Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 2: Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: All right, everybody, Full disclosure, I'm a fan of our
Speaker 3: next guest, Triny Widdle from her day's co hosting What
Speaker 3: Not to Wear on BBC. Also a fan our YouTube
Speaker 3: producer Elizabeth Cedron. She's much younger than me, which just
Speaker 3: goes to show the appeal of the work that Trinty
Speaker 3: Widdle has done and continues to do. She's a businesswoman, entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: supports other women in figuring out their ventures. Really supportive.
Speaker 3: Great to have with us in studio. The CEO and
Speaker 3: founder of the Digital First beauty brand, Triny London here
Speaker 3: in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Welcome, Welcome, How are you.
Speaker 1: So great to be here?
Speaker 3: Well, thank it's great. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to go back. We have a
Speaker 3: nice took of time I think about What Not to
Speaker 3: Wear and makeover shows. I feel like there's a lot
Speaker 3: of it's commonplace. But you and Susannah like, really we're
Speaker 3: onto some thing. In its early days you had a
Speaker 3: column together and then you did the show take us
Speaker 3: back there, because you embraced women in a very warm
Speaker 3: and inclusive way, and it's not always the case.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because I think there's an element
Speaker 1: that women want to feel empowered, but they also want
Speaker 1: some basic rules in which they can make their own decisions.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when we don't know which way to go,
Speaker 1: it's much more challenging to take a stance. So I
Speaker 1: think we came along at a time in the nineties
Speaker 1: when we just gave some rules. We did a show
Speaker 1: which was you know titles that TV mate, but it
Speaker 1: was based on a colun call What Not to Wear,
Speaker 1: and it was just about the first time perhaps saying
Speaker 1: everyone is different. Everyone has different body shape, It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter your size, everyone has different skin, hair, and eye
Speaker 1: and so it resonated because that language perhaps hadn't been
Speaker 1: spoken before. And interestingly, we've done a book before which
Speaker 1: sold thirteen thousand copies. We did a TV show that.
Speaker 3: I think I have the book. I'm going to be
Speaker 3: very crowned with you.
Speaker 1: That first book nobody has maybe the second. I want
Speaker 1: to do a book deal. But then after we did
Speaker 1: that show, we sold a million copies of the first
Speaker 1: because there was, and it was very basic rules. It
Speaker 1: was if you have small boobs, do this, if you
Speaker 1: have big vier and you know, don't wear a Poland
Speaker 1: neck if you have it. Just people come up and say,
Speaker 1: I never do that again because of you, and so
Speaker 1: that was very interesting then, all right, But the way
Speaker 1: the story was told on TV was shock TV. You know,
Speaker 1: it was just before times of a show like The Swan,
Speaker 1: which was that extreme makeover. It was the beginning of
Speaker 1: very different TV. And when we then had done that
Speaker 1: for ten years and we stopped doing it in the
Speaker 1: UK because other people came up what I loved most.
Speaker 1: It was challenging at the time because we were suddenly
Speaker 1: not wanted. But we went to Mipcom, which is a
Speaker 1: TV conference in can and about twelve countries brought the format,
Speaker 1: from Israel to Poland, to India, to Australia to Scandinavia.
Speaker 1: So I went from just understanding British women and America
Speaker 1: to then understanding it doesn't matter your religion, your age,
Speaker 1: the color of your skin. These emotional stages that we
Speaker 1: go through as women have a relevance on our confidence levels,
Speaker 1: on how we want to project ourselves. And that was
Speaker 1: fantastic research. Everything I've done, probably since I was six
Speaker 1: and a half, is research for where I am now.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about both great journey, right,
Speaker 3: like you think about it right the process. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: just want to.
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about the changing media landscape over
Speaker 2: that time, because a lot has happened in the last
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years since that show. And I'm wondering
Speaker 2: when you look around the landscape today, whether you see
Speaker 2: something on streaming, whether you see what's going on on TikTok,
Speaker 2: on Instagram reels where you kind of see the influence
Speaker 2: of what you were doing on the BBC.
