"Caroline Hirons Was The Biggest Risk I Ever Took": Colette Laxton | Ladies Who Launch

0:00So within three months of the brand launching, I had a call by the end of the day from Colt Beauty saying, why do we not have this brand? I'll buy all your stock off you at your warehouse. Colette Laxton is the co-founder of The Inky List, the skincare brand she launched in 2018 to make beauty less confusing. Today, more than 90 million products have been sold globally. In this episode, we get into how an idea becomes a product, finding product market fit, funding rapid growth, and what Colette wishes she'd known before building it.

0:41I'm so excited to talk to you. Honestly, I can't. Your story is fascinating. I love the brand and I can't wait to just selfishly ask you questions that I actually want to know right now. But before we get into the inkiness, I want to start with, I suppose the career that gave you the confidence or perhaps enough knowledge to eventually build it, because we're always building confidence, aren't we, as we go. You spent almost a decade at Boots. I did. which I mean is so so brilliant across brand marketing product development tell me sort of how your journey was there how it started and I suppose how you got interested in beauty in the first place so complete accident this is not like a lifelong mission of mine no no not at all so I was actually a performer I was a singer and a dancer well this is okay not what I expected I always wanted to be in performing I love it and actually being a founder in the end effectively is you know you're performing you're selling every single day um but I also love the idea of journalism so I did media and communication at uni then realized I'm from Nottingham local village like didn't have access to the bright lights of London so I was like left uni I was I just need to get a job so I was like where can I go that's local to me Luke's head office so I literally started in Boots Head Office making coffee.

2:11Also can we just, before we discuss Boots Head Office like I obviously have to go there a lot because my little Coco's been there for like donkey's years now. It is, it's almost like Nottingham's Disney. Yeah. Like it's. It's like it's own little city isn't it? Yeah, I don't want you to listen to this and picture like a small office. No, no, it's massive. Humongous. Yeah, like it's got like four different car parks, different zones. Like the first day I went in. And it's cool stuff. I went in and I was like, okay. Just literally green from uni. Literally was making tea. I worked on boots.com, loading products onto the website.

2:46And then was like, you know, coming from a performing background, I was like, this is horrendous. Like corporate life is not for me. Yeah. And I was there. I want to be front and center, honey. Literally. I was earning 13 grand a year. And I was thinking, I don't, if this is being a grown up, I don't want it. Like get me back to singing in clubs, you know. And how old were you at this point? literally just left uni so 21 right greener than green but um what's brilliant about somewhere like booze is you just have access to so many different areas so many different departments and i just stayed curious and i was like what's that over there what's that over there and they were like let's do your job um and there was this like team in the corner that were like developing products and i was like that i was like that looks cool and then learn about product development learn about marketing i worked on the christmas gift team i literally went everywhere in boots learning about buying learning about the the back end of you know the non-sexy stuff um but then found like an obsession with the consumer i was like hang on a minute you can get a problem that a customer has and actually make a solution from end to end product marketing the whole thing and i was like this is so exciting like solving a problem so i got completely obsessed i was there for 10 years and then I had a bit of an aha moment because I got onto a team that brought new brands into Boots yes so like yours um and then I was like meeting all these entrepreneurs and I was thinking okay this is this is my jam right this kind of exciting entrepreneurship new brands creating awesome stuff filling a gap in the market and I was like okay this is really exciting so I left Boots to go and work for a startup and then kind of everything went from there and what was the startup that you went to so it was a lady called sharmadine reid and she had a nail salon in dalston called wa nails yeah so i went to work for her i lived on her sofa for a year it was like the exact opposite of like corporate life to living on a sofa working and i did her nail brand for her it was like the best year of my life like learning from the ground up like it was it was wild and then so from that point so you've got this kind of I suppose this skill set and I and like you say when you when you're at a big sort of big corporate like boots there are so many and I know from myself when I deal with different buyers for example they're like oh hi I'm now leaving because I'm now on fragrance or I'm now like I know how it this sort of the model is and it's quite it's quite a nice business to work for well that's the way it sort of seems on the outside is that nobody really leaves you sort of move around from place to place but you develop I suppose so much in terms of skill set along the way what did you bring from that role into the startup do you think everything I don't think I knew I was learning so much because I think when you're in that environment you know it becomes normal that of course I know how to do a business case of course I know how to build a P &L of course I understand packaging of course I understand lead times and warehousing and blah blah and then you get into a startup and it's like oh none of that's a given and I've actually found that a lot of entrepreneurs come at like the idea and the cool stuff but actually if you can't make the back end work it's game over yes so I think the non-sexy stuff was probably what I learned most of and that's been able to kind of get me through quite a lot of like tricky situations and that's the thing that most sort of creative founders because you know there's always this sort of two different types I think of founders right but the creative founders really struggle when it comes to the unsexy stuff I really that's the bit where I'm like whoa and I lean on my team a hell of a lot for that I know it now and I understand it but that to me was like learning a whole new language but when that's sort of like embedded in you and you're not even realize it's the skill set that it is I suppose at that time when you talk about you worked on the christmas gifting team i think that is christmas gifting has made so many brands you look at like marcia kilgore 100 for instance and the the soap and glory and what they did for christmas gifting you must have learned a lot there and she's she was on the podcast last year she is incredible what she's incredible so i worked on the soap and glory gifts and that that was like a whole industry in itself like that gifting it was literally like Santa Claus's workshop like that that like you say made brands but also was such a great platform for entrepreneurs because it gave you the scale like Christmas gift you know it was hundreds of thousands of products being sold on three for two and you kind of got smaller brands that were able to come and actually scale their brands through boots it was it was such a great you know I worked on Elle Macpherson she had a she had a body brand yeah yeah then it's Ruby and Millie yes worked on that worked on soap and glory a load of the hair brands like lee stafford trevor saw had such an amazing kind of breadth yeah and kind of understanding and even cost wise like trying to make christmas gifting work yeah you know i'm currently dealing with this it's really hard i still don't think we've got there we definitely haven't got it's really really really hard so you leave this big role you start another big role although it's a startup it's everything's I suppose falling at your feet and you're the one that's really trying to move the needle which did that unlock something in you that you wasn't aware of at the time definitely because I always thought I'd be someone's number two because I was doing the back end and I you know that kind of seeing that big the entrepreneur the creative and in my mind I was creative but then I was always the kind of number two and then kind of flipping to being at the forefront I think it gave me the confidence to actually think no I actually can do this I don't need to be in the background you know sorting the operations out I can go and and actually you know birth something yes in the world if you will yeah and it only took a year from leaving corporate having that kind of environment that I was like yeah yeah let's go like it's time so then you do that and you're like you're birthing something but still all but still also for somebody else and not for you at what point does that light bulb moment go off where you think okay I know this I have such a breadth of knowledge from the job that I sort of found myself in by an accident and then I'm actually really crucial when it comes to startup and I know exactly what I'm doing what point do you go okay there's that creative monster in me that's been desperate to break out I actually want to do this not just for somebody else now but I want to do this for me when does that come I don't know if it ever came I don't think there was a moment I really no I don't think it was I think it was brewing for a while and the frustration around the skincare industry because I've been in the industry for so long i know how it works i know why you know you do a product twice a year because it you know it lines up with the right thing and you do a year on year comparison and all the business stuff but there was a bit of frustration in me that was going you know what there's a massive gap in skincare so i don't think it was i'm ready it was there's a huge gap that needs fill in here and no one's doing it so let's go let's let's make this happen right so i want to talk about this flight because you're on a flight from london to canada yes it break this down for me because this is where it really feels a bit light bulby to me yeah yeah it was it was and i think actually flights are my favorite time me too but can i tell you who doesn't like me on a flight my team because you're because i'm off and i've got wi-fi now so if i'm on a flight it's hell for everyone because is this something about like you're i don't know because you're stuck and you yeah i'm one with my thoughts and i it's my ideas always come on the flight that you're the only person that i've met that's the same seriously yeah there's a freedom i'm so bulked down every day in so many things there's something about like physically rising above it all and then it all just starts to come into place i've never met anybody with that same thing funny because normally people I'm like, no, that's my time where I just rest or I switch off and I'm on Netflix.

