Holly Bennett (Moore): Rubbing shoulders with De Niro and Kylie and living with OCD

0:00Welcome everyone to The Naked Founder on location of the business podcast where nothing is hidden. And this episode of The Naked Founder is sponsored by Financial, the home of money for women. Our guest today is Holly Moore, CEO and founder of Make Events. She's worked with some of the biggest names in the world of celebrity and business, including Robert De Niro. So meeting me will be a right climb down. But Holly is also one of the hardest working and honest founders that I've ever met. She's bravely opened up about her battles with mental illness. So it's a big welcome to you, Holly. Hello.

0:31Listen, it's lovely to be here. We always start every episode of the Naked Founder podcast with the same question. What didn't they tell you about founding a business that you'd wish you'd known at the start?

0:40Holly Moore:Do you know what? I was just thinking about this. It's not a very deep answer, Chris, but I remember that the month that I started Make Events, my sister, her husband and kids had all moved to America, which was a permanent move. And one of the drivers was, I'll be able to spend more time in America and see my sister because I was literally bereft when she left. and that hasn't happened at all because you can't take that much time out of the business and even if I said to myself oh I'll go and work from there for a few weeks it wouldn't work so it's not a very deep answer in terms of like business but actually that's something on reflection that I thought would be part of my life and sadly hasn't been able to be over the last 14 years.

1:18I think one of the things with founding a business is your perception before

1:21Holly Moore:you do it is that you'll fit your work around your life but the reality is it's all consuming. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and that's the experience of all the founders we've interviewed. Right, okay. So the Naked Founder podcast, basically nothing is hidden, so we dig a bit deeper. Yeah. So I'm going to talk to you about something very, very personal in your life as well. Yeah. So you've opened up about your battles with OCD. Yeah. More recently, you were diagnosed with ADHD, but it's your battles with OCD, which were really bad between about 2005 and 2011. Yeah, yeah. You've had a couple of relapses since, but at one point, and you did a national interview about it yeah at one point you spoke about the fact that you contacted a psychiatric hospital for help so just explain that ocd how it manifested itself and how you've learned to live with it yeah so um i think you know anyone that's heard me speak before will know i am really passionate about the way that ocd is like represented in the media which is in the main incorrect that said very recently i've seen a lot on tiktok and i can imagine that anyone that doesn't and understand OCD would think that the stories going out on TikTok are clickbait and they absolutely aren't actually it's the most realistic place that I've seen it portrayed in recent years so just to be really clear like there is a massive with any mental illness spectrum of you know A to Z in terms of what it what it is but in the main obsessive compulsive disorder is an obsession with a thought so it's an intrusive thought that is in complete opposition to the person's personality so let's say a normal person with a normally functioning brain would have a split second of thought like my mum and dad have just gone out in the car they're going to what if they had a car accident and die and it will be a thought that you might have that wouldn't even like literally register but with someone with OCD it will then get stuck and it will become reality so basically you would renumerate on that thought like 24 7 but then the thought would spike other thoughts and then the compulsive bit is you would then um for you would start to perform compulsions to either cancel out the thought and prove the thought isn't going to happen and so you almost have magical thinking like you can control that and other things would be and sometimes i find it like it can be quite triggering for people to hear but the thoughts can take the form of like religious and blasphemous thoughts sexual thoughts thoughts about harm the reason it gets linked to cleaning and hygiene is like um worry about getting ill contamination but like in the absolute extreme like for example brianie gordon who's like a famous author um one of her obsessions was she was absolutely convinced as a kid she had aids and she was going to give that to somebody but you genuinely believe it it's just that it's the weirdest weirdest illness um and so yeah so your thoughts can span from from all these horrendous thoughts which are in opposition to your to your character and the kind of ocd that i had was called puro and that what that means is i never had the compulsions so i never did the checking the cleaning uh to cancel out any thoughts mine was all remuneration so how mine manifested was i was continually you would like literally play back scenarios from your earliest memory to prove or disprove your thoughts were real or not and the other thing that you do with your kind of compulsion with my kind of OCD is reassurance so you would constantly talk to those close to you about all these different scenarios and to try and get some relief but the relief never comes because as soon as somebody gives you a reason for why your thoughts are not true you would then try and interpret those thoughts and it is honestly like all consuming having been ocd free with the odd blip as you as you say um for so long now the twice that i've relapsed in the last 15 years it's like an alternative universe it's like you go down this tornado and everything that you believe to be true an hour ago you don't and it's like when you go into it it's like oh god for all these years it was never OCD actually the thoughts were true um everybody's been tricking me for 15 years actually this is how I feel is it like living with a a disobedient chimp on your shoulder in a sense that it can lie dormant for quite a long period of time yes but you know it's there yes so I have to be like super mindful of it so I you know um yeah I have to be really really mindful of it I I still see my psychologist now because if I ever have any sort of major life events coming up or decisions to make, that would be when OCD can find a window.