Speaker 1: I think the point of reference where we get our
Speaker 1: influence has changed. And love I love evolution. I love
Speaker 1: the fact that there was a very small, controlled set
Speaker 1: of people who gave you your influence and now it's
Speaker 1: all up for grabs because I think that's an egalitarian state,
Speaker 1: and you choose. You don't have to get a subscription
Speaker 1: to Vogue magazine. You know, you can choose who you
Speaker 1: follow and what you like, so you have far more
Speaker 1: individual It's like you're choosing your meal from an Ala
Speaker 1: catte menu. It's not a set menu, right, so the
Speaker 1: benefit of that evolution has been that you can go
Speaker 1: and be influenced by somebody who is far more like
Speaker 1: you individually as a person, or somebody who aspire to
Speaker 1: be as opposed to a brand setting the tone like
Speaker 1: a magazine or a newspaper title that we've all followed
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like, well, let's get to what you're
Speaker 3: doing now, Triny London, Right, you know it's funny. I
Speaker 3: brought up your name in our makeup room this morning,
Speaker 3: and I have a beloved makeup artist, Pam. She's worked
Speaker 3: with Charlotte Tillbury, She's worked with I think Prescriptives, maybe
Speaker 3: Bobby Brown, like a lot of brands. She's like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, she's doing you know, she talked about your brand.
Speaker 3: It's a crowded space though you launch in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: When you thought about it and your journey, you talk
Speaker 3: about it, what you've learned, How did you think about
Speaker 3: entering the space, what you wanted to do? Do differently
Speaker 3: because it is so competitive.
Speaker 1: I knew exactly what I wanted to do. The challenge
Speaker 1: was convincing investors it was the right choice. So I
Speaker 1: knew the biggest white space was a thirty five plus woman.
Speaker 1: I knew that she'd been talked to with companies that
Speaker 1: were represented by a twenty year old model. I knew
Speaker 1: she felt excluded from the conversation, but she was being
Speaker 1: sold something that might be relevant for her, but wasn't
Speaker 1: in a language for her. Because every advertiser is going
Speaker 1: after a younger audience, even though the older audience maybe
Speaker 1: has the money. So there was this sort of dichotomy.
Speaker 1: And I felt that I had already organically understood this woman,
Speaker 1: and I knew what products she wanted. I knew her frustrations.
Speaker 1: I knew when she went up to the beauty counter,
Speaker 1: the challenges she had about thinking, is the person serving
Speaker 1: me here going to be, you know, plastering me a
Speaker 1: makeup or going to be thinking I'm younger or older?
Speaker 1: Is she going to understand me? And so I really
Speaker 1: felt that you could develop online with personalization, which I'd
Speaker 1: loved since ninety nine when I started my first tech
Speaker 1: company called Ready Too, before even e comm But I
Speaker 1: loved personalization and I love data. So I thought, if
Speaker 1: I can build an algorithm where I can figure this
Speaker 1: woman out and I can say tell me this about you,
Speaker 1: and we will tell you what suits you. And I
Speaker 1: pitched that this woman thirty five forty forty five would
Speaker 1: do that, and every investor for the first six months
Speaker 1: I saw two hundred fifty people, got one investor.
Speaker 3: Two hundred and fifty investors.
Speaker 1: I pitched two hundred and fifty investors and I got
Speaker 1: one investment at that beginning, and then people followed. But
Speaker 1: was very much loved the idea, but those old ladies
Speaker 1: will never buy it. So do it for a gen
Speaker 1: X and a Jena Jena. It wasn't even around eight
Speaker 1: years ago. Gen X okay, and I was like, but
Speaker 1: you don't get it. This woman will come online if
Speaker 1: she feels she's got something she can trust, right, and
Speaker 1: it will deliver.
Speaker 2: Have any of those investors come knocking sense?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: How did those conversations go? I mean they passed. In
Speaker 2: an earlier round, they would have gotten a better deal.
