S22 Ep2: Little Moons Co-Founder, Vivien Wong: Grit, grace & graft — what it really takes to go viral

30:02And you just have to take it graciously. Oh, really? It's not easy. You think it tastes like an eyeball? Oh, brilliant. Yeah. That makes me feel good. I only got up at five o 'clock this morning to do this. That's fine. And you've just got to smile through it. Anyway, so you just sample, sample, sample as many as you can. And it is that. It's just that day in, day out constantly. And you said, is it an overnight success? No, I mean, we started it in 2010, like you said, but I actually started it in 2008. I had to figure out the recipe for two years before we actually launched the business. Wow.

30:37Yeah. And so my brother joined in 2008 because there was no point us both ruining our careers. So I said, I'm the eldest one. I'll start first. Let's see if we can even make this. And then when it looked like we could have a business, when Yo Sushi joined, I said to my brother like do you want to i mean he was super successful in the city anyway and he was just like yeah i want to do this like we both want to start our own business we wanted it together so that's when yeah you know it actually took off in 2010 so lots of different things like exporting yes got help from the department of trading industry how to figure out okay so forklift truck my parents we we started in a corner of my parents bakery but their bakery was small, we didn't have forklift trucks.

31:22They didn't sell things by the pallet. So I had to borrow a forklift truck from my neighbor. And he used to load the van for us every day or whenever we had an order. And it's just finding solutions to problems. Like, where do you find pallet wrap? And then you'll find it from Viking Catalog at the most ridiculous price. But that's the only way that you can buy it. And then where do you even get pallets from? It's all these tiny places, all these things you just have to find solutions for. And thank God for Google, because when my mum started her bakery and she had the yellow pages. Exactly. You know.

31:58I love that you're saying these things because this is the reality. Where do you find a pallet? How do I get a forklift? I can't afford one. I'm going to ask someone to borrow one. I'm going to then have to remember that person's birthday. make sure that because that person needs to like us then I need to go to Viking okay to Viking we can't afford it but we've got to do it right now because that order needs to go out so we'll have to just spend the money oh my gosh we're making a loss on that now okay that's fine we just got to get it out it's the unsexy stuff yeah it's a to-do list that has got so many tiny bullet points of 1 ,000 things that need to be done and it's endless absolutely endless oh and by the way at the same time, I need to then present myself as someone who knows exactly what they're doing and be the head of this brand and be able to be a chameleon in any situation.

32:55And this is where we laugh when we, and we're going to carry on talking about your business and its success. When someone says an overnight success, you're like, you weren't talking to Tony when I had to get the forklift truck and you know and the pallet broke you know it's like what 10 years ago I mean this is it's amazing isn't it do you look back at those times and we're going to talk about the fact that now I think and you update me if I'm wrong that I read that now your stats show that a little moons is eaten in the UK every second yeah that is an amazing thing that you have created do you look back at your palette days with fond memories really fond memories and I didn't think of it like that when I was going through it though and so this is where this is where I just think about perspective and so this is where I learn about things now like when things are a little bit tough now at work I just put put it into perspective because I know in a couple of years time you're going to look back and think oh that wasn't so hard and actually something that my coach, my executive coach taught me about coping with stress is if you imagine yourself when you're 80 years old and she said, what do you look like?

34:05And I said, well, I'll be standing there with a Vespa martini with a turban on my head wearing, I don't know, like a Valentino caftan because I love pink. And she goes, okay. So when something awful is happening at work here, think about yourself when you're 80, are you going to remember this specific moment that this palate broke at this point? And you're like, no, it's not even going to register on the graph of your life. if you can think of it that way. It's not going to be one of your high peaks or one of your lowest troughs. It's just one of those little blips. Is it even a blip? And that helps me so much because when you're going through a day of running a business, the smallest thing can honestly seem like an absolute disaster that your world is going to end.

