How Shameless Media Grew to 100M+ Downloads Without Investors

23:51I think that is and I think that's our different stuff coming to the fore when I'm trying to run the business and have my head fully in the business when a creative person in the room and I want to do all of these things, you're like, shut up. But generally I'll say, okay, I'm going to open this when I have the mental capacity and then we'll brainstorm it together. It's always just been the two of us. With these ideas, it has always been led by the two of us. And I think in many ways it's just been more simple. It's cleaner. It's a clean arrangement if we're able to create the show, build the infrastructure for the show, audition hosts, work out who was hosting it and then give the team the blueprint to kind of carry it and go.

24:29we have found for our business from an IP perspective, from a variety of different reasons, that's the simplest way. I think it's such a superpower to be a founder who is your consumer or is your audience. Yeah. I think we're very lucky in that Zara and my taste, they don't always neatly overlap. In fact, I think it's great that they don't always overlap. We kind of touch different different parts of culture I guess but we are very mainstream genuinely the stuff I love and the stuff Zara loves is very mainstream quite basic and and that's and I I think we can that term can be muddied or dirty but it's actually brilliant if your idea is mainstream or basic congratulations it's popular and totally commercial yeah both of those things together and I love when people come up with niche podcasting ideas of course I do but like and I know it might sound conflicting to say your idea needs to be popular but it needs to be sharp enough to cut through but the two things actually have to be true it has to be popular it has to be appealing to a wide demographic of people it has to be sharp and focused and you can't just bleed out to all other areas if you don't have those two things you're not going to have a commercially successful show anyway and I think this is actually such good advice beyond media if you are launching any product, that is such a good formula to think about what you're doing.

25:52Well, it's like, I just need to want to listen to these shows. Yes. And it's the same as like anyone launching a product, like, do you actually want or need to buy this? And I, it's such a simple framework. And yet so often I feel like it's the one question we're not asking ourselves because I think ego gets in the way. Yeah. I think that is when, and we talk about ego a lot because we have to leave it at the door. It's impossible to separate yourself from your ego, but the amount of people who have great ideas who can't run a business because they cannot let their ego get out of the way is actually quite stunning and tragic to me at the same time you know like if you are not able to let your I'm gonna say if you're not able to kind of remove the emotion from some of these decisions I don't think you're going to be able to scale I think there's also something there around like confidence and self-trust I think sometimes a lot of people can look to what someone else is doing because they don't have enough like trust in their own experiences and opinions that they're kind of like looking externally for direction but it feels sounds like you guys have such a clear internal compass about what is the right decision and the wrong decision that you can like block that out well the interesting thing is is when you talk about an internal compass I don't actually see it like within my own chest I see it sitting between Zara and myself and I think uh we're incredibly lucky but I think we've also cultivated this between us as business co-founders we are great together.

27:11If we were off running independent media companies, we think they probably would have failed for two different reasons. Exactly. They would have failed. They would have failed. I think it works because we're together and we bring different skill sets and different viewpoints to things. I'm constantly looking at things going, and I want to reach this many people and I want to launch this many shows and have this many ideas. And if we were constantly doing that, the company simply would not exist. Like there would be no process. There would probably be no harmony amongst the team. It would be very, very difficult to run a business with my mindset.

27:44Zara's mindset would probably be. I'd be too, probably too risk averse. Like I think Michelle can push me and say, nah, I think we can get it done. Michelle can go shoot. Nah, we need to go all the way up here. And I'm like, well, you're going to burn everyone in the process. We can go here. And we sort of find that middle ground. And I do think that's why it's worked so well. We've had that really beautiful balance while also having a really similar instinct for what is interesting and what we care about. and I think that's incredibly lucky in so many ways and also because we've worked at it it's like I I am so conscious like I do think there's a lot of luck involved in finding someone that you can run something with really well but also you see how often these relationships fall apart yeah and I think we talk about that a lot not about our own relationship falling apart but observing what may fracture other business relationships I can see how it happens because we put so much work in in our own relationship and I say with like the most amount of confidence and I have no issue saying this.

