From Market Stall Trader to Dragons' Den Dragon: The Extraordinary Life Story of Susie Ma

0:00If women on average earn double your return on investment than men, then why are women not getting more VC funding? Hardest question coming. Who is Susie Ma? A British, Chinese, Australian entrepreneur. I have my own beauty brand, Tropic Skin Care, and I'm the CEO. Proper entrepreneur. And I remember there was this one particular day where my mum just said, we can't survive in London by ourselves. And so I just said, I'm going to help you. We're going to earn money. We're going to make something happen. no matter what it takes, we're staying in London. If I could just make£80 in profit, then that would be enough to pay off the water bill.

0:36That was the most overdue bill. We've paid out over£307 million in commission in the last 10 years to our ambassadors. That's huge. £307 million. There's pretty damning stats. Less than 2 % of VC funding seems to be able to female founders. Awful. Statistically speaking, the female's business will earn double what the man does, every pound that's invested. that's like a no-brainer to me you know that fork in the road where you have a decision to make whether you take the easier route but it's going to be rough or try something totally different completely unknown territory but if we can make it work oh my gosh you know we open up a whole new world

1:24I'm really looking forward to this conversation me too hardest question coming who is Susie Ma who is Susie Ma I am a British Chinese Australian entrepreneur I have my own beauty brand Tropic Skin Care and I'm the CEO. Proper entrepreneur. I said to you before that's probably where I want to almost spend the most amount of time but I want to go back to the kind of who and what originated the kind of decisions you had to make from a business point of view. So take you all the way back? Take me back to a young Suzy that sort of the early influences that led into entrepreneurship. Okay so the really really early influences was when I was a kid.

2:02grew up in China actually and hearing stories about my grandmother this is on my dad's side so usually my I talk about my mum's mother who inspired the products but my dad's side were the entrepreneurial part of the family and so my grand so my dad's mother actually started up her own business when she was in her late 40s when she noticed at that time in China that everyone was starting to wear ties, like business ties. You know, people were starting to look more Western, look more professional. And ties were a really big fashion hit, but there weren't enough people selling ties and not enough companies with enough different patterns to look different and distinguished.

2:46And so she actually set up a little tie business where she literally used to buy different types of fabric, make the ties herself and go and wait at bus stops by busy business district so when people are coming off work or going to work when they're waiting at the bus stops she'd be there like selling her ties and actually she grew a massive business through tie selling she got the whole family involved my aunt was making the ties my dad was helping with the distribution and helping with the stock as well and my grandmother would be there actually doing the selling every single day throughout the week enterprise it was a massive well massive family enterprise in those days that actually she saved up enough money to send my dad to Australia when I was one and it was that plane ticket that most people in China back then could never be able to afford I'm talking 36 years ago you know it was communism China people don't have money just to leave the country that's only for like the super elite you know and so to have money to go to Australia and to be able to set himself up that was like the story that I was told when I was a kid growing up in China because my dad wasn't around.

3:56I was like, where's dad? Well, grandmother did all this stuff to allow dad to go to Australia to find a new life, to start a new life, to have a business there so that one day you could go over to Australia and join him and have more opportunities. Because back then in China, the opportunities were very limited. And, you know, the thing, I mean, it's very different today, but the thinking back then was if you wanted to expand your life, then you would need to move abroad. And so that's what my dad did. And eventually I followed him with my mum when I was six. You followed that too right? Yeah exactly so that's that's really my early stages of thinking wow so if you didn't have money you could just rock up to a bus stop and just sell ties.

