Episode 196: Laura Harnett

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1:36Sophie Ellis-Bextor: hello i'm sophiella spexter and welcome to spinning plates the podcast where i speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work i'm a singer and i've released eight albums in between having my five sons aged between seven years old and nearly 22 so i spin a few plates myself being a mother can be the most amazing thing but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Greetings from Sunday. It's the 1st of November and I've actually been quite proactive today in putting down all the Halloween stuff.

2:21Sophie Ellis-Bextor: We had some fun with the trick-or-treating and all that but I don't know why I just felt like right on to the next thing because it's the first of November I got things ahead of me this month there's a birthday in the house in a few days Jesse my fourth will be 11 on Tuesday so I kind of just want to shake off October and get into November and it's a very Sunday type of a feel today Richard's home he's about to go off on tour with the feeling he's cooking a nice roast beef got some family over it's cozy I'm really happy uh even though I'm wearing quite a weird outfit I've decided that I need to use all the stuff in my wardrobe or get rid of it and I had this green felt dress that I bought when I was away and I was like I don't know how to wear that but I like it and so I've just put it on I think it's working but I don't know it might just look a bit zany this might be its one outing it's kind of a red felt pinafore dress but with a really open front which I've put with a black sparkly roll neck and black tarts I think there's a slight Christmas elf look about me today which is not intentional so I'm laughing at myself anyway um last night I was out uh I haven't had much sleep I went to watch Richard's side project he's in a band called Loop Guru with my good friend Ed Harcourt, Richard's best mate and Cass Brown on drums and it's loud rock music people and it was really fun and they've got some great songs and it was pretty anthemic and big and we were out till oof gone one and I feel it today because yeah I probably had about six hours sleep but it's all right it's not so bad and today's kind of up to not much and it's cozy so I'm feeling quite happy anyway how are you guys I hope that your week's been good I hope you're feeling similarly happy to be sliding into this new season and you're not too uh I don't know fearful of the next bit because I know winter can be a little bit long and dark and cold but I'm determined to enjoy it actually and take take stock of this sort of hibernation period because it does feel quite nice and talking of nice my guest this week is a lady called laura harnett who i first heard about because actually i had bought some of her products um completely nothing to do with the podcast and nothing to do with the fact that one of her investors is my old uh friend from my that went to the same dance school i'm talking about the dance school of strictly come dancing where i met Deborah Meaden who is one of the dragon investors on Dragon's Den and she invested in Laura's company because Laura Harnett is an entrepreneur but I did not know any of that when I bought my products from Laura which are is a brand called Seep and the reason it appealed to me is because the whole ethos is about more sustainable less wasteful cleaning items so we're not talking about the sprays and the polishes and the more ecological cleaning products that you can get now because all you know you can you can buy stuff with less chemicals and a bit more wholesome for the environment but when it comes to what you're using with those products so your scrubbers your scourers that kind of stuff I think I had maybe one of those targeted adverts that was talking about how it's better to have scrubbers and scourers that actually do break down properly and so I bought some of them and they're really great and I'm happy to convert our house to be doing things that are really easy for us to absorb but they actually are also better for the environment so that's what I did and then I started to hear about Laura through Deborah actually and she was saying what an amazing woman Laura is so I looked a little deeper and her story's great you know I'm already always passionate about entrepreneurs business women people building independent businesses so Laura's story already resonates with me but she's also interesting because part of what happened to her with the cancer diagnosis is what led her to start her brand.

6:37Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So Laura used to work in consultancy in the city, a much more, what would you say, predictable and secure trajectory perhaps, but pretty high octane, pretty stressful. And then she has two children who are now teenagers. They are, I think, 14 and 16. a 14 year old girl a 16 year old boy and um and when they were very little she had a cancer diagnosis and it made her start to think about uh the toxins in her household as aside from you know I think people when they're going through something as poignant as cancer they start to look at you know their their everyday choices and what they're putting into their body but she started to think about toxins in the house and in particular plastics and so she thought right I think there's something I can do here and that is how Seep was born and she's self-confessed addicted to you know running her business and and all that it takes from her but she seems to be running on very good energy as you were here so um yeah here's here's Laura and I having a chat about starting a company and the risk of it and the scariness of it and how it's brought something good out of something scary like a diagnosis.

7:56Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So I will see you on the other side.