11:19Or I'm like, no, for me, a flight is where I'm like, wow. And I've got this idea and I've got that idea. And it just, it flows. Do you know what? I don't turn on the Wi-Fi. Do you not? It's the only time. Now, I work morning till night and I am on, on, on. Like the fact that I haven't got my phone with me right now is like. You're scratching your hands, I can see. But on a flight, it is my time. It's my time to think and really, really get. And it was. It was the defining moment. Right, so tell me what happened on that flight. So there was loads of things going on. So it's 2018, which actually sounds like ages ago now.

11:56Well, it does because we had that big old lockdown. Exactly. I feel like that was such a defining moment, 2020, that anything pre that, it just feels like. Just feels like, yeah, 1959. So it was like this moment in time where brands were still absolutely bullshitting consumers. you know the magic and you know looking back at ads from 2018 it was botox in a bottle all of that yeah literally so much crap and um but at the same time i could see consumers getting a bit aggy about it the the thing for me there was there was two defining things one on a product website whether it be a retailer or a brand's website it didn't tell you what was in the product they were selling products at that point without having an ingredient yeah we're so transparent that so no transparency so you were buying a product you have no idea what was in it you're just taking a chance and at the same time reddit reddit was bubbling and there was so many subreddits of people sending photos of their skin sending bottles of products saying what is in this like i don't even know if this is right for my skin or hey can someone help me and it was like this convergence of brands completely ignoring them and doing their thing these big magic marketing machines but consumers going hang on a minute I want more I want transparency I need some help yes and it was this weird moment on this flight that it was like hang on a minute imagine bridging that gap and being a brand that truly could support somebody they didn't have to turn to each other they could turn to us and us be that expert friend someone that they could trust someone that was truly transparent and someone that offered them a solution and that was like a light bulb moment wow okay so that goes off yes and like any creative like any entrepreneur any founder i know once it goes off that's it everyone's screwed no one's safe because it's not going out and you're gonna do whatever it takes to bring this idea to life yes who becomes your first call and what then what are the steps that then follow okay so two main calls um one is money because not from money at all like not even did you have a rough idea of what it would take yes financially yeah what did you tell yourself it could 300 grand wow to and this wasn't me but i mean a conversation when you've not got 300 grand kicking in the bag oh no like we've got like you know there's 10 pounds in the back no this is but but knowing and i think it depends look if if you want to kind of start and i love these businesses start at the kitchen table and you build it over time and i'm not from that world i'm from a world where i know what brands are doing i want my brand stocked in boots like i know the scale almost having all of that knowledge and having all that experience is almost starting you on the back foot because you you've been exposed too much i said about my mom my mom was a paramedic now someone has something she's retired now but her brain when it's us and she loves us and cares about us her brain goes from zero to 100 and i'm like mom i think i'm just gonna think i'm all right you know and i think that that's almost the same thing for you because you you've been exposed and overexposed to how incredible it can be oh i know exactly yeah how many products you need to sell per week on a shelf to be in boots so i'm like well of course that's what i'm gonna do so working back from that and saying right how much do i need to buy stock how much do i need to keep the business running how many can you divide that for me and just i think it's quite interesting for listeners to think say just if we're this that have to be we're not going to hold you to it yeah but if we're looking at say okay i need 300 grand how are you splitting that 300 grand away i've never been asked this question before you know i'm so noisy i love it but i'm just i feel like we need a whiteboard yes um okay so it's so interesting for people to realize where it should be spent you know if it might that might that pool might be 10 000 pounds but how you would divide that and what you'd ring thanks for different things so i think it was about half of it was stock so we did buy a decent amount of stock and you know going into skincare you're not going to just launch one product no so we launched with 15 so which is which is a big range to start with so we i think we only bought a few thousand units of each but you know that's still a lot of money so i think about half of it was on stock um i know exactly how much money i had on the sexy stuff the launch budget tell me 50k wow did you know and do you know i spent most of that on what caroline hirons stop oh my god i love this tea on honestly that woman that that was the biggest risk i've ever taken in my life and i've told her before i don't know if she knows it to this extent i love her but because she's i got to try the products number one because you know if caroline don't like it then don't even forget it yeah but i also knew you know she had her youtube at the time So she'd do these long form YouTube videos And I knew in the UK If Caroline gave that stamp of approval People would listen So I basically said Where am I going to spend my money?

17:14I spent it on Caroline And then I was a right cheeky sod And went to a PR firm And said I'm not going to give you a retainer Because I can't afford it I want you to do three things for me I want you to get me a Daily Mail headline because again you know that is going to do it i need you to get me on the front foot with the key editors so and i went with a bag of samples sat on their floor playing with products with them and i need you to get me um like a profile kind of piece and i said if you get that i'll take you on and she did it and she still my pr today amazing so i took shout her out who is she so Lauren from Box and Buell one of my very good friends now and I've got so many people on to Box and Buell because she started the PR firm at a similar time to me so it was really nice it was like I'm going to give you a go you're going to give me a go I love that you're still together oh 100 % find good people stay with them absolutely seriously stay with them so yeah so Caroline and a bit of PR and that was it incredible incredible right so we've done sorry I'm still breaking down the 300 sorry yeah so half of it half of it so we're saying we're just using 350 as a losing So 300 as a thing.