34:45For example, I have never run a factory. I had never run a factory before. I was head engineer. I don't know what a fuse is. I don't have to change the plug. I am head engineer though. And, you know, we've got bits of kit from all over the world, some places, you know, from Asia. One part breaks, it's going to be eight weeks for them to manufacture it and then send it over to you. I don't have eight weeks. My business isn't going to be around in eight weeks if I can't produce anything. What do you do at that point? How do you find an engineer? How do you find someone that could weld it, stick it together somehow with food glue, you know, food safety glue?

35:20At that moment, you just think that's it, we're done. we're finished finished we're finished yeah and so I knew I wasn't good enough I knew I wasn't see here I should have had a spare I should have a spare of every single machine do you have the money for that everyone else would have had a spare and so like I said perspective perspective what a great example what I love that you want to be in a caftan when you're 80 I want to be in a caftan when I'm 80 it maybe actually all women want to be in a caftan when they're 80 but I just thought that was specifically me now i i have my caftan brand i i want to be in that i definitely want to have things in my hair a lot of jewelry yes um lots of jewelry big glasses slightly iris apfel it's that sort of you know it's that level of not giving a shit yes and just being yeah but you're right it wouldn't even register tell me i was speaking to jack and alex the founders of Dash Water on this podcast and they had a similar journey as in breaking new grounds with a seltzer and you know so for anyone that doesn't know Dash Water it's fizzy water basically and there was just fizzy water wasn't it do you want fizzy water or do you want plain water and that's what we're asked and now we're buying fizzy water with taste as a drink compared to buying Coke Zero and I think similarly Whole Foods gave them their first break as well would you say and And thinking again about people that might be, you know, I always say there's riches in the niches.

36:51You know, would you say that someone thinking now about going into something and, you know, the Everest that they would have to climb to even teach someone about something. What would you look at in terms of the benefits of the niche and all of the work of educating and putting it into market compared to what must be also the benefits, which is a lack of competition? Once you've got the ground, once you've got that name, actually you can grow exponentially because you're taking your land grabbing. As long as your niche has a large addressable market and potential addressable market. Right. Because I do speak to a lot of founders who come up with a really niche idea and it will just always be a very small niche idea.

37:37And I think that you do have to consider what your potential addressable market can be. So Dashwater, yeah, probably a little bit niche, but not really. Everyone drinks water. It's a drink. It's using wonky fruit. It's sustainable. It ticks so many boxes and it tastes delicious. They were always going to have a larger dressable market. And so I think you do have to think that way. But as an entrepreneur, you've always got to be thinking, how can I make this better? so instead of another fizzy water brand I totally understand why they would put wonky fruit in it and make it taste good and have that tweak to it and yourself when you were looking at your business is that the why the it came into the ice cream route because actually that was your addressable market you were looking to get into snacking snacking right small something small to eat ice cream also snacking in ice cream is was something new but we did ice cream and we also did a chilled dessert i know we've just launched our cheesecakes but prior to that our first product was actually a chocolate ganache and a cheesecake that we sold to yo sushi right so it could go around their conveyor belt because ice cream couldn't do that yes and i think when you're small that's quite a big niche to us yo sushi was huge yeah 100 restaurants yeah that's mad so to us it didn't seem that niche and also I never dreamt in a million years I didn't even dare to dream that Little Moons would ever be as large a company as it is now so a smaller business would have been a good enough niche for us to have you know yes paid the bills and enjoyed like you know enjoyed building something it was just it was just easy um and then it just got really big much bigger than I ever expected it to get going back to your journey in Howard in terms of I work with my sister as well and have done since 2005.

39:34You're with your brother, you're building this company. You know, we know that co-foundership is a marriage. I mean, that is 100%. And it might have to last longer than marriages actually do on the outside. Did you instinctively know that this would work? Because a lot of people, when they're going on this journey thinking, am I going to do this myself? The ego then says, yes, you are because you want, do you know what I mean? It's my idea and I want to do it and I'm a control freak and we've got found a titus and all these sorts of things. And then the other side is actually to share a journey with someone, to have complementary skills, to be able to do this.

