Founder of Beauty Works: The Molly Mae Partnership & What Really Happened Behind The Business Sale

0:00Today I'm joined by Penelope Cheshire, the founder of Beautyworks, one of the world's leading premium hair brands. Now, Penelope built the business from the ground up, starting with no cash flow and scaled it into a multi-million pound globally recognised brand. She's now set to launch something new with a world-first product, which is going to be an absolute game changer. So, let's find out why she's the lady who launched.

0:30Penelope Cheshire: Five, four, three, two, one, zero. All engines limit. I'm so pleased to have you here. Honestly, I'm so, so excited to sit down and talk to you. You know that I'm such a fan, personally, of, you know, the world and the kind of business that you built. So I can't wait to unpack everything with you. I want to sort of go way back when because I find this really really interesting Beautyworks the brand sort of began on Facebook with community and not product yeah so talk talk me through where you were at that time in your life and what was happening yeah well it was 2009 and at that time there wasn't like TikTok there wasn't Instagram it was just Facebook you couldn't buy on the shop it was literally just a page that you could like so I pretty much started off there um and had content on there that I used to write myself and that's literally all I had from the start wow so almost like a bit blog like yeah it was like a blog it was like a blog and that's how how I kind of started at the time so I suppose like anything right if you can see people engage in and like you say this is a world before we really needed to rely or know that there was this kind of amount of endless opportunities on social media but were you sort of noticing that people were really engaging with the content that you were putting out yeah I think I just there wasn't an option for me I didn't have a marketing budget when I say I started with like 600 pounds that's probably what I had left in my bank account I actually was living in London at the time with a friend and I'd met my partner who I'm now married to Martin and we I left my house in London because the landlord was actually getting evicted so I had no choice I moved up to Liverpool where I started the blog or the Facebook group and I recognized that the women there and this is literally where we started were so glamorous I love Scouse women I'm so glad that you've acknowledged this because I'm always obsessed my aunt and my aunt and uncle live in Cheshire so my like week thing would always be like getting the train up north staying with them they wasn't in Liverpool they were just outside they still are and I would go and I'd be obsessed with cricket yeah I mean which is which isn't there now which is which is the saddest thing to me ever and I would go and I remember just having this like fascination and that you know almost like finding it really empowering that girls would just walk around in their rollers that's it yeah rollers and that was I was one of those girls actually me my sister Saturday night would go out we'd get ready we'd go to the hairdressers put our rollers in so it really started from Liverpool and my husband's actually from Liverpool and his family and our first customers were from Liverpool like they were all northern customers we really started as a northern brand our first customer was a Liverpool store and then secondly a Manchester store right so the community I'd say was very northern focused and we didn't have a huge following like I said I literally had 600 pound left to my name um and I had no choice I had to do something it was either get another job or start this passion in this business that I wanted to create and did you always know that you wanted to build out something in the beauty space was that always quite obvious or did it really dawn on you when you moved up north and sort of saw the kind of appetite for it there?

4:17Yeah, I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur or I wanted to run my own business. And I think that probably stems back to my parents. They didn't have normal jobs. They always had their own businesses. They had a fish and chip shop. They had a restaurant. They had a building company. So from the age of like 9, 10, 11, 12, that's all I saw. And the hours were all day from 9 o 'clock till 10 o 'clock at night. And that was pretty normal for me. And that's all I knew growing up. So I think that's where the entrepreneurial business side of me came to life because that's what I knew. the hair side of it and the beauty side of it I was really inspired by feeling good when you have a good hair day like everyone knows when your hair looks nice you feel so much more confidence and that's really what I wanted for other women um when I started the brand so so you start with this kind of Facebook group which I mean I mean when you think about like then and that period of time it's like so simple wasn't it and I kind of like miss that like you say it was pre-tiktok yeah everyone learning to have a dance to sell something it was a really nice era of time yeah um and so how how did you realize that you could really convert that into product it was growing really quickly and this was the days when you didn't put like paid media behind it there wasn't influencers at all like that didn't exist like there was kind of models or celebrities and there was no in between there wasn't influencers but the likes were going this is when you remember you used to like a page and that was it that's literally what it was that's how I started so I used to get messages saying where do you get your hair extensions from I didn't have any hair extensions I didn't have any product okay I didn't have any stock so it was kind of like a situation and we still kind of say this today it's like a fake it till you make it yeah yeah yeah almost almost that like there could be an opportunity here let's just run with it yeah that's it say yes and figure it out later that's it yeah it's like definitely a fake it till you make it type situation and I've always kind of done that my whole career to be honest with you um so I knew that the next thing I had to do is get samples in and when you've got like 600 pound in your bank account that's going to be really hard so my partner kindly uh sold his Rolex watch he had a Rolex watch that was really special to him and he sold it he literally gave me the money oh my gosh that's love right yeah and also not only that it's real kind of belief in what it is he thinks you can do you know you know he I kind of like done like a rough business plan and sold it to him and he was like yeah okay let's try it let's do it together I'll support you and I was always at first very guarded I was like well this is my thing but thank you for helping me you can take a back seat yeah um but yeah that that happened that allowed me to buy in stock or not even stock actually it was samples so and what are we talking like I mean Rolex is very in price like what did you really have like what did you have to get this off the ground I can tell you how much it was it was eight thousand pounds right so that would give me samples that would set me up a website that would potentially I wanted to get a PR company straight away which was pretty crazy back then because I wasn't you know I didn't need a PR company I knew I just knew I needed to market this brand because I believed in it so I used that money for samples not even stock to build a website um you know to buy printers laptops everything that you need the basics to start a business and then a PR company I met in Manchester when I say a PR company I mean like a two-man band right right okay okay so so do you think at that point you were building a brand or solving a problem or was it that sort of sweet spot that it really felt like both um I didn't I never ever thought this is going to be like a 50 million pound business or I'm going to sell it to the world's most recognized PE fund it was just like this is what I want to do if it goes really well then amazing if it doesn't it can be like a lifestyle business and I really enjoyed doing it it wasn't I was never doing it for money like I'm not I have very nice things now but it was never about the money for me it was more about what I wanted to create and how hair made people feel and what so then what was your sort of tell me like what that early version of the business that like so you you you sell the watch you take on a small PR firm you buy the essentials and did you instantly know what you were doing in terms of like having the skill set to be able to launch something and have the contacts and supply like how was that part of it for you so I guess I did know what I was doing to a degree and what I think i've been quite good at over the last kind of 16 years is if i don't know what i'm doing i'll go and hire someone that can do it for me and that's what has got me to where it's got me yes not not have an ego yeah yeah no i'm happy to admit that i'm not a financial girly i have a husband will tell you that yeah i'm not an operational person my husband took on that role i've got a great team or I had a great team at Beautyworks, a great FD, et cetera, a great web developer.

