Dear FSC fangirls: We're entering a new era of Connection, Female Friendship & Joy (you're invited)

0:00As my vocal coach would say, do a clearing breath and then do a deep breath.

0:13Greta Rose van Riel:Okay, that was saying more to myself than to you. There's something really awkward about solo episodes and I'm not used to them, but I want to get used to them. And so here we are. I'm trying and I'm awkward, but that's okay because the cost of success is embarrassment. And sometimes you've got to do the cringe to get to the other side. So solo episode from me. Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back to Female Startup Club. Today, I'm kind of excited to talk to you in this solo new style format episode because FSC is evolving. We're evolving into FSC 2.0 and I'm actively looking for FSC fangirls, people who have been listening with me on the journey for the last couple of years, people who have listened to something, resonated with something, slipped into my DMs, learned something, left a review, told someone about the show.

1:28Greta Rose van Riel:I'm actively looking for our FSC fangirls because we're launching a couple things. First, we're launching our private group chat, which you can think of kind of like a book club, but instead it's the podcast club. And it's a place for connection and friendship and cheeky chats and just a bit of fun. You know, the chicks just want to have fun. So we're launching the group chat, but we're also launching IRL events for the exact same reasons. We want connection, we want friendship. And something that I've noticed that I'm really craving is that kind of deeper connection to to the listeners like you and to kind of take FSC to this next level or this next era.

2:31Greta Rose van Riel:So we're going to get into that. That's just the short gist. And I'm going to take you on a bit of a backstory, give you some context, and then kind of tell you the vision and where we're going. And hopefully you want to come on the journey too. Housekeeping first, number one, and I forget to do this often. Well, I forget to do it all the time, but especially when we have a guest on the show, but it's really important. If you are a fan of the show, you like these episodes, it actually makes a really big difference to us and to the algorithm gods. If you subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to the show, you can go the extra mile and leave a review if you like.

3:18Greta Rose van Riel:And I mean, that is always like the absolute best thing for me. I love reading them. I'm so grateful. I'm even grateful when they're, you know, not the nicer types of reviews. I take on the feedback. I listen. And I actually just learned this really, I can't believe I didn't know this before, but I actually just found out that on Spotify, if you leave like a comment on the podcast, I can actually reply to you. And I kind of think that that is so cool. So if you're listening on Spotify or if you're watching on Spotify, rather drop into the comments, leave a comment, let's chat there. I, um, I'm really excited about that feature.

3:59Greta Rose van Riel:Anyway, that's housekeeping number one, housekeeping number two, the reason why subscribing or following or leaving a review matters so much is because it helps. I mean, first of all, it helps is find us, but it helps brand partners find us too. So the reason why we can keep the lights on with the podcast is because we have incredible brand partners and brand sponsors. So I want to just give a quick shout out to OmniSend, especially because in this new era that we're in, we're going to be doing a few things differently and we're doing something a little bit differently with OmniSend. I can't say what it is just yet, but it's coming soon and it blends into the IRL experience of FSC.

4:47Greta Rose van Riel:So subscribe, follow, review, do any of those good things. Know that I will see it. Know that I will respond. Know that I will send you a digital hug to say thank you. And please do join me in a digital hug to OmniSend for making today's episode possible. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at OmniSend. If you're an e-com founder, you're probably paying premium prices for features you've never even touched. But OmniSend gives you the same power, email, SMS, segmentation, advanced automation, for up to 35 % less than the big names. And their customers generate$79 back for every dollar they spend.

5:32Greta Rose van Riel:And that's not some standard marketing claim, that's their actual data. Experts trust it, rookies love it, and if you're switching from another platform, their team handles the whole migration process for free. Use code FSC for 30 % off your first three months by going to omnisend.com forward slash FSC or clicking the link in the show notes below. All right. So to give you the vision of FSC 2.0, I think we need to go back to the origins, where FSC started, why it started, what the original kind of goal was and the original vision and kind of how that's evolving now into the new direction and where I really want to take FSC and hopefully bring you on the ride with me.

6:23This year marks seven years of Female Startup Club, which I actually just can't believe. It's so crazy to me that it's seven years or nearly seven years. We started the show in 2019. And, you know, back then, and even still today, but back then the idea of starting a podcast and doing solo episodes, interviewing, you know, people that I admired and that I looked up to speaking on stages, you know, doing those kind of things was like vomit inducing anxiety, allergic reaction, like absolutely not for me, absolutely not something that I would have thought I could do. And I remember when my husband suggested that I start a podcast, I was literally like, how dare you?