28:36I would say this about my husband in the same way I would say this about Michelle. I have never worried about our friendship. Like not once. Not once do I think, oh, if I have this conversation with her, maybe it'll get really awkward. I have just like, that's never crossed my mind. I think we have like the utmost amount of respect for each other. That of course, disagreements come up. They've never come up about money. Thank God. I know they can come up, money conversations come up frequently or conflict can come up frequently for other people. for us it's normally like a it's normally process maybe yeah it comes up between us as a source of slight tension and this would be once or twice a year I have never sat in a room opposite Zara and felt like she hasn't respected me or vice versa because we have the utmost amount of respect for each other every conversation is instantly not as intense it's instantly calmer because I think as well whenever we've raised something with each other it's always met with an open mind always Yeah, which I don't think always came naturally to me.

29:32Well, we've been in business coaching about it as well. Yeah, well, that's the thing. We did business coaching a few years ago and then I've continued to do it. It's kind of like marriage counselling, I guess, to make sure that you're kind of fully on the same page. Can you recommend your business coach? Is it someone that you can share? Ami Cook, absolutely. Oh, my God, I can't. Link in show notes, please. We were walking together yesterday near our office and we were talking about something and our mindset was so much – We were talking about how we're constantly putting ourselves last. if you want to be more specific.

30:00Yeah, sorry. I didn't know if it was. We'll say that. Yeah, okay. Ami has highlighted to us this year, very recently, that whenever we make a decision in the business, we are putting everything else ahead of ourselves and we come as the last consideration. And she has been excellent at highlighting that to us. First of all, I don't even think we were necessarily cognizant of it or as cognizant as we could be. I thought it, I think we were cognizant of it. I thought we thought that it made us great founders. I think we use it as a badge of honor to say we are constantly coming last you know there's that Simon Sinek book which is like good leaders eat last I was very much of the mindset like we come last at every juncture we should come last a bit but not every time yeah and I think we've really had to rewire that because we will not be able to do this for a really long time if we're constantly coming last well it's a recipe for resentment right and disaster we don't want to resent the thing that we've built like it needs to be a balancing act and I think Ami has definitely highlighted to us the ways in which we could rebalance in that facet on that note I've something I've noticed you both kind of consciously doing is as you're you mentioned like as you're launching new shows you're not hosting them necessarily and I can see how you're kind of like shifting the business to not just be about you as talent which seems really intentional and also really smart but I can imagine that's been like an ongoing conversation and something that you guys are working on and I want to know what the thought is there because you said you made the decision not to license the show in the beginning and you would have been a creative business that you're at the face of and that would have been it but now you've built something that's so much more scalable harder to do but I think really worthwhile why did you kind of make that decision to like move yourselves out of just being talent or like try and shift your role in the company?

31:54I think it was two pronged. The first was that it wasn't practical for all the revenue to be dependent on Michelle and I turning up and sitting at a table twice a week. I think we at some point were like, well, we want kids. Michelle has a baby now. What do we do about this? Like it's a huge amount of pressure because we were still hiring and we were building a team. And so we were paying salaries, but everyone was reliant on us turning up in the same way. And that felt quite stressful to us. And there was absolutely no space for life to throw us curveballs, like not a single centimeter of space.

32:26And when it did, it just meant we had to work through them, which was pretty tough. And the second thing is that also we just didn't have the time. We made the decision to actually continue running the business as well, which was actually quite intentional, I think without us realising because in my gut I felt like at that point we were the best ones to do it I don't know if long term we will always be the best ones to run the business I think you have to have some level of self-awareness about that but I did feel that when we were building other shows I felt like we were best placed to lead the company and that meant we couldn't do everything do you agree with that no I completely agree with that I think yeah you constantly have to turn back on yourself again to that the conversation we're having earlier you constantly have to almost birds eye the situation and be like okay we've always done it this way does it make sense to keep doing it this way so far the answer's been yes like we love running the business I think I turn to Zara all the time and say like god I don't know how I got so lucky that I found someone who I agree with so much of the time yeah yes genuinely and I think with the other pillars also the benefit is like we started to have people in the team that we were able to train up yeah and kind of breadcrumb them to the audience so Annabelle was out on air producer on shameless before she got everybody as a secret so people knew her and they're like I really like her she's fun I wish I could hear more from her and then we would give her show and that's always been very deliberate people have kind of been tested in so many ways in that on-air producer role yeah the on-air producer role in our shows serves kind of two-pronged a it just makes everything feel a lot more fun when there's a laugh yeah and a lot lighter yeah there's a really deliberate obvious laugh track there that's friendly that lifts the entire thing and feels more like a group chat But second, it's a very easy way for us to test talent and train talent on the go, which is what we've done every time before those people have been elevated to their own shows.