10:12That was never me. I was always the creative person behind the brand. So essentially that's why I took on the PR company or the two guys that supported me with PR. And then in regards to like sales, that would be me, customer service, packing orders. I've done every job, like every job I've done. yes you know what we always say on here like particularly in like a brand's infancy and a business's infancy like being a ceo is the most unsexy role because it's like you're everything from from finance to supply to cleaner to you name it like it's it's on you right that's it yeah and i don't care so much about titles like i don't necessarily want that title again to be honest with you you've won the t-shirt I've done it so it's ticked yeah um but sales wise was very important I was always any any entrepreneur knows that sales is like the lifeline if you don't have sales then you don't have a business or you don't have a growing business so I was that sales person and within kind of six months I had those samples I had my face Facebook group shop I had samples and I knew that I had to somehow generate cash flow or revenue so I took the sample straight to a retailer in Manchester who had like a chain of like beauty and hair right shops around the north and they were probably the biggest in the region it wasn't like a glamorous store or anything like that I mean the brand today is in like Harrods, Selfridges, Assos, Boots etc this was like a hair shop um I took it I got arranged a meeting with the the buyer or the store manager um and the first order um was 75 ,000 pounds so I have no stock she said we want the order by like the summer it was I think about an eight-week turnaround I was like yeah of course we'll get that to you can you sign the PO doing it as professionally as possible so as I'm walking out the meeting I already know that I'm gonna have to get stock ASAP because they think I've put it in my warehouse it's one of those like say yes figure it out now don't miss the opportunity yeah and I had to figure it out really really quickly um at the time I don't I didn't have the contact to go ahead and just like loan that kind of money from a bank banks weren't loaned And if you think back then, we'd just gone through like a big credit crunch.

12:53Yeah. A lot of banks had gone kind of upside down, et cetera. So it was tough to get the money together for that size order. I had the samples. They liked the quality. They loved the brand in what it was then. They'd seen the community. And the store manager kind of took a risk because it was a new brand, but she saw there was a demand permit from the community right right yeah so how did that like like you say like it's such a great opportunity to be presented with but a big order you don't have the cash flow at that time and it's like how do we figure this out and make it work what was it like for you were you like a woman on a mission like this is gonna happen because we've been presented with this opportunity yeah there was no way that that was gonna fail it was gonna happen whatever but we actually used like a an invoice financing uh company in manchester and funny enough i we saw the owner of the company on the train coming to london a few weeks ago and we had like a real funny exchange about that and he remembered the stock coming in um but the weights the rates were like wonger rates you know like we we weren't going to make a huge amount of money from this order like the profit for from that was about seven thousand pounds that's what we got back and I needed to roll that money back into buying more stock and to grow in the business paying the bills etc paying the PR company and the next thing I did then was build out a website and this is pretty early in 2010 if you think how e-com looks today and how how kind of like complicated it is it then there was not like a huge amount of online uh e-com style shops selling hair and beauty on there really wasn't it was like asos was like the first kind of place that i think females went for fashion but not so much beauty or hair you're so right yeah i'm trying to i'm thinking back then like you say it felt like more of a like a trade like you'd go to a salon they might match you with some extensions and then like it wasn't accessible in that way no it wasn't at all and from that point I knew that I needed like this omni-channel business model where I could have a big bulk order from a retailer or a store and then I can also rely on like regular it in carbon from like a website a b2c consumer website so i learned quite quickly within the first year of business that that's the route that i wanted to go down that was your model yeah that was the model that i wanted to go down and next my goal would be to try and get it into salon um and salons could talk to the customer and the consumer and what was that process like because that's like it's a lot essentially you're trying to get as many eyes on this product as you can and like you say the that first big order it I can imagine that although it's a big breakthrough moment it also feels like a lot of pressure to to turn it around and the profit maybe not being huge but what it did do was get eyes on it and get the product in front of people which is super important in that sort of infant stage of a brand I'm always really interested in when people get product into salons because I feel like that to me feels like where a bit of a minefield like where do you even start well you've got to win the hairdresser over and you do literally have to either go into the salon meet with the stylist talk to them about the product now like if I take beauty works for example it's probably a team of like 20 sales people cover inside sales and out outside sales cover in the UK right and they would go to salons um um daily yeah then it was me so yes how this is the thing so it's like you're in that stage where you're a real you know a small a really small business and a bit of a one-man band if you like how did you spread yourself across you know how did you kind of make sure that you were doing it and you were out there and you were kind of on the ground yeah I mean I you know what I don't actually know like how I did it all because it just seemed like I did and what I what I can actually tell you is that I was looking the other day at our very first website and like it was almost like a blog you could buy online through it um the Saturdays were one of our first customers so I was looking the other day I know yeah you guys used to use our hair and I was like Girl, none of us had our own hair.

17:42I'm like, they might try and lie, but we were all sticking it in at one point. And I was like, this is really, really like a 360 moment to think that. And I think that really helped the brand because the salons would see that and think, right, what is this brand? I need to get it. So our phone, and this was my house phone, by the way. It wasn't like an office. I was still in my flat in Liverpool. and it was on like literally on like the 30th floor so getting deliveries up and down the stairs and it was growing to like 30 orders a day 40 orders a day 50 orders a day till it got to the point where it was like our neighbors were like what pissed off what are you doing like what's all these bags and boxes that you've got in and out um and then we kind of knew that we were onto something and at this moment in time when I say we I mean me and my husband it was just me and him I mean it's honestly it's it's just incredible I want to talk about like I'm not sure where this takes us in a period of time but in 2013 are we there yet by this point yeah yeah 2013 you were turned down by dozens of investors which yeah I mean is I mean well I bet they kick themselves now which is the irony of it all what was the feedback that you were getting at the time when it come to investment um I think they were nervous about the industry we used to get a lot is this a fad is this a trend yeah you know this because you're trailblazing right you're making a brand out of extensions which is like the thing wasn't done a lot of people didn't want to talk about and you were you had this aesthetic brand that people using and you know you made it a little bit more inclusive yeah less like a secret yeah that's what we wanted to do and we were just getting this feedback a lot and our answer always used to be um Cleopatra was literally one of the first women on record wearing hair extensions and that you know to this day we still refer to that um so we got that feedback a lot and also I think it was the fact that I was a lot younger in my business career people probably didn't take me seriously and when you say all hair extensions I think there's a little bit of a cliche with it like oh do you think so almost it plays into that sort of like yeah like a not ditzy but that like oh she's you know she's yeah yeah like almost really stereotyping you as a young woman yeah that's it and that was fine like this went on you know for many years and you kind of just get thick skin and at this moment in time it's like well I have to keep building the business revenue needs to keep growing and I think it just got to the point where I was like I'm just going to do it myself now and when I mean do it myself of course we we started to apply for loans and we got certain loans etc we had um an accountant that was retiring and he was selling his practice he had been doing my accounts he was like okay this is like growing how about if I invest in the business and it wasn't a lot of money at all but it really helped kickstart like the next phase of the brand and the business to allow us to hire more people so I wasn't packing the orders yes I was gonna ask what was your first hire because it's like before this it's you and your husband yeah what was the first hire you made so I think the first hire we made was a customer service customer service slash sales because custom because we had that e-com website there was a lot of queries there was a lot of questions and hair extensions requires a degree of color matching so and the salons etc so we hired someone like that first and then quite quickly we hired a like an accountant and I'm also freelancing at the time the PR people as well so it was it was like growing slowly and back then um I was very very nervous about hiring staff anyone like why do you think that was um just maybe because also investors that we've met and peas were like saying no to us so that has an effect on you in in a degree like i've been it took me 16 years to get where i am and i think i was probably my own worst enemy for that and not backing you know you can do this like believe in yourself more and i think that's one regret I do have is not just being like let's just go full out let's hire more people because you know understandably and it and it does to all of us right we're all human like rejections do end up shaping you and sometimes like what you know for the better and when you look back now you're like oh god of course I wouldn't if I hadn't have had those rejections I wouldn't have gone down this path or etc but at the time it can really then shape the decisions you make and then maybe you didn't want to hire because you were worried about the level of responsibility if people aren't believing in this if this is a fad yeah I'm not going to be able to then pay them in you know x amount of months or years or however that looks yeah that's it I did feel like that for a while and when I do reflect now I definitely think we could have grown a lot faster if I just hired more people like more sales people more customer service people and obviously you can't have it all when when you don't have uh investment you have to grow like organically yes yes and also you only it's your first bite of the cherry right which is which is for you incredibly exciting because of what you've built and built and left and you know we'll touch on what you're building next but it's you're not supposed to have every answer at the time right you're not like when you're starting this and you haven't got the backing and it really is like a one-man band or two-man band it's you have to sort of learn the business and yourself as you grow and know kind of what your boundaries are and know how that looks you I think what's really interesting is you positioned beauty works as premium and I touched it before but at a time when extensions didn't always have that perception yeah was did is do you think it was that that felt like a risk or that might have looked like a risk to some yeah I mean I wanted it to to be I always wanted it to be affordable and one of the things that i i still hate is price increases because actually hair goes up all the time like every kind of year it goes up and everything goes up obviously yeah every business had price has price rises i wanted it to be like a luxury affordable product that people could afford to have like you know at the time i was in my 20s um growing growing up then in liverpool um people going out would wear extensions you know they're a lot younger then yes yes you're so so so right i i want to talk about scaling because i mean it honestly it's so so incredible as obviously the brand started to gain lots of traction as it became then a lot more visible we're talking you know you've got the eyes from these retailers that are predominantly focused up north and then it's really growing right it really you know salons and you can feel I suppose at the time you must really feel the way that it's evolving and it's at that point happening at quite a momentum I I want to talk about celebrity partnerships and how they became such a big part of the business model almost I suppose yeah um and I wonder if I'll touch on this first before we talk into who and what and what worked at what time but do you think that you know the acceleration of the of the growth and the brand do you think it was like product partnerships or just timing I think it was probably all of those things I think I was quite good at having an eye for that.