4:35Brilliant but created out of nothing right but following a trend jumping on an opportunity. Yeah and doing it quickly and just not being embarrassed or ashamed to just rock up at a bus stop and then earning so much money that you know she'd out earn everybody that she was selling the ties to all these business people who spent years doing their businesses and their jobs and their careers to you know get into these big buildings and work every day she earned more money than all of them yes and of course they looked down at her because she was the Thai lady selling ties at a bus stop but she had she raised enough money to not just send my dad to Australia but her other two children to Japan and subsequently all of their lives were you know were much improved and all of their grandchildren as well so she was a really early role model for you yeah she was yeah because that's so important isn't it for young generations would also like you know i see you as a role model right now to myself and then i will bring my two daughters yeah bless you but seeing how people act at times where there is an opportunity to take and perhaps not being fearful of the rejection or the failure and just make sure they put themselves out there.

5:41That was an early lesson for you. Yeah and also I think seeing that she was doing it as in she was a woman and she was doing it and she was my grandmother. She didn't have any like special skills or degrees or anything in business and it just it really impressed me and it made me think oh well if she's doing that maybe I could do that one day. Well we're going to get to that. Yeah. But there's a piece I particularly found inspiring knowing we're going to be talking today sort of reading, listening, watching which is that actually your actual personal entrepreneurial journey wasn't necessarily about yourself it was to actually help your mother yeah talk me through that yeah so so I moved to Australia when I was six but when I was 13 my mother and I decided to leave my dad and move to the UK it was a broken family and we just needed to get away from a very bad situation and when my mother and I moved to the UK it was on the back of a mutual friend that a mutual friend of my mum and my dad's that promised that we would have a place to stay in London with her and that was the whole reason why we moved over but when we came to London she turned her back on us she basically was shocked she actually said Shumay I can't believe you actually moved to London you have no job lined up if you move in with me I'm afraid that you're never going to move out and I don't want to have that you know to have both of you in my house forever and so I'm sorry you can't even stay with us for one night you're on your own and she told us that when we landed at Heathrow Airport and so we had nowhere to go we ended up going to a homestay paying something like 50 pounds a night and then very quickly we found ourselves in a situation where we were really struggling to make ends meet and my mum was already working at a market store she literally came to the UK worked at a market store straight away what which is what she was doing in Australia but it just was never enough it just every single week was a struggle and eventually we moved into our own flat and it just continued to be a struggle like every single week every single day I could see how stressed my mum was and I remember there was this one particular day where my mum just said we can't survive in London by ourselves she and she broke down and she said that she had completely underestimated how expensive London was and also how hard it was to make money and that we would have we had no choice we had to move back to Australia and I remember thinking we have come so far we're so far away we're finally free we're finally safe but we don't have the financial freedom and that is so important and we had to have that in order to be completely free and so I just said I'm going to help you we're going to earn money we're going to make something happen no matter what it takes we're staying in London and that's how the business came about yeah I've never heard you perhaps elaborate as much as that there's really, you know, it was a long time ago, raw passion and drive there.

8:33You went back to that moment. And so, you know, you're at this point still so young. You are watching your mother really struggling. The decision making is all pointing to go back to somewhere you know is broken. What did you do? Well, I looked at what I could do to help my mum. In the beginning, I started working for her at the markets and over weekends to try and sell whatever she had. She had some scarves. She had these rubber band guns. She had these like wooden spirals, little like knickknacks that she would buy over from the Far East. And they were selling okay, but it was never going to be enough money to allow us to actually stay in the UK long term.

9:14And at that time, I was thinking bigger picture. You know, my ambitions were not only to stay in the UK, but I wanted to have a degree. I wanted to earn enough money to get a good degree so I can get a good job. That's what I was taught. Get a good degree, get a good job, and then you'll be able to get on a nice career ladder, and then you'll be able to earn some money and be financially stable for the rest of your life. And I thought, I can't have any of that if we're just earning enough to scrape by each day. So I started looking around at the markets and thinking about what else I could do.

9:44Like, what else could I sell? Because me standing behind a stall and trying to sell some scarves like they just they just won't sell it and I noticed that the stores that sold the most that were the busiest were always the food stores the stores that were giving out free food samples whether it was a block of cheese or a piece of jam on a piece of toast or whatever it was and I thought what if I could sell something that I could demonstrate now I couldn't cook but there was one particular product that my grandmother this is my mum's mother so very different woman she was a medicinal chemist, toxicologist and a surgeon.

