Launching a Business at 50 with Absolute Collagen's Maxine Laceby

0:00My North Star is my absoluter and she always has been. I will never ever let her down because that's one of the biggest corners I could cut and if I let her down I've lost everything. A big part of the success of Absolute Codron was bringing Darcy and Margot on because I know what I'm not good at. That's why it works. So the success of us is based on we are a team, we have strengths and weaknesses. I think because we're family we're able to recognise those strengths and weaknesses and more importantly we respect the strengths and weaknesses.

0:31Alex Chisnall:Maxine Laisby, founder of Absolute Collagen. At the age of 50, after raising her two daughters and never having run a business before, Maxine started experimenting with bone broth at their kitchen table. That homemade idea became Absolute Collagen. Challenger brand now valued at over 50 million pounds. I found recently, I was going through some old documents and files and I found the disclaimer, I made them all sign when I was feeding them this collagen, this bone broth. And it literally was them signing their lives away. that if they had allergic reactions, they died. It wasn't my fault. And they all signed it.

1:03Alex Chisnall:Welcome to Screw It, Just Do It, the show for those who decided to screw it and just did it. I'm Alex Chisnell, host of this podcast and co-founder of the Festival of Entrepreneurs at the NEC in Birmingham this October 8th and 9th. This is the podcast that brings you face-to-face with the entrepreneurs and business rebels who threw caution to the wind and built something extraordinary. Quick heads up, registration is now open for this year's Festival of Entrepreneurs. Join us at the NEC in Birmingham on October the 8th and 9th for two game-changing days with 200 plus speakers and thousands of ambitious founders.

1:35Alex Chisnall:Get your free limited two-day pass at festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk or click my personal link in the show notes. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Alex. And I think my middle name should be Screw It, Just Do It, really. Well, having spoken to your daughter Darcy, I think I'd reiterate that exactly. Like your level of risk, she was telling me, is very different to what her level of risk would be. Oh, yes. And that's why it works. Exactly. Exactly. And we'll dive into that for sure. So when you were 50 and when you launched Absolute Collagen from your kitchen table, what was the exact screw it just do it moment that made you decide to go all in rather than leave it as, you know, a lifestyle business or a hobby business that you were just selling to your friends?

2:20i don't think that was a screw it just do it moment i do think it built up from just selling it to my friends or you know giving it to my friends i think in that instance it was a process of me discovering the bone broth discovering the collagen just thinking what did i want from this as a supplement i wanted the maximum the best collagen the minimum dose and all of that and then my friends asking for it and being in the kitchen i suppose the screw it just do it moment was this is bloody hard work boiling this up in the kitchen I need to make this easy for myself because I don't like being in the kitchen I can cook I just find it quite boring I think some ADHD can't cope with it and that's when the screw it I guess that's when the screw it just do it moment was like we just need to make this really really easy what can we do and that's when the sachets the liquid the sachets the maximum collagen minimum dose all of that came to be I guess

3:11Alex Chisnall:okay um and what was the the reaction of you of your friends your family um of of going all in on it absolutely yeah well that's maxine all right okay yeah yeah they know you so well i'm all in with everything and you know i always say i'm one of these people i can't walk across an empty room without getting inspired by something and i just my brain seems to home in on solutions focuses and stuff like that and I drive drove people wild and I still do to this day I can derail a meeting I really have to first of all I had to respect and come to terms with the power I had as a founder in a meeting in my own meetings in the business and if I mention something to the team I can derail them and that's my head and I think that's what entrepreneurs are really good at but it's also knowing the business is staying in this lane right now because it's got so much going on and so I think the reaction to my friends was yeah well that's a maxim I mean really really in fact I found recently I was going through some old um documents and files and I found the disclaimer I made them all sign when I was feeding them this collagen this bone broth and it literally was them signing their lives away that if I'd look if they had allergic reaction if they die wasn't my fault and they all signed it.

4:37Alex Chisnall:I love that. That's a fantastic quote. And look, I know not everybody, but a lot of people in their fifties, friends of mine who the conversations around winding down of retiring, it's not, it's not my mindset, but, and it clearly isn't yours. What is it that made you speed up at that stage of life and start something new, Maxine? I don't think I've ever slowed down. You know, it wasn't about speeding up. I've always just I said this mind that, I mean, if I go back, this is bizarre. If I go back to when I was 23, I was living in a flat in Bath many, many years ago. We had a communal entrance. I had a phone.

