WEBVTT - 8 Lessons Michelle Battersby Learnt While Building Her Business 0:00:06.570 --> 0:00:10.690 You're listening to Amma mea podcast. 0:00:13.530 --> 0:00:18.249 Hello and welcome to Biz Your Work Life Sorted. I'm 0:00:18.370 --> 0:00:21.730 m Burnham and today we're diving into something that both 0:00:21.810 --> 0:00:26.249 our career coaches, Michelle Batisby and Sophurst, are unpacking the real, 0:00:26.450 --> 0:00:29.930 unfiltered truth about what it's actually like to build something 0:00:29.970 --> 0:00:32.850 from scratch. So you know those moments when you're scrolling 0:00:32.850 --> 0:00:35.530 through Instagram and you see all of these founders living 0:00:35.570 --> 0:00:39.410 their best lives making it look super easy. Well, today 0:00:39.450 --> 0:00:42.410 we're pulling back the curtain on all of that. Michelle 0:00:42.570 --> 0:00:45.450 sharing her business mantras that she's learned the hard way, 0:00:45.570 --> 0:00:47.890 and when I say the hard way, I mean dealing 0:00:47.930 --> 0:00:51.810 with everything from employees stealing your money to having to 0:00:51.890 --> 0:00:56.690 completely rebuild products from scratch. Meanwhile, Soph's bringing her experience 0:00:56.730 --> 0:00:59.570 from Google to help us understand what these lessons look 0:00:59.690 --> 0:01:03.650 like in both a startup and corporate environment. Plus, if 0:01:03.690 --> 0:01:06.770 you've ever thought about starting your own, they're both going 0:01:06.850 --> 0:01:09.410 to break down exactly how to know if an idea 0:01:09.530 --> 0:01:12.650 is worth pursuing, and more importantly, how to avoid the 0:01:12.729 --> 0:01:15.209 mistakes that they wish someone had worn them about. 0:01:15.770 --> 0:01:18.569 I launched my business with twenty thousand dollars and I 0:01:18.690 --> 0:01:19.770 made nothing. 0:01:20.170 --> 0:01:23.450 I feel like everyone's tiktoks every article. It's all like, 0:01:23.929 --> 0:01:26.289 launched this business with fifteen grand. 0:01:26.369 --> 0:01:28.649 And now look at me being a millionaire, and it's 0:01:28.770 --> 0:01:30.289 just fucking bullshit. 0:01:30.410 --> 0:01:32.769 I'm just going to sit here and be so open 0:01:32.850 --> 0:01:33.450 and honest. 0:01:33.729 --> 0:01:36.650 I thought I would be in a much better position 0:01:36.729 --> 0:01:38.049 than I am this year. 0:01:38.929 --> 0:01:39.169 Well. 0:01:39.250 --> 0:01:44.850 I love the transparency of founders on socials, specifically when 0:01:44.890 --> 0:01:47.250 people are really open and vulnerable about the mistakes that 0:01:47.289 --> 0:01:50.410 they've made, because I think often we see the shiny 0:01:50.770 --> 0:01:56.249 and there definitely has been that history of romanticizing entrepreneurship 0:01:56.330 --> 0:02:01.770 and really glorifying what it's like, but in my experience, 0:02:02.090 --> 0:02:07.290 it has been mountain after mountain, definitely with wins in 0:02:07.330 --> 0:02:09.090 there that kind of keep you going. 0:02:09.450 --> 0:02:11.930 You're so right about the sort of transparency because I 0:02:11.930 --> 0:02:15.650 think you see people running these successful businesses online and 0:02:15.690 --> 0:02:17.370 you think it's a certain way, and then you do 0:02:17.410 --> 0:02:19.490 it yourself. You make heap some mistakes, and then you 0:02:19.530 --> 0:02:22.290 realize that some of those traps are actually avoidable. And 0:02:22.330 --> 0:02:24.770 I think what people love about your style and listening 0:02:24.850 --> 0:02:27.169 to you, because you share a lot on social as well, 0:02:27.770 --> 0:02:29.730 you just like cut the crap and give people the 0:02:29.770 --> 0:02:33.050 good stuff. You're also very young for a founder, and 0:02:33.170 --> 0:02:35.410 you're a female in a pretty male dominated space, like 0:02:35.450 --> 0:02:39.570 you have a tech startup, still male dominated space, and 0:02:40.450 --> 0:02:41.890 