40:14You know, these are the questions people ask when they're starting. Myself and my sister have short form conversations. We are able to converse I would say like you know very few people I can converse with like that is that what you went into just knowing instinctively that that's what you wanted you wanted it to be a duo and has your relationship evolved over time and has that has there been a core that remains the same I don't think we put as much thought into it like you talked about it nor did me and my sister it was literally I need you to stop your degree or no after your degree I need you not to go and get a job could you just help me out for a bit yeah that was yeah 18 years ago I think that founders that are looking for co-founders need to consider a lot more things than my brother and I considered again it was just daivety we just got into it but it worked and we worked together for a couple of years before we realized that we had completely different personalities different ways of working we did an insight test you know the different colors yes and it came back and we are polar opposites he's like red blue blue and I'm like green yellow with a spike in red yeah complete opposites of the spectrum you couldn't be more different but quite works then doesn't it yeah but it we I learned it it learned to work obviously we had squabbles about certain things yes but that's the great thing about sibling he will never stop being my brother we were always very close growing up because we we hung out with each other a lot.

41:47My parents were working all the time. So we had to supervise each other during homework and we spent a lot of time together. So to begin with, we were very, very close, which, you know, is why it was so natural for us to do this together. But then, for example, I'd be paying some invoices or something and then he would be thinking about something big picture and want to discuss it with me. And I'm just like, I can't talk about it right now. And he just thought I was just being a bit of a twat about it and sort of like, they're their little brother and I can't talk about it. But when we got the test back, it kind of says, if you want to talk about something big picture with Vivian, you have to give her some time and say, I'd like to discuss this with you.

42:21Can you take some time to think about it? And then we'll have a discussion. And that is exactly how my brain works. I can't sort of drop what I'm doing and then suddenly go into this big discussion. And then he realized that actually my brain worked differently. And I also realized that his brain worked differently, that he needs to bounce ideas off and discuss things a lot. So I respected the way that he worked a lot better. And I think that's the same with any founder. You really We have to understand each other, not just get on as friends, but really fundamentally work well together, respect each other.

42:47And I think people's idea of hard work is very different as well. Yes. Because if you, you know, I've heard of founders where someone's working seven days a week and that's hard work and then someone else is working nine to five. But no, I've worked all day. Yeah. It's not quite the same. Not when you're other co-founders doing seven days a week, like 18 hour days. It's also for anyone thinking about it. Firstly, for anyone not understanding when we're talking about colours, what that is, go and buy the book Surrounded by Idiots, which is one of the best books ever, where you can just short form everything we've just spoken about, about the fact that everyone is a red, green, yellow or blue.

43:22It's actually everyone's a mixture of all of them, but you just you have different ways of showing up in your personal life and professional life and your perceived self. And it's absolutely fascinating. And also to look, if you're looking at co-founders and who you can work with, if everyone is exactly the same, how is that diversity created within an organization? and actually learning again and Vivian and I before we started the podcast we're talking about our our mothers and our and the fact that actually we live in a world now where we can be more clued up about so much more when it comes to our psychology and the makeup of it and that our mothers never had an ability to understand you know they just had to grit and bear living with a partner or child or menopause or any of these sorts of things.

44:15And now we have this wonderful way, I think, you know, certainly at Holly & Co, everyone does a test on their personality before they're employed. So we actually have it right from the start. So if you're looking for someone that needs to be very, very, very detailed, and they absolutely do not register at all with any blue, which is your logical side, you do have to dig in. And it's not to say they're not right, It is just to dig in saying, wow, that's interesting because your profile doesn't show that you're detail orientated and that's not something that you're looking at people's values. And so I think it's so interesting that you've gone in with your brother because actually so much of that was pre-programmed and built in.