18:27So 150 as the stock, 50 as the marketing budget. Did you do any launches, any events, any? Kind of fucking. No, no, I just want, you know, sometimes it's like. Oh, no, that came later. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. So it was more getting people to talk. It was getting the right people, the editors. And I was so lucky. The day we launched, I have 19 pieces of press. And I'm talking Vogue, half as bizarre. But it was a... Yeah, but you say lucky. The product speaks to itself. I know, but the market's so saturated. But I think good product, the positioning was right of what we were trying to do. But then also, I'm a hustler.

19:08I will sell ice to an Eskimo. I've already got that, girl. You don't need to tell me that. I can see. I bloody love it. I sold the brands for a retailer without giving them a product. I sold it off a PowerPoint. Guess what? You did it! Yes! I love that it's so good I know I know right so then we've got 100 we've still got 100 grand left to play with I say play with this is still tight use of money so it's all the back end the operations the staffing everything you need because you can't just go I've got that to launch you know when you get a PO that's not money yes just point that out do you know retailers payment terms yeah they're really long they're really long so that was the running costs then because you've got to work out right you know if we sell the stock when are we going to get paid when can we buy more stock what's the running cost how much to my staff all that and when it comes to staff who and what was important to you so we so me and my co-founder did everything i hired a designer out of uni who couldn't even write an email god love her she went on to be my head of design was with me for six years absolute babe i had her and then and did you use them on a freelance basis or did you hired her but obviously very cheap this was her first job um again yeah you know gave her a chance and she she grew with me her and then one person to help sales orders that was like the core team to start with but then we grew so tell me i love we we discussed funding a lot on this podcast so you and your co-founder so you had to raise that money yeah and how how did that look and what was the experience like um i would say we had an interesting start because we weren't necessarily conventional in the first round right so we went out to our network in terms of people that we knew boots people that owned companies and were like hey got this thing and it was like an unofficial dragon's den where we'd kind of put like fancy it yeah and everyone's like no yeah absolutely not um but we managed to get um a dr tv company randomly um that that my co-founder knew because he was the buyer for them at boots again it was just a random had worked with them previously they loved the concept and were like okay we'll do it we'll put it in um but it was only the money got serious because the brand blew up quicker than we expected honestly um so we needed some serious capital really quickly right so tell me about like where are we in time what happened so within three months of the brand launching yeah it honestly like believe me i have had some serious setbacks and we've nearly gone bankrupt you know all the shizzle but literally the day we launched we launched onto a on a retailer in the UK.

22:07I had a call by the end of the day from Colt Beauty, the buyer, saying, why do we not have this brand? I'll buy all your stock off you at your warehouse. What? On the first day we launched. No. And I was like, oh my gosh. Wait, and who did you launch on the first day? Feel Unique. So they're now Sephora UK. Yes, yes, yes. So Feel Unique. We launched with them. We were meant to launch with another retailer who backed out last minute. You can't tell me who. No. But, oh, my God, worst moment of my life. And I refused to be stuck. I refused for three years to be stuck with them. I bet. Absolutely not.

22:44Yeah. Yeah, so we nearly had no launch. Then Feel Unique took a chance on us. And it is honestly, like, the hustle is like, hey, we've got this thing. When can you launch? Next week. We've got all the stock in the warehouse. Oh, my word. The anxiety. Yeah. So we launched Feel Unique in a small way. End of the day Colt Beauty We're like We'll take all the stock We've got This is going to be major Six weeks later Sephora Stop Yeah I'm in a meeting in Paris With the Sephora Europe team And they're like Right Tell us about the brand What we're going to do And there's this woman Sat next to me American accent No one's introduced me To anyone There's like 30 people In the room She's like Hey what's your plan For America And I was like I'm from America I've never been to America I'm from Nottingham I'm from Nottingham like the fact that I'm like having these conversations wow she said right she said here's my card so she walked out of the room and it was Artemis Patrick the big dog at Sephora in North America in six months we'd launched in store in Sephora all over North America right so we were like oh we need some money like money money yeah because all these opportunities are great but if there's no cash flow And this is what the founders, a lot of new founders don't realise.

24:06Opportunity is incredible, but you need the means to be able to place those orders to make it happen. The hundreds of thousands of units that they needed to stock all the stores in Sephora. So obviously, what did we do? Said yes, with no capital. Sure, we'll make it happen. But surely this is then appealing to somebody to invest. It is, it is. The opportunity. the opportunity's there but you know that first order is nothing it's the week there so yes massively attractive but you know you could you know get all that stock into the stores and then it not sell and then you're screwed so yeah it was good but we had then six months to get investment to get all of our warehousing set up in the US oh my word never been to US before set up a warehouse set up manufacturing the whole lot in six months so then we got meaningful investment and again my gorgeous um pr got as an article in the guardian and it was like the new frontiers of beauty like basically what we were doing and um i got a call again so how life works i can't tell you got a call from unilever ventures wow so that's the venture venture arm of unilever their job is to find you know cool young brands and businesses to invest in.

25:31They've got Say, they did Raise back in the day. They've done loads and they were like, right, we're in. So within three months of launching, it's like, what is happening? You know, I'm setting up a business, like I'm a director of a business in the US. This is crazy. Like I'd worked at Boots but this side of things like, come on, I had no idea what I was doing. So yeah, so then six months later, our brand is on a shelf in a Sephora in the middle of New York. I mean that's just mind blown it was like it was like you say what a high like you that you can't hope for a better launch but I know behind the scenes operationally logistically it must have also been a nightmare like a good nightmare a nightmare that everybody wants to have on their hands but it's but you still need to be able to impress and fulfill these retailers if they're also taking a chance on you so i had this moment where i was like this is the best thing in the world then like have you ever seen that like um the graph of like when you have an idea and you're like yay and then you're like oh come on do it and then you're like oh my god this is gonna be great and then you go oh my god i really can't do it and then you can yeah that it was what it was like it was like you know my brand in sephora and then it was like how are we gonna fund this how are we going to make it happen and then we sorted that out and it was like right let's do it and then what was it and if i'm being if what way worse why she's gonna work out how you're gonna do it so we got in a room in san francisco with the head honcho of sephora i will never forget this moment as long as i live she went are you ready for this no i was like yeah yeah of course she was like no seriously are you ready for this so i don't know what you mean it's like yeah we got it can you all the stock on time she's like no that's the basics she's like do you have a field team to help install do you have 500 reviews per product to launch do you have a full marketing plan what are you doing region by region like what are you doing to make this a success i think i've got like we've got about 20 000 followers on instagram it's like um sure and And obviously I'm not.