25:57And anyone that we partnered with had to be aspirational. Right. So they had to be aspirational at what they were doing. And over the years, we've had some really great partners. We've had Molly May. We had Puda Kattan, Maya Jama. I'll go right back to the very first significant partner that we had that really helped grow the brand was a celebrity hairdresser and a business entrepreneur called Jen Atkin. I love her. Yeah, she's amazing. And at that time, she was like one of, would you say like one of the first kind of glam members that were almost, at the time, it was like they were behind the scenes, but we got access to her in front of the lens.

26:41And I felt like she, like the era of her and Mary Phillips, they're all kind of in that world and Mario. and that's I suppose like from that sort of stateside Kardashian fame but we were obsessed because it wasn't really the thing was it where the glam team would come forward no it wasn't at all and we I think literally I reached out on her Instagram if and we were supplying her with hair extensions for her clients and she really liked the product um we at the time she was in the middle of kind of setting up her brand way yes and it I went out to Dubai to meet her because we'd sponsored a like a mini master class that she was doing with Khloe Kardashian right we had like a step and repeat and amazing oh yeah so at the time I mean it we were totally punching above our weight right now it's like this is what I want to do um did it feel like you were stretching yourself yeah it did yeah it did but I knew it had to happen um to take it to the next level and you know she said I think it just came organically where it was like she said I'd really like my own hair extension line I was like well let's go for it let's do it together um um we worked with her for two years um at the time there wasn't like tape hair extensions actually that were like mainstream in the uk so we were one of the first brands then to bring extensions tape extensions to the uk and what we did is we designed colors as well that made it quite different to other brands out there uh and easy for us to market was like more like la colors like grown out yes ombre balayage rooted uh and she really got involved in the product wow really got involved right down to the packaging to the logo to the color amazing yeah so okay real hands-on collaboration she was hands-on and she was all about the quality but she also trusted me as well which was nice um could you instantly see and feel the traction in sales and attention and yeah I think from that within that two-year partnership I think we doubled our EBITDA so now the next stage talking to private equity again was probably like do you think we're ready to talk now to get a larger yes chunk of money and I didn't necessarily want to sell the brand to be honest with you then because it was still very young but we definitely needed an influx of cash to take it to where I wanted to take it yeah I want to talk about those partnerships then becoming quite an important strategy into what you were doing and how you're evolving because when I think of collaborations I really think of your partnership with Molly May I feel like it's I really associate her with the brand which is which and this is just like on the outside and super objective but I really it's brilliant it was like a partnership that works so so incredibly well and it just made sense for you and for her yeah you know like sometimes you see these things and it's like oh that's a good look for the brand that they've got her or that's a good look for her that she's got that brand I feel like for both of you it it was like a really it just gelled right it it just seemed like it really really works and you were both sort of getting that equal gain how sort of did that come about and I'm reading here that it It actually became her longest standing brand partnership for six years.

30:22Yeah, well, she's still actually with the brand today. It's her longest standing brand partnership that she's had. And obviously now she's got huge partnerships with Adidas is the latest one. So actually with Molly, she was like what I would say like a micro influencer at the time. And micro influencers weren't really a big thing. This was like 2018. It was pre-Her Love Island. Pre-Love Island. so we would work with her and I mean I think she was probably 250 pound the post

30:57yeah and that's fine she deserves it as well absolutely so we she actually was a model for me at like a salon master class so I said would you be a model for me and she was like yeah I'll come up to Manchester I'll be your model etc and then she just said to me oh I think I'm I'm gonna go on this show um called love island in the summer i don't know but i'll just let you know how it goes let's keep in contact and when i come out uh can you help me with hair like i want um i want to be known for my hair and i was like yeah let's let's let's see how it goes and then when you come out and obviously i didn't speak to her till after that but um yeah we've had a relationship for a long time like since she was 19.

31:41wow it's incredible isn't it and she really was known for her hair i I remember her like the bun. The bun, yeah. That was like a big thing, wasn't it? Like the Molly May bun. I mean, it's so, so incredible. And actually a really nice story that your relationship started prior to that and you kind of built together, which. We grew together. Yeah, which is a lovely thing. And was it that at the point that you really realized that partnerships are super important to the brand? Yeah, and I think I also really enjoyed doing them, to be honest with you. And I think what I kind of understood after them is that you'd get a whole new customer base.