10:18So very, very well educated, not into business, but massively into toxicology and being kind to your body, not using any artificial ingredients. So she used to make all her own skincare products. And I lived with her in Australia. So she came to Australia with us. And when I lived in Oz, she used to make this body scrub, which was a blend of sea salts, oils, essential oils, or natural ingredients that she'll get from the local markets and cans. And she used to use this body scrub on my skin to help ward off mosquitoes because it would help soothe, the salts would scratch my skin and exfoliate.

10:52And then the oils would make my skin feel lovely, soft and smooth and hydrated so it wasn't dry and uncomfortable from the sun. And then the essential oils was like a natural mosquito repellent because it was like lemon myrtle and all the citrus essential oils. Huge amount of benefits there. Yeah, so lots of incredible ingredients in there. and I love this product. And I thought, that's a product I could demonstrate if I can get it onto people's skin. So I borrowed£200 off of my mum. That would have been a lot of money from her, right? That was some of the last money that she had. And she was really reluctant.

11:25But I think at that point, it was like, well, what have we got to lose? We're going to go. At that point in her mind, she basically was like, we're packing up. We're going back to Australia anyway. She already had a conversation with my dad. And I was like, let's just give it a try. And I had 50 jam jars that I bought with the 200 pounds, cheapest packaging I could find. I bought all the ingredients that I needed. I blended them up in my mom's kitchen at home. I took them to Greenwich Market and I started selling. I had two mixing bowls in front of me. I had some toilet roll to dry people's hands.

11:57I had two sports water bottles from my school that I borrowed, which I don't think I ever gave back. and I was doing the I actually got tongue depressors from my GP that was the spatula that I used to scoop out the body scrub from the jars put it onto people's hands get them to rub their hands together front and back over the mixing bowls and then rinse their hands with the water bottles and then dry their hands with the toilet paper and you know what people loved it they loved the feeling of the scrub it wasn't so much all the you know not very cool demonstrational things that I had, but they loved the scrub.

12:31They loved the fact that it was freshly made. And I remember setting out that first day thinking, if I could just make 80 pounds in profit, then that would be enough to pay off the water bill. That was the most overdue bill. But at the end of that very first day, I sold every single one of my scrubs. So I had 50 body scrubs. I took one as a tester. I sold all 49 at 20 pounds each. I made 980 pounds in cash on my first day trading. I was 15. I went home, I think like I threw the money in the air. I did like a little money rain dart. There's your 200 pound back. We're off and we can stay. What a moment.

13:06Yeah. And that's how it all started. Wow. Can I ask you something? Just because you were so in the moment then, how much of the passion, the belief in the fact that you found something you really could get behind the benefits and the sort of enjoyment of, but also the fact that there was no plan B. yeah how much of that do you think uh also attributed to the fact that there's the product but there's also Susie just bringing people in with passion and enthusiasm because you've got such a positive energy oh thanks John I think I think you're right like there was no other option I did look at getting a job like after school and I think the I think the salary for my age back then was like three pounds fifty and I just worked out I would never be able to work enough hours to earn enough to help contribute in any meaningful way and this was the only way I knew how to really help my mum because I was making my own products and the margins were good because I wasn't buying from somewhere else it was a product that I knew that I loved that I could speak passionately about and it was a product that I could demonstrate just like the food products that you know I'd watch people sell at the markets and doing so well and it was just I think it was just all the right things.