5:14So if somebody phoned me, I'd know they'd phoned because they'd leave a message on the phone. If somebody pressed the button on the communal intercom, I didn't know they'd been. So I went to solicitor at 23 with an idea for an intercom answer machine. The ring doorbell.

5:29Alex Chisnall:There you go. Yeah. and it was just so overwhelming the uh ip the uh the intellectual property the prototype all of that overwhelmed me at the time so i i always think i kind of have that mindset so yeah i kind of just do and i think i always will i drive myself mad i really do i absolutely drive myself insane i can't I see something can I just see a way of making it not necessarily better because that's arrogant but easier or different or and I have to stop myself so I think I'll always have that mindset and hopefully I'll just get exhaust myself and stop one day. Doesn't sound like. And why do you think you didn't do something before the age of 50 when it comes to entrepreneurship was there anything and I don't mean this in a negative way you know parent myself but is there was there anything holding you back outside of the children was there anything that you procrastinated you you said you know at the age of 23 that was too much to you know take on for that particular business but yeah I I'd met my first husband and he had children I was working sales and marketing by that stage in small boutique hotels in Bath and I'd set up a business called a unique selection funnily enough I was thinking about this the other day and I'd totally forgotten about it and it was literally so Recaro seats might come to me and say right we've got a dinner for two executives or or a conference for a hundred where would you place them and I don't think I remember the dot-com booming and I remember last minute dot-com wow and I just remember being in my and I met her recently actually and I remember being in my lounge and just looking in awe of this woman that created this.

7:24I just thought, wow. And I always think, I always think it was there in me, but the timing wasn't right. And I'd met Rob, he had children. So I gave up work to look after his children purely by, you know, I was very privileged to have done that. Was it right at 25? For me, it was. Then we had children. And, you know, Rob had a very successful business. And it was never my time. And I was okay with that. You know, I, I was very fortunate, I could concentrate completely on the children. That's what I wanted. It wasn't till later in life. And then when Rob and I split up, I bought a rat infested pit house.

8:05And the girls and I, they were 11 and 13. You know, they'd come home from school, they put their hard hats on, and we do the house together, you know, because we were a team. And we've always been like that. And I don't think there was ever the opportunity to do something. However, I don't know if Darcy told you this, but when she was about, Margot was about 12 and Darcy was about 13, 14, I had a business idea then. And it was plastic bands. You remember the kids were all wearing those slogan bands. Anyway, this was wannabe. And I'd had this idea that they could buy this band and they could collect poppers to put in the bands.

8:41And, you know, the girls, I said to the girls, right, I found a manufacturer. October half term we're going and bearing in mind I just torn them away from their family home we were living in a rat infested pit crazy mother I went yeah yeah cool where and I went China and off we went and we just went and I think I thought about that business so long that I left it too late you know I never look at that as a disappointment I look at that even when I go back to I was 23 with the intercom I learned something about intellectual property then I learned to about prototypes and when i look into china i learned i thought about it so much that i missed the boat so i think we're so the next thing not that i knew there was going to be a next thing so i acted faster and i think i think every most entrepreneurs isn't their first gig you know whether they whether they've been successful or they've launched it whatever their minds are working in that way but i think everything you do leads up to a point and you learn something along the way and I think the timing with Absolute College was just perfect and everything fitted in