32:19And I really loved looking at that and looking into the detail. And we were a northern brand. We started in the north. We started to get traction all over the UK in major cities as well. So that's what I really loved. The Gen Atking partnership was amazing. I wanted to take it to the next level with Molly and from then we actually also done styling tools so yes I wanted to I've always wanted to get the brand into that category but I knew it was so competitive like GHD, Dyson obviously amazing brands who I absolutely love and have in my hair wardrobe but I wanted to get into this category and I also knew to get eyes on the brand a lot of retailers wouldn't even touch hair extensions at this point like right what a little bit taboo yeah they wouldn't take them I was told no by so many brands so interesting so many of the retailers um and I knew with Molly we needed a product that was more mainstream right yeah so her first product with with us was a product called a curl kit and it was a styling tool that was kind of designed around hair extensions it was extra long so you could kind of just wrap the hair around it and there wasn't anything like it at that time this was like 2018 2019 um and did you see like what was the launch of that like how did that look was it instant kind of it was instant yeah the day it launched was crazy and I mean we had like over 100 ,000 people on the website within about 60 seconds it crashed it crashed the website completely um then I was able to get the product and the brand into retailers not all of them some of them only look fantastic were one of the first right um retailers that really believed in the brand gosh so it was like you could see the instant okay this is like that moment where you're like yeah this is landed yeah people get this we couldn't keep up with the orders it was crazy the amount of people that wanted molly may's look like it it was like like i said 100 000 people queuing to get and that's really that's really hard to get that now of course of course and what's the what's the sort of manpower behind the business at that point like how achievable was that like behind the scenes obviously it's great and i can imagine there's a big buzz in the office but is it like logistically everyone's like yeah yeah it's great at this point in time I think we've probably got 24 24 to 30 people in in the office and then we've got a very small kind of warehouse um it's still a bit sloppy to be honest with you it's like we we've we're always kind of growing um but it yeah it was crazy days it was really it really fun as well could you have like did you predict because obviously you know we all do our forecasts and how things are going to look could you did you predict that sort of level of engagement or demand no i don't think even molly or wow her manager fran knew no one did it was this was so her her two collabs were plt and beauty works those were the first yes yes that happened so we didn't predict that at all um incredible incredible happy days though yeah happy days um i want to talk about leadership because as everyone knows as a business grows your role within the business will inevitably change the you know the more manpower that you have behind you it will take certain things off your plate but then add a lot more on too what part of the business did you find hardest to step away from as it scaled um all of it like i'm very into the detail with everything and i think you like to be in the weeds yeah and I think I probably would really annoy people to this day because I'm so into everything I like I like to oversee almost too much uh and it got to the point where it was like I can't oversee the creatives for every single banner that goes out on the website or every single Instagram post to the point where it's like really unhealthy and not actually a great thing to do as a leader and yeah and I suppose you never want to be in the position where you're micromanaging as it were but it's so hard when it's like well you're so obsessed with it and you know exactly how you like it but it's knowing when to take your foot on and off the gas yeah don't get me wrong I don't like to micromanage and I don't think that's good for any any brand or business but you have to win over my trust and you have to prove that you can do your role or your your job before I let go of the reins yeah before I'm a complete dressing before I can sleep at night what do you think was the most challenging period of building beauty works that people perhaps wouldn't expect because obviously when you've got you know when the foot's on the gas and you're it's really taking off and it's we talk about all the exciting stuff what what what did you find the most challenging time probably like the first one to five million is the most challenging time in business when you get past 10 15 20 30 even 40 you don't even know you're getting there and you're like you just like oh okay like we're gonna probably hit like 50 million this year the first one is hard and then after that it's it's still hard but you get to a point where you get better at what you're doing um and you've established a brand you can back yourself a little bit but I think the early days are that first million's hard it's hard but also what you're putting on the line too and what you're you know you think about those early days and yeah you're selling the watch and everything is you know everything is in to this there's 600 pound in your bank and yeah that's it you've got to get to the first million and that's the struggle yeah and it was also at the time I can remember everything I signed was personal guarantees and I was happy to sign it because I didn't have anything so it's like I'm not my signing I'm not losing anything yeah I actually didn't buy my first our first house until 2018 so it was a long time of reinvesting everything yeah a long time and a lot of sacrifices that you don't realize like there was a lot of luxuries missed there was a lot of holidays with the girls that I didn't go on there was a lot of I wouldn't go in to like a designer shop like a Chanel until 2019 till I sold the business because I knew that I didn't want to tempt myself like yes I don't know I just thought like the business not yet not yet not ready for that yet yeah yeah yeah yeah now you do it girl you get in Chanel now now I'm in Chanel I'm in my we focus on the success and I'm always so interested when someone has built something from the ground up from being sort of a seed of an idea to putting their life and finances and everything on the line to then having that hurrah moment where you let off the confetti because you're like well this is it it's landed it's happening where we've hit the ground running where you know you're talking the 10s the 20s 30s you know 50 mil then for a lot of founders comes the moment where you know that's the hard work that you that you work towards very few talk about the idea of exiting the company I want to know like when it comes to exiting was it was that always once you'd gain that momentum was that always on the cards because obviously when you started you didn't realize that you were going to build something that could have had the potential to yeah be able to exit but how how did that look for you it come around really quickly and I wasn't when it happened in 2019 it didn't really feel real um and I just went with the process we hired Deloitte to sell the business the business went within six months um it happened really really quickly um it wasn't like something that I'd always planned but at this point in time I hadn't I was I wanted children I had my first baby I wanted to buy a house I wanted to buy my own cars I wanted like nicer things and I wanted not to have a bit more financial freedom so I felt like that was it was time to enjoy the fruits of your labor a bit yeah and I wanted to kind of expand the brand internationally as well to be honest with you so so in 2019 and you know these figures are always around I always say you sold the company for around 50 million 2019 to a private equity um backed American company I suppose to become the world's biggest group of extension and brands yeah that's right um you know that's the right moment for you and you know that's where you want to go because of what's next and what you know that next chapter is like you say the family and everything else in between what changed for you after that point so the first couple of years of working with a pe-backed business and working also with other another brand it's completely different you're now on like a bigger team right and because this partner was in the usa you're finding that you're working uk hours and us hours so it's actually really unhealthy because you're doing everything that you need to do in in the day in the uk and then the office in salt lake is eight hours ahead everyone's so it felt like there was no routine for a few years for me and

42:19Penelope Cheshire: i don't think that was good for my mental health at all but the business was still growing like the brand was growing uh we were hiring more people it was becoming more and more well known we were getting new contracts like asos pretty little things ourselves it was just it felt like i was on a train that was just going straight yeah um i would say what changed was like the pressure when you take when you take that level of uh when you partner with someone like that you have to you have goals to hit and it's normally your targets are high so it's double digit growth every year like that's what it is and you sign up for that so I'm the kind of person that doesn't want to let someone down it's like right let's go that's what we're doing like we have to hit these goals were you aware of the level of pressure at the time or did that sort of really unfold it just it just kicked in and it just happened like I'm I'm a bit of a hustler like i'm like it's all or nothing like i get total tunnel vision yes almost like a hyper fixation on what you're doing there's no failure for me like that's just the way that i've kind of been wired so that's the kind of pressure i was under at the time i'd had my first baby harry um he I think it was about three or four then so I had a nanny and I'm happy to say that I think there's like a bit of this culture where if you have a nanny it's like oh I'm like surely not anymore yeah I've seen it online a little bit but yeah I had I was really lucky that I could afford to have help um and my mum also lived with me as well so I just had that extra layer of support Because you can't, you know, let's face it.