I'd just like, look at what you've done. 0:02:42.170 --> 0:02:45.530 When I first started out being a founder, or maybe 0:02:45.810 --> 0:02:49.370 my approach as an individual had always been the mistakes 0:02:49.370 --> 0:02:53.609 are bad, like must do good work, must succeed, must win, 0:02:54.130 --> 0:02:57.850 can't lose. And I think what I've realized is I'm 0:02:57.890 --> 0:03:01.690 actually quite proud of every mistake that I've made, and 0:03:01.850 --> 0:03:07.170 like riding these like mantras, they're all derived from real 0:03:07.210 --> 0:03:09.890 life mistakes, and I think one of the biggest lessons 0:03:09.890 --> 0:03:12.690 you have to learn as a business owner, but it 0:03:12.730 --> 0:03:17.410 can serve anyone throughout their career, is just like redefining 0:03:17.530 --> 0:03:23.290 what failure actually looks like, because with every mistake, it's 0:03:23.410 --> 0:03:25.570 kind of not a dead end, it's not the end 0:03:25.610 --> 0:03:28.690 of the road. It's actually an opportunity to strike again, 0:03:28.850 --> 0:03:31.330 but with a little bit more accuracy and taking a 0:03:31.330 --> 0:03:34.930 little bit more of an informed shot. So I'm actually 0:03:35.010 --> 0:03:39.370 quite proud of all these mistakes because they've made me 0:03:39.770 --> 0:03:43.090 and my business much stronger, and they've also made my 0:03:43.210 --> 0:03:44.450 story much stronger. 0:03:44.650 --> 0:03:46.610 I had to peek at some of your notes, and 0:03:47.650 --> 0:03:49.450 regardless of whether you're own a business or not, or 0:03:49.490 --> 0:03:51.610 have ambitions of only a business, like, most of your 0:03:51.650 --> 0:03:54.250 points are so relevant to anyone, like people working in 0:03:54.290 --> 0:03:56.650 an office job, like people who run a startup small 0:03:56.650 --> 0:04:00.010 business whatever. So yeah, I'm really excited about it. I'm 0:04:00.010 --> 0:04:05.490 excited to learn from you. 0:04:11.730 --> 0:04:16.810 Okay, So number one, Reid Hoffman, who is the founder 0:04:16.850 --> 0:04:20.330 of LinkedIn, said, if you're not a little embarrassed by 0:04:20.370 --> 0:04:25.410 your product, you've launched too late. This was my co 0:04:25.530 --> 0:04:31.130 founder and my first mistake. We felt like we had 0:04:31.170 --> 0:04:35.170 to launch a squeaky clean product that had all the 0:04:35.170 --> 0:04:39.170 bells and whistles, something that we felt really proud to 0:04:39.250 --> 0:04:42.410 put out into the world, and it ended up taking 0:04:42.530 --> 0:04:47.290 us a year to build our app, which is too 0:04:47.330 --> 0:04:51.130 slow in the world of tech, and it's because we 0:04:51.410 --> 0:04:56.570 just couldn't let our standards down and our perfectionist tendencies down. 0:04:57.050 --> 0:04:58.930 And if we just got it out the door, we 0:04:58.970 --> 0:05:01.450 would have saved a lot of time and money, and 0:05:01.490 --> 0:05:04.490 we also would have been able to get real feedback 0:05:04.810 --> 0:05:06.690 back and get a bit of a sense on like 0:05:06.970 --> 0:05:09.409 if we're on the money in a faster kind of 0:05:09.530 --> 0:05:12.290 feedback loop, then going out with a product that at 0:05:12.290 --> 0:05:15.290 the end of the day was actually over engineered and 0:05:15.410 --> 0:05:17.770 ended up having features that people just didn't need. 0:05:18.050 --> 0:05:21.570 There's this line from a movie We Bought a Zoo. 0:05:21.730 --> 0:05:23.930 I just really like the quote, all you need is 0:05:23.970 --> 0:05:26.650 twenty seconds of insane courage, and then it talks about 0:05:26.650 --> 0:05:30.010 this idea of embarrassing bravery, and I like think about 0:05:30.050 --> 0:05:31.810 that all the time as I'm trying to do things. 