44:57You're coming from probably a very shared value status to start with, which is actually our fundamental building blocks, isn't it? For any founder or any company, actually, you need to share values. And has it, as the company has grown, what an amazing bond that you must have, both of you. How have your roles changed in that time? So I think it was really important for us to actually have roles because first couple of years that we started, we kind of all did everything. And it was a bit of a mess. 10 jobs each. Yeah. And then it's like, well, who's responsible for something? I was like, well, I thought you were going to do it.

45:34And he said, well, I thought you were going to do it. And it doesn't get done. Disaster. like the last thing you need you've got so much to do and so then we split the roles out and he did sales and marketing I did operations finance HR and other things so then there's working very closely together to build the business and then I think the dynamic changes a bit when we hired our first sort of executive team which was heads of departments and then it just the business just changes and then we had and then a couple of years passed we got private equity investment then we had you know executives like c-suite come in and then we were not so involved in the day-to-day so we then have more time to speak strategically but truthfully I mean Howard would say the same thing I think we're really looking forward to not speaking to each other every single day about work yeah I mean I look back at some of the emails when he was at uni or we used to write long emails about our life what's going on with him now now and then for the longest number of years all we talked about was work and I do we want to go home and have dinner with mum yeah and dad but yeah we talked about work and so it'd be really nice to go back to a normal sibling relationship where whereby we just talk about normal things so in 2021 something extraordinary happened and i think it just goes to show the power of social media whatever we think about it what we're living in in this moment is sometimes it's fantastic sometimes it's awful but this was this wonderful moment their little moons went viral and i it's we're talking properly crazily with the country we were in lockdown.

47:08TikTokers were heading out to go to the only place really they could, Tesco, with the aim of securing a haul of little moons. And you captured this generation, this Gen Z's imagination, and it exploded. What was the first moment that you realised that you called Howard and you went, or he called you and went, hang on a second, what is going on here? There must have been a moment. It was neither of us, actually. Was it? No, neither of you, no. It was Charlie who had started our TikTok account. Right. And she was a cool Gen Z that we'd hired just to help with social. Yeah. And so there were a few platforms that we'd started on, she signed up for just to see, you know, just go with, see what sticks.

47:54I think another one was called Vero. Anyway, it didn't last very long, but TikTok was one of them. and so she we were just doing making videos and just putting up so we were quite early adopters with it and we're just taking videos and mainly we were just laughing about it as a team no one else was looking at them and then she started she came into a team meeting and she said we've had a thousand views on one of our videos and we're like wow that's amazing cool and then the next day she said guys there's something happening we've had 10 000 views and it just kept going up 100 and 200 ,000 and then she was like there's something weird you know something big's happening and then Tesco's called us and said we are completely sold out we need more that was when we started realizing that something big was happening but we didn't know how long it would last for me we had no idea how long it would last and back then I don't think going viral it wasn't happening as frequently as you hear about it now I think lots of things seem to go viral now and so that was the first inkling that we had that we were going viral on TikTok.

48:54And when you got that call, was that sort of like the moment where, I don't know, it's the sort of entrepreneur, you know, when we dream and something's going to happen and something's going to happen and then it doesn't happen and it doesn't happen, you know, and then we're going to do this and we work so, so hard. But the big dream the entrepreneur has, and by the way, our dreams are ridiculously big. By very nature, you can never really reach our dreams. This must have been the moment when Tesco's calling you up going we've run out of your product that really pallet days you couldn't have even imagined I think this is where you talk about the best times and the worst times obviously it was absolutely it's so exciting it's exactly what you want to hear yeah but then we've got to make it and this was 2021 was right in the middle of lockdown right so all of our teams were working from home so we weren't we weren't seeing each other except the factory we had people in the factory every day where I was and so yeah it was okay well let's start making some more but then the orders came in and they were so big that we just knew that we wouldn't be able to fulfill them not only on a normal on a normal day but during lockdown when our factory was basically kind of halved in size because yeah because we couldn't have people standing close to each other it's just sheer space we needed people standing a couple of meters apart So it just meant that we couldn't really put people in.