9:47Alex Chisnall:yeah and I think so much and you'll know this from from the networks you're in and the people you've spoken to are business owners as well is that so much of it is timing and if the timing isn't right or you don't you know as you as you said you're so focused on something else like bringing up the children your your eyes and ears aren't necessarily aware to the opportunities that that exists at the time you're not around like you are now say around people who are constantly having ideas as well and finding solutions to problems etc as well you know and I look at people with children young people younger or not even always younger and I just think how do they do it how do they do this this because I couldn't do it and I suppose no I don't suppose part of the success a big part of the success is absolute codrum was bringing Darcy and Margot on because I know what I'm not good at and you know we were saying earlier and I can't feel recording or not you know one of you know I am the batshit crazy one foot to the pedal 100 miles an hour I'm off Darcy is the one coming up the rear of the dustpan and brush and when I go back to that going to China I was at the bar having a drink that night Darcy at 13 was googling top questions to ask a new manufacturer she wasn't really she didn't tell me that wow 100 on my life that and i didn't even discuss that with her i never even like we never even had that conversation that's why it works so the success of us is based on we are a team we have strengths and weaknesses and i think because we're family we're able to recognize those strengths and weakness and more importantly we respect the strengths and weaknesses when one of us has a weakness we don't down it we just rise above and strengthen it with our what we're good at and I think that is absolutely fundamental what what are the Darcy and Margot's roles in the business and what do you think their greatest strengths are as well Maxine yeah so Darcy came on as operations in the beginning because I was ordering stuff and didn't have a clue what I was doing I still can't read the stress spreadsheet I'm not gonna pretend I do my ADHD can't cope with it I have to really focus and break it down and oh my god um and i'd order stock and we hadn't sold it in time we had to throw it away so she became operations at the beginning i'd say darcy's skill now is 100 people and npd new product development um i think she could sit in most parts of the business unlike myself um i think she could sit in digital i think she could sit in e-com i i think she has a really good insight you know she's more hands-on than I am 100 % you know she's more in the business than I am actually working in I'm more forward-facing so I think I think she would say what she enjoys is people in MPD and that's where she flourishes I think but personally I think she could sit in any any of those she's got a great understanding of finance which I've had to learn um yeah Yeah, Margot.

12:43Sorry, Margot. Poor Madge. Margot didn't want to join the business. She went off to university, did a week, hated it. She was doing textiles, product design, then made her make a teddy bear. And she was like, no, no, no, this ain't for me. She should have stuck out a bit more than the first week. But she knew they were going to charge her after the second week, you see. So, whoa, brilliant. And then she went off to do her own thing. And then she just got sick to death of hearing about the business and just, do you know what, I may as well join. so she started doing all the social media um and we were working from home so we were packing from home we had our garage extended and that was that was fun times actually and she'd get up and we'd all be in the garage packing and answering phones and all the rest of it so she kind of grew from that so social media was her thing and she's now on mat leave because she's had um i'm now a gg

13:35Alex Chisnall:darling i'm a grandma yes february i believe uh i think uh darcy tyler congratulations and how much of your previous experience and I'm thinking funnily enough particularly parenting do you think has been an asset asset in building AC? Fundamental I looked at my children and I think my mother did it with me to be honest with you I always think children should be heard and definitely seen and empowered for everything they are good at and encouraged to build what they're not good at and my children have always been a huge part of everything we've done as a family so you know if we go for someone's dinner the kids come with us you know they're us for god i mean yeah there's certain circumstances they wouldn't but i'm not one of these people that kids should be seen and not heard i'm like absolutely not and i think you empower them and i've always brought them up to try i've always said to them you can be whatever you want you can do whatever you want but firstly you've got to believe in it and you have got to make it happen I will stand by you I will stand alongside you I will do everything you need once you're committed so I think there's an empowerment there that I've always always given my children and my friends are always like my god your children are just like incredible they're well balanced they work up they're respectful and I said yeah because I believed in them I empowered them and I think that automatically as a person comes down that's in me and it's something that I definitely apply to the business but it's not intentional it's just who I am I love to see what people are great at and encourage that we've all got things we're not great at and you cannot judge somebody on that there's no point putting somebody in a position of manager they might be brilliant at what they do right in their department and you can see or somebody in their team can see that they could be a good manager or they if they want to pay rise they should be managing people no they don't want to manage people they want to do their job leave them alone and it's it's about recognizing that certain people have skills and certain people don't and encouraging and doesn't say you don't always go you cannot do this you you might encourage it and if it's not for them it's not for them so it's always seeing the other person's point of view always empowering and encouraging and believing in.

15:56So I think my parenting skills, and I do believe my mother believed in me, 100%. Crazy things like, you know, single parent, alcoholic mother, and it was believing in me and things like, you know, if we had an electrical fork, Max, go and fix it because there is no one else. But it was a different kind of belief. So yeah, I just think, I think that's fundamentally influenced me.