0:05:32.050 --> 0:05:34.210 I think just that thing that you said, Michelle around 0:05:34.410 --> 0:05:36.770 waiting too late, and this idea we have of trying 0:05:36.810 --> 0:05:39.610 to make something that's perfect, and it's that feeling of 0:05:39.810 --> 0:05:42.330 you'll have sort of a spark of an idea, you'll 0:05:42.410 --> 0:05:43.770 kind of be trying to make it perfect, and you 0:05:44.010 --> 0:05:45.730 kind of never do anything with it. And then you 0:05:45.770 --> 0:05:48.370 see someone else comes out with something the same kind 0:05:48.410 --> 0:05:50.690 of idea and it's way less good than how you 0:05:50.730 --> 0:05:53.289 would have done it. They did it and they've been successful, 0:05:53.330 --> 0:05:54.690 and you see this all the time. I was just 0:05:54.730 --> 0:05:56.730 talking to a friend about it. So yeah, just trying 0:05:56.730 --> 0:05:59.089 to get out the smallest, simplest version of your thing, 0:05:59.250 --> 0:06:00.450 just to get that feedback loop. 0:06:00.770 --> 0:06:04.250 Number two definitely ties into the first one, and it's 0:06:04.650 --> 0:06:08.370 don't assume because a competitor has a feature that it 0:06:08.610 --> 0:06:13.609 actually works or people use it. So when we were 0:06:14.090 --> 0:06:17.210 founding Sunroom and coming up with our feature set, we 0:06:17.290 --> 0:06:21.570 spent a lot of time doing product teardowns of our competitors, 0:06:22.170 --> 0:06:27.210 and we started working on features that we assumed people 0:06:27.290 --> 0:06:30.770 would want or people would use because our competitors had them. 0:06:30.930 --> 0:06:33.530 And there was one feature in particular spent a lot 0:06:33.530 --> 0:06:37.490 of time building and it was so poorly adopted, and 0:06:37.530 --> 0:06:38.530 that was a huge. 0:06:38.370 --> 0:06:39.250 Learning curve for us. 0:06:39.970 --> 0:06:44.970 Interesting, sometimes you will interview your consumers and everyone will 0:06:45.010 --> 0:06:47.250 tell you that they'll use something, but when push comes 0:06:47.290 --> 0:06:50.450 to shove, they actually won't. And sometimes it can be 0:06:50.490 --> 0:06:53.890 really hard to get honest answers, especially if you've built 0:06:54.010 --> 0:06:57.450 relationships with your users. Sometimes they don't want to offend you. 0:06:57.730 --> 0:07:00.130 And then in a work context, I think there's almost 0:07:00.130 --> 0:07:02.850 the same principle. So we would often talk at Google 0:07:02.890 --> 0:07:06.530 about landings, not launchers, and you'd see other teams, like 0:07:06.570 --> 0:07:09.770 from other countries, and they have this amazing launch and 0:07:09.810 --> 0:07:12.610 they'd send this amazing launch email, and like you're just 0:07:12.690 --> 0:07:14.410 kind of sitting there with so much time. We were thinking, 0:07:14.490 --> 0:07:16.410 oh my god, we should be doing this, so it's 0:07:16.410 --> 0:07:18.530 a very loud launch and then there would be this 0:07:18.650 --> 0:07:21.170 very quiet you know. Actually that didn't really work that well. 0:07:21.450 --> 0:07:23.690 It was actually kind of average. You never really hear 0:07:23.730 --> 0:07:25.810 about it. Yeah, we would always kind of say to 0:07:25.850 --> 0:07:28.650 ourselves landings, not launchers, and don't just pay attention to 0:07:28.690 --> 0:07:31.210 this big, glossy loud launch email. 0:07:31.610 --> 0:07:33.450 Yeah, I love that, love that saying. 0:07:34.450 --> 0:07:34.770 Okay. 0:07:34.850 --> 0:07:38.370 The third one, still on the competitor train of thought, 0:07:38.610 --> 0:07:41.530 is it's always nice to know who you're up against 0:07:41.570 --> 0:07:44.610 and be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, but stay 0:07:44.650 --> 0:07:49.250 focused on your differences. This one kind of hurt me 0:07:49.410 --> 0:07:52.730 to learn because it was something that I already knew. 0:07:53.370 --> 0:07:56.570 I already knew like keep your head in your boat, 0:07:56.650 --> 0:07:59.050 you know, like, don't look around. It slows you down. 0:07:59.610 --> 0:08:01.890 But I think sometimes