6:06Holly Moore:So it will either look for when you're really happy and try and find a window to ruin it or it'll look for when you're really stressed. And that's when it will creep in because you've maybe not doing best practice. probably like the worst example i can give you and it's not actually the worst but to just give it context of how absolutely terrifying it could be and this is documented nationally you know i'm not i'm not saying this from from any place than like utter truth it would be say a woman that has um wanted a child all her life has a baby and has a fleeting thought of oh there's a knife there what like oh i hope i don't yeah yeah then they would convince themselves that they're going to kill their baby and they absolutely wouldn't they would be the least person to do that but the thought is like it's like daily torture um and so then that's why somebody might clean the house from top to bottom check the switches it's like um a cancellation method to the i think holly i think a lot of people will listen to this and watch this and i think in the back of their mind they'll think I know what she's talking about even if I don't want to admit it themselves I mean I can almost hear my mum and dad you know different generation it would be pull yourself together you know and I 100 % get that and my mum and dad are great and and I I people talk about like oh you've got a bit of OCD yeah I'm like a typical dad who checks that front door is locked yeah five times even though I know it's locked just in case I haven't locked it yeah and then forgive myself yeah and i have to like right i'm going upstairs now lock that door now that i would say is at one end of the ocd spectrum other people who have to line the towels up straight that's at one end of what most people see as the ocd spectrum but it added debilitating effect on your life so you launched make events in 2012 how do you launch a business whilst at the same time having these demons so that well to be honest at that point i'd been ocd free for a year which was the trigger so what happened was I would have so I got OCD free like it was early 2011 and honestly like genuinely Chris I looked back at my whole life and I was like oh I've actually had this to some degree my whole life and not realized like the you know it was an undercurrent and then it was triggered obviously in 2006 and so because of the amount of therapy that I went through to become OCD free and it was intense when I started to feel well it was like the blinkers had come off and I was like oh my god like I've actually rewired my brain so then at that point I was like well if I can do that I can do anything anything is possible and I'd been in my job at AstraZeneca for like I think five years at that point and I was a people-pleaser I was a yes person I was I always worked like I do now because I wanted to be the best and get everything done but I wasn't being rewarded for that and so I think I almost got this like new lease of life and confidence after I was um became OCD free and so I handed my notice in AstraZeneca with no job to go to um just to test out like the market and you know did I think I could do something on my own I'd never contemplated that before at all and then within a year um set up me because I saw a niche in the market and I think it was like I felt like I'd lost five years of my life um like you've been in prison or something yeah and also like looking back things like not going to university and not going for certain jobs was all OCD related and you know mental health wasn't talked about then and I always remember like I got the opportunity to go to university and it terrified me because it made me feel unanchored even though I'm like confident and you know the thought of leaving macclesfield um because i got after a really good job in bournemouth i couldn't i couldn't picture leaving this anchor and when i look back now that was the start of it but it didn't manifest until many years later so i yeah i felt like i'd lost loads of opportunity a lot of people struggle to leave macclesfield holly you're not alone you're not alone so you i think people watching the video now and hearing you would say holly look like you're in a good place personally being professionally seemed to be in a good place i know when you're at your absolute low point you contacted the psychiatric hospital and asked to be admitted didn't you yeah so i thought yeah i was like in a five-year battle i'd started off at the priory um who were absolutely amazing and you know i am privileged i was working for astrazeneca i got private health care they were brilliant and they wanted to get me on this particular kind of um therapy and the therapy to me was terrifying because it is facing worse fears so i just left i mean i was not in a good place at all at that point no one would know you know he's drinking too much I was running away it was horrible so for like three years I was trying all these alternative therapies and they sent me in some weird directions at times um and then um it got to New Year's Eve 2010 and I genuinely did not go to sleep that night I was literally sat at the radiator like rocking like I couldn't get it you know the thing with it the terror that you feel with it I'm literally in a cold sweat and feel sick I'm like feel I can't go on anymore and I remember ringing my friend and saying can you just meet me somewhere I don't know what to do and then that day which was New Year's Day I phoned the Priory and said I think you need to admit me um because I cannot carry on like this it and it was genuinely like I've got to give this therapy a stab or I don't know what I'll do and um they luckily accepted me back in they had to see what I've been doing for three years because I can't taking a patient without seeing what other alternatives they've explored and then got into this program of therapy after that but it was literally like joke I wouldn't ever say like it there's three times across the whole thing I can remember having suicidal thoughts but they were very much it you know they were isolated in the moment and they weren't continually and