14:21And because I had nothing to lose, I was nervous, but I just asked anybody that was walking past. And if they rejected me, I didn't care. Okay, thank you, next. What was your mum's reaction like when you came home and threw the money in the air and so on? I remember both of us getting very emotional. I remember her crying and hugging me. I'm emotional now. Imagining what that could have been like. You possibly, probably the entrepreneurial person in you was probably already couldn't wait to be back in your zone with 100 jars 200 jars 500 jars and thinking ahead and going I can make money and I can save us now but in that moment your mum must have been looking at you going what's just happened yeah and like a miracle yeah it felt it felt like a miracle and it felt like an impossibility and I remember saying to my mum like go tell dad like we're not coming back and she did and from that moment onwards I think that's the real you know that fork in the road where you have a decision to make whether you take the easier route but it's going to be rough where we could just go back to Australia and go back to the situation that we were at or try something totally different completely unknown territory but if we can make it work oh my gosh you know we open up a whole new world we could only ever dream of and just I want to I'm going to almost skip ahead to 25 ,000 ambassadors, I think you've got, that you've empowered, that just at any one time, your story as what becomes the founder of Tropic is based there.

15:57Yeah. Because you could have been on a plane back to Australia and who knows, who knows what else you'd be doing, but it wouldn't be this and it wouldn't be that so many other people have been able to benefit from not just the business model, but the inspiration from that. Do you allow yourself to actually acknowledge that and think about that? Because I imagine, again, the entrepreneur in you is probably thinking about the next goals, the next kind of legacy piece, if you like. Yeah. But do you ever have a quiet moment? Maybe this is it where you kind of go, gosh, you know, that was defining.

16:28It is crazy when I think about. And you know what? I don't I don't stop and think that much about what we've achieved, you know, in this moment, because you're right. I am always thinking about the next step. But I suppose everything that's happened has happened in a very natural way. Nothing was like I never planned to have 25 ,000 ambassadors that are going to go out there and sell and they're going to, you know, earn commission off of our products. It just happened gradually. You know, as I started to build my business, I was, you know, in this market store selling by myself. I thought, okay, well, I'm one person, I can make good money.

17:05But in order to be financially free and buy my mom a house, I need to have way more money. So I started getting my friends involved and paying them on commission, 20 % commission, I used to send them to all the markets across London, I then started doing exhibitions and shows like the Ideal Home Show, the Vitality Show, I don't know if they still exist today. But I would do these shows and something called the Thames Festival. And I used to make a killing. Think about like replicating me, I used to hire people who were actors and performers who knew how to you know really bring people in and they do way better than me and over a very short period of time I saved up enough money to buy my mum a house and so when it came to running the business and you know really wanting to expand the ambassador side just came really naturally it just made sense actually someone presented the opportunity to me in terms of direct selling and having people earn commission using your business as a platform And I just thought, that's what I've always been doing with my friends and their mums that would also sell tropics.

18:04But by doing it in a social environment of friends, there was no taking advantage of. Because all you were doing was ambitiously looking at how can I scale this? Yeah. Which is exactly what you've done. Yeah. And everyone else benefits. If you were making money, they're making money. Yeah, exactly. Everybody wins. I mean, like on a really good day, especially over the summer, the weather was warm. like my friends will be making a thousand pounds in sales i'm giving them 20 commission that's 200 pounds worth of commission for like a 15 16 year old that's a lot of money even for today's status you know for a day's work and so they were fighting to work at the markets and they did really well i hadn't thought about asking this before we've come to me now why is this model not replicated more is there a greed element to the founder to the the business model if you like which is keep it all for ourselves because there's franchising.

18:53Yeah. But this particular model, so organically grown out of friends, family, kind of you go. I've created the opportunity, now everyone else spread. Why does it not happen more? Because I think it's not the usual route that people are used to. It's not what you learn. So when you learn about business, you learn about marketing, paying for advertising and, you know, paying influencers to talk about your products. and you have to spend a lot of money. But actually, when you build a business like this, we have 25 ,000 ambassadors. What we don't often talk about is the amount of energy and money we put into our ambassadors behind the scenes.