Speaker 1: I think that. I think a nice You know, there's
Speaker 1: moments in your life you celebrate, and one moment was
Speaker 1: going to a tech conference where I used to get
Speaker 1: to this tech conference every year, which will remain nameless,
Speaker 1: but I would always feel, you know, an outsider. I'd
Speaker 1: feel I haven't got investment yet you know when you're
Speaker 1: really in that pitch mode and you're trying to get
Speaker 1: people interested and you bump into somebody who said no
Speaker 1: to you, and you sort of like put on the
Speaker 1: brave face and you'll still committed and you still know
Speaker 1: it's gonna work. You just got to find that right person,
Speaker 1: right And three years later, we just had an article
Speaker 1: in Forbes and it was a very good article. It
Speaker 1: gave a value to business which we haven't given them.
Speaker 1: But and then I went to this conference again and
Speaker 1: there were like four people there who had to turn
Speaker 1: me down and they were like, we must talk, and
Speaker 1: I'm one of them. I just couldn't. And I went, oh,
Speaker 1: we're not looking for an investment right now because we're
Speaker 1: a bit dell positive. But it was just that. And
Speaker 1: I think there's moments. There's that time in a moment,
Speaker 1: what you think.
Speaker 3: But truly, we talk about this a lot about women entrepreneurs,
Speaker 3: even from women venture capitalists have even a hard time
Speaker 3: getting funding and it's not and you are a known entity,
Speaker 3: and I just why do you think that still is?
Speaker 1: I think it's a mix. I have to learn really
Speaker 1: how to pitch. I had to learn to speak a
Speaker 1: language I wasn't used to because I am the type
Speaker 1: of woman who wants to go in and bring you
Speaker 1: into the world of what I see train New London
Speaker 1: will do and get you to know that woman and
Speaker 1: I And it's so I'm not going to say it's
Speaker 1: overwhelming for a classic investor, but sometimes somebody wants to
Speaker 1: say this is A, and then from A, I'll get
Speaker 1: to B. And then once I got B, I'll get
Speaker 1: to C. And so I then realized I had to
Speaker 1: tell the journey differently. I had to I knew what
Speaker 1: they needed to know first, and you know, I was
Speaker 1: asked a lot how will you protect your downside? Not
Speaker 1: how we optimize your upside? And I did feel if
Speaker 1: I was a man in the room, would that have
Speaker 1: been the fast question or would it be man to
Speaker 1: man how you're going not find?
Speaker 3: Do you think it would not have been?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not going to judge. I think
Speaker 1: it's the tightest person, but I would you know, I
Speaker 1: did have to learn that because I'm not a you know,
Speaker 1: I've learned to be a CEO. There's two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: people in Trina in London now, but that's been a
Speaker 1: journey and I even got a CEO coach because I
Speaker 1: wanted to be the best CEO I could be and
Speaker 1: understand the importance of how I delegate where I'm in
Speaker 1: the weeds, you know, meeting people who say do what
Speaker 1: only you can do. You know, otherwise you will never
Speaker 1: grow because you'll always be doing too much in the weed.
Speaker 1: So that journey is a challenging journey for a founder
Speaker 1: to be a CEO and a business that's doing over
Speaker 1: fifty or one hundred million or you know, as you grow,
Speaker 1: you need to have that team that is going to
Speaker 1: execute really well and you are looking at the strategic
Speaker 1: vision of where the business is going and doing less
Speaker 1: of the every day. So for me, the switch from
Speaker 1: that to this is a big challenge because some days
Speaker 1: I'm you know, this morning, I'm looking at a tube
Speaker 1: and an ab we're going to do on the tube,
Speaker 1: and I want to get in the detail, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's like, is this my best time spent? But
Speaker 1: this is brand building, so sort of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us about Triny London. You know how big
Speaker 3: you've gotten. Touches about growth. We're Bloomberg. We do love numbers.
Speaker 3: Tell us what you can do.
Speaker 1: Or can I tell you. I think I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: When I started, it was the time of real growth.
Speaker 1: It was a time of you know, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: about retention. It was only about new customer numbers. And
Speaker 1: I remember we had a sort of fifty to fifty
Speaker 1: and they were saying, you need to be thirty percent existing,
Speaker 1: seventy percent you And I was like, I don't agree.