I think as soon as I recognized them I would do something about it yeah and I think watching you and knowing you for a long period of time certainly since you started you know make events is that people on the outside wouldn't realize this oh no and i think the reason we do the naked founder podcast is there's people out there who will really relate to you some people won't but some people will relate to it okay so let's talk about now let's talk about the today yeah um well actually let's talk about the start of make events what problem are you trying to fix what was the why was your event business going to be different well all that so i used to see all these like glamorous events and parties because it was a different industry type at that point and and there was just a bit of a rumble within the Manchester community that a lot of the female event planners were like ball breakers like you know all these different things like I didn't hear great things but then I looked at their events and I was like oh my god they look amazing and they get these amazing clients so I just thought what if I could work hard be nice and have a great company and the other thing that I spotted was I felt at the time you could always tell who the planner was on the event like oh that's a certain style and I know who did that and I wanted ours to be about it's about the client not the the event designer so that was the niche and I think I remember my dad saying to me you know why don't you just make yourself available because nobody's ever known you to be in a capacity where you could do an event direct for them because it always work for people and I thought you know what have I got to lose and I think the thing was because I did the gear freelance which I would recommend on my own you know when I was literally earning I earned 18k that year I mean I know it's 14 years ago it's not loads and um so I I'd kind of what's the word I'd I'd I'd lost that security anyway so it was kind of like well you weren't given a hundred thousand pound job yeah exactly yeah and even when I left AZ I think I was on like 30k like i wasn't so i didn't have loads that i had to lose really there's a great phrase the harder you work the luckier you become okay so when you launched make make a bench you went around venue to venue in manchester giving out your business card i did yes well remembered and then i think i got one of those business cards actually okay click those items and then that led to an unlikely call at the very start of your business from fred doan co-founder of betfred billionaire multiple investor he needed somebody to handle his 70th birthday yeah and I've interviewed Fred and Fred's always said it's the person he goes for the person you've got the phone call can you do Fred down 70s birthday what did you think well at first because I was so green I didn't actually know who Fred was he does know this because I wasn't in that I'd been in a bubble at AstraZeneca so I when I went for the stupidly really when I went for the meeting I didn't know who I was meeting um and and then obviously i pulled up at his house and was like oh this is like somebody and it goes back to the thing about the niche this is the really random thing so he'd gone to the lowry and been recommended an event planner and this event planner had dealt with his daughter not knowing who she was over another matter and was really rude to her so he'd said no i won't work with that person um and then the lowry said well we do know this girl that's just set up you could use her but we can't vouch for so back like unwittingly back to the reason I thought I'd start up was like I'd heard sort of bad things about the way that people operated that was the reason he wouldn't use this particular company so he gave me a chance and I honestly I literally remember it clear as day you know he basically said don't f it up so he basically said I'm going to give you a chance don't f it up keep everything top secret and then after you've done the event you can say what you like and still to this day now when i do anything for him or the family you know it is with the utmost discretion um so did you have alfie bow yeah alfie bow yeah um and actually looking back that's the smallest event i've done for him now but at the time i was like oh my god and i remember when we met i think the fact that he'd used me over all the glamorous party planners event planners he could have done that had a track track record in manchester gave me like a springboard because people like oh well if fred's using her she must be good um and then obviously i got through into insider 4242 at the time um so it became a really it was just the best testimonial for me really yeah so so you went from that and that became the springboard and you've worked with some amazing clients you work with castor matillion co-op represent four of the biggest well for the biggest national names certainly here in the north and you've worked with celebrities like robert de niro kylie minogue gary barlow i saw a picture on your linkedin recently with anthony joshua um oh yes i didn't meet him but yes we did just work with him yeah yeah i mean you must have a few stories you can tell about the celebrities you've worked with um i can tell you that mcfly have pineapple on the nandos that is something i'm allowed to share that might ruin their career i know yeah it was very unusual um do you know what everyone has been super nice that we've worked with some of people obviously more friendlier than others because some people a bit more guarded um we always say we should write a book of riders which is basically what they request in their dressing room um everyone has been really nice to work with and sometimes the agents are actually the more tricky because they're really protective of the talent um but you forget how privileged you are really um you know in terms of our day-to-day we get to meet these amazing people i think everyone said when robert de niro came to manchester for the launch of the hotel brand, that he was the nicest person ever and that I heard a whisper that he likes two teabags in his cup.