19:30So I can tell you right now that 50 % of every pound that we earn goes into our ambassadors' pockets in terms of commission. We've paid out over 307 million pounds in commission in the last 10 years to our ambassadors. That's huge. 307 million. And people don't appreciate that. Like that's usual money that would go into, I don't know, if you sell your products to John Lewis or Sephora, they take a bigger margin than that. So I don't think people understand that it's a totally different way of thinking about the business. You're giving money to everyday people as opposed to these giant companies.

20:06And also because you're giving away 50 % of every pound that you earn in terms of commission, you don't have much left over to spend on advertising and influences. but actually what you realize is that your best advertisers and influencers are your ambassadors so we then spend another 20 percent on events on uh but like birthday flowers for our leaders and various dues that we put on for them throughout the entire year so we have a festival coming up later on this year it's in july it's called tropic fest we take over a huge field somewhere near birmingham and we invite all the ambassadors that achieve this time it's going to be about 5 ,000 ambassadors that achieved with their sales.

20:48And we're going to be spending about a million pounds on putting together this festival. And that comes out of your pop. That comes out of our pop. So you're the infrastructure, you're effectively creating that ecosystem, but then they can come in and benefit. Exactly. And it's our way of rewarding our community and celebrating them. So a lot of businesses don't understand how much effort you have to put in for these ambassadors. And this industry that we were in, the direct selling industry, this has been going on before women could even vote. Think about Avon, right? Like they're the original, the ding dong, knocking on doors and selling through friends and family.

21:21That happened before women were even able to vote. Over 150 years ago, women were able to start up their own businesses when they couldn't dictate who was, you know, running their country. And so it's not a new model. We do it in a newer way because we really pour our heart and soul into our community more than any other business that I'm aware of. And lots of other companies have done it. So the Body Shop had Body Shop at Home, Neal's Yard have it. Richard Branson had his Virgin V at Home, similar. Jamie Oliver had something, his Jamie at Home company. They've all like not been, I think Neal's Yard is still around, but the other ones, they've all fallen by the wayside because they've not invested in their people, in my opinion.

22:03And I think other businesses will see that and think, this is a territory that we don't want to step into because there's a lot of failure and we'll stick to the safer route i.e investing money into seo social media influences advertising digital marketing that kind of thing which is so much more competitive yeah i love the fact you bring it back to people and i imagine any anyone that's watching or listening that is either one of the 25 000 ambassadors or knows that will know that they're more than likely glowing um and enjoying what they do because of that positive energy that comes from you that then is the culture that's the world I'm looking for business culture yeah that you've not only created but then keep stimulating yeah and it's it's like a two-way stream you know if we were selling to a third-party retailer let's say we're selling to John Lewis for them to sell on to their customers you don't have like a very heartfelt relationship with a buyer from John Lewis or from Sephora it's just very businessy Very transactional.

23:02Very transactional. And you know at any point if a new, more fun brand is going to come along, you're going to be cut. But with our ambassadors, and this is something that I didn't expect. I didn't expect to fall in love with my ambassadors as much as I have. Because over the years, you build like a personal relationship with them. They become your sisters. You know, we've had our ambassador model now for over 13 years. And I've watched people go through like marriages, divorces, having babies. Extended family. Yeah. And they watch me as well, you know, get into relationships, having my first child.

23:35And we've grown this business together. They're like my business partners. And we're very much in each other's lives. You know, we're commenting on each other's Facebook posts and social media. And it feels like one huge family. And the things that we do within the business feel that much more meaningful because I know who the beneficiaries are. If you're paying the majority of your income to a third-party retailer, you don't see the benefit to them do you know what i mean because they're a huge company if you pay sephora like you're just paying them so that you can earn your money to you know there's no community i can imagine when you have your i guess you call them social get-togethers through the year yeah you all look forward to seeing each other and you're vibing off each other you're learning you're supporting exactly and the money that we're paying is to real people that i know and i love that and i love seeing their success and what they do and how you know ambassadors will send me voice notes and pictures of like this is a holiday I've been able to pay for my family because of tropic because of what I've earned I've had ambassadors say to me as quite a few it's like I've been able to leave my horrible husband now because and I'm like yes because you know my mom was in that situation and I want to give women that and I talk about women because we're 99.9 women within the business and and I think especially for women especially women who have had children you know I want them to have that financial independence yes that financial freedom You're providing the empowerment, you know, and I was actually wondering how many of the percentage would be.

