or managers,
Speaker 9: I should say, get into leadership positions, and they don't
Speaker 9: have that care and empathy for people, And that's where
Speaker 9: I think it often creates quite toxic workplaces.
Speaker 4: But what would you say to you know, because I
Speaker 4: should rephrase this, A lot of people understand or at
Speaker 4: least they've read about or been told about, this connection piece,
Speaker 4: and they tend to overspend too much time on that
Speaker 4: and not enough time of being in the weeds in
Speaker 4: other words, of building their skill, building up their resume.
Speaker 4: I don't mean in terms of where they worked, but
Speaker 4: the knowledge base. How did you ever get a where
Speaker 4: you felt like you're over balancing one compared to the other.
Speaker 10: Totally, totally and in fact, and I.
Speaker 1: Was wasting time in other words meaning people.
Speaker 10: No, actually I was the opposite.
Speaker 9: So I got overlooked for a role. So this is
Speaker 9: definitely I wouldn't call this is one of those lessons learned.
Speaker 10: I got overlooked for a role.
Speaker 9: And second prize for not getting the role is I
Speaker 9: was fortunate enough to then be sent to a course
Speaker 9: at Harvard, Right, So I did a women and executive
Speaker 9: leadership role at Harvard, and there was this incredible lecturer
Speaker 9: called Francis Frye, and I'll never forget it.
Speaker 10: She said. Look, ultimately, if you really want to succeed.
Speaker 9: Particularly in corporate life, I would say is you have
Speaker 9: to remember three things. Credibility, so being incredibly good at
Speaker 9: your job, executive presence or just presence, and the way
Speaker 9: that you present yourself, and then connections and sponsorship. And
Speaker 9: the problem with many women, so for all the research
Speaker 9: that they've done is that women over index the first one,
Speaker 9: the credibility. So you just get in, you do your job,
Speaker 9: and you just think the rest will take care of itself.
Speaker 9: They'll know that I'm doing a great job, and surely
Speaker 9: you know, then I'll get promoted. And if I looked
Speaker 9: at myself at that point, I was I was so
Speaker 9: focused on the credibility and doing a really good job.
Speaker 9: But I was a young mum, I had two young kids,
Speaker 9: and I did not put any credence on connecting with
Speaker 9: people or networking. And I certainly didn't put any credence
Speaker 9: on executive presence or how I showed up in a room.
Speaker 9: In fact, i'd probably try and take the smallest amount
Speaker 9: of space in the room. And it was just such
Speaker 9: a dawning realization for me of what was going on
Speaker 9: and how I was over indexing, quite frankly, focusing too
Speaker 9: much on that, and that actually the power of really
Speaker 9: strong connections is about building trust. It's about building relationships
Speaker 9: and you never know where that goes, but at the
Speaker 9: heart of most things is trust, right, And so for me,
Speaker 9: that was a real lightbulb moment and it really flipped
Speaker 9: in my mind what was important and how you had
Speaker 9: to get a good balance of all those three things.
Speaker 1: And do you still maintain that totally?
Speaker 11: Totally.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 9: The strange thing is I naturally love being with people,
Speaker 9: meeting people, and that has so helped me throughout my career.
Speaker 9: I just hadn't, I think for me, I was so
Speaker 9: busy as a young mum and I just was like
Speaker 9: all about doing a good job. I thought networking and
Speaker 9: meeting people that was just wasting time because I didn't
Speaker 9: have enough time.
Speaker 10: Time was of the essence, and I just did not
Speaker 10: see it as a priority in my job at that time.
Speaker 4: As you still had the kids. So how did you
Speaker 4: then the children? So how did then did you reprioritize
Speaker 4: your time to actually make connections and be in the
Speaker 4: executive Yeah, be a good executive in front of people,
Speaker 4: in other words, not takeing up the smaller space, actually
Speaker 4: occupy your space.
Speaker 1: How did you do that?
Speaker 9: So it's really it's as boring as saying it's about
Speaker 9: calendar management.
Speaker 10: So in any.