8:05Sophie Ellis-Bextor: It's so nice to meet you. And when you came in, I made a point of not changing anything in my kitchen. So the seat products you saw are authentic. oh it's so good you can go check they're properly dirty they're not packet fresh um but when we start with your amazing business um what's going on in your business life at the moment it's everything feels very exciting and i am happier than ever i think running like my own business because i spent 20 years working for other people and i think there's nothing quite like running your own show um it's not always been easy so it's uh we've had lots of highs and lows and um now we've just launched a waitrose which was like a sort of full circle moment because that is where like the first idea that's where it first came to me it was in a waitrose um like the team is building so we're like a team of eight now and you know we're bringing a few more people in so it just feels sort of full of possibility and um you know i have to tear myself away from it uh so no everything is is really good well it's interesting you say you have to tear yourself away for it I guess there's so much about what your business is about that's uh a value of your life too and how you live and what you want for the world I mean it's unusual to have a business where the optimism and and growth of the business is also running alongside the environment and wanting a better planet yeah and that's really what's at the core of what soup is about isn't it yeah so why don't we go back to that time in waitrose and what you could notice was this gap so I was shopping in Waitrose and what had come before that was in my late 30s I'd had a very safe corporate career I was doing what my mum and dad thought I should do which was always have a safe job and a pension and then in my late 30s I was diagnosed with breast cancer so I went through breast cancer treatment when my kids were really young and you know after all the treatment I came out and just thought right I'm going to try and take as many of the toxins that I don't need to have in my house out of my house so that I give myself the best possible chance and um I remember you know I could take you know I could take at the same time so David Attenborough was doing his whole thing around plastics and I remember pushing my trolley around the sort of supermarkets and I could switch out of lots of you know switch into better things into in lots of categories so like cereals and toilet paper and then I got to the sort of cleaning aisle and I could find the non-toxic sprays so things like e-cover and method and then I looked at the kind of accessories the tools that you use with them so the sponges and cloths that most people have never given a second thought to you know the kind of green and yellow sponges that sort of sit there and lurk behind your toilet and and I just looked at them and I was just like I want to buy something better that is not made of plastic that doesn't go bubbly that's all the microplastics going out um that can be you know recycled or composted and I was like well why isn't there something better because I'm willing to pay and I then just was like no there's no way I can do that because I'm I'm my life you know I've lived you know I've needed permanent job and uh and then I just couldn't stop thinking about it and just thought okay I've gone through this thing that's the worst thing that could one of the worst things that can happen and I was like if I don't do it this I might regret it if someone else does it and so that's why I just gave myself sort of a few months to work out whether this was the thing and then went ahead and set it up which is pretty incredible actually and I know that's a story you've told a lot when you're sharing the story of seat but actually to to go through that diagnosis to experience something that intense and traumatic and personal to see there's not something you can do for your environment and then to actually set up a business there's kind of a few elements to that in terms of the the stuff that's very small and personal and then actually the the huge undertaking of setting up a business and just so i first i'm really sorry you went through your cancer diagnosis because i can't even imagine how terrifying that must be with a young family and when you would look make looking to make these changes is this while you were still in treatment stage was this when these kernels of thoughts of what where you might take things started yeah so I was coming out of the treatment you know I'd come out of the street treatment I'd had chemo radio and a double mastectomy um and you know I so I was recovering and ironically feeling better than ever really because it gives you some time to kind of recoup and become healthy.

12:51And I knew that I wanted to do something a bit different. And so I think there are some silver linings to something that happens like that sometimes because it gives you a bit of a pause to think, well, what do I want to do? And so I think that is, it was a sort of natural progression from what I was doing before and then what I wanted to do. and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

13:18Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And how old were your children at that point then? So they were five and three. Really little. Yeah, so really little. And I actually think that was probably a good thing. I don't know how old, because your mum went through it, right? Actually, no, my mum's mum did. Your mum's mum did. Yeah, and my stepdad. Okay. But no, my mum has not had that experience. And obviously I've had girlfriends and other guests. yeah more and more people have spoken about it yeah and i think i've spoken to other people where they have immediately wanted to improve the quality of their life be a bit more mindful about the choices they're making but one thing i'm thinking with such a intense form of treatment i mean having a double mastectomy is a huge thing to undergo and i'm thinking if that was something I was experiencing I don't think I'd even really know how to get my confidence back so how how did you navigate not just finding feeling like yourself but also taking such a risk that was nothing like your former life or was there something about that that kind of made some crazy sense because it was like okay the rug has totally been pulled let's see what happens yeah I think it's definitely the second one so my my kids were really young five and three ironically I saw them more through the treatment than I did you know because I had a full-time job I couldn't really do the pick up and drop off and so I actually ended up seeing you know sort of getting to know the other mums more than I ever would have because I was around more and then as I was coming out of the treatment I remember getting this like ridiculous blonde wig like enormous kind of glamorous wig because I want I didn't want them to see me at the time and that was one of the things I just wanted to to look as normal as possible if anything more glamorous and more fine and so that's what I wore and I remember when I came out of it I then had this kind of fearlessness I think that you know I took the wig off my hair was still quite short and just feeling like well and I can do anything now like I really have a blank sheet of paper yes I can go back to doing what I want I was doing but actually the work you know I'm only halfway through that's how I was thinking I'm only halfway through my career or my working life let's go and do something that actually really makes me happy and fulfilled and that build some sort of legacy yeah purpose purpose yeah exactly and that's yeah so instead of making all my other other roles were at the end of the day probably you know making shareholders richer and and whereas this I wanted it to be something where you know the kids could see what I was building and that I was having an impact beyond that so the corporate world you were in before what's this is what you were doing when you had both your children yeah and what was the nature of that kind of thing so uh I started off as a buyer so I bought food I bought tinned fish excluding tuna that's my really first glamorous glamorous new job um and then i don't even know if i mean no why not tuna why not tuna because it's too strategic so we bought a lot of tuna and so as a junior person the other tinned fish so glamorous um and then i went into consulting so that was going in so when i my kids asked me like what does that mean it's going into businesses and where they have issues and you're trying to make them more money or help grow sales and so I worked for some really big brands like Coca-Cola and Philips and Ikea and then I went to work for Selfridges when I when my kids were really young because it was quite close and glamorous you know and an amazing retailer and so quite you know sort of a very sort of fairly straightforward career progression really.

17:26Sophie Ellis-Bextor: But lots of skills you would be learning I guess that ended up feeding into what you did yeah yeah so I was a bit like a chief of staff to the MD at Selfridges and I then managed a bunch of digital projects and so I think it was all the things that and that's what that's what kind of gave me the the kind of push at the end I was just thought if I was if I was looking at this person setting up this business I'd back them because they have the skills they have the network so why aren't I why am I feeling too afraid to do it it's kind of ridiculous and I think um I think it's a really great time to do it um there's this really the final thing that made me make take the plunge was um an article that I'd read in uh the Harvard Business Review and it was all about what how old what's the average age of the most successful entrepreneurs um and it was in their 40s oh really okay for you I thought you were going to say that.