25:07And if it's that high, I just want to bring into the conversation the fact that there's pretty damning stats. Less than 2 % of VC funding seems to go to female founders. Awful. I've really immersed myself in that. Sahar Hashemi and people that you know I've spoken to on this conversation and lots of conversations outside of cameras. to try and understand if it's a sort of broken, archaic, chauvinistic system or whether there's actually been a lack of a trend and culture, a lack of belief, lack of confidence in women coming through because they can't necessarily see what they want to be. And I wonder where you sit with that because that empowerment, that's the word, 25 ,000 women or smidgen under.

25:45And are you seeing a change in what are we now coming into mid-2026 where that's shifting? And is that because of women kicking ass? I feel like it must. You know, you talk about the 2 % of VC funding going to women. And the other fascinating stat for me is that actually per pound invested into a female's business or a male's business, the woman will make double the amount that the man does. So if I invest a pound into, this is the average, into a business run by a guy versus if I invest a pound into a business run by a woman, statistically speaking, the female's business will earn double what the man does, every pound that's invested.

26:26And that's like a no-brainer to me. If women on average earn double your return on investment than men, then why are women not getting more VC funding? Like there is something not quite right here. And we don't know the answer here. Well, I think you're right in the sense that it is from both sides. I think there is that historical view that women, when they have children, and they're probably going to have children, they're going to take their foot off the pedal and they're not going to be able to run the business as well. Or, you know, the investment that you make in that female's business because they've got to have children, you know, it's going to dissipate.

27:06And on the other side, I think women, because they don't see enough female role models, they don't step forward. Women always think twice about asking for more. Women don't want to ask for more in general. And not to say that they're not as confident, but I think there is this thinking that, oh, maybe I shouldn't ask for too much when they absolutely should. I remember when I was asking Lord Sugar for money when he first invested he asked me how much money do you want for a 50 % share of your company my company was worth a lot of money it was worth at least I would say 750k back then and I didn't understand that until now based on the profits that we were making and I remember thinking well I went on to the show for a quarter of a million and you rejected me so maybe I'll just ask for 200 ,000 and he said yes straight away obviously and looking back I wonder was that because I saw myself as a woman that I deserve less like what was the reason because I lost out to a guy on the show and I don't know if subconsciously I had that thought but I do think it's an issue and I think society needs to celebrate more female entrepreneurs there needs to be more women in power that's publicly shown to people so that women feel more confident in themselves and feel like they can step up and step into their power because they have all these role models to look up to like I had my grandmother to look up to.

28:35This is the thing you had you had a family role within your microclimate. And if I didn't who knows? I know do you feel that with yourself and other women that are smashing it in business that the role model piece is being amplified more now and other girls? I definitely to work out this because I'm leaning into that space because I've got two teenage daughters coming through that I want them to watch and listen to Susie talking right now about her journey and inspire them to believe in themselves back for themselves but do you think that that's amplifying now I think for sure good I see young women like like be more confident than I've ever been myself when I was their age you know just walking past girls at the bus stops and the things that they're saying, the way they look, the way they carry themselves.

29:21I see that. I see young girls, especially being more confident. And I see, especially with social media and with everything that is now on the internet, there's a lot of, I follow a lot of female entrepreneurs online and I see them actively speaking out about what they do, about their lives, about what they've achieved. And a lot of them have come from nothing. And that's incredibly aspirational. You know, I think 10 years ago most people wouldn't be able to name female entrepreneurs you know if you asked anybody who are the top entrepreneurs that you know they'll probably say people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson Jeff Bezos Richard Branson exactly all the big names and they're all men and I think nowadays if you ask people they'll start to say you know maybe Sarah Blakely yes you know yeah and and if you ask for some other role models maybe they'll say people like Michelle Obama.