Speaker 9: Given week, you know, making sure that you're prioritizing doing
Speaker 9: a good job at what you're doing, but also key
Speaker 9: connections and who you're meeting and what you're doing, and
Speaker 9: really making sure in any given week or any given
Speaker 9: fortnite that you're prioritizing both and you're managing your calendar equivalently.
Speaker 9: So my equivalent now is certainly making sure that I
Speaker 9: do connect sort of industry wide and a whole bunch
Speaker 9: of our key stakeholders, whether that be government, whether that
Speaker 9: be unions, whether that be big employers, but also making
Speaker 9: sure in my diary is lots of time for meeting
Speaker 9: amazing talent in our organization.
Speaker 10: I could fill my diary.
Speaker 9: Up just by doing my job, you know, the sort
Speaker 9: of what's going on in all of that side of things.
Speaker 9: But you have to manage your calendar accordingly and realizing
Speaker 9: that that's a priority.
Speaker 10: They were the two things.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like what's interesting about that too many
Speaker 4: ways as you're talking, is that a where super is
Speaker 4: about managing its portfolio, which is diverse for you, It's
Speaker 4: about managing your portfolio. So it's like a portfolio management
Speaker 4: process totally. This is my portfolio. It's external stakeholders, internal
Speaker 4: stakeholders as staff, it's markets and you know, and you
Speaker 4: can fill in all the sub categories in each.
Speaker 1: One of those. That's my portfolio. So I've got to
Speaker 1: manage this.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's backfilling because you might be under managing something,
Speaker 4: putting enough time because you had to do something over here,
Speaker 4: something going on over here, dragged you in, pulled you in.
Speaker 4: But sometimes it's back feeling something. But each week, so
Speaker 4: is your approach you called a diary management or color
Speaker 4: and of management, which is sort of underplaying it a
Speaker 4: little bit, I think, being humble, but you really are
Speaker 4: running a portfolio of things that you need to attend.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And I think for me, what I certainly do
Speaker 9: and I do like a quarterly check in, but I
Speaker 9: do a major thing at the beginning.
Speaker 10: Of every year.
Speaker 9: I go, right at the end of the day, what
Speaker 9: do I really want to achieve this year? And both
Speaker 9: personally and professionally, but on the professional side, in the
Speaker 9: role of a CEO, what are the five.
Speaker 10: Most important things I got to do?
Speaker 9: And so I write them down, I put them right
Speaker 9: in front of me, and I just come back really
Speaker 9: regularly to check in that that's where my time and
Speaker 9: attention is focused, because it's so easy to go off
Speaker 9: to one thing that it's urgent or in fact.
Speaker 10: It's just interesting to you.
Speaker 9: You know, both things happen, and so for me, it's
Speaker 9: always coming back to what's the most important elements of
Speaker 9: my role and where can I have the most impact
Speaker 9: for the team and for our members importantly.
Speaker 8: You know, one of the big issues for founders is
Speaker 8: that there's no one point of place or one point
Speaker 8: of truth if you like, for all of these sort
Speaker 8: of question and so it is a lot of figuring out.
Speaker 8: So there's a reason that Steve jobs just for that
Speaker 8: black skivy every day because you just didn't want to
Speaker 8: make any more decisions because there's so many that you
Speaker 8: have to make, and this is one of them. ESOPs
Speaker 8: is one, and you know, how are you going to
Speaker 8: structure it?
Speaker 11: Earnings?
Speaker 8: You know, if they stay a certain period of time,
Speaker 8: and then that's which is we would recommend you know,
Speaker 8: you just don't want to be getting equity out at
Speaker 8: the beginning because you want to see the people going
Speaker 8: to stay because startups are hard, and so you want
Speaker 8: to make sure that people are in it for a
Speaker 8: long period of time.
Speaker 11: So it's sort of how do you structure that in
Speaker 11: a way that.
Speaker 8: Serves you as the founder and actually gives them what
Speaker 8: they need to be incentivized and to actually, you know,
Speaker 8: stay for the right reasons.
Speaker 1: And that brings me to the thing.