18:23No, but I think, no, 22 and a tech bro, but it's not. And I thought that was, I was just like, that makes so much sense.

18:30Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yes, of course. And now you've said it out loud. I suppose as well, you've got all those foundations because we're talking about people who've got to a point in their career where they're like, I feel like I've got this knowledge. I've maybe got this site network and a little bit of strategy, but also a bit of a feeling of like now or never, right? I mean, it's a good time to just seize it. And I think the other thing I found was that just my network, the number of people I'd met, you know, all through school, through all the jobs, things that I'd done to help people, then all of that kind of came back round.

19:04And so actually, I didn't feel completely alone setting it up. It was, you know, I had sort of so much support and I'd never really realized that, I think, before.

19:17Sophie Ellis-Bextor: well I guess you know for your business it really does kind of go from your right under your own roof all the way out doesn't it it's like got all that through thread so there isn't really a break point between what the business does and how how you want to live your life no it's quite unusual in some ways isn't it yeah special it's quite unusual and it also is what makes it quite hard to switch off I don't know if that's what how you feel as well you know but you're I love what I do so much and it is intertwined with my home um that it's sometimes you've got to remind yourself that you know I'm I'm selling sponge you know it's a sponge business and so at the end of the day you know it's you know it's it's not as important as other things you know and so yeah it's um I don't know how many other founders are addicted to their business or you know find it quite hard to switch off I imagine it's quite common yeah and I guess also if you're the one setting the tone spreading the message putting yourself and your ethos at the heart of what you're doing it's probably a bit like if you're i don't know running your own restaurant or something you feel you have to be there for the to greet the people to explain to set out this you know the stall to explain what it works and to actually convey that excitement that passion so delegating that or feeling that you can take it you know take some time off it must be quite hard yeah and it's particularly when you're in those early days of growth it must have felt like you really have to keep your foot on quite firmly on the puzzle yeah you have to you can't you can't really let go because it's all of that early momentum that makes a really big difference and you're the you know I've built this lovely team of people who I think really believe in the mission as well but you're the one that has to carry it you know through the ups and the downs and you just feel it in every bone in your body right so that means that even when things don't go well and there's lots of things that don't go well you have to then you know with your energy bring everybody up again yeah I was thinking about that because you've said you know there's been some and now you're obviously at the time you're feeling really good really happy um but there's obviously been peaks and troughs because of what the nature of what you're doing so how are you dealing with that fact that you feel you're so engaged with it what is it like to plug into something so completely oh my gosh it's absolutely exhausting and so you know I'm trying to wean myself off that roller coaster because I think it can really you know you can get so carried away with it and you know you have a great day and a not so good day but there I think you just need deep resilience and so Waitrose was like my dream and that was where I you know I'd sat there looking at the shelves going, one day I'd love to be here.

22:06And, you know, sometimes the timing doesn't work. And so for years, you know, we were emailing and pitching and trying to do cool things to try and attract their attention. And, you know, there were several emails back, as there always are, you know, saying, look, not now or there was no email. And you just have to pick yourself up from each of that, each of those moments. And also not just for you, but for the team to go, look, we'll get there. And there's still going to be so much of that ahead. I think people like, so going on Dragon's Den, which we were on last year, and Deborah was one of our dragons, and she's been really good at just helping us see the bigger picture.

22:56And this is just a blip.

23:00Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah, I mean, if anyone's going to know about that. oh she's amazing and i was thinking that i suppose as well when you're growing the business you're thinking about how would i at what point would i start to hear about sleep how would i reach me how am i getting through to the other version of me out there where's she looking to get her information and i think it's um i only said she because of talking about you i'm i'm not saying it's only women that would be buying the cleaning products although i suspect that typically it still falls to women in the household that are generally making typically making those choices yeah what we often find is that it's the women making the choices but it's often the men doing the washing up uh and so i think yeah and so our our sort of perfect customers called amelia we've called her something i'm always intrigued by this perfect customer i've heard about this before you have to have a sort of person in the air you just have to bring her to life a little bit so that you really understand who she is and I think you know I realize that she's probably quite similar to me which is kind of the danger is that you think you sort of project yourself but yeah you we think a lot about how she gets recommendations you know it'll probably be on the mum's whatsapp group or yeah you know reading something or following one of her favorite um creators online but it's also about attaching credibility to to brands as well so i think dragon's den is really a massive deal for that isn't it because once it comes into that world it's so recognizable to people and people know that if the investments are they are actually the real deal they really do invest it really can give it be there's lots of success stories and i was reading about when you were going to do it which I imagine would be one of the most nerve-wracking experiences to have.

24:46Sophie Ellis-Bextor: But it sounded as well that you had clarity of thought, that obviously you're hoping to get investment, that you had ideas of which dragons you would like to invest if you could choose. But you also could see that there was an opportunity just to reach people, just solely by holding up what you're doing, regardless of the end result. Is that because you used to watch the programme a lot? I think this comes back to the network of other founders. And so there's this really fabulous network of other challenger brands who are all building in the same sort of space, whether that's pasta or beans or whatever it is.