50:17And then we couldn't order new machinery because none of it was being made. Everyone was not making machinery. Yes. And then we had supply chain issues because all the sort of containers were in Europe, if you remember, and not in Asia. So it was hard for us to order more rice flour. Yes, yes. It was just so difficult. And then if we managed to make it, we didn't have cardboard boxes to pack it in to send to Tesco's because Amazon had taken all the cardboard forward buying as well as like PPE. So there was a cardboard shortage in the UK. My goodness. So it was literally problem deluxe. So you've got basically the dream you've always dreamt of and then the nightmare.

50:57Yeah. And I don't know, I think we're all like this entrepreneurs. Firstly, you don't dare to dream, but you also never celebrate. So you're always onto the next. So you get a listing with a card. It's the biggest dream like that's amazing okay well how are we going to make it right well let's fill out that form let's fill out the supplier form hang on how much do we need to spend on marketing with them wait where do we need to deliver it to let's find someone you know it's immediately you're just onto some solution mode immediately so you never celebrate it so it's just like oh my god another order through what are we gonna you know it's constantly what's the next thing and then this i guess this is where the dream comes like the dream comes from where then zanesbury's phones up and says we'd like to stock you and like this is amazing we've only been emailing them every day for five years and not had you know a response to have them call to say we'd like to stock you is an absolute dream come true or another supermarket whose buyer we'd also been emailing every week for the last five years emails us and says or calls us and says my boss's boss's boss is stood at my desk right now asking me why i haven't launched little moons can we launch you now and so it was all the grocery stores contacting us at the same time and so we managed to stagger it so we'd start we'd launch with one in you know I think a couple of weeks three weeks so we had time to then sort of like build up the stock because when they order it in they have a big order so they can fill all the shelves and then you do top-up orders so it was like very managed process and you know they were actually incredibly understanding about it because what I didn't understand back then was that even Unilever would, and I always look at Unilever as like the ultimate manufacturer.

52:34They are so efficient, but even they wouldn't have been able to manufacture this much. And the fact is they manufacture a lot over the winter and store it so that they can meet their summer demand. Because I just thought I was inadequate and it was poor planning and poor everything, poor supply chain. Again, it's the book we need. Do you know what I mean? We need that book that we refer back to and you go oh okay i i'm it's not me being inadequate it's not me being failing again yeah it's actually actually this is really good or this is actually what unilever couldn't do so funny enough i'm going to now stop beating myself up and and this is but we don't have those the perspective we don't have the reference points because it's very very very difficult am i right in saying again it might have obviously every minute that we're talking it goes up that there was over 500 million views of Little Moon's themed videos during that time and that sales at Tesco rose by 2 ,000 % in six months.

53:34Yeah. I mean, that is unbelievable. And you had the product, you had the perfect environment, you had the product that fitted the aesthetics of TikTok. You had, do you know what I mean? You just had the perfect storm, so to speak, that just was created. Tell me about your views. And I was reading about this and your thoughts, but preparing for success. So the year before you'd built a huge new factory, basically enabling you to increase your production and diversify into gluten-free and vegan options. And am I right in thinking that, you know, you're now selling at this point, 28 countries, 150 million you're making that as in the process every single year and you I've read that you said luck is where opportunity meets being prepared and that you don't rise to the level of your ambition you fall to the level of your systems you are so good at research yes I say that like that was my mantra when I was going through the growth the growing pains and that's I was reading Tim Spector's book atomic habits that's where I got it from and I don't think it necessarily applies to a business like that it applies to your personal life that you your your ambitions to drink water every day for example you won't achieve it if you don't have the system set up to allow you to drink water every day for example I think that's kind of like how he was trying to set up your habits but to me it applied perfectly to where our business was at that point we couldn't rise to the level of our ambitions because we fell to the level of our systems we didn't have a supply chain team up until that point really right to grow from the level of turnover that we did in a year can take a business like three years it probably would have been better if it grew a bit more slowly so you can slowly add on and get used to it to almost go from zero to 100 miles per hour makes it so difficult to put those processes in to bring on new team members to figure out how we set set all those processes and systems up to run a business at that size and I think that there was no one on our team that really knew how to do it.