34:11Yeah, well, Ruby's the host of Inherited. She started out as the on-air host, on-air producer, sorry, of Everybody's a Secret. So it's kind of like this amazing training ground for hosting talent. It's very, very difficult to find people who are amazing podcast hosts. And it's just been incredible to be able to almost the team is learning via osmosis, I think, in the space. Like they see it done so much and they rub shoulders with each other and it just ripples out. Like it's often that we'll be thinking of the next show, thinking of the next pillar, and we'll go, and who's going to host it? And the host is sitting in the four walls of the office.

34:42Yeah, like everybody has a secret. We were looking for a new co-host a couple of months ago. And we were like, okay, talent is hard. Hosting talent is tough. And we were just looking around the office and I think it was Annabelle that said our videographer Charlotte is incredibly charismatic. And I was like, she is, and she knows content. That woman can put together the best video you've ever seen. Obviously that's transferable, but I think it does help that because the team, and we're constantly talking about what makes good content and what makes good hosting, that those people would learn via osmosis too, and we can elevate them.

35:16So what does the team look like now for a media company of your size? Who's in there and how did you kind of like stack and layer the teams and building that out? Well, we'll start with our senior leadership team. So we have a managing director. Her name's Ange. She is incredible. Ange Kloof. We have a head of podcasts, Lucy, head of social, Niamh. We've got a head of business development in Rhi. She was our second ever hire and she's now head of business development. We've obviously then got ourselves and Annabelle is part of the senior leadership team as well. And then from there, I think you could probably draw a line through the office, 50 % in the commercial team, 50 % in editorial, which I feel like is a great balance.

35:53Yeah, it is. And our editorial team are like incredibly talented because I think a conscious decision we made early was to make sure that they were trained in audio and video and everything at the same time. Like they are a bit of social media jack of all trades. They can all do almost everything. And that's what I think they want. Like I think they love that dynamicism in their day. And then our commercial team is also like one of the smallest commercial teams in the country for the amount of stuff they're trying to sell. like I think if you were had shameless at a network just shameless podcast there would be like 25 people selling that show yes we have one person and one campaign exec wow to hit our budgets wow that's how great they are yep wow that's incredible okay how do you hire those people how do you find talent like that I think we've actually learned I mean we've we've made some great hires along the way but also our senior leadership team is really amazing at making hires so often if someone's in editorial the people doing the hires are Ange and Lucy often or if it's in commercial it's uh Ange and Rae?

36:48In the early days, we did a lot of LinkedIn stalking. Like I would go, I haven't done this in a while, but there was a period where like four hires in a row were because we were going into the depths of LinkedIn and DMing people. And we had advertised for the role, but just hadn't seen an application that had blown our socks off. So we pulled people away from jobs that they were ostensibly quite happy about. And I think that actually was solid building blocks for the rest of the team. I think the other thing that we've learned, and we were actually talking about this on the way here, when it comes to interviewing, and we don't do a heap of it anymore sometimes we'll sub in if we need to it's often if someone's sick we'll sub in it's like oh yeah we'll be the sub in I think one thing we've learned is never to be afraid of someone who's nervous in the interview I think there is this fallacy that you have to hire the most confident person in front of you or the one that's like saying everything perfectly sometimes I've been quite struck by like how impressive quiet confidence is and how impressive just like a slight bit of nerves are because I really think it shows they care.