44:10There's a reason that there are people that go down certain lanes in life. And that's because you need, it takes a village, right? You can't, there's no way you can achieve and build. You know, we talk about the business you built to a valuation of 100 million pounds in 2025. Like you're not doing that without help, are you? It wasn't me. No, there's a whole, there's a whole team behind it. and like but I mean personally you couldn't you couldn't be part of a team and be doing what you're doing without help with the family you know you're not making every school drop off you're not doing every single thing no when you're when that's also something else that's a big part of your life and yeah I think we're so like you say we're stuck in that vein of people like oh god it's it's bad to have a nanny and it's bad I'm like it's it's not realistic and I always mention it on this podcast I'm like don't ever listen to this and think gosh how is she doing it all and how is she without when when you know I'm barely getting everything done after I've finished the house and dropped the kids to school it's like people do have help and that is yeah and it's a privilege thing and we're very lucky obviously we've worked for that privilege but and we know we're in a position now that we can afford to but it's I don't I hate the idea that people think that they're not it's not quite happening for them because and everyone else is making it work there's nothing worse than you see you know some in the public eye saying oh you know I just do it oh I don't have an edit it's like you bloody don't I'm lying we can't be bothered with all that um I want to talk about sort of 2021 and the decision to to sell again yeah so at this moment in time we've gone through Covid um so that was a tricky period um but something really strange happened we we again doubled in two years our EBITDA at Beautyworks um we pivoted really and changed from like a pro hair business and we started to introduce into the MPD a lot of consumer products that you could do at home so like pony clip on ponytails hair extension clip-ins after care for us was really growing we expanded our styling tools so it seemed that COVID really kickstart that and the brand just went crazy um in this period of time and it's through to 2021 the group then sold to um a private equity company in new york um which is which is called l catatum they're probably the most famous they have brands like uh jessica alba's brand honest Birkenstock Peloton so big yeah I remember my husband telling me that the CEO of the group um called him and said who it was and I was like no like well they want to get involved in this industry this is like an industry that has been not taken seriously for so many years and I kind of remembered that from all the knockbacks that I've got and I've got Elle Catterton saying like we want to buy this.

47:17So it was a real like crazy moment and I guess a life-changing moment uh positive and negative um but yeah that happened quite quickly again and we were owned by them. So that now takes us to 2025 yeah so last year so as I touched on before you know you and the team built the business to a valuation of 100 million pounds in 2025 a business that you're now no longer a part of I'm not no so I want to I want to talk about this and you know if you're comfortable yeah sure I want to I want to ask you what led you to leave the business that I always say this because it and I have a life coach who tells me that you mustn't say that your business is your baby okay because it it can actually be quite toxic because you're like is that my baby you know you know I've birthed this business because you have right you absolutely have um but that can also help us have a bit of a toxic relationship to the business because it's it's cuts so emotionally it does and you can make you know emotionally driven decisions um so tell me about what led you to leave the business last year was yeah last it was december that i left and it wasn't on my terms and i'd probably describe it as a bit of like a messy messy divorce wow um so yeah it wasn't something that i wanted but it's probably something that i needed to to be where i am now and you know after 16 years of like what you said feeling like your baby it completely was my baby it was my my one of my babies I've got two children and Beauty Works was my baby and I honestly think that no one knows it better than me no one can you can't employ anyone that's gonna feel the way I felt about it no matter how great their CV is um but yeah it wasn't easy it wasn't easy um it was in December last year and I think what happened really to be honest with you is that we myself and my husband had rolled over over 10 million pound and back into the group and this is quite normal with business a lot of people do it and that kind of shows your commitment and we were also kind of sold a dream that the group is going to be like the next kind of olaplex right the uh hair world um we wanted to eventually float it or that's what l castan's dream was and of course ours and we were along for the ride and i mean i the group i think was at the top in its heyday was valued at over a billion dollars so it was huge so life-changing for me really um and what what happened was beauty works was growing and the brands in the usa for whatever reason were going backwards or they were stagnating the some of the founders had been pushed out or they they'd left other kind of corporate hires had come in and it just wasn't working out it wasn't working out but i'm stuck in a situation where beauty works is growing it's hitting double digit growth it did in 2020 2025 um but i know that i'm feeling like it's going to be dragged down by the rest of the group right so what i wanted to do and what we did last year was approach the uh el catatan to buy the brand back and okay this was in april in april last year we had the announcement that tariffs were going to hit the usa yes so i knew it was going to be a bloodbath in the usa sales were bad already they were going to get even worse um so it was really risky and we'd been advised if we try and buy the brand back and they don't want you to where do you go from there like they're not they know you don't want to be part of a team anymore they know that you just want to go off and do your own thing and you want it back it leaves a really a divide yes yes very gray yeah it's like a red line you can't say i want this business back because i want to like be on my own and yes run it how i want to run it and then be like oh no i want to come back and work as a team with everyone so it was it was do that or just watch the other brands in the usa go down and the risk that beauty works would be pulled under as well gosh so it was a really hard year last year because it was so strange because on one on one sense i'd launched the brand in 10 sephora stores in the middle east i'd launched it in harrods i've launched it in selfridges i'd had all these huge contracts coming up that i launched last year and everything that i kind of set out to do from the early days was was coming and it was all being done but I knew in the back of my head that the brand in the USA was not in good shape so super conflicting like it's like I couldn't enjoy my success yeah it was it was something that I would just do like a robot I'd be just be like right it's done tick it off like launch in Sephora 10 stores great Selfridges is next let's do it harrods let's do it done but i wanted to have that feeling that you i i was happy that i went out with a high but also i felt like it didn't mean anything to them like i just felt like it just didn't mean anything to them and and it wasn't yours to enjoy in the way that you know that you would have done typically no and also to be honest with you you know i'm 10 million down at this point yeah a lot of money like huge amount exactly and i'm also conflicted because i know that i can go ahead and set up another business but i'm tied in contracts of course to beauty works and my commitment to them has always been the most like i will do i will do anything that they asked me to do go to go to qatar go to kuwait go to the usa now you're in LA this week then you're in Dubai and then you're in London etc that's fine like that's what I do but my I felt like I it was holding me back right it's like when something is so you and so part of your DNA it must be a really weird conflicting feeling at the same time to feel a little bit detached yeah I wish I had your therapist to tell me what you said about don't call your business a baby because i know because it's so interesting isn't it and you're almost like because i've just said that for so long as almost like because i'm really trying to convey how much it means to me right and and how much it is so it's part of you but then it is harder i suppose to detach yourself when it's not it's not healthy and i agree with what is what he's advised yeah yeah um because i think that's probably where I went wrong as well I was too emotionally attached so so what did that day look like when you actually then left the business yeah so I had a I actually had a calendar meeting go in my diary at about 8 a.m in the morning I actually missed the meeting because I was out with clients for Beauty Works the night before.