16:19Alex Chisnall:And do you think, you referenced your own mother there, how much of your own background has influenced what you've gone on to achieve. Tell me a little bit more about your mum then. Do you know, my mum was very misunderstood. She was one of 13. She was the second from youngest. She was the one kept home from school to do all the housework. She was literate. I didn't know that. I was like 12. She loved me beyond belief. I'm adopted. She absolutely loved me. She needed me. And maybe children like to be needed as well as loved. I don't know but in me it was a I'd like to have been needed I suppose um again she just believed in me she saw me she got me she didn't get me actually she never got me but she no one ever got me I was like the owl in the nest but she allowed me to be she loved me for who I was and I'll always adore her for that and I think you know I had an interview yesterday with ADHD ADHD podcast and I'm doing a chapter in this book about ADHD and they said if there's one thing you could go back to say to that young girl what would you say and I just said I'd go back to her I'd give her a hug and I go I know this is shit but everything is supposed to be exactly as it is because you will be okay so I think every experience you have definitely makes you the person you are and people always say to me god you're really humble you're really you don't act like somebody's got a 30 million pound business quite what that means I don't know um a turnover 30 million but I think my childhood make has made me humble and respectful and I think those traits are really really important I'm very very grounded so I think everything you experience you do take into your business and I think everybody here will will say that I am just little old Maxine doing my thing there's nothing special about me and so there shouldn't be I really hate it when people have a product or a service and then they get into the public eye and they elevate themselves to celebrity status and then ah I just think it's a little bit sad to be honest with you if they're doing it for the wrong reasons yeah yeah no absolutely no and look I was just chatting the other day with um mentioned it to darcy chatting to rowena bird from from lush you know one of the five founders you know billion pound british business but they still own 100 of it and she's like what does that mean she's like i've got no intention of of selling it or going anywhere um you know i was like what's you know what's the end result so we just keep going just keep doing we're doing i still go to work every day in the same office we had 30 years ago in port and she lives in the new forest she's gonna have to drive you know for an hour each way just to get into the office and still focuses on you know new product development and stuff and that creativity and i love that but you you know you know it's like you google somebody and you you know you're seeing black and white you know 50 million pound company 30 million pound a billion pound company and it's like what does that actually mean no i agree and i'll tell you who somebody's a damn good example of that it's ben francis from gym shark yeah yeah okay honestly i have got so much respect for him his journey i know steve is old ceo really well and his his journey is phenomenal you know steve went in and went yeah i'll be a ceo but get rid of all your cars and if you're late for meeting you don't bother coming in and you know steve stuck by that but more importantly ben had the humility if he was late to a meeting and he did it once you know and he got rid of all the cars i just love that and yeah i think that's really important because also you're teaching the next generation how to behave and you know we're all we're all equal at the end of the day right you know it's a big world out there and I just think you some you know when someone says oh put your hand down for the next person I'm like no no no put it across no one's down it's just across from you you know and to me that's really important quite a few people have mentioned Steve to me funnily enough um lovely I love him I went paddleboard him on the Birmingham canal was green last year with him amazing super super chap honestly his wife really lovely person yeah okay um i wanted to touch on as well a project called dare to go bare um tell me about so starting a fine arts degree at university i've always wanted to go back and do another degree um how did that impact your journey and where you find yourself now unbelievably it was the start of collagen it was a start of I didn't know it at the time I just I got to 49 Margot just passed a driving test I was celebrating not doing the school run with a cup of coffee and waving bye thinking shit this is really good oh my god am I gonna get my time back you know this is amazing because you don't realize at the time your whole life is tied up with children which is great by the way but you know there comes a time when it's like okay okay this is about me now in a nice way and I just thought what should I do and I decided to do a fine art degree and did this project called Dare to Go Bare one of my first projects and it was I used to have long dark curly hair and I had it all cut off and I eventually let it go gray I had the color taken out it went yellow and then wore no makeup and wore really dandy clothes for four for a period of four months so when I say dandy clothes it's leggings t-shirts and really oversized dresses and the reason being like a bag lady I wanted to know as a woman of certain age the whole project was would I disappear in people's vision I actually realized I'd already disappeared in mine in fact I didn't even know if I'd ever appeared in mine I don't know I don't know I'd always been something for someone else and you know during that four-month period I just what I what I'd done unknowingly is I'd taken off every single external mask be it makeup be it clothes be it hairstyle everything I just went I'm done.