Speaker 1: I want retention. I want a long term cohort. I
Speaker 1: want the customer who will buy four times a year
Speaker 1: and be with me in ten years. That's the customer
Speaker 1: I want. And that was challenging. So even on my
Speaker 1: second round, the valuation I was looking for I didn't
Speaker 1: get because they were like, you should be seventy thirty
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm happy with fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then during into COVID, we had a ton of
Speaker 1: people who were waiting for us to come to a store,
Speaker 1: and because they thought I'm at home for a while,
Speaker 1: they then went and bought, and then they became customers.
Speaker 1: And those are long term cohorts. So the you know
Speaker 1: reference now in the world we live in in d
Speaker 1: t C is it is about retention. It's really about retention.
Speaker 3: But it's also about retail, like you haven't shunned away.
Speaker 3: Yes you are direct consumer, but you also embraced retail.
Speaker 1: And I think retail has a part to play. Retail
Speaker 1: for a real DC brand, like earlier DC brands would
Speaker 1: literally be just brand building, but retail needs to be
Speaker 1: profitable and brand building. It can't just be brand building
Speaker 1: because I think then you don't get to have a
Speaker 1: good ebitdart. So how do you know we did? It's expensive,
Speaker 1: and we did a flagship in the UK, and we
Speaker 1: spent money on that flagship, but in three and a
Speaker 1: half months it paid for itself, so that's great. And
Speaker 1: it's you know in the other store in London, which
Speaker 1: is a big story on number one in beauty, but
Speaker 1: here in Prince Street, I saw it in I thought,
Speaker 1: we have to put an inroad where insects. We have
Speaker 1: to an inroad of our proposition of what we represent,
Speaker 1: this personalization in a space so you can walk in
Speaker 1: the world of us because that visual and this is
Speaker 1: where online and offline is really interesting. If somebody's going
Speaker 1: to buy online, they need these five points of reference.
Speaker 1: Their friend and Instagram they follow, maybe still a magazine,
Speaker 1: maybe listening to Bloomberg Radio, but also seeing the brand
Speaker 1: physically in their country in some form in the real
Speaker 1: world is really important. So the conversion we have online
Speaker 1: since we've got Prince Street, which I fitted out in
Speaker 1: Ikea with mirror on the top because I thought the
Speaker 1: investment here has got to be in the buzz. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be dump paying three hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in a six month pop up. It's going to be
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars at Ikea with very nice mirrors off
Speaker 1: the top because our products are great.
Speaker 2: So, you know, did that work? Did the IQ And
Speaker 2: it's so.
Speaker 1: Busy this weekend. It was it's so exciting because we
Speaker 1: did a morning show this week and we had and
Speaker 1: also this is interesting because you don't know how well
Speaker 1: TV works. And the next day there were people who'd
Speaker 1: watched the show coming in to the store. I thought,
Speaker 1: that's it's interesting how media works now.
Speaker 2: So when you talk about strategy, you talked we've talked retail,
Speaker 2: we've talked digital. What about social media and actually using
Speaker 2: the platforms to sell increasingly, and we're seeing TikTok, Instagram
Speaker 2: becoming sort of centers of e commerce.
Speaker 1: TikTok Shop has been interesting because in different territories it's
Speaker 1: had different premiumness. We are a premium brand, so TikTok
Speaker 1: Us has a slightly different inventory of things and TikTok
Speaker 1: uk so I think they're finding their feet. I would
Speaker 1: say the US has probably more maturity, so there's more
Speaker 1: bigger brands going on there. So maybe a child at
Speaker 1: till we might be on TikTok shop now Instagram in
Speaker 1: you know they did TikTok They did a version of
Speaker 1: their shopping before, do you remember, But they're bringing back
Speaker 1: now this sort of live stream shopping which Facebook had
Speaker 1: worked with a few years ago, and it is something
Speaker 1: that I find fascinating. Amazon tried this years ago and
Speaker 1: tried it years ago.
Speaker 2: But there is huge. It's huge.