17:42Holly Moore:Chamomile. Chamomile. But what was it? So that job came through Fred, interestingly. So you think 14 years later, you know, these relationships are so important. But it was really funny because after, I think I said to you, he was so humble and just like this little man, like walking around just being so nice to everybody and telling us Manchester was cold. Me and my partner actually had to re-watch a Robert De Niro film because he was so different, which makes you realise what an amazing, almost like method actor he is. Do you ever get a point where you're in a room with, and I don't think you're somebody who gets starstruck, I'm not.

18:16Holly Moore:Yeah. I think people have got two legs and two arms. They're not nurses, they're brain surgeons. But do you ever pinch yourself and say, wow, that's such and such? Only Kylie, but you know that story because Kylie's literally my hero. So I was starstruck, but she, again, was literally so, so nice. She put me at ease. So, yeah, she was brilliant. What did she say to you? Oh, well, I'd snuck in my scrapbooks from when I was, like, 12 to sign, and she'd seen them in the dressing room in the day, so she'd sent a message to say, we want Holly to be backstage with us before we go on, because I think she'd realised how much that would mean to me.

18:53Holly Moore:And basically, I think the scrapbook was something like, oh let's say it was 1990 kylie scrapbook 1990 she signed it and i remember saying to me holly and kylie 2016 i was like oh my gosh yeah she was just lovely yeah i'm i'm the generation that remembers neighbors and the kylie and yeah the kylie and jason donovan era and uh the posters it's a part of my childhood that i don't regret um i've hosted three and a half thousand events i think over my career never been asked to host i worked for the same client twice but um no i have i have um twice probably um but but i'm always conscious that every event is different you can't cut corners i do my prep all the time and and i always think to myself something will go wrong on the day it always does but if you don't need prep you know you can't avoid it you just ride with it when you're dealing with these high profile these really successful businesses and people as well you know that they're entrusting you with this really precious thing that comes with pressure.

19:56How does that sit with you?

19:58Holly Moore:I think you've got to, within an event, have everybody in the team in the right skill set. So what we call the show is like the live, whatever's happening on the screens, and behind that is a multitude of people. So we obviously have all the tech, but then we have a show caller, a show producer, auto queue, all of that. That would terrify me. I can't do that bit of the job. Yeah, the bits with the big decks with the knobs on the stuff and the controls. Yeah, like literally, if you press the wrong button, or, you know, the wrong thing's going up. So I know that's not my sweet spot, but I've got really good team members that are.