7:19Like, you don't even know me basically because the thought was just so, my reaction was just so no, like negative. But then the deeper underlying feeling of that was, but I wish that I could. I wish I could have the confidence and the skill set or the toolkit to be able to interview someone in public or interview someone that I don't know or talk to rooms of people or speak on stages. And I realized actually in that moment that my desire and the wish that I had for myself was stronger and deeper than the fear that I had for myself.

8:04Greta Rose van Riel:And I, I often think that goes back to the saying that the cost of success is embarrassment and you do need to do the cringe to get to where you're going. And I really believe like, I really believe in not letting your fear like take the direction of your life or hold you back from the direction of your life and the life that you want. So seven years ago when my husband suggested it and you know I had these realizations I was like fuck it let's let's see if I can do this I want that skill set I want to be that person so let's give it a try. And if you followed along the journey especially if you've been like OG following along since when I had the jewelry brand Kinks and then, you know, building the podcast and starting the non-alc brand and, you know, trying to find my feet.

9:03You will know that the reason why I started the podcast was because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was trying to figure out my professional pathway because at the time, I mean, where was I? I was 29. I still felt like I just hadn't, I hadn't found the thing. I hadn't found my groove. I hadn't found contentment in my professional life. And I'd tried a lot of different things. And I'm a big believer in doing things to figure out what you don't like just as much as figuring out what you do like. And so, you know, the

9:46Greta Rose van Riel:jewelry brand Kinks, it was so fun and so sparkly and brought a lot of joy to my life actually. And there was so many elements to it that I loved, especially when it came to content and social media and IRL activations. You know, we did this really cute workshop, like a jewelry workshop with Bumble. And we did a pop-up in Paris. And, you know, there was that element of like tangible stuff. I'm someone who loves packaging and embellishment and surprise and delight and all that kind of stuff. So I loved all of that. But at the time, I felt like the product wasn't right. It just it still wasn't like it was like a smidge there, but like it wasn't all the way there.

10:42And I couldn't see myself doing it long term. And I wanted to find this thing that I felt like other people had, which was like, you love something, or you enjoy doing it so much that you're able to keep doing it every day, even when it's a crappy day. So the goal of the podcast was to figure out what I wanted to do, what kind of business I wanted to build and like how, how I was going to do it. So the entire premise of the show was to interview smart, successful, interesting women who I admired and try to understand, you know, how they landed on their product idea and their business idea and the playbook that followed, especially in the early days.

11:28And as you know, we've done hundreds of those interviews. We've interviewed just the most incredible, generous, brilliant, iconic, amazing women to understand their businesses, their marketing, their funding strategies. It really opened up a world of knowledge and insight that has just blown my mind, quite frankly. But early on in the piece, I think it was March 2020, I already had that inkling about the jewelry business and that that wasn't for me. I didn't know what was next. But then the pandemic hit and obviously the pandemic changed everything. We didn't know how long it was going to last for.

12:23We just didn't know. It felt like a time of limbo. And so that was kind of the accelerated moment for me to like rip the bandaid off and close down the jewelry business and take the podcast more seriously. At that point, I think we only had, you know, four episodes or six episodes or something. And I wanted to give myself a goal to post a hundred episodes that year. And once I hit a hundred episodes, then to figure out whether, you know, we keep doing it or, or what the vibe was, whether it was a thing or not. And then really quickly and early on in the piece, I landed the first deal for FSC. And the deal was for$25 ,000 USD, which is a lot of money for a 29 year old who, you know, hadn't made a lot of money myself.

13:19Greta Rose van Riel:I'd always worked in fashion and content and all these kinds of things. And if you do the math on like the jewelry that I was selling at the time, which was like $29 to$69, you have to sell a lot of products to hit$25k US. So for me, I had this moment of like, whoa, maybe this could be a business. Maybe this could be an online business. And I could take all the things that I loved from kinks over to FSC and, you know, turn it into something. But it wasn't kind of like cemented at that time. That was just like one of the thoughts floating around in my head. I was still pretty set on having an e-com brand or a consumer brand and a physical product.

14:06But in hindsight, when I think back now, it was really early on that I had already identified that I loved FSC. I loved having these interesting conversations. I loved learning. I loved kind of going on the personal growth journey of becoming more confident in myself.

14:31And that's, yeah, that's really, I guess, what FSC started out as. And so then, if we think about the last however many years, we've had a lot of those conversations around business. But there's also kind of been a lot of different seasons. You probably have heard me talk about my health journey, being diagnosed with ADHD, then the impact of kind of the pandemic that kept us in the UK for so much longer than planned. We weren't able to move back to Australia until the end of 2022 because my husband is from Switzerland. He couldn't get into the country and And then we had a dog and it was, you know, a whole big thing.