37:47And I really think in those kinds of people, there's a level of humility where they know what they know and they also know what they don't know. So they'll continue to ask questions. Very willing to learn. And I think in a business like ours, willing to learn and willing to work in slightly different ways is really important. And so, yeah, some of the best hires we've made have been the women sitting across from us in interviews who are a little bit jittery or are stumbling over their words a little bit. Like obviously you need to find a balance and they need to be able to articulate themselves, but some of the best hires we've ever made have been the women who don't immediately come across as confident.

38:19But once you actually open your mind, you have a conversation with them, you can see that passion bubbling away and you can see the nerves are actually just reflective of how badly they want this job. Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. I've never heard it framed like that before, but yeah, that's super, super interesting. I want to switch gears for a second and talk about how you monetize a podcast. What are the ways that you do it? We have a very simple model. We have a very simple model. So I mean, at the moment we do some dynamic advertising. So if anyone confused, I guess if you are like a YouTube watcher, you'll probably be familiar.

38:49Dynamic advertising is where people put markers in a piece of content and then you get served an ad. So we do a little bit of that, but really at Shameless Media, we keep it really simple. We bake in ads. So as an episode's edited, we have an ad actually put in that piece of audio. A brand will typically pay for our holistic model. I am going to give a shout out to our business development, our head of business development, Rhi, she loves that terminology. The holistic model is they pay for podcast advertising in conjunction with newsletter advertising in conjunction with social media advertising.

39:20And events as well. And I think that was one of the things that we did really early. The podcasting industry is really different, really kind of specific in the way that most shows will sell. This will get a bit technical, but I think it's probably important to kind of illustrate how differently we do it, which is to say that everybody sells on something called a CPM model, which is, hey, it's going to be$20 per 1 ,000 listeners for the ad that you hear at the start of the episode. And that$20 can kind of go anywhere between maybe like$20 and$300. We early on, and I think it was again, two pronged.

39:53Firstly, we were new to the podcasting industry, so we didn't quite get it. And secondly, we were like, well, we just think we set our own prices, like a flat fee of what this is worth, because they're not just getting podcasting, they're also getting social and they're also getting newsletter and at that time no one was doing that no one was hitting the consumer in three different ways or in three different places so we just set our own rates and ignored the cpm model and now when we tell people that we're like oh they're like what's your cpm we're like we don't do that a huge part of it was that we didn't get it at the start but also it's like this is a hugely engaged community and we are not just selling audio it doesn't make sense also a lot of this stuff like say we're working with a beauty brand, which Stylish does a lot of work with beauty brands.

40:31Yes, so much value is in audio. Like you really can do so much storytelling. It is so intimate. It feels like a friend in your ears. Like audio advertising is so rich. But the story is more than that. If you want a visual of that product and you want to actually be able to see it and almost like imagine the experience visually, if you want to read about it, those are different forms of advertising that all have value. So when someone comes to us, it's like, yes, of course we can do a podcast ad, but why not also show them the product on social and write about the product in the newsletter and give you this real holistic 360 approach that you have multiple touch points with these with this listener with this audience member and they can see it and hear it and visualize it in a completely different way than if we were just relying on one medium so smart thanks well it's not just us i want to know what your process is for launching a new show like how do you launch promote what's the do you have the same kind of rollout what do you do we try to have a different rollout every time I think for stylish what we really wanted to do and again like I would be lying if I said this is Michelle and me just sitting there we had a whole like team of people whose job wasn't strictly marketing but then suddenly became our marketing team through this which was Ange Nikita and Ray sit down and say these are the fun things we want to do and with stylish it was very much like we just want to like paint the town red the the color was red it was very much the color of the year when it came to like fashion and beauty and all of those kinds of things.

41:55And there is something really important for us for those like in real life touch points with our community. I know you feel the same. We're not good at doing live shows and live shows are the perfect marketing for any show. It's, you know, the perfect launch for any show, but getting in front of people. So what we did for Stylish was we had like a pop-up and we had these bright red tote bags. And I remember walking back to the office after we did this little pop-up event and all I could see all down Swan Street, which is like the busiest street in Richmond in Melbourne, was red. All I could see was red and it was amazing.