25:23And I knew quite a few other founders that had been through it. And so I had got some of the tips from them. They've done Dragon's Den. and you know there's a lot of tips for how to you know because there's lots of different levels of screening to get on and then how do you prep for it and then how do you in earth do you figure out how much how much stock to bring in and all of those you know the the founder community has been was so generous with sharing how much stock because they don't even give you advice on that there are there's some really nutty things so they don't actually tell you that you're going to air because they they only show apparently about 50 of the things they film imagine that they probably film reams of it yeah and then they give you six weeks notice and then and of course six weeks isn't enough time to bring all the stock in get all of your so you have to make a quite a quite big call so much pressure and then you don't watch it you don't see any edits so you watch it at the same time as everyone else sees it and you actually know if you're going to be in

26:24Sophie Ellis-Bextor: the episode do they even tell you that you're going to be in the episode but you don't even know how much screen time you'd have notes yeah so i was in there for two hours and two hours two hours and they edited it down to about six minutes and so you don't know you know they've obviously got they want to sort of tell a story so you don't quite know which bits they're going to tell wow the only person i know apart from speaking to you who's done it is my friend's husband and he had a terrible time they absolutely went for him it was it was really really hard for him i know but um and did he know he knew it was going to be aired yeah and he knew it wasn't going to be I mean obviously I guess you know if you haven't got investment or you have so you know what the ending is and I think for him as well he really got in trouble with all the stats and I think that would be the bit that for a lot of people would be really nerve-wracking because they're going to quiz you and they want to know you're solid and know your stuff um so how how early did you start the prep of learning all that stuff or maybe that's something that just comes you feel a bit more confident with i mean i've broad numbers i'm confident with but you know you've probably seen the episodes and they reel out the exact number and so you you actually have to remember a lot off by heart write it on your hand probably would have been a really good idea but because they're such like the numbers are so long but they're not actually that long let's face but um you know you have to remember your speech you know your initial pitch which is I think something like a 90 second pitch pitch and with the adrenaline going I guess by that point you've gone over and over and over and over and over and over that you probably goes in a bit of a blur where you just think it's happening I'm doing it my mouth is moving I think I'm saying the things I've practiced it was exactly that and um and I I was waiting I was the last one on so I went on set at about 7 p.m and so I'd been had all that time to like psych myself out and then you know the doors open and you see them lined up there and I knew it off my heart but my mind just went blank and they don't retake so it's all live um but you know luckily they edited it in a way that you couldn't really tell I think I can't watch it anymore and so everyone always you know it's people saying now who did you who did you like who what did you think I'm like I can't I can't I get really triggered by it but how wonderful they introduced you to Trini and Debra amazing um so before we started recording I was saying I know Debra because we went to the same dance school which is Strictly Come Dancing we learned to uh tango at the same place or whatever it is it um and i really really am super fond of deborah and she clearly absolutely adores you not just for your business but also as an individual she's um really really sings your praises which is lovely yeah and trini has um spoken to me for the podcast and what an incredible force for good she is as well so what's it like in real terms in terms of the the the next step once you've had that investment how quickly does that turn into something real for your business so it all happens quite far ahead so you record the episode so in my case it was early summer and then the deal goes through sort of autumn ish um and then it we found out that it was going to air in end of january and throughout that until it goes to air the dragons can't do anything publicly um and so you know in the in the sort of time to prepare you know we recorded some things with them and then as soon as it went to air it was just it was phenomenal and um and they both help in quite different ways I'd say so Trini is running her like a sort of you know very fast growing global beauty empire and just has a lot of people in her team who are experts and she just understands how to build a brand um and has given us lots of opportunities and then deborah has been there um to to make intros um but also to pick me up a few times uh when things haven't gone so well um and she's come to she we we pitched to win this channel four um it was channel four and b corp um ad it was our first ever ad and we had to pitch the to them with an ad idea and we pitched them with deborah face sort of fronting the ad which was obviously like the kind of massive brownie points but she she she did that for us and i think it's you know my thing is to be sort of the the most appreciative founder in their in their portfolio and to try and be helpful back and um they they've just been phenomenal yeah i guess deborah as well as she's always has it very close to her heart about um sustainability and the environment i know she's super passionate about that.

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33:38Sophie Ellis-Bextor: and we talk a little bit about how the conversation around microplastics has changed since you had your epiphany of what was missing to now because it feels like um the talk is getting louder there's more coverage people are really paying attention but they're also quite scared so what is how do you retain optimism when there's so much going on in the planet and there's things that have already you know gone on inside you know humans and what we've done already yeah i think that's such a good question because you have to try and tread the line between scam and mongering and clickbait being clickbaity and giving people sort of practical advice or data um and so i think people have known that plastics kind of environmentally hasn't been a good thing but I think we're just at the edge of understanding what plastics what's in plastics and the impact it can have on our bodies and when I was going through my treatment I became aware of it so you know in a lot of plastics that comes in contact with packaging and that are in our homes there's chemicals and so there's a great report that talks about how many chemicals are in plastics it's something like 14 000 chemicals um and of those um less than half have been actually tested and of those about three to four thousand are known toxins to humans and we don't know about the other and the ones that haven't been tested we don't know and some of the things that are in plastics to make them lovely and soft and or resistance to heat or resistance to water, we know there's endocrine-disrupting chemicals in them.