20:36Holly Moore:I'll still be nervous until the last slide goes up, but I'm not responsible for that. So I think it's just about really good team around you. Tech is obviously the one. I mean, even with the NoBoot event, I won't say something happened behind the scenes where it was like touch and go, because we were in a tunnel for this event with no power water whatever um it's for me it's about having the right people yeah the right people in the right roles and learning every single time when something goes wrong that gosh we need a plan b for that on the next event yeah yeah the thing is you learn something from every event oh each one i only had once in the three and a half thousand events i did an event and i thought well i won't need to speak to everyone beforehand and do all this etc etc and then something goes wrong and then in your mind your mind thinking doom scenario and you're thinking I'm not prepped for this and I thought I will never ever make that mistake again and being a founder is a lonely business what sort of founder are you Holly what do you mean well in terms of what's your sort of personality in terms of you know obviously you run the business you founded the business are you very much a hands-on are you much a you know hands-off you know delegate are you somebody who if it was you'd be would you be in the you know the firing line at the very beginning on the front line how would you describe your approach i think so i think people have said over the years you know i find it hard to let go find it hard to delegate and i actually would disagree with that i find it i would love to be able to delegate as much as possible but i do have really high standards so you know I you know the team being like totally honest like we'll say sometimes I'm intolerant like you know I'm abrupt things I don't perceive myself to be but I've got to listen to them so I think that I my absolute passion is client excellence I believe that because we get paid for time literally like any other marketing agency we have day rates we're paid for time So my passion is that we do everything efficiently, quickly because clients pay for that time.

22:43Holly Moore:We over communicate. We are just excellent to the client. And when I don't feel that's happening, that's when I struggle. And what that then means sometimes is I will put the team behind that, which doesn't always work as a leader. like because for me it's like well the client is the most important so sometimes I'll put that before the team which I'm not saying is the right thing to do by the way um so I am about really high I think I am about really high standards in terms of our service but then also what goes on site and I think the thing is as you grow you can't see all of that so like I um yeah it'd be interesting to know what people I am I'm hands-on in the I mean I produced three events last year which I hadn't done for ages.

23:33Holly Moore:They just came in and we were at capacity. So I was like, I'll do them. And I actually really, really enjoyed that because I hadn't done it for years. And as in like owned a job from start to finish. But there's no need, like I was saying to you this week, we've got two events this week. I haven't touched them. You know, I won't be on site. I don't know the ins and outs because I've got to trust the team to do those. You've got 22 people in the business. Tell us about the 5am club. Yes. Well, it started in... I've always kind of been an early riser because when I started going to the gym, I hate working out at night, so I had to make it work before work.