55:09We went to the Nutcracker. So I took some clients and contacts of Beauty Works to the Nutcracker. So we had a couple of champagnes that night. So I didn't, it wasn't early. It was Christmas time as well. So I wasn't, you know, up at my normal time. It was like missed that call. and then I had a text message basically saying that my employment had been terminated after 16 years as well what the actual yeah yeah it was it was shocking and it was hard to deal with but I knew it was coming as well to be honest that is literally like someone saying I'm leaving you and handing you a divorce paper yeah like that that's that's and you're not really knowing that this is how that's going to look so i knew it was coming and i knew it was a risk because of the fact that we tried tried to buy the business back and it didn't go through by the way i should have said that it didn't go to plan we met with private investors but i couldn't i was in a position where i couldn't share a lot of information about the brand because your hands aside yeah and they didn't want to sell like the jewel in the crown they didn't want to sell the best brand or the brand that's doing double digit growth um they'd sell one of the brands that was going backwards but not not the brand that I created so yeah I mean I was definitely her it was like what yeah what does that do for you like separate yourself a minute from all of this because like we talk about what you've built and the success and you know sometimes we're supposed to see things like you know my husband always says to me babe it's not called show friends it's called show business I'm like, yeah, I know.

56:52And you have to kind of like remind yourself that because you're like, as if this has happened, how could somebody, you know, treat you like this? Or but what does that do for you at that time? Because as much as when you poured your heart and soul into something, there's a level of respect that you deserve. And for me, in my opinion, and I can say this, you know, I might be biased because I'm sat here talking to you, but like there's a level of respect that you deserve. And that does not that does not give you that. Yeah, I think so. I think that was probably the hardest thing to deal with, the level of respect.