35:31So we know that there's evidence that they're having an impact on our body. And that could be, you know, there's links to infertility, there's links to other things. There's even links to dementia, right? There's links to dementia. So that's the sort of chemical side. And now increasingly, microplastics, the sort of physical bits of the microplastics, are showing up in our bodies um you know so you know in our blood in placentas um and there's a great documentary i promise it's not that depressing but um it's called the plastic detox it's on netflix um and that talks about some of the things that we do know and so you know my my mission is to try and in my home is to try and get rid of um the plastic that i can easily get rid of But I just think it's so it's all over our homes.

36:20And so it's really difficult to live a sort of perfect plastic free life. And I think especially as a mum, it's really hard because you're busy, you know, sometimes they're, you know, busy. So to go the extra mile to go and get to the refill shop to fill in, you know, to fill up without plastic, it's really hard. And it can be more expensive. So I think you've got to strike this balance between what's practical and easy to switch and, you know, and scaremongering. Because actually, I think we feel guilty. You know, there's so many things to feel guilty about and worry about. Yeah.

36:56Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Well, no, I definitely I've heard of the plastic detox before the documentary. so I should definitely check that out and I'm glad to hear that there's some hope on the horizon because I think it can sometimes feel quite overwhelming. And is this something that is at the moment generation on generation getting worse as it stands? I mean for our parents' generation would they have the same concerns? So I'm not a scientist I think it's probably fair for me to say. So I think the more exposure you've had, I think it would follow that you're likely to have it more in your body. There are now things that you can scan for microplastics in your blood and you can have your blood clean.

37:40I mean, that's at the extreme end. And there's also evidence that actually you can impact your exposure by just reducing your exposure in your home. So that is one of the things in the plastic detox is that they took a bunch of couples that had unexplained infertility and just made changes in their home and took away some of the synthetic textiles in their homes, things in their kitchens, things like sponges and cutting boards, and actually measured after several points in time and then could see that actually, you know, some of the hormone levels came back up again. and so I think from what I can see from the evidence that's out there at the moment you can actually reverse it and by just reducing exposure which is why I just think there should be more out there to explain it in a really non-scare-mongery way.

38:34Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Well I was going to say for your kids so now you've got two teenagers yes what impact has all of this had on them because it must be I mean I suppose they can't remember when they were little and you had your sort of previous life but for you to have got such a drive and a purpose with what you're doing with your company that must have a real echo on them and I can imagine that this is part just they won't even question this viewpoint of see a problem think of a way around it which is such a great thing to grow up with I think yeah and I think that you can do sort of little actions can add up and that you can do something about it and I think I didn't grow up my parents weren't entrepreneurs my family weren't entrepreneurs uh and and I but I think it's in you know it's in me I love taking action and making things happen and the more I do it the more I want to do more of it um and so I I hope that that's what they're growing up with but also that they're that it feels quite normal in their lives to have um a mum popping in and recording a podcast with sophie you know sophie l 'aspector so then yeah that's what i'm really hoping they can see what's possible um yeah definitely well i did wonder if maybe part of your drive would be you get this i mean if you know you it's really important to remember that that devastating diagnosis you had that is your actual that's a that's a real thing that happened to you and it's easy to sit here now and it becomes part of the story of seat but really that's that's a huge thing in their in their small childhood but what's happened as a result of this is it's woven into a new version of what their family what family life is like and what gives you your your optimism and your drive back so that's you've sort of been able to take hold of it and create a new new path out of that And a new sense of energy, which I think if I was still in some of my old jobs, you know, I think you, I think it's really hard for whether it's men or I was about to say women, but I think it's also men as well, you know, in their late 40s, you know, there's increasingly high, high unemployment, they're struggling because AI is taking some of the jobs.

40:56And so I think finding something that you really love that you can then run your own, run yourself. So run your own business is something I feel so, so grateful that I've been able to do. Yeah. Yeah. And hope that other people can, you know, can find a way of doing it as well.

41:15Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Definitely. I mean, what do some of your former colleagues from your old life, what do they think about the new? They think I'm totally, I think initially they thought I was totally nuts. what did it feel what stage what level of risk and how long did you give it did you think I'm going to do six months or I'll give it a year I think I thought I'll give it six months to a year I can go back to do what I'm doing but there was this thing that I just thought you know sponge lady or like selling sponges or you know how am I going to walk into a room and there's always that chit chat about what you do and I was like you know before I could say selfridges or you know and actually I sell sponges and you know that had to that took a while to sit with me and I remember when I was talking to people at the beginning I was like I've got this I've got this idea about about setting up a business that sells you know compostable plastic-free sponges that look nice and everyone just thought I was completely mad because I think it you know it did sound like quite a bonkers pivot from selfages to sponges yeah but no I love I love it because it's unexpected you know people find i think it's quite a funny a funny pivot you know like you often when i'm we still do lots of little sort of hustly things so we turn up at events and give out sponges and i kind of you know rocking up and going do you have one of these green and yellow sponges and everyone looks at it what is this woman doing but they all go they all find it funny and then that allows you to go in and go right well you know here's something that's a bit better that doesn't release doesn't release microplastics so I've kind of lent into the into the bonkersness yeah and presumably your kids have got involved along the way as well I mean was there some story about some of your packaging getting damaged and they had to repack them all yeah so early days um you know I put that first order uh in with my savings and the first they I just hadn't thought about how sponges actually absorb lots of water and we'd put them in these boxes you know pack them with no ventilation or anything and they I just remember opening up and they all got delivered to my house instead of like a you know a warehouse or anything and I remember that I didn't want to open them for ages because I was too scared to look at them I was just you know you have all these ridiculous things and then I opened it up and then I could just see they'd all bubbles all of the packaging and bubble they are all kind of some of them were kind of sagging and yeah I spent the whole day pulling the packaging off sort of rescuing rescuing the products and you know at the time it feels like just awful and you just you get you get through it there's a there's an answer to it but you know if you'd asked me 10 years ago can I imagine me repacking sponges in my bedroom with my daughter no yeah but it's good for the kids as well to get hands on yeah and I think also you touched on it a little bit there but I think also the world of the female entrepreneurs and you know we still have got a lot of work to do with redressing the balance haven't we with female founded companies with investment I mean the statistics are still very much stacked against yeah i think the uk is one of the worst countries uh in europe when it comes to how much money goes to female founded businesses so less than two percent goes to female founded businesses and so and i think it's particularly tough because we as women we tend to set up businesses that solve our problems so whether that's health or consumer problem um and actually the money is in the hands of investors who tend to be men and so they tend to invest in things that they understand better or that that aligns with what they you know their lives and i think that's that's normal so how so the so the question becomes like how do you get more money into the hands of female investors and uh you know they disproportionately back women um but it's been a really it's hard because you know raising a investment early on I was also raising it for sponges which again that that reaction of oh my gosh you know what you know how how cool can a sponge get and but you know I've you know some of the responses they clearly don't clean and so actually how do they even get their heads around the fact that there's this market opportunity there so it's been it's not been easy yeah and I guess um again And with having Trini as an investor, that's such a good person to speak to about all of this because she, you know, had to risk so much to get her business off the ground because she could see this opportunity for older women and investing in some quality skincare.