22:04I'm done. I don't know. I just want to be me. Because even when you don't think you conform, being a parent at the school gate, you conform. You don't want your kids to be the one with the parent, you know, which kids were the one with the crazy parent, but hey-ho. And that period of time allowed me to kind of look at myself as a whole. And I looked at what I was putting in my body, started making and drinking my own bone broth. And then whenever the bone broth settled the jelly would form on top we realized it was collagen what is absolutely crazy in all of this we talk about darcy is there was no connection or darcy went to uni and i thought oh she's going to uni i can go to uni she was doing psychology changed the last minute do food science i went to university to find an art degree four months five months later did this project called dare to go bare darcy took my product to the lab to make sure i didn't kill her friends my friends and the energy the timing everything in that it was just meant to be um and I see a lot of our absoluters you know women of a certain age and not even a certain age I just think everybody wears a mask and and I think you get to a certain point in life and men where their children are starting to leave the retin roost and you think god I've got time I've got me again and you start been able to look at yourself and I see that with so many people so absolute collagen came to be out of my art project but it also gave me a massive understanding of of people of of my sort of age and you know and and society as a whole because you know everyone looks like they've had a great time on Instagram right yeah no one's really real and and don't start me on that because I think again these celebrities who who elevate themselves with their product and you know everyone's saying they're authentic I don't know if they are I really don't and you can see it and yeah it was it's been a wonderful journey and it's bizarre how it's turned out but everything was just the right time and you know because of my experience with missing the boat with the bands and my business idea when I discovered the collagen I knew how to act fast we were first

24:18Alex Chisnall:to market bang had to do it quick and and at the time I think I asked Darcy the same question but you had no competition right there was there was no one doing what you did um yet fast forward to where we are now um some what eight years into your journey how many competitors do you have

24:38and you know what competition is good yeah brilliant yeah well also we've been an oncology and company maybe collagen doesn't work right although we do have a clinical trial to prove it does which darcy's probably talked about because she headed it up but not all collagen is equal not all businesses equal right and you know we're b corp our sustainability all of that and our ingredient sourcing you know people say i say not all collagen is equal you know use fairy liquid or a cheaper one you know what's going to work better you need less of one um and also because collagen has now become such a commodity whether it's bovine or marine they want to feed the animal grow really fast so hormones antibiotics we don't touch any of that and we don't shout about that enough to be honest with you and we will be we should do and i as i said i welcome competition but when someone comes in and they're somebody that's never worked in the industry before because it's unregulated to a degree and they're running it from a spreadsheet because all they're about is money so the cheaper ingredients that worries me yeah but then that's

25:46Alex Chisnall:that's going to be why I chatted to uh to Pip from Pippa Nut and and again Darcy was telling me I didn't realize that that um that you guys were part of the yeah six six at the moment I think it is and I didn't know you're a B Corps as well which which Pip's obviously really passionate about as well um did you did you have any role models showing you that that starting a business later in life was possible? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. What I did have, my ex-husband had a very successful business. What he taught me unknowingly to him was never cut corners and do things properly. And I didn't learn that from my family, not because my family were crooks, but they never did anything, you know, in a nice way.

26:32They were just really simple folk that got up, did a nine to five job and came home there was no corners to cut I guess but with Rob he really taught me I watched him he was very excited about paying that paying tax you know he he did things properly and I I thanked him for that a few years ago you know we get on really well I've got huge respect for the man you know just because I fell out of love with him and we wanted different things from life he's still the father of my children and still a huge part of my life and I really respect him and I said to him thank you and he nearly fell on the floor I said you are a huge part of the success because you taught me to do things properly so and I think from my point of view when you're and I didn't know that till I kind of looked back like I remember doing things and because the girls were involved in the business knowing I could never put them in a position where they were in they had any insecurity whatsoever be it uh that tack or whatever anything um employment law anything so i knew our heads had to hit the pillow every single night and we knew we went to sleep knowing we'd done the right thing even if it cost more even if it took more time and to me that's where business is simple because everything is signposted and i always say to people business is simple it's bloody hard work but it is simple because if you've got a good business model all the answers are there or you just need to ask and follow the bloody rules it becomes complicated when you're trying to why you know deep dive and duck and that's not me it's never going to be me I just like doing things very sensibly which a lot of people will find that from my childhood probably will find that a bit bizarre because I always did things properly but I was always the crazy one.