57:28But at this point, there's so many different people that I didn't even know that were working in the business. and not not so much in the uk because i was pretty close with all of the staff in my company but as we are part of this wider group like for example you know the hr department in um in our hq in america i didn't know who they were i'd never met them yeah like yeah well you're not on the ground there it's not like you know so they probably just saw it as a number exercise and that's something that I would say you need to be really careful with PE you know everyone wants it right as a founder you want to sell your business well most founders want to sell their business for a decent amount of money to a reputable PE house or be backed by someone that's so established um but yeah I guess you have to be careful with who you partner with yes yeah and I think that's like well that's what you know we hear a lot of founders that have exited and have you know been in similar or you know you know situations that maybe aren't so similar too but they say it's like a marriage and it's almost like that agreement is is as important as a marriage because you really need to make sure the partner is right and sometimes it's really hard to call that up front you think they are and it sounds great on paper but you just have to be prepared for yeah and i think what i've got like a lot of corporate friends in in banking and they always say no one is invincible don't ever think you're invincible and i'd say this to any founder like you might think that you're invincible to p you're not you're a number yes and that's that's every type of business i ever want a lot of people used to say to me you'll be here forever you'll be even if you want to go you'll be like they won't let you know yeah and I did feel like that to a degree um but I kind of knew it was coming to be honest with you towards the end there was like I'd probably crossed a red line with wanting to buy beauty works back and I couldn't go back over that line and I think I think it's just probably it's just shocking the way that like the delivery of it and like the execution yeah was missed definitely and maybe that's uh an american thing or maybe there's no good way to do it to be honest with you you know i have to give them a little bit of grace i didn't like i am where i am because of the decisions i've made so i take responsibility for that yeah yeah yeah but um i just feel like there's a and i'm saying this not you these are my words but I just feel like there's a duty of care yeah and I don't think sending someone a text message qualifies in my opinion I mean it would be hard to take on zoom but like at least give me at least give me a bit of face time right yeah sit me down give me a cup of tea first yeah it would have been nice if I had um like a call from someone there but it's happened to it's happened to a few people that were were kind of let go in that way um so it is what it is and you've just got to kind of pull your socks up get on with it and again it will shape you it will shape you it always does for the better like I really I really really think that and I think those that's that's what life does right it's all lessons and I never think anything's like a failure of course there could be trauma that's attached to a lot of situations but it's how you challenge it and how you push that into the next thing and that's what I want to talk to you about because I I'm so excited that you're building something new yes and the world better watch out because it it's very very exciting once you sort of deal with the almost like grief of yeah well I'm kind of still going for it well no no I bet but because it's it's like so fresh still you know it's you know last year feels like a you know a blink ago but once you're kind of you're in that the kind of depths of it right when it's fresh and it's raw did you how long did it take for you to decide that you want to work on something new or was that always kind of bubbling away to work on something new I had to release myself from beauty works to be honest because of obviously my contracts yes but non-compete yeah non-competes etc I can't be going off doing other businesses when I'm tied up with a beauty works model and I didn't have the time anyway for sure yeah but um I think sometimes things happen for a reason and to start to go into the next chapter and to work on the next business that I'm setting up now is it happened very naturally um I started working on working with a man from a brand called Tangle Teaser he was their former CEO and he approached us uh probably 18 months ago and asked if we wanted to partner on a brush and at the time I was like we can invest and we can support but I can't work on the business day to day so from there leaving in December I think it was probably not till January then I started to work on my next brand well let's talk all about killer brush because yeah I am so excited um and I'm listen once you build something you don't you don't lose that like I'm I spoke to and I say this a lot on the podcast but I love her so much and I spoke to Jo Malone about this she's like once you've got that you don't stop like it's a bug it's like an addiction it's and you don't lose your creativity when something ends you know or when you move on and she's real living proof of that like yeah she you know built joe malone london and then joe loves you know is is incredibly successful and she's done it again and now she's like there's lots that interest me i'm not done and now she's just launched vodka like i just love the kind of that she's just like that doesn't leave you just because you've had something successful doesn't mean that you're done and you're happy with that like it's that bug that won't that sort of fire that won't be put out so I I'm so excited about this when you first told me about your new business and we were chatting through what it was genuinely I was so so excited for the brand a because I'm like now I know what I know it's bloody needed but b just for you to have that outlet again like and start something again fresh from the ground because that's what that's your thing that's what you do you build these businesses and you've got that eye and that taste level and that ability to know what it is that we're missing right um I want Alice's and watchers to be as excited as I am so tell us all about killer brush and what it is and what we can expect yeah so killer brush is basically the first anti-microbial hairbrush now I'm going to ask you a question you don't have to answer it I will how often do you would you clean your current hairbrush I will answer I don't know if you want to know the answer it's not something I think about cleaning ever like I'll pull the hair out okay like when they go a bit like you're like oh but I don't ever maybe rinse it yeah like a bit but not like clean my hairbrush never makeup brush yeah hairbrush I just it's like the forgotten tool you know that you just think you just totally is yeah totally is so this is really where we come up with the idea we wanted to create a hairbrush that supports a healthy scalp and more of a routine and a hygiene for women so when I met the former CEO through Beautyworks two years ago he came to us with this idea of creating a hairbrush with a chemical that actually supports scalp health and self-growth it actually kills up to 99.9 % of bacteria now if you think about how dirty your hairbrush is um we've done tests recently and this is like friends and family uh and hairdressers as well actually i've got to shame them um do involve them because they've got more hairbrushes than anyone we found from our research that um some of these hairbrushes were uh cleaner uh dirty as a toilet seat oh like that's wild yeah but i get it yeah like it is and you think about a lot of people like how long they've had their hairbrush for or like it's in a bag out of a bag and you know it's grim and i don't like to admit it although i'm doing on this podcast but it i get i get how that that would be the case so i mean i mean killer brush is the perfect name isn't it yeah it's the perfect so yeah it kills bacteria it supports a healthy scalp um i think we sometimes like you said forget about our hairbrush we clean our makeup brushes every day or almost every couple of days uh some I mean I don't but but it just shows you doesn't it it's like a time thing yeah like if you I think makeup brushes are perhaps maybe you do because it's a bit more visible that you know when you need to do it you can see it oh gosh it's not doing the same thing that it's supposed to do but with a hairbrush if I can have a hairbrush that is like cleaning itself like because I don't you know let's take the time off of everybody's plate I don't really have time to sit there and it's not you know ideal to be cleaning your hairbrush but that the whole I but I want a clean hairbrush you know so that the fact that you're giving me time back is like is just incredible you're launching with two designs of brushes this month yes we are we're launching very exciting yeah so we're launching with a original paddle brush and it comes in like these beautiful core colors and then we have a vented brush for hair styling and fast hair hair drying like blow drying and it's kind of more salon orientated and we're also going to drop three spring summer colors as well and the way I kind of want the business to work is invite like people in for collabs as well that work for us and open up new audiences and maybe they can have their new their own colorway etc or style but like I said it really is focused around sculpt health and if you take like living in London or Manchester or a big city you don't actually realize how dirty your sculpt can get and when you're brushing you have a normal brush you're brushing your hair you're brushing kind of the dirt and the grime and the pollution and the the particles constantly throughout your head and if you're not washing that hairbrush um you're spreading it all across your hair and that's what we found like yeah i mean have you ever washed your hair and it's come out black sometimes that happens in london yeah yeah yeah and you're like oh and i think that's pollution like if you live in the countryside i think it's a little bit better but i've noticed sometimes when i'm visiting london if i wash my hair and I've been there for a couple of days or something it runs like a little bit more yeah when you're in the shower no I don't understand yeah I totally totally see that what I love what you've done here is that it's a world first it's a world first and that feels exciting to me yeah and we've actually teamed up with the British Medical Group in the UK we've partnered with them so it's all backed by them it's very scientific um they're supporting us with the secret recipe which we're going to keep secret because it's a world's first yes it's like the diet coke of hairbrushes we don't share that recipe smart girl that's very very smart and what I love though because it's like if you're listening to this and like it would be in very descriptive like it's it's of course science backed and you know super powerful but it's so chic yeah you know what I mean it's it's it's a super like it's designed like it's so slick and yeah I love it I'm honestly so so excited for you is there anything like I mean I can imagine there are so many learnings that you're taking from building beauty works but is there anything that's really sort of jumping out that you that you will that's a priority now building killer brush is there something that you're like okay I really have learned this and I would never do that again yeah and I'd probably go back to like believing in myself more and taking on the team that I need to take on early versus like stalling it and waiting to a certain point at the moment this is all self-funded as well so I don't have a huge appetite to be getting involved with PE right now I could be tempted of course but um I definitely say take on the right people and sometimes it's not about the CV it's more about meeting the person that you know is gonna work hard support where you want to go and they want to go as well it's not always about you it has to be about the team and working with a team of people that have got your back really yes do you know what there's um they're saying that we've learned on this podcast that actually um Raddy Zavlukia who is well she's got incredible businesses she says that actually now that she hires Vibe Overskill yeah because she said you get you know and it's so true you have one sort of you know rotten apple that can that can sort of really trickle through and for her thing is like look I I of course I look at CVs because they apply for a specific role you know I'm not I'm not saying that but I actually instantly the CVs were obviously glowing because they've got them in the room but it's insta to me vibe like I can tell if they're gonna slot in with the team if they're gonna slot in with me and it's something that she's now really really passionate about and I get it I get it it really does it changes the feeling doesn't it when you want everyone to be at work you want it to be a place that everyone is on the same vibe and had and shares that energy yeah what they're doing yeah that's really important to us now going forward like we it has to be the right team the right personalities it's not just about you've got this university on on your cv I've done all that I've had like Harvard grads at the top um and they've guided just down the wrong path so like I'm happy to work with people