46:01Sophie Ellis-Bextor: But she couldn't get anyone to back her and actually ended up really quite precarious with her finances just to give it what it needed to get it started. yeah I suppose that's another thing about sometimes with the social media it's actually been quite good because I think sometimes the more um in the groups that previously have been a little more invisible like middle-aged women we now have so much more of a platform we can communicate with each other better we can find out what we need it's probably been quite a helpful thing that yeah massively helpful you know you can reach them directly um and what I found is that increase you know there are more trinnies and well then no one's quite like trinnie and deborah but there are increasingly middle-aged women with money and they have they have been had a successful career and now want to back other women and put their money um to the test you know to put their money at work and i think you know there's quite i've had a i've got a disproportionately large set of my investors are women like that and i feel supported and um i feel really lucky and I think hopefully that's what's going to happen is that more you know the trickle down effect um as yeah as women do more with their money I've just finished one of these um it's some training all about female so how to learn how to invest it's friends that invest if you so it's so apparently um women don't tend to put their money in the stock market as much or feel as brave when it comes to making perhaps riskier investment decisions around their pension or anything like that.

47:37And it teaches you how to do that. And so I think there's a few. Deborah Backs is part of Female Invest as well that do that.

47:48Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And this would be the view for you investing in things. It's for you investing in things, but also just as a woman looking at where your pensions invested. And instead of asking somebody else to manage your money, it's taking control over your money so that you can make the decisions for yourself. And so I think, you know, as part of that, I think then backing other female, you know, female founders is is sort of one part of that. Yeah, that's actually the psychology of it as well, because you can get very risk averse as you get older, too. and feel that you don't still don't quite understand exactly what the best thing is to do what's you know what's the have the confidence to to invest to give it a go yeah and I I would really recommend some of those yeah some of those organizations they're great and I did wonder as well how have you found having to put your give a profile to your business because if it's if it felt a bit out of body to set up a business in the first place and to become an entrepreneur when you did what's it like to also have to put yourself out there and become the front person of it it's taken a really long time to get to get comfortable with it um at first you know i did it on linkedin because that feels like a more professional platform um it's where i feel more comfortable uh but what i've realized over time is that the more i that i i speak to camera or i share what I'm feeling it makes it makes it sort of puts a friendly face on the business and so people understand it's not just a faceless brand it's somebody that's behind it with a lovely team as well and I'm actually enjoying more and more doing that as I'm learning how to do it I still have a lot to learn but you know I love being able to then use my voice and talk about the things that may make a difference you know sort of secondhand September for example or something like that and so I'm I think it's a bit like a muscle that you have to train you must be quite used to it by now I think when I first started out it really shocked me though that if you're the job that I think I have is the job the thing I sometimes spend the least amount of time doing so I remember when I first was in a band and I was like I thought I was a singer but I seemed to spend more time talking about the fact that I'm a singer than actually singing and so that always felt quite odd.

50:09Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And actually, I do remember that I was in a band when I was a teenager, and then we split up, and then I got a solo deal when I was in my early 20s, and they actually sent me for a day, it might have even been two days of media training, which looking back was probably something I really needed, because I think I just used to come out with whatever I really thought without realising that's not actually what you do and so that kind of gave me a little bit more control over how interviews would sometimes go because otherwise it can feel a little bit even being trying to catch you out a little bit yeah and how and sorry I'm asking you questions now I'm getting advice to you but um since you've become more visible I guess on your on Instagram do you feel like people connect much more with your music so you've got now a much more direct relationship with your fans Well, I guess a little bit like you with what's happened during your 40s.

51:06Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I think I felt that things have happened at the time I kind of needed them to happen in a way. I think when I was younger, it suited me to be more guarded, more private, but also because I was worried about if everything got taken away from me. I didn't really want to feel that I'd given all of myself and then it hadn't been enough to keep things moving forward, really. So I think when I was just starting out, I was quite intentionally quite private as well because I thought, you know, what if I get dropped after five years and then I've shown everything and people are like, nah. So I think it felt like it's been nice to have new bits to explore as I got to an age where I felt ready to explore them, I think.