42:26Then we had stylish branded broadsheets. We made a stylish newsletter. I know that's actually something that's been done a lot by different brands now, but Rhi came up with that idea and was really at the forefront of that little trend in marketing as well. So we had these broadsheets in local cafes as well. It was just, it was so tangible. You could really see the stylish brand when it came to Inherited, which launched later that year. We just did an intimate event. Like we had brand partners and we had a little live interview with Zara Seidler, our friend in the industry. She's the co-founder of The Daily Oz.

42:57And yeah, it was an opportunity for brand partners to come and to see a conversation between Ruby and Zara and have a meal together. And Rhi was behind that event and made sure the meal was very homely. I think we had roast chicken. The little things about that make it really specific to that show and what that community will probably look like. You're building out worlds for all of them, I think. And for us, that's been really important that they all have very distinct worlds, very distinct tones. I think even with launching a show, marketing-wise, I think the thing we have been very specific about is tone.

43:31And Michelle's amazing at this. If you've got one Instagram post that could go on every single pillar, what is the different caption and what is the different way that this is framed? Because it is not going to be framed the same way with all of them. They're all going to have very different levels of earnestness, dryness, savageness, edginess for sure. And making sure that voice is really obvious from the start is really important to us. Well, we're building a media company, right? So if we were always talking to the same woman, we're just going to reach that kind of woman. And so when we're building new pillars, I mean, ideally someone will come to Shameless Media and they'll kind of select different pillars like a menu.

44:07I personally, if I was looking at our shows, I'd go, okay, I'm a Shameless listener and everybody is a secret listener. Zara probably leans more towards stylish is her perfect pillar. Other people lean towards inherited, that kind of thing. But you want to continually branch out and build that audience. Like if you only use the same tone and speak to one kind of person, you are limiting yourself to that person. So whenever we add a new pillar, it's not just going, okay, we'd listen to it. It's going, okay, and we'd access this kind of listener who can then come into our ecosystem and be a totally new audience that we're unlocking in this part of the world.

44:39This is so interesting and inspiring to me as someone who is in this space like I could listen to you guys talk about this all day I also should shout out when it comes to how we actually build the marketing is we've done a lot of insight stuff now and I think early days we did a lot of research just you know on Instagram and just like free research when we had the means we actually started paying for research and getting typologies you know explain what typology means like if you imagine our network what we got given basically from a bunch of research was like here are your five five key people that consume your products and here's what they like.

45:12And it's like a grouping of people. Building out a profile of each one. Yeah. And so for us, particularly when it came to Inherited being launched and Michelle pushing, like, I want interviews. I want to listen to interviews. And me being like, I'm not interested in interviews unless it's different. It was like, okay, well, we knew there was one key typology that we weren't speaking to properly and that we could actively market something to. And that typology was probably a slightly more earnest person. Introspective. Yeah, like an introvert. And so when you're building tone and marketing, you're also matching it to try and match not just a great show, but to that typology too.

45:45So it's kind of a, when I call it a world, it's really a world. Yeah, wow. It's also a great way to cross check your ideas as they come up. I constantly am like thinking of what the next idea is that we might pursue or whatever. And the way to know that it's probably an idea that would work I think I probably sit on an idea for like maybe like three to six months before I bring it to Zara. I'm so curious about your creative process for this. There's not really there's not much. Zaggy brains. Yeah I think I often sit on an idea for months at a time and I'll take it to my husband and I'll toss it around with him and I'll sit with it for a bit and then I'll put together a Canva presentation so I've got two Canva presentations for Zara which she's never seen.