55:45I didn't even know how to do it. I was supposed to be the leader. I was, you know, that jungle book where the vultures are sat in a tree going, well, I don't know what to do. Well, I don't know what to do. Well, I don't know what to do. It was a little bit like that, except I had to turn up to the office and be like, right, guys, I know what we're going to do. I do know what I'm doing. This is the solution. This is what we're going to do. And so, yeah, it was a system problem. And that was what caused us such growing pains because we had to put all of those things in place. A purchasing team that suddenly had to be processing like a thousand, sorry, a hundred pallets coming in every day as opposed to like four pallets of flour.

56:21It was suddenly increased so much. And so you definitely need systems to manage all of that growth. I think so many people are going to take this completely away with them because it's, I've not really thought about it in that way. And I think it really does. It speaks to me because actually, I think that entrepreneurs, we're always trying to build the system for our biggest dream. And potentially, that's why some of us are successful, because we do do that. Whereas others are thinking you're just you're going past the post so far. But actually, you have the conviction, you know, it's going to somehow work best we're prepared.

57:01And that's that building mentality that we can really win at because actually we have thought of the biggest dream and we're trying to get them and put the scaffolding in place.

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58:14before we come to the end of this podcast i wanted to ask you about your industry and being not only a woman but an asian woman i'm going to presume in an industry that's traditionally male potentially and tell me about how you've navigated that over the last what is it now 15 years yeah I have to say I don't have that many stories whereby I feel that it was more difficult for me as a woman I guess the only story I have was when I had first started and I went to see a distributor and he said to me you your business isn't going to be around in six months time you look you know you look so young and it's brand new business by the time I get this printed in my catalogue and sent to the restaurants, you would have gone bust.

59:02So no, I'm not going to, I'm not going to take a punt on you. And I think that was definitely, well, maybe because I was a woman, maybe because of my age, but also because it is new businesses. A lot of new businesses do fail. I haven't, I haven't got that many. I don't think so. I, I think as a woman, you're very aware that you have to present yourself in a different way with guys. And I have always noticed that I'm not as chummy with guys. I've seen other salespeople go in and they're super chummy. They immediately can start talking about football and things like that. I can't do that. So you've just got to find a different way.

59:38So maybe I'm just so comfortable with being different all the time. I've got coping mechanisms to... Well, you've built that muscle, haven't you now? I think so. Over the years. Yeah, I've always felt quite different. Like I say in my letter to my younger self. And so you I've never felt like someone said, you're a woman. I guess, for example, when I was chief engineer and I walked into an engineering company holding a broken part, I was the only woman there. But I was very aware that I didn't want to come across as like, hi, I have no idea what this part's called and I don't know what I'm doing.

1:00:12So you just have to try and prepare to sound as knowledgeable as you can. Yes. And not communicate as ditzily as you feel. Yeah. And fake it till you make it, the brilliant phrase. I mean, absolutely, absolutely do that. Do you think that actually things are changing in your industry? Do you think that there is progression? It feels like new brands come within the food industry quite often. Do you think that's opened up people to more women founders? What have you seen? Because you were saying how you do see startups and I'm sure you get asked a lot for your advice and all those sorts of things.

1:00:50Are you hopeful for your industry? Absolutely. I absolutely love seeing how many brands have been started by women. And like my mum said to me, you should start your own business as a woman because then you're in control of your own destiny and your own time. And that is the beauty, I think, of so many women starting their own businesses with children. and people like Saha Hashimi, who we both know, who we met through, what she's doing, I think, is absolutely game changing. The supportiveness in the BiWomen Built platform, just the network. I do feel like men had a better network previously to be able to pick up the phone to speak to them, to each other, to ask questions.