24:10Holly Moore:And then in lockdown, you know my great friend Lily Shippen, we were drinking way too much wine every night and we were both isolating on our own. Lily, as I blame her mother. Her mother, yeah, she's a bad influence. We love Jo Shippen. Yeah, we do love Jo. But, yeah, we were drinking too much wine, we were on Zooms, and then we were like, we need to sort ourselves out so we decided to do the 5am club where we'd set our alarm at five every day check in with each other and then like train or walk or whatever we were doing and actually like I love that time of day and I genuinely don't I mean I've not even got kids but I don't know how people fit it all in so between five and nine I will get done as best I can my gym my steps you know just a bit of like time to myself then I don't care so much if my day runs over because I've got nothing else I need to do yeah would you and I think I know the answer would you describe yourself as a workaholic uh yeah I would have it's a bit of a funny one it's not that I want to be if that makes sense but back to the thing I won't let the client down and also I do think I don't know if you feel this as a founder I probably live in a constant state of fear because really we're not a product space business so Matthew Scullion who I know is going to be on the podcast from Matillion the way he put it to me and it was really interesting was you basically start your year with a clean basically a clear slate as in we don't have particularly reoccur anything reoccurring and even if we do have reoccurring contracts if somebody doesn't hit their target for sales incentive or they need to cut budget because they haven't done that well the first thing to go will be events so you are in a con like turning down an opportunity is really really hard so I that would be why I'd be doing long hours not necessarily because I want to does that make sense yeah and I think a lot of founders can relate to that as well and you know I I'm a founder and I I look at it and I think like people say you need to switch off and I say the problem is is that I can't switch off if I know there's something that needs my time yeah but then what you do is you don't want to hide behind that work yeah and say hey I've got to work at the at the at the sacrifice of other things in your life yeah um but if i think something's got to be done that causes me more issues than me sitting down and doing it um so and i don't think that ever changed my wife will say i've always been the same yeah and we've been together about 30 plus years so i don't think i'm going to change you go make events into a multi-million pound business and i'm pretty sure you've bootstrapped all the way and i get the impression that you're somebody who looks forward instead of back but do you ever look back and say tell you what holly you've not done bad here you should be proud of yourself oh yeah i do yeah i mean we don't i don't think anybody does that enough do they and i don't think we sometimes have time and actually going back to what you asked at the beginning about you know time off i've really not had loads of time off in even the whole 14 years and when i actually look back i didn't even go to uni i never traveled I've never had a baby so basically I've just literally grafted you know since I left school so actually I think what's going to be interesting I'm about to get married I'll probably be married by the time this comes out we're actually having five weeks off work and go on holiday for three and a half weeks which I have just never done ever so actually that might be the time that I actually sit back and go oh you know I think when we bought our house last year that was that was basically one of the reasons I started the business like I always wanted a house with a door in the middle so silly really so um yeah the door in the middle you know like you would draw at school

27:51Holly Moore:so yeah no i am proud i am proud of myself but you're probably hard on yourself more than you're proud of yourself yeah but i get i i get that you know and i think um um i i uh but you don't wear the workaholic status as a badge of honor but if you are a perfectionist and ultimately i always say and i've always said this throughout my career i always say think of the reader reading the story or think of the person who gets up in the morning to attend your event yeah do they walk out of that room having been completely satisfied or having read that story because if you've made a mistake when you spelt somebody's name wrong because you were slovenly that's inexcusable so setting high standards isn't at fault um covid decimated the events business i do a lot of events and i think at the beginning of march i had like a whole year's worth of events and in the space of a day everybody messes me to say we're gonna have to cancel it's going to cancel this and i'll be honest with you for about a minute i panicked and then i thought actually everyone's in the same boat yeah what was your experience yeah that the same really i think um it's weird because when we've had challenging times since because the economy's been so up and down i've actually found that harder because you felt like in covid everyone was in the same boat so okay you weren't obviously generating revenue but um everyone else was the same and actually like i do look back and think the isolation piece was really hard for me because it was on my own but then when we could come back into it because we started doing the boxes and everything it was just a time Tell us about the boxing.

29:26Holly Moore:Oh, yeah. Literally, we started doing like everyone did, like the gifting. And actually, it's funny because I posted this the other day. So we started, we did our own campaign and we, I can't remember what we called it, but we basically sent clients and prospects this box and we did like tissue paper in it that looked like a picnic rug. We did like all party stuff for the garden, like super fun. Obviously an investment because we weren't making any money, but we sent that out. And that really kept us going. And weirdly, we did some Tories big employee engagement conference last week. and I remember that was the one with Anthony Joshua.

29:58Holly Moore:That started with a box. I sent my friend that worked at LucasAid at the time a box in lockdown and that led to then a relationship of delivering some Tories events. So actually at the time it was a huge investment but it was just something different that we did. That's about standing out from the crowd though, isn't it? Yeah, and we did a lot of that. We actually got the cover of Insider. We did a whole pivot campaign. We did a TV show. So for me looking back it was a really nice time because we were so creative and actually you know we had got good reserve funds so I did spend a lot on marketing because I'd read a book the 10x factor by Grant I think it's called Grant Cardone years ago and it had this um thing about when you know when the economy's going down or when there's something bad happening or the chips are down in your industry the people that win are the ones that do more rather than do less so that's the philosophy I went with I was like sod it you let's go for it with the marketing.