when you're doing something for the 0:08:01.930 --> 0:08:06.530 first time, sometimes you'll trust in yourself and your instincts 0:08:06.570 --> 0:08:09.330 can become a little bit rattled, and so you do 0:08:09.570 --> 0:08:11.810 start to look around a little bit, and I think 0:08:11.850 --> 0:08:16.490 that's when you can lose focus. And we definitely went 0:08:16.490 --> 0:08:18.450 through a period of that at sun Room, where we 0:08:18.570 --> 0:08:23.130 just started paying too much attention to how our competitors 0:08:23.170 --> 0:08:26.450 were growing, and we started trying to copy some of 0:08:26.490 --> 0:08:29.530 their acquisition strategies and it just ended up being a 0:08:29.570 --> 0:08:33.410 complete waste of time, and we would have been better 0:08:33.490 --> 0:08:36.850 off focusing on what was working for us and just 0:08:36.929 --> 0:08:39.970 continuing to double down on that or think about new 0:08:40.050 --> 0:08:44.730 innovative ways to keep targeting that same niche of creator 0:08:45.050 --> 0:08:45.410 for us. 0:08:45.810 --> 0:08:47.490 How did you get out of that phase then if 0:08:47.530 --> 0:08:49.250 you were kind of just looking at what your competitors 0:08:49.250 --> 0:08:52.730 were doing and that was shaping the decisions you were making, 0:08:52.810 --> 0:08:54.890 and then what did you start doing differently instead? 0:08:55.290 --> 0:08:57.290 Well, we ended up losing quite a bit of money. 0:08:57.690 --> 0:09:01.450 So that was a pretty big wake up call when 0:09:01.770 --> 0:09:04.250 there was kind of something that we knew was working 0:09:04.290 --> 0:09:07.050 really well for our competitor is but we never wanted 0:09:07.090 --> 0:09:10.650 to do it, but we reached this point of desperation 0:09:11.130 --> 0:09:13.410 at one time and so we felt like, all right, 0:09:13.450 --> 0:09:16.050 this is our only option. Let's give this a crack. 0:09:16.570 --> 0:09:19.490 And it was hands down the worst thing I think 0:09:19.530 --> 0:09:22.250 we did in the history of a sun Room and 0:09:22.530 --> 0:09:27.370 lost us considerable amounts of time and money. And so 0:09:27.490 --> 0:09:30.210 that was just a slap across the face, like wake 0:09:30.290 --> 0:09:32.290 up call in terms of, you know what, let's go 0:09:32.410 --> 0:09:35.290 back to the drawing board, we actually ended up going 0:09:35.330 --> 0:09:38.250 back to what our go to market strategy had been 0:09:38.450 --> 0:09:41.610 and how we initially built a lot of hype and 0:09:41.650 --> 0:09:45.210 had a lot of success. And I think sometimes you 0:09:45.330 --> 0:09:48.930 might set really aggressive growth targets, so you think that 0:09:49.050 --> 0:09:51.490 what you were doing a year or two ago wasn't 0:09:51.490 --> 0:09:54.170 that successful. But then as you've learned and as you've 0:09:54.170 --> 0:09:56.130 tried a lot of other things, you have a bit 0:09:56.130 --> 0:09:59.690 more of an understanding of the market, the industry, maybe 0:09:59.690 --> 0:10:02.650 what a reasonable pace is, and you're able with the 0:10:02.690 --> 0:10:05.329 benefit of hindsight to look back and realize, oh, actually, 0:10:05.490 --> 0:10:08.890 that was quite successful. We just didn't really have like 0:10:08.970 --> 0:10:11.090 the wisdom to understand that at the time. 0:10:11.330 --> 0:10:14.569 I think that's really interesting that you sort of did something, 0:10:14.970 --> 0:10:17.330 maybe it wasn't as successful, and then at a different 0:10:17.330 --> 0:10:20.010 time it was, Yeah, how much time would you spend 0:10:20.050 --> 0:10:21.770 in your day actually talking. 0:10:21.450 --> 0:10:24.089 To your customers and your users if I'm working. 0:10:23.850 --> 0:10:26.290 For eight hours seven hours. 