1:01:33And I think with this network, it's just that knowledge transfer. it's the share you know sharing a platform that you can ask questions in a safe environment where you don't feel like you're asking a silly question like we all feel but also understanding each other we all like you know we know we know how each other's feeling we we know that we probably don't feel like we're quite good enough and so when you ask that question and we're just like not a stupid question no please yeah please ask that question yeah and so you just feel so comfortable in an environment like that just to be very open.

1:02:03I agree completely. I've loved every second of this podcast. You are so eloquent and you're so honest with your stories. I just think of your palette moments and how to wrap that and how to do this. I think this is a gift that women do have to be able to, if we feel safe enough, to be able to share the realities. And actually, by doing so we lift other people up you know we open the doors to their dreams because actually it's not we all deal with the palettes in inverted commons in our businesses tell me i get to the end of this podcast and i talk about the roller coaster of creating starting building our dreams what would you say has been your lowest low on that roller coaster it has to be a specific moment that comes mind and I don't cry in the office very much because I feel like I have to be in control.

1:02:55People look to me for, I don't know, answers a lot of the time. But there was a moment in the middle of that growing pain, period, whereby I just dropped tears in the office because I just didn't have the answers. And it wasn't crying. It wasn't like a wailing. You're already justified. It wasn't a wailing. Lying on the floor, kicking your feet. and you're yeah this is isn't it funny when people when women when we talk about getting emotional you know this thing I think we have such shame in that you know I remember at Nottingham High Street you know someone saying a man who'd come from a huge marketplace beginning with A and he said you're so this company is so emotional you're so emotional it's all so emotional and And, you know, I didn't have the strength of character at that point in time to say, and that's why you're sitting here, because actually this entire business is built on emotion.

1:03:51It's built from women shopping with women and the companies run by women and it was founded by women. And actually, that's because we can tap into emotional commerce. And so guess what? How great that you're sitting here because you're sitting here because of emotion. And yes, I apologized for it. I said, I'm so sorry, you're right. It's all too emotional, et cetera, et cetera. and so when we talk about getting emotional or crying you know our instant thing is I'm not saying I say the same thing like like when I say I'm crying I'm like not really crying I'm just a couple of tears dropped down my you know let's get you know into perspective here and actually the thing is is emotion is fantastic wailing on the floor and kicking your feet probably you didn't do I probably could assume you didn't but emotion this is all based on you and your brother getting together, risking it all.

1:04:42And it's going wrong. Funny enough, some tears fall on your cheek. Yeah. And it was just, excuse me, I think it's helplessness. I think I cry when I'm frustrated usually, but this wasn't, it was a bit of frustration, but also helplessness, but also recognition that there was kind of nothing I could do. My team was doing the best they could. I could see it. It wasn't that people were being lazy. It was just really, really difficult. And just standing in the middle of the office just watching the chaos you know ensue and so those people that helped me through that period like some of them have left because it you know it was just burnout and I feel so sorry about that but I feel so close to them because I really relied on them and they really helped that business through the chaos and so now I understand when you say when the going gets tough the tough get going yeah and I know tough people they were the yeah they were the reason why Little Moons is where they are today because they went the extra mile they dealt with the chaos and I think if you do go work for a startup you have to it's not going to be easy breezy it is chaos and some people love that and they're so good at thinking what I what can I do to help solve this problem yeah because building something is so different to running something like a steady state business yeah and you've got to know the type of person that you are And so that was probably my low.

1:06:02It was the best of times, but the worst of times as well. And tell me about when you're with wind in your hair and you've got a big smile on your face and the high of that roller coaster. Honestly, it's when my friends send me pictures of little moons on shelves in places that I've never been to. Like, oh, we're skiing in some random town in, I don't know, the Alps. And they've got this in their corner shop. I'm like, that is nuts. or you know where I go traveling or I go up to Scotland somewhere and in the smallest little corner shop I happen to stop by to get something and they absolutely their freezers stacked full of little moons you know when I travel and I see it in a different country randomly I didn't even expect that shop to have it that is my greatest high or when I get letters from people to say that they love it just things like that where I just see people I just see it in the wild that makes me really really happy but I also really like going into the office and just seeing my old team because we have a lot of people that have worked for us for a long time yeah and just still seeing them loving little moons and working you know so hard for us and they're they're so all about little moons that team that I've built like I couldn't have done it without the team and it's all about the team and that's the thing that brings me the most joy yeah your family so to speak Yeah.