15:15But in that kind of seven years of the podcast and the different seasons of the podcast, my personal life with moving back to the country, moving back to the country, moving back to this country, to Australia, the health issues, being diagnosed with ADHD, having a major friendship breakup, a major best friend breakup, I should say, you know, potentially moving back to Dubai at some point that was on the cards, getting into Techstars, which is a really intensive full-time three-month program, like a business accelerator, buying a house, renovating a house, traveling a lot. There's just a lot that was going on in the last couple of years personally and professionally.

16:04And I think that if I reflect on the last two years, I, you know, I got into Techstars. I tried to build the tech platform for Groupie. I pivoted to the network. I was trying all these different things and I kind of had the podcast on the back foot. And I was kind of thinking like, you know, not too sure what to do about the podcast. And then this year, I really felt like, oh, we need to bring the podcast back. And I really wanted to bring to life the studio. And, you know, now it's just my dream studio. If you're watching this, it is hot pink on hot pink with hot pink neon lights. And it is just like my favorite room.

16:51But I wanted to bring kind of the focus back onto the podcast. And I kind of realized that the podcast, you know, the podcast is really the center of everything that I've done. And whilst I love the conversations and the people that I'm getting to meet, I had evolved from having the business conversation and it was the subject matter that I think I was kind of not leaning into anymore. I still love to have business chats and business conversations, but I realized that I wanted to evolve FSC from strictly business and practical how-to conversations to an evolution of all the different topics that I'm interested in when it comes to women's health, brain, relationship, just life, business and life.

17:52I wanted to talk about different things and I wanted to have different conversations. So when I kind of had that thought earlier this year, that's when we started interviewing doctors and Olympians and scientists. And that kind of like sparked my, well, sparked the energy back into FSC and what I was excited about. and then I guess something that was kind of like bothering me was the name female startup club you know startup is such an exclusive kind of word and it really I feel like it's one of those words that people either identify with or don't because they're like I'm not a startup that's not for me so I've been toying with the idea of changing the name and doing this and like kind of going all over the shop.

18:44And I just realized I need to stop doing that. And the name can stay as it is for now. It doesn't need to be a hurdle in my mind. I can call it FSC instead of Female Startup Club. And we can evolve the show instead of starting a new show. We can move from strictly business to conversations around health and wealth and collected wisdom. So the kind of FSC 2.0 tagline, all this to say, is that we've evolved into the show for modern women, just like you and just like me, who are creating a life that is super rich in health, wealth, and collected wisdom. And it's kind of reignited the spark in me.

19:31And I'm so excited. I'm so excited to have different conversations. I'm so excited to share kind of the different things that are on my mind that are maybe on your mind too but I'm really excited to kind of take the FSC 2.0 era into connection and community and I guess like the podcast has felt a little bit like one-sided it's me like talking to you and not knowing you back and I really want to have that two-way connection so we've wanted to do this for such a long time, but it always kind of blended into business and practical. And we're kind of scrapping that, putting that out the window and focusing just more on friendship, female friendship in your thirties, connection, soft socializing, everything doesn't have to be about business and productivity and networking and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

20:33So number one, the group chat, our private podcast discussion group, which sounds kind of lame, but I am excited. I'm excited for Cheeky Chats, just, you know, chicks in the group chat. I want to know what you're up to. I want to be more connected to you. I want to hear your stories, hear what's going on in your life. I want to meet you in person. Something that people often say to me, if I run into someone in the street or if someone comes up to me on the street, you know, or slides into my DMs, people often say, you know, I feel like I know you, but I don't feel like I know you back. And so this new era is about knowing you back and female friendship and kind of just doing some fun stuff.

21:25Everything feels so serious right now. The world feels absolutely fucking crazy. everything feels like it starts with AI when actually we should be starting with what we think and like what's on our mind and like our perspective outside of all the other intrusive things that are coming through our screens and are coming from AI and I'm not going to go on too much of a tangent about this because I have another episode planned for you but yeah I just kind of wanted to jump on and talk about FSC 2.0 the show for women who want it all and kind of yeah kind of introduce this new phase and this new era that we're in and look for my fangirls.

22:20I want to know FSC fangirls, wherever you are in the world, come and join the group chat. Come chat with me. Come join our discussion groups. Come join our IRL events. You know, our FSC fangirls are going to be the people who determine essentially where we host our events, what cities we're going to do these in, and kind of the topics that we're going to discuss. And yeah, that's kind of, that's where we're at. I feel like I had more notes on here. I feel like I had more to say, but maybe that's where we're going to leave it. If you are an FSC fan girl, click the link in the show notes below, come and join the group chat.

23:12It is totally free. You just need to give me a smidge of proof that you are a fangirl. I have made the cutest merch. I'm going to be sending you fan mail. I'm going to be your fangirl right back. And yeah, come on the journey with me. Sorry if I've rambled. Solo episodes. They're bloody tricky.