0:10:25.890 --> 0:10:26.450 Out of the area. 0:10:26.730 --> 0:10:28.530 From what I've heard, I've never run a startup, but 0:10:29.130 --> 0:10:32.130 sometimes founders get into this trap where they don't want 0:10:32.170 --> 0:10:34.210 to talk to their customers or they feel like it's 0:10:34.210 --> 0:10:37.610 so time consuming. But especially in the early phases, most 0:10:37.610 --> 0:10:39.329 of your time should just be spent hanging out with 0:10:39.370 --> 0:10:40.449 them and learning from them. 0:10:40.330 --> 0:10:42.650 One hundred percent. It's that saying, like, do things that 0:10:42.690 --> 0:10:46.170 don't scale. I think that's really really important at the 0:10:46.210 --> 0:10:49.809 start because it builds a lot of brand loyalty and 0:10:49.850 --> 0:10:52.570 that's something that has always paid off for us and 0:10:52.610 --> 0:10:55.970 worked really well. That's always meant that our retention is 0:10:56.170 --> 0:10:57.730 good and we've kind of got these people that are 0:10:57.730 --> 0:10:59.290 willing to advocate for us. 0:10:59.610 --> 0:11:00.890 Yeah. I always love that. 0:11:00.970 --> 0:11:02.929 Whenever I'm signing up for new products and it's like 0:11:02.930 --> 0:11:04.770 a very techy you know, you just think it's kind 0:11:04.770 --> 0:11:08.650 of like this faceless software and then the email you'll 0:11:08.650 --> 0:11:11.290 get once you, you know, sign up for it. Sometimes I'll 0:11:11.290 --> 0:11:13.970 get emails like three days later from the founder and 0:11:13.970 --> 0:11:15.890 they're like, hey, just checking in how you're finding the product, 0:11:15.970 --> 0:11:17.890 And you're like, well, I thought this was this massive 0:11:17.930 --> 0:11:20.450 software company and now it just feels very human and 0:11:20.530 --> 0:11:21.050 very personal. 0:11:21.250 --> 0:11:25.050 That's such an easy way to stand out if you 0:11:25.050 --> 0:11:27.810 have a tech company, because we're also used to existing 0:11:27.850 --> 0:11:30.970 on these giant platforms where there's no way we're ever 0:11:31.010 --> 0:11:34.490 going to directly hear from anyone from like Facebook, Instagram, 0:11:35.170 --> 0:11:38.650 TikTok you lose your account and like it's really impossible 0:11:38.690 --> 0:11:40.850 to get in touch with someone. So I think if 0:11:40.890 --> 0:11:44.970 you're building a tech product, like people really appreciate that 0:11:45.130 --> 0:11:47.650 personal touch and being able to speak to a real 0:11:47.810 --> 0:11:51.130 human on the end of a line. Number four is 0:11:51.490 --> 0:11:55.330 when you're building features, people don't care about the feature, 0:11:55.570 --> 0:11:58.570 they care about the benefit. So if you're going to 0:11:58.650 --> 0:12:01.569 speak about it to your consumers, you need to focus 0:12:01.610 --> 0:12:05.370 on that. I think when you work at a tech company, 0:12:05.290 --> 0:12:07.770 there are so many smart people that are able to 0:12:07.810 --> 0:12:11.970 solve these really tough problems through you know, like engineering, 0:12:12.090 --> 0:12:16.410 critical thinking, coming up with like innovative ways to get 0:12:16.450 --> 0:12:19.450 people to connect on a product, whatever it is, and 0:12:19.450 --> 0:12:22.050 then there can be a tendency to get really excited 0:12:22.290 --> 0:12:26.930 about certain features that actually the consumer doesn't really care about. 0:12:27.610 --> 0:12:30.370 I think that's that friction, that tension point that can 0:12:30.410 --> 0:12:34.410 often exist between engineering teams and marketing teams, which is 0:12:34.410 --> 0:12:37.010 something that I also experienced when I work at Bumble. 