that I kind of have that instant connection with and you see that potential and how that they can work and gel in the business yeah as well yeah on reflection what do you think people misunderstand the most when it comes to building a successful beauty brand um I'd say probably the failure that goes into it before it's a success there's lots of things that I won't put on Instagram things that didn't work out you know you have to be prepared to pivot obstacles will be put in your way it it's a long road like it's 16 years for me like you can go on my Instagram now and you'll think that I got this lifestyle very quickly it didn't it wasn't like that for me it's taken a long time I've sacrificed a lot of things that that people don't see like it's like an iceberg isn't it you only see the top you don't see everything that's underneath and underneath is sometimes what what counts yes well they say it takes at least 10 years to become an overnight success right and you see the glory and they're like she's smashing it at the minute and you're like at the minute yeah i wanted to know when it was me and i was you know carted all those deliveries up to the 30th floor like it's it's it's kind of people see that bit and then pay attention yeah but actually there's so much more and that's that's the part that kind of press the post feels the sweetest because you can enjoy you know what you've worked for but people pay attention when it when it looks pretty but they probably wouldn't like what's underneath yeah and sometimes people forget like being an entrepreneur you have to kind of like uncertainty and like deal with it daily like if you're a person and like my sister's like this she doesn't like any type of uncertainty she only likes routine yeah if you can't handle uncertainty then don't bother because you're gonna get that every day you're gonna wake up some days you're gonna have this pit in your stomach that something's gonna go wrong and then as the day goes on it might fade out and something might go right and it happens all the time like throughout the whole of my business career we've had ups and downs and it's like someone is constantly trying to you're constantly fighting like you're firefighting you're dealing with problems you're dealing with trademark issues you're dealing with the hr you're dealing with staff you're dealing with cash flow production problems you know it's it's constant so you have to have thick skin it's like they say the the kind of what makes a good entrepreneur is the ability to figure it out and it's needing that isn't it knowing that it isn't going to be it's not linear it doesn't look like that but actually yes things are going to go wrong but you've got to be quick and you've got to sort of you know fail fast so if it goes wrong okay what's the next thing and we've got to figure it out and here we go now this is plan b has now become plan a yeah i mean i think it's like 90 of startups fail within three years like I had three other businesses when I was setting up or beauty works all over my career that had all failed some of them doing a million pound revenue but they for some reason they didn't make it like they just didn't make it so failure teaches you in a way to be stronger and going to your next business and be ready for the next battle yeah and way more resilient right yeah and you need that you really really need that i want to do our rocket round now okay and this is essentially a quick fire quick fire questions and i ask each of our guests the same ones and the first one is what do you believe are the non-negotiables for running a business um working hard obviously goes without saying giving up certain luxuries for a few years at least holiday no holidays no big nights out etc not spending loads of money if you want it so if you want to self-fund it as well a team the the best people that you can afford no matter what stage your business is at um those are like my two main key points yeah what was the moment that you first realized that you truly launched well i guess walking into like places like selfridges and seeing the brand there when i'm with my kids and then pointing it out maybe being on an airline like easy jet i still get easy jet by the way um and um the air hostess recommending beauty works as a best-selling brand and my family saying did you just hear that oh it's so nice yeah just things things like that um and even sometimes like school mums saying do you um do you own beauty works or are you part of beauty works etc that's sometimes it's like those moments of connection that you can really feel like oh people like this it means something to people yeah yeah it's incredible what's the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before you go to bed um it really depends i'm not a great person to ask this because my routine can be all over the place like i don't have a great work-life balance yeah like i'm all in or nothing if i'm very obsessed with a project i'll just be working to whatever time i need to work to so i'm not a good example for it no no no but it's not it's because some people really can't switch off and for some people busy brains a happy brain and that's actually I like being like I like being stressed and hectic and like I'm not like more so now I have been like doing Pilates and like taking care of myself more since I've left beauty works which is actually really nice yeah that is that you've given yourself that time back to be able to do that 16 years if you were in that question I was in and and whatever was thrown at me that day if I was up at one o 'clock two o 'clock you're just trying to resolve whatever it is is happening yeah yeah I get it what is one piece of advice that you wish you hadn't listened to okay I think probably like when you're at a level where you're listening to people that you feel has got have got like a better cv than you or have gone to a better university than you I didn't go to university I left school dropped out of my a levels and started started working straight away I think sometimes when you listen to people like that and you know in your gut that you you're right it doesn't feel right I think you should always trust your gut and go with your yeah because it's hard to be distracted isn't it like when or not to be distracted when someone on paper is like yeah overqualified or you know way more qualified than you to make a certain decision but you're like I'm still not sure I don't feel right about it but I should trust them because they know what they're doing yeah yeah and this this applies to also you know not just if you're a business owner but if you're like if you're unsure about your managers making the right choice I think you should have use your voice yes yeah and your gut will always tell you when to right yeah what's a skill that you'd love to learn a skill I'd love to learn you know what I'd love to learn like the AI stuff that's going on right now I feel like I always sign myself up to AI courses and i want to do them and i never get around to doing it but i'd love to get into that because i really want to know what's next for the consumer and what's next for brands it's so important yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's something you're so right and it's like it's here now it's here people trying to fight it and it's like no we just gotta move with it right that's it uh what is one thing you wish someone had told you before you started out enjoy the journey like enjoy the journey like I I often think back to the days where I was packing orders with my sister or my family or my husband in my pajamas I think like enjoy those moments because they don't happen they won't keep happening as you grow you can't do that and they're special those moments and they're part of it and everything's a milestone but it's like trying are you good at celebrating small wins as they come or is it like yeah okay great that happened we're on to the next thing yeah I'd like I definitely celebrate things but I think you do just take things for granted sometimes that it's not always going to look the way that it does now and I suppose that's life in general right yeah it's it's enjoying everything as it's here what would be the dream you know we see like brand on brand collabs if we're talking killer brush what would be like the dream collaboration yeah so i really want to look into this um as we go forward this year i'd really love to look into brand to brand clubs and i love the way that skims has been able to scale with that and they're just dropping amazing collabs all the time the north face the neck like it's just so incredible it's so inspiring for me and that's something that is obviously working for them because of the success they had so that's something that i'd really like to do with killer brush this year and what i love is when people bring like worlds that aren't connected necessarily yeah like it's so interesting isn't it it is really interesting like i guess it's nothing new because i think if you think back 2016 uh i i used to love the h &m valmain collab yeah oh my gosh you remember that you felt like you were getting a real bargain that's the only way i could afford it back then i'm like i'll wait for it to be in h &m i'll you if I need to yeah if you could choose one female figure as a mentor past or present who would that be so in my office at home I have quotes all around my office of who inspires me and I really love the story from Esther Lauder she's like a real trailblazer one of the first females to bring makeup to mainstream um huge inspiration for me she's incredible isn't she I'm also obsessed with her and I think it's what she built is so so powerful and it the fact that it lives on beyond it lives on now yeah it's just it's just incredible and I was actually I was talking about Esther Lord and I was explaining my eldest was asking and I was actually explaining that it's a group and we were talking about the concession of the makeup and I would say well you know Esther Lord actually owns and but she just didn't actually realize that there was a person behind that so I'm now like chewing her ear off on how incredible and how inspiring she is but it's so what she built is just phenomenal isn't it phenomenal phenomenal um each episode I ask every guest to leave a tip almost sort of one piece of tangible advice that you would give to a listener if they're listening to this now and they're sort of thinking I love what you feel I'd love to build something in a similar vein or you know I'd love to really learn from from you and yeah what you've achieved what what would a piece of advice be my advice my kind of advice for that would be be prepared for obstacles in your way and be able to like deal with them as sometimes things just don't always go smooth like and I think a lot of founders or business entrepreneurs or people that want to get into business think they want to wait until it's perfect before they launch like I looked at our website when we first launched and it was definitely not great like you can relaunch version one as version 32 later you can upgrade you can keep going you don't have to have the most perfect thing for launch you can relaunch and it might feel perfect at the time yeah it things can evolve right yeah and I'm learning that with killer everything doesn't have to be how i think it should be or i want it to be right now we can still do that eventually and it can be like version 32 and particularly when you're sat on something that is real innovation and you're like this needs to just land before yeah somebody else gets there too right like it's not necessarily going to be it will be great and how you want it to be but there are going to be other versions that evolve and you can keep you know tapping into that keep keep evolving and launch basically yeah get on with it get on with it um and then lastly because I'm nosy and I like to sort of know how everyone spends their lunch hour I mean if that is even a thing we talk about ladies who launch but when it comes to being a lady who lunches how do you spend lunchtime where are you and what are you eating um lunchtime like I probably We didn't have lunchtime for 16 years, to be honest with you.

1:25:14It's a real mixed bag, right? We have a real culture of people that are like, they make an effort to make sure the team fully break and they sit down and they have an hour together or some people might go out for a walk or some people are like, what the fuck is lunch? Like, it's like me eating whatever through meetings and whatnot. No, lunchtime for me for a long time would just be grab and go whatever I can do on that day. Yeah, to save time. and that's definitely not healthy and what were you grabbing what were you grabbing normally a starbucks yeah something that's going to keep you awake yeah and if you were going to go and teach like treat the team to a meal what would you what would be your thing yeah we used to do quite a lot of that with um with team um we'd go to like uh san carlos italians we'd do like bowling as well anything to keep the team together the good Italian that's a real crowd pleaser everyone's going to be happy thank you so much for coming in and talking to us I've honestly loved it it's been so nice to sort of I've been aware of the journey and it's so nice to hear your take on everything and I'm so excited for Killer Brush it's so exciting thank you thank you don't forget to follow us on Apple and 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.

1:26:43If like me you're a watcher then please follow us on YouTube and don't forget to like and subscribe.