51:51And maybe that's one of the nice things about having a twisty career, you know?

51:56Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah. No, and you have these twisty journeys. You think when you're young, don't you, that it's going to be such a straightforward thing. And maybe a little bit with the corporate world that you were first in, maybe that is a bit more of a predictable trajectory. But actually, if you're a musician, it's twisty the entire way. Yeah. And it's nice to have extra layers and more things to explore that you weren't expecting. yeah and I I think some of it sort of I think my 40s I'm loving my 40s and partly I think I'm 47 I'm 48 and I just feel like I care a lot less about what people think um which I think is quite a sort of power you know powerful moment definitely uh and I think I've had to do had to let go of some of that as I've you know starting to share more about behind and what I'm finding is people want to know what it's like behind the scenes and the highs and the lows um yeah so it's I'm I'm enjoying it but still have a long way to go and when you were having your babies did you always think that you wanted to be a mother as well what a question yeah it's a question I often ask but I realized we sort of started the story with them already being around but I thought yes I think I always wanted to be a mum I knew I wasn't going to be one of the banana bread making mums um you know although I have made a few and I always knew that it was going to be sitting alongside some work because and when I had my kids you know it wasn't an option for me not to work but I realized I needed it alongside I needed to to whole keep a bit of myself so me feel feeling fulfilled at work made me a better mom uh well I completely relate to that so yeah yeah it's um and I think that's that's how I've yeah that's how I've stayed really I think it's you know I never the balance I don't think there's any such a thing as complete perfect balance but no you keep trying to bring it back into balance but I guess with your your own business versus the more structured predictable if was it a nine to five kind of a world you're doing before no it was nine till nine you know it was very long hours um and quite stressful you know and a sort of sense of it not being in your control because you're accountable to somebody else whereas now the hours are probably even longer um but i can I can sort of shape it around what I need to do.

54:30Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I was going to say you've got a little bit more bounce in it of thinking you can be a bit more reactive can't you to where things fall and would you say you're able to shape it a bit where you think okay this week I think you know I the balance felt a bit off so next week I'll do it a different way. Yeah I think I'm I'm trying to become more conscious of how I'm spending my time I I think some of the worst bits of the being on the phone you know and uh I find that really really tricky and so being on holiday you know being on holiday and you know needing to see what's being posted and being it's having to keep on posting relatively regularly on social media um you know my kids just they're really good at going just they take my phone off me they confiscate your phone yes and they hide it under the sofa you know and I just think oh that's really quite embarrassing that's that's quite telling but I think yeah it's I haven't got that bit right yeah actually I think that's really honest of you because I think that it's hard when when your phone is your whole office and all your connections and also because we can see it's so reactive you can see if you do certain things you're like okay this is a real litmus test of how things are what's right now How are people engaging with that?

55:48Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I think that's quite a... There's elements of what I do that are exactly like that. Yeah, and you... I have an app on my phone that allows me to see my sales on an hourly basis. Oh, that sounds dangerous. It's so dangerous. And so I have this thing now where if I go on holiday, I try and remove all of that off my phone so that I'm not... Because it's so automatic that I open my phone up, look at it. And nothing's going to change from one day to the next or one hour to the next really no but it's such a hard lesson to learn isn't it i'm trying to i think yeah my husband and i have definitely guilty of that sometimes where but like you have to just give like meal times or just give these bits of time that are just like nothing's nothing is so urgent that you need to deal with it right now but it's hard because you care and it's fun it's also really fun i love what it's been designed and i think because of the you know the phones and the apps have been designed to make it really easy and addictive just to keep opening it i've just tried this it's this app that's called minimal phone or something like that anyway and it's it gives you a completely black screen and it's really unengaging and so it just gives you a list of the apps and so there's none of the lovely colorful things and when you go into things it's it tells you how long are you going to spend in this and you have to press five or ten minutes and then when you've done that it goes do you are you sure you know your time's up so it makes you much more it adds those little sort of safety not safety nets but you know those wow that's probably something it's quite hardcore it's really annoying though when you do need to get into it and and for a bit longer but it it does you know it's one of many things that kind of helps that's a good way to keep your mind a bit healthier i guess yeah maybe i should have a look at something like that the thing is that you have to kind of want to do that don't you i'm like i'm the sort of person that likes playing those stupid little games as well so i like doing things simultaneously like watching a film and oh my gosh which ones what's your favorite one what games yeah um at the moment i'm playing this one i don't even know why it's so addictive it's um it's this game where you've got these this is really square you've got these little numbers and you slide them together and they double up each time you slide them and you're trying to get up to I think it's 2048 I've never got there at the closest I've got is half that but it fills up like a like a little I don't know what it is maybe five by five square or something and it's probably quite satisfying right so it's really fun I always think it's a little bit like a jacuzzi for your brain you know when you're you're just being able to switch it off and do something completely different I still quite like Wodoku but I keep on having to delete it off my phone did you ever do anything like puzzles and things like that as well like jigsaws and stuff like that quite like those kind of things as well sometimes actual actual jigsaws yeah or lego or no in real life no but it sounds quite wholesome doesn't it it does but then sometimes i'll like god maybe if there's one on like if i'm on holiday and they've got one in the place for staying i'll do it and at the end of it i'm like what was the point what was the point it's just a picture it's in the ages of it together it's just a picture yeah i guess there's some sort of logic that you've relaxed in some way but maybe not even but then my family would say i've lost my temper so acutely the two times that one of the kids when they were little knocked the puzzle off the table it's like something it's like a violence that's occurred to me when that's happened it was mine um this is a little bit kind of back to what we're talking about but when you were talking before we start recording you told me that your husband is in the guinness book of record the world record for a really unique reason and i wondered if you thought about somehow involving that with your dragon's den pitch because i thought they would never have seen it so first all would you mind sharing what the world record is he'll be so proud i mean he's had enough limelight on his uh so he he grew up in canada so he uh did a lot of skiing and so he saw that a few years ago this guy won fastest marathon run in ski boots and he he spotted it and he was like i think i can beat that and it was something like six hours and he was like i think i can do it in like five hours or something um and so he trained all around the parks and and he did it so he was in the Guinness World Book of Records for doing that.