0:12:37.570 --> 0:12:39.130 You know, you get given a feature, you have to 0:12:39.130 --> 0:12:41.770 market it, and you're thinking, no one is going to 0:12:41.850 --> 0:12:44.810 care about this, But I think it's really in how 0:12:44.850 --> 0:12:48.330 you communicate it. So not talking about what the feature 0:12:49.090 --> 0:12:51.050 is or kind of how it exists, but what the 0:12:51.130 --> 0:12:53.290 benefit is for the user. 0:12:53.690 --> 0:12:54.250 So true. 0:12:54.250 --> 0:12:57.330 We lived by this at Google. The way we did 0:12:57.450 --> 0:13:01.290 marketing at Google is no, the user know the magic 0:13:01.490 --> 0:13:04.689 and connect to the two. And the magic is nothing 0:13:04.690 --> 0:13:07.330 to do with the product or the feature. It's about 0:13:07.370 --> 0:13:10.010 the transformation that it creates in someone or like the 0:13:10.130 --> 0:13:12.210 joy that it sparks, or the time it saved them, whatever, 0:13:12.570 --> 0:13:14.490 But it's nothing to do with the product of the feature. 0:13:14.530 --> 0:13:15.850 I mean, obviously it's to do with the product of 0:13:15.890 --> 0:13:17.530 the feature, but it's like not about the product or 0:13:17.570 --> 0:13:20.210 the feature. Yeah, so yeah, I think about that all 0:13:20.250 --> 0:13:23.530 the time. There's that really famous quote which whenever someone 0:13:23.530 --> 0:13:25.290 says it to me, I never understand. I have to 0:13:25.330 --> 0:13:27.929 like process it slowly. My brain is slow. But it's 0:13:29.050 --> 0:13:31.770 people don't want the drill, they want the whole. The 0:13:31.890 --> 0:13:34.970 thing is, they want the change, right, they want the 0:13:34.970 --> 0:13:36.850 thing it's making. They don't actually want the benefit of 0:13:36.850 --> 0:13:38.490 the product, so they want the change. 0:13:38.650 --> 0:13:42.610 Number five. This is a great one, and this came 0:13:42.730 --> 0:13:47.410 from one of Sunroom's investors. Actually who fun fact, he 0:13:47.770 --> 0:13:51.690 is the creator of Little Mikayla, which was that first 0:13:52.090 --> 0:13:57.930 like avatar Ai influencer. Yeah, that's his company. And he 0:13:58.570 --> 0:14:00.690 said something to Lucy, my co founder and I which 0:14:00.770 --> 0:14:04.569 just really stuck one day. He said, if you want advice, 0:14:05.170 --> 0:14:09.610 ask for money, And if you want money, ask for advice. 0:14:10.250 --> 0:14:14.970 And when you're raising capital, it's just the best way 0:14:15.010 --> 0:14:18.530 to go about it. Like hit people up and bring 0:14:18.570 --> 0:14:21.610 them in on your journey. Talk to them about what 0:14:21.650 --> 0:14:24.770 you're building, talk to them about the problem, talk about 0:14:24.810 --> 0:14:28.130 the product, talk about the wins, talk about your challenges, 0:14:28.330 --> 0:14:31.650 and if they end up loving your product and believing 0:14:31.650 --> 0:14:36.290 in you, they'll just offer to invest or. They'll offer 0:14:36.610 --> 0:14:39.050 to intro you to someone else who might be that 0:14:39.130 --> 0:14:43.330 first check. And it's just a really smart way to 0:14:43.450 --> 0:14:47.010 go about raising money as opposed to just outright asking 0:14:47.050 --> 0:14:47.370 for it. 0:14:47.850 --> 0:14:49.130 Why do you think that works? 0:14:49.610 --> 0:14:51.770 Oh, Like people have also done this to me before, 0:14:51.770 --> 0:14:53.650 where like they come with a product and they want advice, 0:14:53.690 --> 0:14:55.890 and I'm like, oh, this is good. I believe in it, 0:14:55.930 --> 0:14:58.010 Like I actually want to give them a bit of 0:14:58.050 --> 0:15:02.290 cash for it. I think it probably helps the individual 0:15:02.370 --> 0:15:04.570 in how they tell the story, to be honest, like 0:15:04.890 --> 0:15:08.170 it removes that pressure of I'm about to kind of 0:15:08.250 --> 0:15:10.690 stand up and pitch to someone with the goal of 0:15:10.730 --> 0:15:13.370 like getting cash at the end. Of the conversation, so 0:15:13.570 --> 0:15:15.930 I think you end up sharing the story in a 0:15:15.930 --> 0:15:20.250 different way, And people also liked talking about themselves and 0:15:20.330 --> 0:15:22.650 kind of having their egos stroke a little bit. So 0:15:23.330 --> 0:15:26.610 reaching out to investors or angels or other founders in 0:15:26.650 --> 0:15:30.090 your space and sharing your struggles and then asking for 0:15:30.130 --> 0:15:32.730 their advice in return, it's just a very good way 0:15:32.810 --> 0:15:34.490 to build relationships. 