27:45And where were they in the world? Predominating the UK. Of course. Right, yeah. I don't have any network in the US. Gosh. Yeah, so that was like, I'll never forget that moment. It was January 2019. And that, that pit, I can feel it right now, that pit of my stomach feeling where I was like, no, I'm not ready. I'm not going to tell you that. Yeah. And I'm going to make it happen. So then what do you do? What on earth do you do to make it happen? How much more cash does it take? And what does it take from you as a founder? Everything. everything so over a million to to get to get going and if you just think like small things i always use that really tangible thing so if you're if you are launching a brand or a business like i always wanted to to give you the tangibles of like 500 reviews on every product that you're going to launch before you launch and you're launching 15 scoops yeah so that's a that's like i don't know 30 40 grand before you've even started right and then they're like if your products are in store you have to have people for your brand repping your brand well i i'm not even out there never mind a team and you would just assume that that assume that that happens in house that that's just the way that my brain would work and you would go and train those people like that's great so then i'm like right so then i hired an agency i'm gonna go off on a tangent here i hired an agency to be like my field team i will never forget as long as i live i don't know again what is it about this sofa or you because i am just i've not even got a tea but i'm spilling it you've not even got an alcoholic beverage i love it i walked into a spora about two weeks after launching and this guy in this dirty suit that was too big for him oh no and he was like hey have you heard of the inky list and i was like oh god oh no you're my guy and i was like oh and i thought all right i'm gonna just play cool and i was like oh no no and he was like i got this brand for you and he might as well have like pulled out his coat and um i was like oh do you work for the brand he was like yeah yeah yeah i just come off my shift shift from the nightclub and now and i was like oh you are representing my brand so i'd paid for an age never again never again will i have anyone represent my brand that isn't you know me or my team horrendous how does that then change your strategy so how do you then so you've got this agency who you think are going to be fulfilling your needs and doing a good job you don't know america so you're trusting that they know the best people for the job what do you then do hired people really quickly which cost a lot of money but just you know you've got to put it down to the cost of doing business so we just built a network of people going into stores finding people from other brands that were like hey you've got this really cool brand you want to come and work for us yeah and we're doing all this in the UK so me and my co-founder are out there and even to this day I've been out two weeks out of the last four weeks I've been in the US right I've been in Chicago San Francisco and Texas in the last three weeks gosh so like it's it doesn't stop no and if you're not there like it's massive it's such a massive place so yeah you just gotta be out there and get the right team out there because like i said it's so what comes with such excitement is also so incredibly stressful and suffocating and this is yours yeah this is your i know that my life coach always says to me that we need to stop saying it's your baby because then it's hard to separate yourself from it but it is and it and it's your it is your dna and that is what makes it fly and like you say if you're there you know you're representing it in the way that you want it to be so you kind of to split yourself in a thousand pieces is really really hard tell me if you ever find out how to separate yourself because i know i haven't she tells me that this is which i understand her theory because every time that something doesn't happen doesn't work out you take that on whereas if you didn't treat it as your baby you could say okay well that thing hasn't worked out what do we do now i've become better at that have you but it's just not taking it so emotionally and so deep-rooted in me i think is what that she was really trying to work on with me because when something is your baby it's like that umbilical cord that's never broken yeah okay i need this number please she's amazing she's called dior she does a lot of episodes okay dior she's incredible will call me yeah um because i still eight years in it's everything i feel so deeply and i know i'm gonna sound like an absolute nightmare here i know i will do most things better than anyone yeah so how can i give it up it's really hard it's so it's so hard but because it's mine i'm not saying it because i think i'm better than anyone at anything but when it is yours you fundamentally no which is why we come back to calling it a baby because that's like I know what I'm doing I know how she's going to want to go to sleep I know you know because I'm mum and that is the same thing but it's yeah it becomes so a part of you that she tries to sort of battle because I take things really emotionally and I really try and separate the emotion from the business and it's something that I will always find hard I think no matter how much I practice is it me too um so let's talk about the launch day quickly because I do want to come back to that that launch day that was the the UK one so we've jumped ahead a little bit I want to go back to because I'm just reading my notes here and one of my notes said that you planned for around six months worth of stock and you were selling it through in around four weeks yeah which that to me as a founder and this is you know this doesn't have to flow in terms of the story because I feel like this is just how it was working out for you you planned stock and it was going you planned stock and it was going yeah logistically what was that like and how much did that test you operationally at the time it was awful because you know now we've become much more sophisticated and I am a brand founder that cares so I am I'm not getting you know everything pre-made from China and don't worry about where it's coming from that's never been the case we now localize everything so I want to make sure like our carbon footprint is as small as possible and I'm I'm doing the best I can at that time most of our products were made in Canada right and our brand was being sold in the UK so you can either air freight which means you know we are a high quality brand at a low price my margins are yeah basically if you air freight it you done and i've done this so many times you put it on c and you don't know when it's gonna turn up exactly that and honestly that battle constantly even to this day something will fly and you go actually i want to keep the momentum do we just air freight it terrible for the environment don't want to do that but also by the time it then gets by a c you might have lost the momentum on that product and everyone's moved on so hard but but in the early days we had no choice to but to sit and wait and when you launch your 15 products of 15 skews you don't know you obviously know what you think could be your hero product but i suppose the consumer ultimately decides that i am telling you now no one ever knows what's going to sell yeah retailers do not know and they will back a product of yours and they're like that's the one and that's going to be amazing we've had it before where and they've put all of their support we've put all of our money that died and then this little one over here flies.

35:30So no matter what you think, it won't work out. Because ultimately you can feel really confident, like you say, and put all of your energy and finance behind one thing. But ultimately the consumer is going to tell you. You can have one person make a TikTok and they've got on well with a product that wasn't the one that you're planning to push and then that's the one that's had the spike. I hate to say this to anyone that's got a brand or a business, but most of your success is not down to you. It will be something out of your control. it'll be like a macro covid great example our brand flew in covid everyone was at home everyone wasn't wearing makeup everyone was like right this is a good time to learn about skincare let's try and make ourselves that was amazing you know we rejected the sephora kids movement which was you know eight-year-olds using skincare i love that well done i mean it would have been easy to play in that and loads of brands played into that so there's a lot of like macro stuff that happens that means you'll be successful.