1:07:19Although I have heard it's unhealthy to call your business people you work with family. I've heard that too. And sometimes I feel like saying, oh no, I really understand that it's not my family. And I really understand that, you know, hard decisions will have to be had. And I really understand some people are going to leave the family and all those sorts of things. But in those moments that you're talking about, that thing when you walk into the office and you see people that have built your business with you and have watched your emotions and you've watched theirs and all those things. I'd say that's quite a bond that you only really recognize within a family when someone's going through.

1:07:54So I think it is, sometimes we can feel, you know, what we can and can't say in things. But ultimately, when you build a business with amazing people, there's this bond, this thing that happens in the air between you. The unspoken, I suppose, so to speak. How else do you really refer to it? Yeah, it's true. It's a beautiful thing. It is. It's a beautiful thing. I'm going to ask you, Vivian, now, I'm going to hand over to you and I'm going to ask you to read a letter to that little Vivian, the one that might have been in her summer holidays helping her mum and dad, and ask you to read your letter to your younger self.

1:08:35I'm going to try and do this without crying. Dear me, you're just leaving school feeling pretty average. Not quite tall enough, smart enough, not thin enough. You don't feel quite like you belong. You're awkward and a bit different. But believe me when I tell you that being different and not following the crowd with confidence and creativity will be your greatest gift. You will build a global business based on introducing something quite unordinary to the world. Also know that there will come a time when you feel like you have failed in every possible way, and finding strength to work through this moment will be the making of you.

1:09:11You can only relish in immeasurable happiness when you have experienced insurmountable sadness, so don't be afraid to live audaciously and make mistakes. Life is all about perspective, so don't get lost in the minutia. Here are a few lessons I have learned along the way and only wish I had learned them earlier. Learn to say no. No is a complete sentence. Get comfortable with change. Your life will be full of them. Stay true to your values. They will help guide you through your difficult decisions. Learn from others, but don't make gods of people and always follow your gut. Don't follow the crowd.

1:09:48Live a life true to yourself. Do things because they make sense to you and not because everyone else is doing them. Getting married is a choice, so take your time to decide. Don't rush into it and don't worry if you're good enough for them. The question is, are they good enough for you, my love? Don't marry your glass ceiling. Marry a man who cherishes and respects you, someone who sees you as an equal partner, someone kind with integrity. You won't be able to achieve your potential without your greatest cheerleader at home. Read lots of books and make time to invest in yourself, both in your mind and body.

1:10:23Good health will keep you independent. It might not seem like it right now, but mum and dad won't be around forever. Don't take your time with them for granted.

1:10:37Ask them lots of questions and leave nothing unsaid. Death is a natural part of life that is rarely spoken about. But then you have two lives and the second begins when you realise that you only have one. So live boldly, love deeply and have minimal regrets. With love, me. I'm sorry for your loss and oh I know you know it but your dad will just be you and your brother my god just so proud what against the odds against the odds you've done this and it's an amazing thing an amazing thing and your parents must be so proud that they brought up two people to be able to navigate what you have navigated and be on top and be sane and be self-developing and you know be happy and be able to read a letter like that to their younger self and it's just been such a privilege to talk to you so many people are going to take so many things out of this podcast and you You are a true example of that dream and the graft equaling where you sit today.

1:11:48And I wish you everything. Thank you so much for being on this podcast today. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining me today. If you've enjoyed this episode, can I ask that you share it with a friend and like, subscribe and review it too, so that together we can inspire even more people to follow their dreams to build a life they love.