Speaker 4: The very one of the most portant things that I know,
Speaker 4: I think exists in these environments is and it applies
Speaker 4: to an easel, applies to when a VC might be
Speaker 4: coming in evaluation.
Speaker 1: So it's all very well to say to.
Speaker 4: Someone, look, you're I want two under grands one hundred
Speaker 4: grads worth of work out of you the next two months,
Speaker 4: but I can't.
Speaker 1: Pup for to pay you. So I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you options.
Speaker 4: And let's assume we've got the right tax structure and
Speaker 4: it's all in place, and that individual says, yeah, I
Speaker 4: like one hundred thousand of options. I've got another job,
Speaker 4: so I'm going to do this stuff at night. It's
Speaker 4: an extra one hundred grand, and I believe what you're doing,
Speaker 4: so I think there could be some upside. So I'll
Speaker 4: take the options for one hundred grand and assuming the
Speaker 4: structures right, But then you've got to say, okay, I'm
Speaker 4: going to give you a hundred grands worth of options,
Speaker 4: which one hundred grands worth of shares effectively if you
Speaker 4: excise the option, which is ten percent of my company.
Speaker 4: And the dude says, well, hang on a minute, ten
Speaker 4: percent of pre money, So that means the companies worth
Speaker 4: let's say, mean bucks, And the dude says, well, or
Speaker 4: how's it worth million dollars?
Speaker 1: You haven't got a sale yet? How do you work out?
Speaker 1: How do you work the shit out?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How do you say?
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you what proxies do you use?
Speaker 4: Like you haven't got a sale? You're talking to somebody
Speaker 4: who you want to come into. It could be a CMO,
Speaker 4: it could be a see if I could be anyone
Speaker 4: with any expertise that you don't have, could be a
Speaker 4: develop and you can't afford to pay them because it's
Speaker 4: hard to raise money. The moments you said so, you
Speaker 4: decided to go to another track. So you don't stall,
Speaker 4: I'm going to give you equity and then you're happy
Speaker 4: to give them ten percent because you feel comfortable at
Speaker 4: ten percent is not too much equity that I can't
Speaker 4: control the business anymore. Now I still got ninety percent.
Speaker 4: But the individual who you're offering it is going to
Speaker 4: see it. But how do I know that one hundred
Speaker 4: grand is worth ten percent?
Speaker 11: You just don't.
Speaker 1: You've got to convince them.
Speaker 11: Somehow, have to give it.
Speaker 8: That's another we'll put that to the next lily. Add
Speaker 8: that to the ongoing list of things that founders have
Speaker 8: to do.
Speaker 11: That's right. Valuations at that stage, early stage.
Speaker 8: You know, you're right, how do you value a business
Speaker 8: that hasn't really done anything yet?
Speaker 11: So we do look for proxy.
Speaker 8: So we're looking, you know, in the US and other
Speaker 8: markets to see what you know, try and get as
Speaker 8: much information as.
Speaker 11: We have when we do those early stage valuations.
Speaker 1: But it is a bit yeah, you know, figure out
Speaker 1: the air.
Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely, But at least.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the advantages you may not like
Speaker 4: make me saying this, but of having KPMG sitting in
Speaker 4: there is that someone's going to say at least they
Speaker 4: they KPMG gave us some corporate experience in terms of
Speaker 4: perhaps producing the valuation or at least being aware of
Speaker 4: the valuation. Like if I'm an investor, I need to
Speaker 4: know that someone else has done a sanitory check on
Speaker 4: this thing, or a reasonable list check at least. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I know you don't endorse evaluation.
Speaker 11: But no, no, that's fine.
Speaker 8: I mean, even if that's the call the case, the
Speaker 8: investor can still go no, yeah, yeah, I don't believe it.
Speaker 11: So in this environment, it's so well they will. Yeah,
Speaker 11: certainly this environment.
Speaker 8: I mean, the valuations are certainly down across the board,
Speaker 8: but I mean it is so subjective at that stage
Speaker 8: that it becomes I mean, then another thing you need.
Speaker 11: To be good at as a founder's negotiation. So you've
Speaker 11: got to negotiate through that.