36:25To your point, I was listening about Amy from Odd Muse and it was Lorna Lux. Yes. She did one post and then the brand went. Caroline Hirons for me was that kind of kickoff moment. Now, I worked with her, but you never know what that moment is going to be for the brand. And I hate that. I hate that I am not in control of the success of my own brand. But yeah, but also it's hard to, fundamentally what that does in the back end, it's hard to always stay ready. You're never ready. No. They're never ready. And how to know how to manage, particularly when it comes to stock. And then the retailer's going, give us more of this.

37:01And you're like, okay, we're trying to pull it from. Yeah. It's a nightmare. We are going through the most extreme version of that right now. Right. So TikTok has just changed the game. Yeah. Like the virality of a product from nowhere. And we've just suddenly gone wild on TikTok shop. We just were testing it out that all of a sudden, 33 ,000 affiliates. So these, you know, these are amazing. These are young mums that are at home, like, doing this as a little side hobby. And 33 ,000 of them, all of a sudden, like, within three months, were like, right, we want to sell the Inkey List. Stop. And one product has flown.

37:41It's the number one body product on TikTok shop at the minute. Oh, my word. I'm not a body brand. I never planned this. and it just everyone was like well that's a great problem solution product i love that it makes sense and i'm like but hang on we're just launching this product over here and they're like no we want the body we want the body stick so that has gone wild and we're sat there going we're doing the maths right now saying we do we buy a million units gosh yeah and so so and was was the kind of tiktok shop part of your strategy i mean sure no i think we were really early to tiktok as a brand like our whole ethos is about simplicity and education and using social media is a really great way to like help to simplify and tiktok we were really early on to the tiktok platform particularly if you were booming in covid right yeah massively so that went really really well for us um and we kind of were dabbling in tiktok shop we didn't really understand it i still don't think most people do you know i think they're learning as they go it's a it's still very young um but all of a sudden it went from this thing that we were like okay this is really interesting love the idea of us like we like train our affiliates now to like talk about the products and educate them and then they can sell for us rather than the brand selling which i loved but yeah had no idea what's going to become such a fundamental part of our business it's wild it's so like and those moments again you just cannot predict it's hard to stay ready and then the gamble of because ultimately everything's a gamble right every order you place even if you're sure and the momentum's great saying okay should we purchase a million units don't because the day that you press go is always will always be terrifying how can you not there's a million units and honestly like that thought because you're like can we afford it as a business like if we did this and didn't sell like that's almost the extreme you have to go to yes if we bought a million and then we didn't sell one of them would would the business collapse that's literally where you go to that's the there's decisions that you're like can someone else just press go and make this for me because this is so scary but but ultimately if you want your business to grow these are the big decisions and gambles that you have to make you've just got to have one a good gut bit of data yeah to kind of say you know this is not just us going oh this is gonna work like we have the data to say but you know this is why you were an entrepreneur right absolutely that oh it makes me feel sick well I've got my nervous belly for you my belly went over when when it comes to working with influencers that we spoke about like Caroline just you know instantly being that moment that was just boom for you at the start yeah when it comes to working with like now the brand is so well established when it comes to working with those bigger influencers or they they call them micro influencers but like the girlies with the affiliates that do their thing what's been more beneficial do you think over the time I would say it's changed hugely so I think back in the day the macro kind of the big following you know everyone would flood towards you know the influencer what are they using I'm going to buy it that's just not the world right now and I think peer-to-peer is becoming more and more important So like whether it is that girl on TikTok that's got 100 followers, but I'm obsessed with her and her skin.

41:05Like one of your team today. Oh, my word. I know. Like I would buy anything she told me to buy. Literally anything. I say it to her every time she's in the office. It's kind of weird because we work together a lot. And I'm like, your skin. Every day. But she also uses you. I know. I was like, your skin? She was like, it's your exercise. You should take that. But for me, that's actually often now more influential. so I think for me the way the world's changing is that you know our whole thing was about democratizing skincare right making it accessible and available to everybody I think the world of influencers democratizing now yeah and I actually love that it's like the power's much more in the consumer's hands now I don't I think they're much more savvy and I think they're not you know brands that are selling those jazz hands in the dreams and influencers that are being paid 100 000 pounds a post you can smell it yeah and i think it's taken it back to that old school approach of like you know we always say like word of mouth is the best absolutely it's almost going there like everyone's had enough of these big mainstream influences and it's more the micro ones the ones that you're like yeah and particularly the ones that are niche the ones that have their thing and yeah you know which is exactly why you look at the likes of and now she's a big influencer but you look at the likes of Melissa's wardrobe the way that she started she was so overly opinionated Caroline Harris is another name that starts small but you trust them so much because of the realness behind them it's an authenticity behind what they're saying and therefore you trust and believe what they say now nightmare for brands absolutely nightmare it's like 10 times harder now because you've got to work with 100 people not 2 you've got to find those right people at the right time before they get too big necessarily.

42:50You know, you've got to find them when they've got that real community of people that love and trust them. My perspective has always been with Inkey. I would never approach somebody that doesn't already use Inkey. That's nice. I like that. Because it's fake. Otherwise, it's like, hey, we've got this new product. Do you want to talk about it? But how was that at the start, though? Because at the start, no one's, when you launch, no one's using you. No, but back in the day, it was the bigger guys were... Were the ones that were sort of... Yeah. Yes. I would say as you're starting now as a brand, it's harder.

43:22I would say gifting, seeding, get your product into people's hands as much as you can and as cheaply as you can. Because as soon as they use it and try it and love it, if your product's good, which obviously yours will be, if it's good, people will try it, love it and start talking about it. So it's like a snowball. That would be my suggestion. I'm just reading. I love it when I've got a good lot of notes. I love this now. By 2025, 7 million people had used the recipe builder. Yeah. And now it's mad. You know, the numbers don't really feel real, I would say. You know when someone else says it to you?

43:58That's what always happens to me when someone says, you've done it and you're like, oh. I'm surprised that 7 million people even know about my brand, which obviously I know that they do. 7 million people have used, I'm saying. No, they've used our recipe builder. Exactly. And that's my point. Not just know about, used. But we've sold 90 million products now, which actually makes me want to vomit in my mouth. I just can't. I don't even know how that happened. You're selling around 1 ,000 units a day through boots alone as one retailer. Oh, we didn't know that. Yes, you are. Good to know. I mean, the scale and the growth is...