0:15:34.650 --> 0:15:37.210 Do you have any advice for someone who like, we're 0:15:37.210 --> 0:15:38.570 in Australia right and a lot of. 0:15:38.570 --> 0:15:42.810 The money is in not Australia, in the US. I guess, 0:15:43.250 --> 0:15:43.650 so for. 0:15:43.610 --> 0:15:45.090 Someone sitting here being like I kind of want to 0:15:45.090 --> 0:15:47.770 start talking to people and networking and maybe following this 0:15:47.890 --> 0:15:50.730 kind of thing around asking for advice and hopefully getting money, 0:15:50.890 --> 0:15:53.810 how did you get started getting connected to people? And 0:15:53.850 --> 0:15:55.410 do you have any advice for other people? 0:15:55.770 --> 0:15:56.010 Yeah? 0:15:56.090 --> 0:15:59.130 So it did definitely help that my co founder and 0:15:59.170 --> 0:16:03.770 I had backgrounds in tech. So I first went out 0:16:03.810 --> 0:16:06.170 to my own network, which was people i'd worked with 0:16:06.210 --> 0:16:09.810 when I was at Bumble, and was able to get 0:16:09.850 --> 0:16:13.090 the founder and CEO of Bumble to invest in some room. 0:16:13.290 --> 0:16:15.410 That then made it much easier to kind of start 0:16:15.450 --> 0:16:18.250 reaching out to people that we didn't have relationships with. 0:16:18.290 --> 0:16:21.290 Because you've already got these checks committed, and it shows 0:16:21.330 --> 0:16:23.690 this level of belief in you as a founder. 0:16:23.730 --> 0:16:24.330 I suppose. 0:16:24.570 --> 0:16:27.210 I've also had a lot of people working in corporate 0:16:27.290 --> 0:16:29.250 jobs who leave and want to start their own company, 0:16:29.530 --> 0:16:31.170 and they do go and hit up all the execs 0:16:31.170 --> 0:16:33.690 because they know that a lot of the execs probably 0:16:33.730 --> 0:16:36.490 have a spare ten k, yeah, and they already know 0:16:36.610 --> 0:16:38.410 that this person is good, and so they kind of like, 0:16:38.450 --> 0:16:40.730 I believe in you. I think I know that what 0:16:40.810 --> 0:16:44.090 you're building has potential. And sometimes they'll get their first 0:16:44.090 --> 0:16:45.130 little small checks through that. 0:16:45.210 --> 0:16:48.490 I think it's smart, yeah, exactly, and then they will 0:16:48.530 --> 0:16:50.690 introduce you to their networks and it kind of just 0:16:50.770 --> 0:16:54.690 goes from there. And once someone that's worked with you 0:16:55.050 --> 0:16:57.290 is out there then speaking to their network saying hey, 0:16:57.370 --> 0:17:01.010 you know this person's building X and I've invested, it 0:17:01.130 --> 0:17:04.330 just creates this snowball effect where you kind of trust 0:17:04.369 --> 0:17:06.889 your network and then you might end up investing as well. 0:17:06.970 --> 0:17:11.169 But I also think it is a really good strategy 0:17:11.370 --> 0:17:14.609 to get on socials and talk about what you're doing. 0:17:14.690 --> 0:17:18.530 There's that saying, you know, build in public, and that 0:17:18.770 --> 0:17:22.050 ended up achieving a lot for Lucy and I and 0:17:22.090 --> 0:17:26.729 I was really surprised with just who was watching, and 0:17:26.810 --> 0:17:28.890 so I wouldn't be afraid, And I mean, you don't 0:17:28.970 --> 0:17:31.090 need to have followers to pull that off. 0:17:31.170 --> 0:17:32.169 Can you give this an example? 0:17:32.170 --> 0:17:34.690 Because I heard this, I love it, I want to 0:17:34.730 --> 0:17:36.970 do it, and I found it it's actually harder to 0:17:37.050 --> 0:17:39.369 do than I thought, just because it feels so unnatural 0:17:39.450 --> 0:17:41.650 to be like, what do you think my business model 0:17:41.650 --> 0:17:42.010 should be? 0:17:42.050 --> 0:17:42.369 Whatever? 