Speaker 8: So you know, that's and that's where you've probably got
Speaker 8: to create tension in the deal by having a number
Speaker 8: of investors that want you and how do you how
Speaker 8: do you work through that and get yourself the best
Speaker 8: deal without sacrificing too much, Because it comes down to
Speaker 8: if you don't get the money, well then maybe the
Speaker 8: company falls over.
Speaker 11: But if you give it to such.
Speaker 8: A low valuation, then that's very hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 8: There is no point because you already have less and
Speaker 8: less equity as time goes on, and so you'll end
Speaker 8: up with nothing.
Speaker 11: And we've seen that.
Speaker 8: We've got some founders we try to work with now
Speaker 8: that have come to us because they've got so little equity.
Speaker 8: And these are these are experienced founders. To be honest,
Speaker 8: we just don't quite know how it's happened because they've
Speaker 8: all got very experienced vcs on the cap table and
Speaker 8: they're looking at they've got under ten percent, and so they're.
Speaker 1: Going they're working for everybody else.
Speaker 8: Well, now, the thing is they've said to the vs
Speaker 8: we're walking away, and so we're trying to Rea.
Speaker 11: We're trying to work out how to fix it.
Speaker 8: Because so that's the problem with if you take it,
Speaker 8: if the evaluation is too low from the beginning, you've
Speaker 8: got to know that you just go to you know,
Speaker 8: you sort of go to have less and less equities
Speaker 8: time goes on as you take more capital, so you've
Speaker 8: got it.
Speaker 11: That's another thing.
Speaker 8: How do you think through that as someone who most
Speaker 8: of these people have no experience in this. So these
Speaker 8: are the technicians a lot of the time, yeah they are,
Speaker 8: but even that, like I'm from a commercial background. I
Speaker 8: haven't had to negotiate. You know, before I did startups,
Speaker 8: I wasn't negotiating equity. No one talks to you about that,
Speaker 8: and certainly it's more common now. But you know, the
Speaker 8: startup ecosystem in Australia, if you think, really is sort
Speaker 8: of kicked off in twenty ten eleven.
Speaker 11: I had startups before that. They weren't even called startups.
Speaker 11: Think they're just called crappy businesses.
Speaker 8: That no one wanted to work for, and equity was
Speaker 8: No one was talking about those sort of things then.
Speaker 11: So at least it's being talked about. But it's still
Speaker 11: hugely confusing, I think, and hard as hard.
Speaker 4: It's really hard because you've got a retreat in terms
Speaker 4: of investors. You've got to retreat in terms of those
Speaker 4: people want to put money with the vcs in the
Speaker 4: first place, which means the vc has got less money
Speaker 4: to invest. The vc' has got more pressure on them
Speaker 4: than ever before to get a return because they just
Speaker 4: don't have money flowing into them like they did during
Speaker 4: the COVID period. During the COVID period, everything was overinflated.
Speaker 4: It just was so I saw I saw one. I
Speaker 4: won't mention names, but I saw one. They just literally
Speaker 4: an idea, had some pretty good individuals behind it, like
Speaker 4: experienced people who had been in and or experience larger
Speaker 4: and much larger outcomes. But they raised ten million dollars.
Speaker 1: Quite quickly.
Speaker 4: And this is during the right beginning COVID, sort of
Speaker 4: during the beginning, the first part of COVID. They raised
Speaker 4: ten million dollars offer quite a big valuation, but that
Speaker 4: had nothing, They had no sale, they didn't even have
Speaker 4: it produced. And then what happens is these individuals tell
Speaker 4: the marketplace, they tell everybody a look, they feel obliged
Speaker 4: to announce it.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they want to announce it.
Speaker 4: Perhaps investors wanted to announce two during a hot period
Speaker 4: because the investors want it to be announce so that
Speaker 4: they can go and raise money themselves into the fund.
Speaker 4: And then other people are watching this and they go, oh,
Speaker 4: hang on, they raised ten mili off this valuation.
Speaker 1: They were like, super.