44:37And we touch... I'm really enjoying sort of unpacking it with you because we talk about this fast growth. I think it's so important that we have those honest conversations when it comes to growth, when it comes to the funding that needs to sort of sit alongside the business to enable the fast growth to happen. Like you say, if you didn't have that capital, the Sephora moments and the global moments wouldn't be a thing because you wouldn't have been able to fund it. So I think it's always so important that you kind of, we acknowledge that as i say a privilege but it is a privilege to be able to find that seek it and it happened and be able to go it's not easy it's not easy at all i think i also think like the entrepreneur and having your own brand is really glamorized yeah this feeling that not that feeling is like constant and cash really is real and and at this scale it's 10 times bigger we're not at that point now we're like don't worry about the money it's fine no because the scale in which we're having to to buy stock the responsibility I've got 100 staff yeah like that weighs on me every single day and knowing that I'm gonna need more and more and more capital is real yeah it doesn't just stop you don't just get some money and then you fly like it doesn't work like that that is I think that is the idea that a lot of people have but obviously with the money becomes more responsibility it becomes more people breathing down your neck but you know you have goals to hit and targets that you have to meet because of what you know the sort of present that you've set for yourself well they want to return right it's almost giving you money they're not giving you for fun it's not like here darling have this for a bit see how you get on yeah which would be the idea wouldn't it that would be the dream how do you find you touch on the team and you you know you're a team of 100 now which is just incredible and i assume that's sort of split globally right how does leadership look and feel for you oh yeah um i would say you'd have to ask my team but i would say my like ethos is always like just be kind like one be kind yeah get shit done have fun that's like my general and I would say I like to lead through inspiring and I've seen a lot of leadership that is not done through inspiring it's through scaremongering or I don't know creating hierarchy and all that and that's just not my vibe at all I'm like look we're trying we're doing good stuff here and when I see someone's skin that's been transformed from meeting my brand or somebody that even can say the word hyaluronic acid now because they you know had an interaction with my team like we're doing good stuff here so I want it to feel good and my so my style of leadership is if I'm inspiring from the top if I'm passionate and saying come on guys let's do this I would hope then people would want to work for me yeah that's my that's my goal and on the flip side of that how does leadership feel for you because that's a whole other element that is chucked at you when you're a founder and when it's yours and you know you start off as like four key members when you have that first bit of cash and now you're a hundred how do you feel as a leader i actually love it i didn't think like if you just said to me eight years ago right this is what it's going to be i'd have said absolutely no way because i'm such a doer like i'd rather do it myself like i love to do it myself but i actually do love it and you know when i we had a team day we had our entire business together and we did like an inky fest festival so cute it was so fun last last month and i just i had a bit of a choke moment where i was like we've built this and it feels really great where i struggle is honestly when i've hired more senior people that's interesting i'm really i think i'm really good at like getting and i love seeing younger people coming through and nurturing them and you know getting goes back to hiring the girl out of uni exactly that gives me like yeah and making you know we always say at inki like build your legacy yeah and when people leave like when my head of design left she left in january and she went to go and work for her mantra and i was like incredible yeah and when she told me she was crying and she was like i don't want to leave i was like this is an opportunity for you go do it and it was amazing like that for me is like when you hire senior people with their own chips on their shoulder with their own baggage with their own ego shall we yeah um that's where i struggle yeah but i get that though i get that and what what is what's the struggle for you is the kind of the is it a power struggle or is it just kind of really having somebody at a senior level understand what it is you do and how you work and i think it's me i just don't think they get it i think unless you've like earthed that brand or been there and been through it like we've got a coo who's been with us from pretty much day one she gets it and she's in the trenches with us and she's obviously a c-suite hire but anyone else we fought in just doesn't get it and it's like they play the corporate game and I'm like we're not playing a game here yeah like don't don't don't do me a great deck go make it happen so I think for me there's like a lot of leadership that hasn't come from an entrepreneurial environment they're just never gonna quite get it yes which is holding me back massively because I'm still in the trenches and also you've still got that start-up in you it's hard no matter how global the brand is and the you know 90 million products that have sold and the wait lists of however you've still got that you're the entrepreneur you've still got always going to have that scrappy startup mentality so it will always be a little bit conflicting I'd imagine also like spending money yeah yeah yeah yes scary stuff before I do our rocket round I want to know how your sort of idea of success has changed because I'm always really interested by this I think when we start out we have this goal of I want to be stocked in this many stores or I want to this to happen or I'd like to hit this many units or but actually it was it was um Nicola that uh founded Neon um Candles she said to me I think one thing and I think it's such an interesting point that founders don't focus on enough is that she does a lot of work with young founders and they'll be like I want to raise this and this is my goal and this capital yeah but nobody actually they discuss what they want for the business and what the hopes and dreams are but no one actually takes a minute to think about the founder that they want to be when they're there so like as your idea of success change now and does it mean actually I'm so go go go and my business is everything but I actually want to be able to switch off or my idea of success is being able to go on holiday for a week and not checking in or how what is what is success what was it like at the start what was your idea at the start and what does it look like now so I think at the start I'm I'm frustrated and I wish I'd have had a network around me when I first started because I'd have said enjoy it because the highs at the start were just the highest of highs right and I just wish I could have taken a moment but we were just so full on it was just you know even if it was a good news it was still oh okay i've got this good news what do we do exactly that so i wish i'd have been able to which obviously in hindsight it's a great thing to do i i went through burnout so i went so hard i i had a proper proper burnout where i just collapsed and just went from working 90 hours seven days a week to i spent two day two weeks in bed couldn't get out couldn't literally just slept i just like my body just literally shut down but completely and i think from that was that a bit of an alarm bell to you or was you just like okay i'm out of this now i'm back in alarm massive alarm yeah i i think the build-up to it was so long and i wasn't sleeping and it you know just everything the neck the negativity of not sleeping overworking you know even when i'm sleeping i'm dreaming like it was just a horrible cycle and it took a while to get there so i think that was a bit of a wake-up call weirdly I would say I don't I don't know what success I don't know what that word actually is at this point and I think I was so focused on gold and we want to hit this and we had this real thing about we want to hit 100 million that was that was the thing yeah like where's that come from and why am I putting pressure on myself for that whereas now I feel a bit more grateful for the everyday look I don't know where this is going I don't know like there will be successes there will be there'll be highs there'll be lows I don't know what the next five years looks like I don't know what the next 10 years look like but what I don't want to do when I've eight years of killing myself I've finally and it's weird this last probably I'm just turning 40 so I don't know if that's a little moment yeah but this year I'm like enjoy every moment yeah because it will come it will go I will do the big sale and earn the big billions or I won't you know but it's always it's always thinking about something in the future that hasn't arrived yet and actually doesn't concern you yet it doesn't concern me and I will always you know strive and try and I've always wanted to be doing better and better and better that's just in my nature but like I'm in this beautiful studio on a Tuesday afternoon having a lovely chat with you I'm like is this my life yeah do you know what I mean yeah it's almost like just and that's exactly to to Nicola's point is actually that we focus so much on like I want this and this means I've made it and this much and this many stores and this many you know these are the goals actually how do I want to feel like do I want to enjoy my Tuesday afternoon and not be that's perhaps how your idea of success will change actually it's having a good day it's celebrating the small wins the everyday wins and not just waiting for the exit and because that is exhausting right if and i did i felt like i was on that treadmill for quite a while and it was like right can we exit can we exit can we exit it's like what are you doing why did you start something if you're just striving to exit actually enjoy this so yeah i've hit a real i mean i hope it lasts but no i'm enjoying the ride yeah i love that i love that um right i want to do a rocket round now and each episode i ask i guess the same questions essentially they're supposed to be quick fire never works out i'll try i'll try you know it baby never does um the first one is what do you believe are the non-negotiables for running a business um one is have an actual idea that is different don't just think you want to start a business like it has to have a usp there's so many brands and so many businesses and so many products out there offer something unique that's one two we talked about it capital capital capital capital you need money if you want to do it and you know it's tough and if you don't have money it is petrifying three you need absolute like resilience like seriously every day is a mountain so if you don't have resilience don't even bother yeah literally it's so true and i think with resilience it comes was equally with passion.