46:23Oh no. Which like what the next what the next pillar could be in a universe. Oh yeah but you've been breadcrumbing this for a while but I am not in the mental capacity no I do not have the mental capacity for another pillar it's not the time so she and also the canva presentations aren't ready yet I'm still like I plot out my thoughts and I plot out I write so for example this new pillar idea I've had which we're not ready to do anyway but look at me be like it's not don't worry I will try and come up with this particular pillar I've tried to come up with a hundred episodes oh wow because if you're coming up with an idea we're not going to do a seasonal podcast it's not to be blunt it's not good enough for making money like you need to have an always-on show it needs to be a niche idea that is deep that you can come up with a hundred episodes that I would personally listen to and I think Zara personally listen to for that to be a viable idea so I'm currently waiting for the ideas to come up till I get to 100 currently at 76 well and this is the other thing we see once you often show me these it's like okay I agree with you that some of these episodes but I still don't want to listen to that and then we have to sit down after that and say if these are the episodes ideas what's the actual run sheet like what are the specifics in that to make sure that we can keep pushing it out and what's the hosting structure how long is the episode join and kind of like that's where I enter the creative process generally which has always worked for us she's Michelle's always like here's the big thing I want to do and I will come in and say yes part of that but part of that and have you considered this and this is the flag as to why it might not work build it together yep and that's how we like doing it wow the last thing I want to ask you both is for a resource recommendation.

47:55So something that's been helping you as you've been building your businesses, maybe it's been helping you as you've been like up-leveling as leaders. You mentioned business coaching and the business coach, which is such a helpful, tangible one, but are there any apps, tools? Do you use a planner? Is there anything that people can go and they're like, okay, I want to do what you're doing. Give me like a micro step to go and download the app that you use to run your day. I wish we were founders founders. Like we are, And this is why sometimes I struggle in interviews like this because it's like, I wish we were like ultimate founders.

48:25I think we are like content people who became founders. That said, I mean, I listen to every episode now of Aspire by Emma Greed, just other people's stories I find incredibly helpful. What else do you listen to? This is the problem. I don't. Like, I think if I was to give a practical tip as to how we actually have built this thing and what we do, I would say when people look at our Google calendar, and I know this is getting really niche, they would be like, what the fuck is this? almost every 15 minute block is accounted for when we are together every 15 minutes so like if something is on the to-do list that is an event in our calendar it is matching the exact time we are very specific at getting things done very quickly we try and maximize all our time together that's true actually i do think efficiency and being really considered about your time is the only way we have lives outside of this it is the only way what do your days look like look like they're pretty manic to be honest.

49:18They are 15 minute intervals yeah. So like if we're together so I'm obviously I'm not full-time in the business at the moment because I've got a four-month-old baby but when I am at work and we have say a half day together from the moment the clock ticks 8 30 we are backed back before I then head off like every minute like almost every minute is accounted for. Wow yeah and so yeah it is being really self-aware about like how well you're using your time. I think we are great at using time and that's why we are able to not work now late into the night. Yep. Yep. So you are, you're, you have that boundary of like, you don't work weekends.

49:55Don't work weekends and we try not to work past like 5.30, 6. We're really, really strict on it. I mean, it's been huge for our sanity. Practically we've been, I don't think it's like, it's something we set out to do from the start. The minute we were able to, we could have grown this business faster if we worked more. Like we've known that from the start. It was a really considered decision for us to say, well, we really like our lives outside of this. And this will be a better business if we're bringing great ideas from outside of our life, from outside of our work. That was also two pronged.

50:23It will not grow without ideas and life and happiness outside of it. But also it's just like, we know it grew at a slower pace and that's what we made peace with. I'd also say the hours spent outside the business, say we both leave, like when we're full time, or when we were working full-time, we do 8.30 to 4.30, right? And then outside of that time, we try not to talk about work at all. What we are talking about, though, is we're texting 24-7, really, because we're really good friends. We are sending things about the industry or we're sending things about content or we're sending things that we've listened to.

50:54And so I wouldn't call it work. It's not work, but it is constantly kind of re-honing that vision for the company, even though we're not intentionally doing it. We're putting in PR disasters. We're putting in quotes that we think are – that could have been better or that maybe really hit the mark or statements that we loved. And we're constantly inching and inching towards like, who is Shameless Media as a brand? What are we doing? What's the content we're creating? Even though it's not work, that is happening all the time outside of the business. I wonder if you guys both feel like this as business owners or if anyone else is listening to this too.