30:11Maybe it's Oprah. And not just women, but women of color. So, no, I think we're at an exciting stage. And I think... I'm glad you feel that because I've felt that. Yes. Yeah. And I think, you know, championing women. I didn't know the stats. I'm really, really pleased that you told me that, you know, female founders can actually, you know, double revenue. That's huge. And then why we do... I actually, I think in my microclimate, I'm surrounded by people that are actively looking to back female founders. Good. Because they can get double the return than if they invested in the guys on average. Exactly.

30:43And they're smart people as well. So it makes me think they know these stats and they're out there. But if we can in any way influence that belief, then that's... And another key thing I'd attribute to you, and you'll be very humble when I say this, I know, but is success. You've achieved, and rightly so, a lot of success. I just wonder whether there's an answer to this question based on maturity and perspective, which is what is your definition of success? That's a really good question. So if you asked me this question when I was growing up, my definition would probably be the same as the majority of people out there, which is money.

31:16The more money you have, the more successful you are. And you have that definition when you don't have money. When you don't have money, you see people with money and you think that that's success. If they have a nice car, if they have a nice house, if they have nice clothes, that's success. But the more I think about it and the more that I've lived and traveled, that is not success success to me is being able to have the time to spend quality time with your loved ones the people that you really really care about that is what for me is most important in the world time time is the only resource that we can't pay for we can't really buy time you know and it's the fairest resource in a way because we all have the same amount of time to some extent you know every minute, every hour.

32:01It's the same currency. It's the same amount. It means the same to you as it does to me. And so it's just time. That's what success is to me. Is there a transition that anyone watching, listening, whether they're on their journey, as far back as to parallel you, that kind of almost facing, you're going to have to go back to Australia, haven't got any money. So I can't even consider what I do with my time, but then I've got to do something to make money. But so many people then go through a journey where they do start to make money, however much money that ends up being and then don't have that shift to then because they keep wanting to make more money does that make sense that does because it feels like your journey yes me too i feel like with yourself there's been an element of you you went into entrepreneurship to help yeah someone other than yourself which then has clearly helped you uh financially free empower others and give back i might get the figure wrong but i think i've seen you given three and a half million pounds to charity that's a huge number yeah we'll be giving another million this year i thought i thought it was going to be going up and credit to you but that that giving back feels like it's uh something that comes very naturally to you yeah and i think contribution as human beings we love to give like i i love giving gifts i feel awkward when i receive gifts but i love seeing the look on someone's face and they open up a gift for me actually the thing that i love to give the most is experiences taking people because i think memories that you can form in doing something fun that's why we invest so much in the events the holidays that we take ambassadors on and that's why my favorite gift to people like my mom are to take her away somewhere and give her you know an amazing experience and it's also time together right back to you said time it's time together it's time you could be the richest person in the world and you can have every single thing you want the most expensive designer clothing cars you know beautiful houses all over the world a yacht whatever but if on your birthday the people that you love don't want to spend time with you or you can't call up a mate and they they're not going to pop over for you in a flash like that then what is success yeah what is that you know there's there's a word there that I could pick out which is loneliness and I I know a lot of entrepreneurs like right at the beginning of our chat I mentioned about their entrepreneurship um connection if you like and one of the things that can go hand in hand of entrepreneurship is loneliness and what I mean by that is the decisions rest on you yeah yeah how am I going to solve this problem it might be that there's not a kind of group or a board around you to do that so and constantly thinking about how to grow the business how to solve these problems where do you sit with that because I feel that you very quickly built a community around you that is also very much sort of feeding in there's no loneliness about you at all I think the biggest lesson that I learned in business is that I'm not the best at everything.