Speaker 1: It's huge in China and the whole concept of the
Speaker 1: success of QVC and what is the modern version of QBC.
Speaker 1: It is what social media should be.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's wild to see the stats of the
Speaker 2: people in China. How much money back.
Speaker 1: I mean that woman was fifteen million in a day
Speaker 1: or something. You say, but that was a ten second
Speaker 1: in a box. That's just a it's an anomaly. I
Speaker 1: don't get it. It's something that's so of that culture.
Speaker 2: So have you cracked? Have you cracked the TikTok in
Speaker 2: the Instagram part?
Speaker 1: Yet we do it in a way that a few
Speaker 1: people do. What we do is we don't say bye
Speaker 1: bye bye. We tell you a story, and lots of
Speaker 1: people tell the story. I tell the story. Our friends
Speaker 1: of Trinny London tell the story, and they tell a story.
Speaker 1: They're not saying by this, it's this much, this is
Speaker 1: what's in it?
Speaker 3: Lizards so much a part of your story, you know.
Speaker 3: I think it was so telling about how many people
Speaker 3: you had to pitch before somebody was interested in helping
Speaker 3: to find you. Now are helping others and tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about we've got about a minute and
Speaker 3: a half left here Elevator Pitcher series on Instagram. Because
Speaker 3: you're helping others thirty seconds they make a pitch to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I just felt that challenge when you're younger
Speaker 1: to get or not younger, but when you're in this
Speaker 1: much smaller stage. So they all apply and they have
Speaker 1: to be doing over one hundred and fifty thousand a
Speaker 1: year in revenue, because that's somebody who then is committed
Speaker 1: to serious business. Yeah, used to be less than you
Speaker 1: have to and because you're giving precious out of time.
Speaker 1: And then they have that pitch and then we highlight
Speaker 1: their business and they convert. And then I also was
Speaker 1: in there's something in the UK of fifty women doing
Speaker 1: over fifty million pounds revenue a year, So we were thinking,
Speaker 1: how can we get fifty women to get over ten
Speaker 1: million pounds a year rev because that's another pick. So
Speaker 1: we're looking at that now as another concept. But it
Speaker 1: is so important to lift up other women, and I
Speaker 1: think in the nineties it was challenging for women to
Speaker 1: lift up other women. It was very different. It was
Speaker 1: a really ruthless sense in business. And I think there
Speaker 1: is a responsibility as a woman, especially when you've been
Speaker 1: on that journey of entrepreneurship and you know how challenging
Speaker 1: it is. I went to Bhutan recently and I now
Speaker 1: mentor this Bhutanese designer because I just thought she really
Speaker 1: needs help and she's fantastic, and so it's exciting to
Speaker 1: take these different women and think how can you help
Speaker 1: them to look at the challenges they have.
Speaker 3: Just get a few seconds left here, So what's next?
Speaker 3: Or what do you like? I don't know what your.
Speaker 1: Growth in the US for sure. I mean this year
Speaker 1: it's about growth in the US.
Speaker 3: This is an important market.
Speaker 1: This is such an important market. This market ultimately for me,
Speaker 1: should be double the size of the UK. So I
Speaker 1: am a UK brand coming to the US. That is
Speaker 1: in itself a big challenge. If we look at the
Speaker 1: successful UK brands sort of come here, there are not
Speaker 1: that Tilbury phenomenal success, Charles Turret shirt company really good successfully. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's looking at you know how as a brand
Speaker 1: you make a US customer field. This is a brand
Speaker 1: that speaks to me. It doesn't matter the origination of
Speaker 1: where that brand started. This is a brand emotionally for me.
Speaker 1: And that's our challenge to show American women we understand
Speaker 1: you and this is for you, and our products are
Speaker 1: for you, and how we think about you as an
Speaker 1: individual will help you. Well.
Speaker 3: Come back and let us know how it's going as
Speaker 3: you as you settle in even more here. Trinny, thank
Speaker 3: you so much, Trinny Weddle. She is CEO and founder
Speaker 3: Trinny London, joining us right here in our Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 3: Broker Studio