56:27Like, I don't think you can have resilience for something you're not passionate about. Oh, totally. So don't start unless you're obsessed. Absolutely not. Because otherwise there's just not, you're not going to have that mental, physical resilience that you need to make it through those dark days. When did you first realise that you truly launched? It was day one. Isn't that it? It was just, it was the call from Cool Beauty. It was like, we're doing this and we're buying all your stock. and i was like what is happening that'll do it that'll do it what's the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before you go to bed um i want to tell you that i do yoga and i have a no i check slack i check my email i check all the socials on a loop morning night night so bad it's so hard to break that cycle though also i'm in america so i'm waking up I can't be like oh I'll give myself a couple of hours that's the worst part of being that side of the world everything's already happened yeah is that for me that time difference is always like oh my gosh okay and I'm up and I'm Adam yeah so I literally am like one eye open on Slack it's really unhealthy yeah it is here I am it is I wish I had something better some advice to give you for that but it is hard I did try to sleep with my phone and I broke it a little bit because I've been away and off for the summer okay so when I was in a hotel it was obviously near me but my thing and I've started it again okay is that I'm sleeping with my phone in the lounge I know and I have a notepad next to my bed and I've made a deal with myself that I get my phone back when I've read at least I say three pages of a book that sometimes is just one but it can't be the first thing I do I need to these roll over and give my husband a kiss before I reach my phone like it's bad so I've tried to and it actually does it's weird so we had Izzy Utterson on the podcast and she's like a wellness expert and a mindset coach and what she was saying is your brain needs to be bored throughout the day at some point that never happens to me which is why that feeling when you get in the shower you know sometimes you can't get out you know you're just under it and you're like that's my happy place it's because your brain isn't stimulated there's no screen there's no device you know there's nothing in front of you where your brain is actually switching on that's why that's the only time weird daydream like no i love it so it's the only time that so my co-founder is also my husband okay we've not got there we've uh but he's the only time he's not allowed to talk to me about work is in the shower yes so it's literally my happy place exactly that so basically you should be able to start and end your day even if it's for 10 minutes like that okay as you can you can literally be okay i'm gonna go i know i'm gonna go get my phone now but just and it's it's crazy how your sleep changes how it does it i've really noticed okay i'm gonna give it a go just try try let me know um okay one piece of advice that you wish you hadn't listened to what i've learned is that everybody that gives you advice has an ulterior motive because it's what's in it for them that's deep but it's true right but it's true who's giving you advice unless it's like based on something that they've experienced a trauma for them exactly that so i will always listen to advice but i'll always take a second and say does that serve me that's so good because sometimes we respond way too much yeah and just because that was worked for them it's not necessarily your story when people always say like right what do I need to do like tell me how to launch my brand I'm like it was eight years ago the world's completely changed my proposition's different to yours I'll try and help you but no like advice is very dangerous like that what's a skill that you'd love to learn to well I've got a business and a non-business I have been saying for eight years that I want to learn design like design in design or whatever because i i actually designed our packaging on powerpoint amazing i love it but we didn't have any money so but obviously doing our powerpoint is not ideal so i had to get a designer to actually make it bring it to life but actually it's probably good that i haven't because otherwise i'd i say this all the time you know that's my thing too design that is for me if i could you know i try my hand at canva but i know because i know exactly what i want in my brain so it's just getting it out there so if I could do it but my team always say to me it's good if you can't because it'd be dangerous and maybe we wouldn't sleep that is kind of so there's a part of me that wants to do it but then I'm like no just give it up and let someone else do it yeah yes yeah just because you can just really see it so much it'd be so much quicker yeah but yeah you wouldn't go you wouldn't rest I can tell don't do it but then I bought a piano because I was like there we go this is what you should do bought a piano two years ago because I was like I need something outside of work I would love to play the piano and what do you think