1:00:24Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So how fast did he do it? He did it in, I know this should be engraved on my memory, but it really isn't. It's like five and a half hours, something like that. Wow. I'd be happy if I just ran a marathon in that time, let alone wearing ski boots. And it must just, you know, he, it must kind of damage your, you know, because they're so heavy, right? You should just think about it. And, um, yeah. You could have him on Dragon's Den wearing them and then reveal that you've filled the inside with your sponges to make them extra country yeah I mean that I don't know if that would have made it even more stressful walking in but but that's the sort of thing they like don't they they're sort of complete unexpected they do but how nice to have a a happy story to come out of Dragon's Den and well done because I do think it looks really terrifying and the only parallel I have is actually the shared experience I had with Deborah of dancing a Paso Doble where there's no double takes and you're doing it live and you've gone over it in your head but you're thinking I don't know what I'm doing it comes back in a blur but um can you still watch um strictly or does it still sort of make you feel a bit I've got over the trauma now there was a good like probably up to a decade of watching it and thinking can you watch people other people do dragons no I can't watch it I can't I can't watch myself back I don't like listening to myself it's always hard isn't it I'm not programmed to like that no and I just think you know you always just want you know if I had said that then that would have been a bit different so I can't yeah and I know you've spoken a lot about your wishes for sleep and your your joy at having these sponges and how they actually have done exactly what you set out to do but are there what's the the dream of what happens next there's so many things I'd love to happen next um so my dream is that we are the kind of famous brand out there that when people think um cleaning essentials that they don't think oh my gosh what a boring what a boring category and that people don't think of those horrible green and yellow sponges anymore but they think kind of lovely lovely products next to their sink and we've got so we have our sponge scour which is our equivalent of that but we've got these sponge cloths that are really absorbent we print lots of pretty things on them and so that's what i i want us to be associated with kind of feel good vibes at the sink and that um yeah that we we leave some sort of legacy and so yeah we want to be in 10 million homes um by 2035 which has obviously a big impact in terms of sort of plastic waste as well.

1:03:04And then once we've done that, I'll probably be what, my mid fifties. I'd love, you know, to have a bit of a rest maybe and be able to back, you know, the next generation of female founders coming through. That would be the dream.

1:03:21Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Oh, I think that's lovely. And I like the idea of leaving it on feel good vibes at the sink. That sounds nice. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much for having me. No, my pleasure. It's been lovely to talk to you and we should go and compare apps now, gaming apps.

1:03:43Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Ah, thank you, Laura. Firstly, I did download that game that she told me about. But also, here's to her with her ambition and with being in, what does she say, 10 million homes by 2035. I think you've got to have big goals right and I suppose if you're building something that means a lot to you um yeah you've got to have that drive really and it's quite a full circle moment isn't it that she you know she's she's made something good come out of a time that was obviously very scary and I suppose it's interesting how these things come along and just completely pivot your life and you suddenly have to rethink so many aspects but I'm very impressed with Laura and her ability to turn something as scary as a cancer diagnosis into something that benefits not only her household but other households too so cheers to that um I also quite like the idea of the teenagers hiding her phone I thought that was funny I'm sure my kids have told me sometimes I I'm actually well as I said to Laura I have such a problem with playing little games so sometimes when I'm watching a program with them I'll be also playing a little game on my phone and they a lovely chat and as you know I'm always always happy to speak to female founded company bosses because I find it such an interesting world and I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the entrepreneurial thing I think it's because it's about risk but also about drive and I like hearing how people have just taken the plunge and gone for something I mean look one life right um anyway I am still squirreled away upstairs I think it's time I go back downstairs I've taken a pause from peeling potatoes and peeling carrots to come and speak to you and Richard has bought me a little microphone plug-in thing so that when I do my intro outro I can actually do it a bit more professionally but um this time I didn't use it so let's see if this is the last time you have to suffer my iPhone microphone as the quality of my intro outro and I'm sorry about that I don't know it I think it's a psychological thing I just like being casual you know i'd like to be able to just squirrel myself away hop up here press record off we go i have a new podcast i'm recording tomorrow uh we have how many left in the series so laura three more to go and some is it three or four oh golly my brain anyway not very many less than a handful so we're sort of i will be taking you by the hand towards december with my guests week by week and thank you so much to Laura.

1:06:20Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Thank you to Deborah Meaden for sharing with me how impressive Laura is, because it was a joy to talk to her. And actually, Deborah is pretty impressive woman herself. Here's to Claire Jones for being an excellent producer of the podcast. To Richard for being such a, not just a great editor, but also a very patient editor, because I always hand my homework in on a Sunday. And thank you to Ella Mae for the lovely artwork. Me and my funny little green felt outfit are going to go back downstairs and get ready for roast beef and have a lovely week and I will see you next week with another guest thank you take care bye bye

1:07:35We'll see you next time.

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