0:17:42.450 --> 0:17:44.330 I'm finding it actually really hard even though I want 0:17:44.330 --> 0:17:45.889 to do it. So can you give some examples of 0:17:46.210 --> 0:17:48.129 what building in public actually looks like? 0:17:48.609 --> 0:17:52.210 Yeah, so it's probably going to feel uncomfortable and it's 0:17:52.330 --> 0:17:56.290 probably going to feel a bit icky, but it's not 0:17:56.410 --> 0:17:59.850 self promotion. It's idea promotion. Like that's how I like 0:17:59.930 --> 0:18:02.290 to think about it. And it kind of breaks down 0:18:02.450 --> 0:18:05.290 that like where you feel a bit gross because you're 0:18:05.290 --> 0:18:08.250 taking talking about your own work or you're talking about yourself, 0:18:08.290 --> 0:18:11.610 You're actually not You're talking about your ideas. It's like, hey, 0:18:11.730 --> 0:18:14.889 I've been working on this problem. Does anyone else have 0:18:14.970 --> 0:18:18.090 this problem? I'm working on solutions for this that i'd 0:18:18.170 --> 0:18:22.410 really like to share with others, and just start talking 0:18:22.650 --> 0:18:25.370 about it in whatever way comes naturally to you as well, 0:18:25.410 --> 0:18:27.409 like it doesn't really have to be on TikTok, But 0:18:27.730 --> 0:18:29.810 I do think TikTok is good if you don't have 0:18:29.890 --> 0:18:33.930 an existing audience, because anything can go viral, anything can 0:18:33.930 --> 0:18:38.850 get eyeballs. I found that investors started reaching out to 0:18:39.170 --> 0:18:41.449 me once I started just speaking about what we were 0:18:41.490 --> 0:18:44.530 working on on socials. Don't be afraid to do that. 0:18:44.570 --> 0:18:46.930 I think sometimes there's a little bit of fear around 0:18:46.970 --> 0:18:49.810 will someone steal my idea? And I don't think you 0:18:49.890 --> 0:18:52.810 need to give away your secret source or if you're 0:18:52.850 --> 0:18:57.090 working on a really innovative solution to something, you don't 0:18:57.130 --> 0:19:00.410 need to give that away in this information. But there's 0:19:00.410 --> 0:19:04.610 definitely no risk talking about the problem, what you're working on, 0:19:04.850 --> 0:19:07.290 how you're thinking about doing it. I am of the 0:19:07.370 --> 0:19:09.930 view if someone could take it and copy it, then 0:19:09.970 --> 0:19:11.570 it was probably not going to be that great or 0:19:11.570 --> 0:19:12.570 defensible anyway. 0:19:12.930 --> 0:19:14.210 So true, I love. 0:19:14.050 --> 0:19:27.690 It, Okay number six and I definitely learned this one 0:19:27.730 --> 0:19:31.930 the hard way. Culture is what you punish and what 0:19:31.970 --> 0:19:35.850 you celebrate, So one rotten apple will spoil the bunch. 0:19:36.050 --> 0:19:39.290 And I really feel like that truth is exaggerated when 0:19:39.410 --> 0:19:43.010 you're in a small team and you really can't settle 0:19:43.090 --> 0:19:48.330 for bad attitudes. So you've probably heard the saying higher, slow, 0:19:48.609 --> 0:19:53.570 fire fast, But when you have a startup, I think 0:19:53.730 --> 0:19:58.609 unfortunately your brain is more geared to higher, fast, as 0:19:58.730 --> 0:20:01.530 fast as possible, Like you're just trying to grow, you're 0:20:01.570 --> 0:20:04.929 trying to scale. It's that move fast and break things mentality, 0:20:04.970 --> 0:20:08.130 and it can really end up hurting you. I also 0:20:08.130 --> 0:20:11.210 think there's that level of excitement, like yay, I'm finding 0:20:11.250 --> 0:20:14.210 people that actually also believe in this thing I'm doing, 0:20:14.290 --> 0:20:16.130 and I just want to get them in the room. 0:20:16.450 --> 0:20:19.610 I speak to so many leaders, owners of companies things 0:20:19.690 --> 0:20:22.650 like that, and I am so surprised. I'll always say 0:20:22.650 --> 0:20:25.169 to them, what are the qualities you're looking for in 0:20:25.250 --> 0:20:28.370 young people that you hire? And I'm so surprised by 0:20:28.410 --> 0:20:31.970