1:01:42she's still playing with one finger you joke I am maybe that's what you need to do is like a random midweek evening but your lesson I've never been in the country it's not gonna happen anyway it looks great yeah get a youtube course or something it's a lovely bit of furniture that um what is one thing that you wish someone had told you before you started out you're gonna completely change your network so you're gonna lose a lot of people and that's not necessarily a bad thing oh i love this so like your whole life will change and you know the world that you were living in the people are not going to understand you anymore you know why are you doing that like even to this day like my dad still works in a factory it's like why do you work so much and i'm like i love you but you just don't understand yeah so you're gonna lose a lot of people in from your life that just aren't aligned to you anymore and how do you take that i really struggled to start with until i found my new network and now i there's people in my life that i just know you know when you're like oh my god oh my god yes that same vibe i've met so many people that i'm like oh wow like you're my people and it's not like we're always talking about business or work or whatever but you know when you just you just know they get it they get it and you can say i'm tired and they're like oh this week's just been mad and they understand the level of mad exactly yes so i would say like i wish i'd have known like it was going to be tough to start with because you're going to lose a lot but then you're going to gain something pretty mega that's really do you know what people don't touch upon that enough like how much that side of your life changes because of what you're building like it's a very funny and also those friendships or those whether it's family however that looks that you will really grieve too in that process and they struggle like why aren't you around why do i never see you and it it's yeah it is another work thing yeah it's hard it's very very hard that's the part of balance that will never quite work and you're gonna miss some really big things that feel really shit yeah um what would be the dream collab oh um i think i'm not gonna say something cute because i would say something out lines to our ethos so it's all about like simplifying a category like obviously i know we're not at this level but you know when you say like uber right and you're like remember 10 years ago where we were getting hate trying to hail a taxi on a night out yeah imagine that world now oh yeah that's so that's so crazy too yeah and they've like just completely simplified a category same with airbnb like i love businesses that like take a category and like make it completely simple intuitive and easy so like duolingo is an example like what they're doing with um democratizing language or i like um monzo what they've done for banking and i like those kind of anyone that streamlines something just is there for the consumer first so i think something like that like out of category could be quite cool that's cool yeah and i also love those out of category collabs they're my favorite like when you're like that shouldn't work but it actually does yeah yeah yeah love that this is a shout out um there you go yeah yeah this is it now approach me please either call me um if you could choose one thing i think get as a mentor past or present who would that be if you could have someone on speed dial do you know what there's a woman that and as i'm sort of getting 40 plus um you've just turned 40 don't you say plus oh don't do that to yourself no i'm i'm excited about my 40s yeah but don't age yourself okay i think this is going to be my era i truly believe so have you ever had bobby brown on here no never but i love her yeah she's on my list honestly it was supposed to happen last time she was over and diaries weren't diarying but i'm desperate to have her on i love her so like what i love what she did originally with bobby brown but the fact that jones road i know 25 years later waited for her non-compete and then came out and went and done it in a big way but the way she's done it i'm like it's so smart yeah the marketing the product everything about out Jones Road she's absolutely nailed and I'm like she's done it twice so I would love to have her on Speedzile I feel the same way about Jo Malone I know they know each other right they're like from that same era yes yes yes you know you had Jo Malone on yes she's incredible but having those big businesses named after yourself and going again yeah the going again but not just going again and giving it a little go but going again yeah and not necessarily that I would want to have another business but I'm like you are a rock star yeah like an actual rock star yeah so yeah i would love to yeah that's a good one to have i'd love to have obviously she's no longer with us but estel order i'm so obsessed i'd love to have one speed down um each episode i ask our guests to leave like almost one tangible piece of advice to a lady looking to launch so someone's listened to this and it's like oh my god yes i can relate so much or I'd love to build something in a similar vein.

1:07:07What would a piece of advice be that you believe every woman needs to know when starting out? Stay in the game. I know that sounds really basic. No. I have to tell myself to stay in the game every single day. Neely went bankrupt. You get a thousand no's before you get a yes. Everybody will chip at you. The industry will chip at you. there'll be a problem every single day and you will want to constantly give up and i mean i don't think there's ever been a day where there's not been one one point where i'm like i just don't know if i could do this anymore every single day for eight years and it is those moments that you go just stay in the game if you stay in the game you you will get past it so like i almost want that tattooed on me like what do you think keeps you in the game i think to your point the passion yeah and the resilience but if if if you have given it your all and you have decided to do this like what are we doing not now we're not we're not backing out now you get to that point don't you man out pull your socks up literally the conversation you have to have 100 like don't bother like and i would say don't start unless you really are going to stay in the game you can't just faff around have a go oh it's a bit hard oh gosh this isn't as glamorous as i thought it was no no no start it and know that you're gonna have to stay in the game yes and also don't let those days win i think that's what's important because there'll be another day and then that thing will have been forgotten and then that thing will have had some sort of result whether it figured itself out or you moved on because it wasn't the right route why does everything feel big though but it feels humongous in that and even like something that isn't necessarily like someone's resigned today yeah it's it's crazy what it does to you oh my god what does that mean you know what I'm going to do and it's a turn the look out and it will end up for the better for everybody in the end you know but you spiral less with each day that's what you like obviously they still feel big but you realize that's when you realize that growth's a wonderful thing because you're like gosh remember when that first thing happened and how I thought my life was over and now I'm like oh another one I did that three times okay I can do this okay fine I've got this and we go again just get me a coffee i'll be fine um and then lastly i ask everybody lots of questions about being a lady who launches but when it comes to a lady who lunches if i was going to meet you today and it was your lunch hour i mean we don't all take an hour but so but some of us do some of us are quite religious and we log off and we go outside for a walk or we get away from the desk i'm a real like it depends what day is person like some days I forget and then I'm like oh shit I'm starving I need to eat something what if I was gonna okay say right I'm gonna go and meet her quickly and have a little power over lunch I'm gonna bring her her favourite thing I know she'll be happy and sit through our chat and eat her lunch what am I gonna bring you?

1:10:07I'm a proper foodie right so I love food love wine so like take me somewhere and surprise me okay the reality is on the way here I got the tube from the office I went into Sainsbury's local downstairs I got a packet downstairs I got a packet of chicken, roast chicken sliced. Right. Just some protein. That's it. And I ate that on the street and then walked in. Okay. Right. This wasn't the glamorous affair I was expecting. That's life. I know. I know. Because I've come from a meeting. I'm coming to this. I just needed some protein. Whereas. If you was at your desk. It's probably the same. Same thing.

1:10:44Or any. Like I will eat. I'm a proper foodie though. So like if you say let's go for lunch. Oh. We're having lunch. Where are you going? Like what's near to your office That you're like Okay if we're going to Quickly eat out That's like It's a proud pleaser I'm a pasta fan Me too What's your favourite Love a carb Yep Love a carb I mean I like I love a Michelin star restaurant I love vodka pasta Do you like vodka pasta? Vodka pasta and a glass of red No there's nothing That beats it And a tomato Onion avocado salad Can we go now? That isn't that the best I know I make a good vodka pasta Do you?

1:11:18Yeah I've got a good recipe Okay so yeah please do but yeah it's better when someone else makes it for sure you had the one at the um spicy rigatoni at carbone no oh my gosh you need to it's insane is it oh yeah it's viral for a reason you know sometimes you're like oh this viral yeah yeah i got suckered in and booked the table i was like babe we have to go purely because of that and yeah it delivered okay yeah you know you're making me hungry now i'm starving now my belly's rumbling i mean it's it's the afternoon i've not yet had my lunch but i feel like i'm ready for vodka pasta i'm pretty sure i've got some chicken in my bag thanks babe um thank you so much i've absolutely loved getting to know you really you know hearing about the success the highs the lows we all have them but i think it's not often we actually get to sit down like if i'd have bumped into an event we would never have had this conversation so yeah i'm so pleased that you came in and i can't wait to see what's next for you and thank you, Liz.

1:12:18Thank you. Thank you so much. That was so nice. Don't forget to follow us on Apple, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure that you don't miss out because next time I'm going to be talking to another incredible lady who launched. If like me, you're a watcher, then please follow us on YouTube and don't forget to like and subscribe.