28:20Alex Chisnall:No, but I get that as well. If this is the way you're going to do something, this is the way you do everything right. So if you're going to go, this is the way we're going to run our business. We're not going to cut any corners. If it's going to cost more, we're not going to shortcut when people start making cheaper ingredients, then that's the North Star and you just follow the plan, don't you? We get that every single board meeting, we get that. Well, why can't we use that ingredient? Because it's a lot cheaper. Because it's not as good. We have to go through. And it's so boring. but we do. And they're right to question it, by the way, because there's a new ingredient come along, a new supplier.

28:55Can't we look at them? They're cheaper. And we really look at everything. And we could make a huge cut to our bottom line. But my North Star is my absoluter. And she always has been. I will never, ever let her down because that's one of the biggest corners I could cut. And if I let her down, I've lost everything. And I'm not talking financially. How can I look her in the eye or him, you know, we've got 20 % men. How can I look them in the eye and know that I'm treating them with the respect they absolutely deserve if I'm cutting corners in some way, or I'm trying to please a board by cutting corners?

29:31Alex Chisnall:If you're enjoying this conversation and thinking, I need to be around more people like this, then I've got the perfect solution for you. The Festival of Entrepreneurs is where 5 to 10 ,000 ambitious entrepreneurs come together to learn from the people who've actually done it. It's on October the 8th and 9th at the NEC in Birmingham and I'm giving my listeners free two-day passes. Real entrepreneurs, real stories, real strategies, exactly like what you're hearing right now but live and in person. Go to festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk and get your free two-day pass before they're gone. And you took on, Dias was talking about taking on investment a couple of years ago so and that obviously puts a different perspective on things.

30:15Alex Chisnall:How much of that at the time with your vision for the business when you started out, what was the end goal? How big did you think you could get? And was there a trade-off between thinking we can bootstrap and get this far and maybe it's, you know, it's a fantastic lifestyle business or we can grow much quicker if we take on some investment and some connections, but there's going to be another voice in the room for every decision we make. It's a really good question. I will never bootstrap. My nickname is Spendy Spice, by the way. Is it? I didn't know that again. It's not bloody good. I'm terrible.

30:54But, you know, joke aside, I was never bootstrapping because I knew I was first to market and I wanted to be really, really fast. And I knew the product worked. We didn't have the clinical trials then, but I absolutely, my friends, I knew I could see it worked. So I knew when we could afford those clinical trials, we were going to do that. so I wanted to go fast. We did really, really well. We grew really, really quick. I think it was 250, 250, 2.5 million, 4 million. It just grew. And we'd never run a business before. We didn't know how successful we were. And I know that sounds crap, but we didn't.

31:31Our heads were down. We were just in the moment doing everything we could. And suddenly we were like turning over 15 million again I didn't know every single penny belonged to our absoluter and how can we best serve them it's never belongs to us and it's about the team how can we create a brilliant work environment for them you know it's never about the end goal and I still don't know what the end goal is now and I'm really okay with that by the way I don't I quite like not knowing I mean you know we've got some ideas so when it came to investment it was never ever about the money which absolutely blows people's minds because for me it came down to always doing the right thing so the business got to 15 million I think it was about 15 million um we were doing really well competition started coming in I'd never done it before Darcy never done it before nobody in the business had ever done it before I never wanted to let the absoluter down and I never wanted to let my team down I needed to bring brilliant people around the board that were going to question every single penny I spent and every single decision we made.

32:38A lot of founders and entrepreneurs would be terrified of that. I like it. I think it's respectful. So investment was never about the money. So we then looked for investment. And I mean, Darcy would have taken you through the story. I think we had four offers on the table in the end. We never went with the one that offered the most money because it's never about money. We never went with one that grew us the fastest us either because to us it was journey I wanted everybody to be part of that journey and we went with the one that was most human that I could have those really shit conversations with because I knew there were going to be some and I don't think shit conversation is the right word tough conversations and it's normally for me I don't understand that for the fifth time can you run by that again and I'm okay with that you know I am still the main shareholder and that gives me great joy and confidence because there's certain things I am not good at like can you explain that to me for the 12th time um but it works it really does work so the money came to the family so that get for the first few weeks I was able to not wake up and go is everything going to be okay because you're on this team you know and that was that was nice knowing we were financially secure all so they're minority shareholder I have huge respect for them uh huge respect for my board and um we've grown a great board and I think you know when I look back at that the people that have come through the door the people that sit on the board now would never have come to us had we not had backing of somebody really good because what people don't realize and I see sometimes people people advertise their business now they'll say i'm not privately owned we're not privately owned like it's or we're not privately backed which looks like some badge of honor it's really difficult to go through that process you have to be fundamentally doing absolutely everything spot on to get investment and not cutting corners and not borrowing money and not this and not that and there's got to be no skeletons in the background you know um so yeah it works so So yeah, they came on in 2020.