51:24But I was talking to an author recently who said that when she finishes a book, it feels like a window and her brain is open and fresh air comes in. And then she said, when do you feel that? And I thought, I have great boundaries with my job, but I don't think I've ever felt that since I started. I do not think I've ever felt this window open and the fresh air come in. And I think that's the trade-off of building something is sometimes you may not have that for a very long time even when you are really boundary. I totally get that. But I enjoy bouncing and being – in many ways, I enjoy being consumed by the industry and what's going on.

51:53I just don't want to be in my desk all the time. There was a long way of not being practical so I listened to Aspire by Emma Green. Use your Google Calendar. And use Google Calendar. And just, yeah, be really self-aware about whether you're using your time well or not. Yeah, because it is so easy to bleed into the nights, like just to let the day bleed over because you are – there's enough to do and you are the one that is responsible ultimately for your own time and your own calendar. Like I see myself do this even though, you know, I have set work days. I find myself often like in the evenings I'm like, oh, I'll just like sit on the couch and do X, Y, Z.

52:30And it's just actually not good for your brain. No, it's not. And I also think it's really interesting because it's a question we get all the time. And I think there's an expectation that if you're a founder, you should be working all the time. I saw the most messed up, like, I think it was the New York Times. And they did a video and it was all about, like, young AI founders and how often they work. Oh, no. And I was sitting there like, this makes me feel sick. We don't work all the time. We genuinely don't. No, and I think there is an expectation that if you're doing it properly and you're doing it well, you're working all the time.

52:59And I think it's a bit of a wank, if I'm honest. and to be really candid, I think, yeah, in the early days, some businesses do require you to grind. And we did. For a couple of years, we worked seven days a week. I just do not believe that you need to do that 24-7 as you're scaling. You are making a decision to scale at a certain pace if that's how often you want to work. This is actually bundled in with one of our other beliefs. I believe that to be true. I think sometimes other founders like to portray an image that's almost exclusive to be like, you could never achieve this because you don't want to work 24-7.

53:27Yes, it's that. It's like, no, that's not true. I think it's similar to how we talk about business jargon. We feel like we've sat in a million meetings, particularly with businessmen or just anyone from the corporate world, to be honest. And the jargon that is used is intentionally excluding people. It's intentionally trying to make you sound like you are so smart and so knowledgeable in one area. You're trying to bamboozle the people sitting opposite you. Like we really value communication where everything is so clear. We want everyone in the room to leave with a crystal clear picture of what was discussed.

54:01We want to make sure everyone feels included in the language that we're using is as simple and clear as possible. It's probably the same thing. I think in the world of business, a lot of people are interested in making things feel exclusive and I don't think they need to be. I don't think you need to work 24 seven. I don't think you need to use jargon. I definitely don't think you need to use jargon. And I think in the early years we had to really risk feeling stupid by stopping people and saying, I don't know that. I don't need, I need you to stop using that terminology. Now I don't feel stupid at all.

54:27I think because we've done it so often to stop people and say, what's that? And we've realised we're not stupid. We've realised they're actually intentionally using language to try and make us feel stupid. Well, they're trying to justify their own ranking. Yes. Like they're trying to justify their salary, their position. I'm so high level. I'm so high level. I'm using terminology you could never possibly grasp. And it's like, no, no, we're all capable of understanding. If we all use language, we all understand. 100%. I can also just get Chad JBT to explain this to me. Thank you both for coming on the show.

54:59It has been incredible, firstly, to just watch what you're building, but then to hear the behind the scenes and the story of how you've been doing it. I've been wanting to ask you these questions forever and ever and ever. So selfishly, this has been so just great for me as a business owner. And I know you guys are incredibly busy, so thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having us. No, thank you for having us. It's been amazing. It's been a lot of fun. Love what you're building. As I said, I do love listening to founders' stories, So it's a real joy to be part of yours. Amazing. Thank you, guys.

55:26Thanks. I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Festies subscribers. Business Festies bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business. You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't Google. you can cancel anytime head to bestie.femalefounderworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more