Speaker 4: Early stage, I can do the same. Well, why can't
Speaker 4: I do the same?
Speaker 8: I think I know the deal you're talking about, and
Speaker 8: you can't do the same because those found those founders
Speaker 8: of that company have had a big they're quite if
Speaker 8: it's the.
Speaker 11: Same one super experience.
Speaker 8: But then it comes down that's a really good example
Speaker 8: because then you won't be able to do the same
Speaker 8: unless you've had the same experience as those founders, So
Speaker 8: we know that.
Speaker 1: They probably woudn't do the same today anyway.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and we and look, we know second time founders
Speaker 8: get funded for obvious reasons more easily than first time founders,
Speaker 8: So you know, I wouldn't I think in that equation
Speaker 8: when you look at the valuation, we're always going to
Speaker 8: look at the experience of the founders and things like that.
Speaker 11: It's going to if they've got this interesting, I'll bump
Speaker 11: the valuation up for sure, Which.
Speaker 8: Is why that if it is the same one those
Speaker 8: people were able to raise on, they raised so much
Speaker 8: money on such a high valuation because of the experience
Speaker 8: of that team. Came down to and it was a
Speaker 8: problem that they had experience when they were growing their
Speaker 8: last company, so they had some pretty solid evidence around
Speaker 8: the problem and they feel they.
Speaker 11: Could build a solution to it.
Speaker 8: So I suppose the investor went experienced team, we all
Speaker 8: know the problem is a real problem. I think we've
Speaker 8: given their experience they can probably build the solution. We'll
Speaker 8: give them the ten million.
Speaker 11: And see how they go.
Speaker 8: And but of faith, it's a big leap of faith.
Speaker 8: And again I wonder if that would happen today.
Speaker 11: I don't know.
Speaker 1: My feeling is a probably be a lot tougher.
Speaker 11: It would be a lot tougher.
Speaker 8: And also, you know, you've had to read the paper
Speaker 8: today and the vcs are under scrutiny as well.
Speaker 11: You know, you've got one couple of years ago.
Speaker 8: You look, I'm an investor in a few of the funds,
Speaker 8: and I was like, great, the evaluations were all up.
Speaker 11: It all looks great.
Speaker 8: And now I'm looking at it, going, what have you
Speaker 8: been investing in? These companies look terrible? So I wasn't
Speaker 8: really looking that closely when it was all high. But
Speaker 8: now I'm like, I like that one or that way.
Speaker 8: So there is more scrutiny on them too, so I
Speaker 8: think they're going to be a bit more careful. And
Speaker 8: also there was a bit of i'd say they copped
Speaker 8: a bit of flack around the way they're investing before
Speaker 8: the sort of market dropped, so it was a bit
Speaker 8: of a free for all. We saw companies, you know,
Speaker 8: being off at term sheets within twenty four hours. At times,
Speaker 8: there was very little due diligence like we used to
Speaker 8: do due diligence for some of the vcs on finances
Speaker 8: for the companies, we haven't done due diligence for two years,
Speaker 8: not one not one piece. So, as you know, so
Speaker 8: I think there's that's sort of been interesting. So I
Speaker 8: think the vcs are probably going to be a bit
Speaker 8: more careful, a little bit more risk averse at the
Speaker 8: moment as well.
Speaker 4: So would you suggest to early early stage, early stage
Speaker 4: entrepreneurs that they perhaps try to hunt down a.
Speaker 1: Few wells for themselves. Yeah, as opposed to going to
Speaker 1: the vcs.
Speaker 11: Look, I think if you can get to hein and
Speaker 11: it works great.
Speaker 8: And also the big increases family officers, So seeing the
Speaker 8: family officers are certainly playing in this space. Definitely in
Speaker 8: the climate, tech, impact, is sustainability, all of that, that
Speaker 8: space is very popular.
Speaker 11: They sort of like it.
Speaker 8: I'd say, if you're going for your fun, if you're
Speaker 8: looking for funds, look for ones you know they'll they'll
Speaker 8: specify on their website the amounts.
Speaker 11: You know you've got to get. An early stage investor