34:45They were only ever here for four years, five years. And we've decided as a group to go forward still. We've got some great things in the pipeline, which Darcy would have hinted at, which I can't tell you what they are, very exciting. Which the big ones next year. And it just works. And I like having that security. I really do.

35:04Alex Chisnall:I bet. Right or wrongly, because it wouldn't work for everyone, right? Yeah, yeah. And at what point did you, Was it that 15, kind of roughly 15 million mark that in your mind's eye that you thought were no longer a startup, were now a scale-up? Or was it another moment? I said till recently, we still act like a bloody startup. And I always thought it was quite nice. And I think we now got to pull our big girls' pants up and just go, shit, we're more than a startup. And actually earn that respect. You know, I don't think about it too much, to be honest with you. Sounds a bit crazy. I don't, you know, I don't think about it too much, whether it's 30 million, 50 million, 100 million.

35:44We're still the same people. We're still the same business. Obviously, the cogs would change, but I don't overthink that.

35:51Alex Chisnall:Tell me, you mentioned a few times Absoluta. Tell me a little bit more about that. So when we first started Absolute Collagen, I brought somebody on to do social media. Never, could barely turn a bloody computer on, but I knew she was perfect. She's our little social butterfly, Katie. And I said to her, right, my days are starting to get tied up now. I haven't got time to answer people on Facebook because Facebook then. I want somebody to manage social media. So she managed it. And she and her would start referring to each other as absoluters. Oh, I've got an absoluter here. And this absoluter says this.

36:27And that's how it came to be. And so I brought a CEO in, my choice, a couple of years ago. When I went for investment, I said, I will not be the CEO going forward. I don't know what I'm doing. yeah i don't know what i'm doing i'm yeah i've done quite a good job and actually i don't ever want that pressure you know so so i brought in a ceo or we brought in a ceo and i we chose the one that had the makeup of an absoluter and someone said what does that mean an absoluter is someone that gets done they challenge but they do so with respect that i'd say the three fundamental makeup of an absoluter.

37:05And when I think about it, that's probably our core values as a family.

37:10Alex Chisnall:Funnily enough, I was literally just about to say, having just spoken to your eldest daughter for an hour or so, I was going to say, is that part of your relationship in the business again, that you can challenge each other, but you can do it respectfully? You have to, you absolutely have to. And I think that's where the different generations in the business works really well. We have huge respect for one another. I'm not always bloody right she's not always right none of us are always right but you know you sit around a table you discuss it and I think one of the sad things about being in a family business is I would say and this does make me sad actually sad for Darcy is I don't think I'm a mother to her right now we're business partners and that's quite sad really sad actually um and it does break my heart and we will get back there because when we do we don't spend much time together socially because we're always together in business and it's like i want to see you again and i'm like the one that always stands back so i think she don't want to see me again jesus christ and as you know as a parent you know you have to choose when to have conversations with family members they have to be ready or open to and then you get three questions and they shut you down so you're sat in a car you think are they ready to have this yeah i think they're ready get three questions then they shut you down so it's the same in business you know and that's okay it's okay we've learned to make it work and I think just before we brought the CEO in I Darcy asked me a question once we were driving somewhere and I answered her and she just looked really sad I said what's wrong and she said I asked you a question as a mum you've answered as a CEO I know but you know what there's always a compromise um is it a compromise we're prepared to take we don't know any different we don't this is our lives we don't know any different and yeah I mean it will get that Margo's different you know she's had she's on mat leave Margo and I have a different relationship which makes me even more aware of spending quality time with Darcy you know Darcy and I going on a running retreat in a couple of weeks and then I did say to her about I want to go dog sledging in the arctic with her and that's the sort of things we enjoy but I think it's really important to spend time out of the business and desperately try not to talk about the bloody business we're traveling down to bath after this today we've got a house there and so i've actually said to her when we're in the car can we talk about this yeah but you and if she said no she told you about tax she said yeah

39:42Alex Chisnall:i love i went to uni in bath it's my favorite it's still my favorite place like three decades on it's still my favorite place in the country yeah well if ever you're down there you want to me for coffee i or dinner or something i i'm a bath girl i'm from bath oh are you uh yeah alongside a bath there is one trust me and uh it was never on the cards to buy one and then we we did the deal and then i was writing my book which i may release may not um a couple of years ago down in saundersfoot and i was stuck myself in this hotel room right right right just tap tap tap tap tap and then this little thing came up this house for sale oh adhd easily distracting and i went to see it that next day and bought it and darcy said most parents bring a stick of rock back you bring a house back i love that but it is that balance it's it's also recognizing i think one of the hardest lessons one of the hardest things to watch and to allow to happen is for them to make mistakes so even as children you have to allow them to make mistakes they have to feel pain otherwise they're never going to learn and you have to allow them to do that in business you know and I'm not saying there's been huge mistakes and hey I've made some but you know as long as it's not going to screw the business up as long as it's no one's going to die and all the rest of it sometimes you have to let it pan out and equally so I think as an entrepreneur I used to get really like paralyzed with decision making even though I'm a quick thinker when it's a big decision, I will think about the consequences of that decision.

41:18So I am a risk taker, as you said, but I will consider the consequences. And I think I just get so paralyzed. And then I finally realized that either way might be the right bloody way. Get over it. So sometimes if I'm having a conversation, I think my way is right and her way is right. Sometimes you negotiate and go, okay, let's do it your way you know that you can't have the power you know I think it's ugly we're very very equal in the business as I said Darcy does a lot more in the business than I do these days

41:49Alex Chisnall:um what's been the most rewarding moment maybe that you've had building uh the brand together I mean it's always always going to be when you get those lovely messages from customers from Absoluta it's going you've changed my life not only because your product is brilliant and it's helped but you've seen me you talk in a way I understand you know bullshit you know you don't pretend you know we get you as a person and I think something that I try and teach people if I'm mentoring people is find your voice not your competition's voice right your competition's competition for a reason and there's competition's great but speaking your tone you know we've had many times one of our competitors actually had our phone number on the back of their box talk about copy and paste um and then you know we've gone into people's faqs it's on at absolute college and we do this and i look at them and i think they could be so much more successful if they found their own voice and i think that's something we have done and i i have i don't i wouldn't say it's purposely and i think it goes into this whole project i did dare to go bare i will not be someone else i am me i will always respect and i will always respect that somebody might have a different opinion to me and do you know what they're absolutely entitled to it but I will be me I will turn up as me and I think that's the biggest gift the business is is allowed me to give that gift to other team members and to absoluters you said that absolute collagen or read you say that absolute collagen has grown way beyond a business pursuit to become a mission of empowering women by ensuring we uplift rather than exploit insecurities.

43:31Alex Chisnall:That probably leads on quite nicely to that. Tell me a little bit more about that, Maxine. Again, it's all about, you know, we'll never say something like fight the signs of aging. No one looks good after a fight, you know, and that's something we say a lot in the office. And it's really important. I'm 59, although I refer to myself as 49 twice yesterday, I'm really okay with age has never bothered me in a weird way i just don't the only thing that bothers me about age and being 59 is how long have i got left you know a physical you know capability i climbed kilimanjaro in in february i cycled the north coast 500 last week although i bailed on the third day because i only got knocked off by a bike i ran my first first ultra a few weeks ago and so to me it's more of a physical you know i i want to be able to being outdoors is my absolute happy place you know oh just if you take that away from me i just would finish it i need to be outdoors so for me it's about that it's about it's about the empowerment of accepting was that the question about empowerment it was wasn't it so i've run rumbled on yeah um is that quote that you had you know around it becoming way beyond a business pursuit but about empowering women and not define so we don't defy someone by age we use real absoluters we were the very first people to do that now everybody does it in our ads in our tv ad it's about you don't need this product because you look like shit tied up in really fluffy words you know you need this product because we know it's going to really help you to feel better and when someone feels better they look better they walk better they just you know their energy and so for me it's all about that and I you know we've if I go back to something something that's happened in the business actually we had this Facebook group and this one person would turn up and be on that Facebook group constantly photograph selfies and somebody said oh you know somebody in that group said oh I'm I'll be, I'm, you know, can't we stop her posting all the time?