30:53Holly Moore:And that's what we did, and we came out really well from it. And it was in a bit, when I look back, it was quite a magical time because there was a few of us in the office. We were having fun as well. That time was actually really nice and really creative, so I look back with fond memories. You talk about putting yourself out there, and even if it goes against the natural grain of things, you post on LinkedIn, as do I a lot. What's your approach and your relationship with social media? Shoot from the hip. Yeah. I just kind of, you know what, I would love to do more, and I really enjoy content creation, and I really enjoy sharing on LinkedIn and Instagram in particular, but don't have a lot of time, so I kind of do it when I remember.

31:37Holly Moore:And I would actually in the future love to do more of that, a bit more strategically. I'm going to do some work around my personal brand in the summer because I'm going to change my name. So for the first time ever, I'm actually thinking... You're going to go from Holly Moore to Holly Bennett? Yes. Yes, which, you know, I think is a lot of women wouldn't want to do that. I just felt like if I kept my name, I wouldn't feel like Holly Bennett, his wife. And I really want to. I don't want to. I want to feel different when I get married. So I've kind of made a personal decision over a work decision.

32:06Holly Moore:And, you know, a few people have said to me, God, you're crazy to change your name. That's what everybody knows you as. But then I thought, well, yeah, but, you know, actually, this is more important to me. So if that means a few people can't find me on LinkedIn, I'm sure if they want to find me, you know, hard enough, they will. So it's the first time I've thought seriously, properly about personal brand. And actually, I'm talking to a few people about it at the moment. I find that quite exciting that that could be, you know, using my platform a little bit more strategically and thoughtfully, I guess.

32:36We've mentioned Joel. Yes. You know, husband to be. And I think by the time a podcast comes out, happy husband. Yes. And that's an interesting story in itself, isn't it? Because I met my wife through work. Yeah. There was a no relationships policy at the time. Yeah. But we became friends, really, and it sort of went from there. Joel comes into the business. Yeah. And you instantly like each other. Yes. Okay. But you know you're the boss.

33:04Holly Moore:Yes. And you're worried about how that will be perceived. Yes. So what happened? So he was booked by one of my team members. Former part-time model. Yes, absolutely. So I thought I wouldn't like him. He was working at an experiential agency, events agency, running experiential campaigns. And he was also doing extra freelance work. So somebody that worked here knew him, booked him on this event. And it was actually a private event because I do some private events, as you know. So, yeah, I heard he was on this event. I thought, oh, he's a model. He's going to be an idiot. And turned up at work, obviously thinking nothing we just got on straight away and then I didn't see him for a few months and then again one of the team members booked him pre-covid I was actually even away when he first started working here um and then back to lockdown being quite a special time that was he was only working here like three weeks up to lockdown um but yeah there was an instant connection but I didn't I think we both didn't think about it because it was like well of course I'm not going to get together with someone that works here and he was like oh she's the boss you You know, it just wasn't.

34:13Holly Moore:And then, yeah, he came back in when we were back in the office and, yeah, nothing either of us were expecting. And, yeah, it was hard because, like, I would never have risked my reputation for something that was flipping or, you know, was going to just not have any legs, if you know what I mean. But we also both didn't know that we would. But, yeah, I think both of us sort of felt... He was really worried about people thinking he was only in the job because of me. I was worried because I thought people would say, oh, she's gone crazy after COVID and lost her head. What's she doing with someone from work?

34:52Holly Moore:But obviously the feelings were strong enough that we kind of ignored what people would say. How long have you been together now? Six years. Six years. And you've never been happier either. Oh, no, yeah. And that's the thing. Ultimately, it's what other people think, you know, and it's a lot bigger. I always use the analogy that when you've had a tooth that's fallen out, in your mind your tongue makes that appear massive yeah to you but nobody else can see it yeah but you make it a massive thing so super happy with him one of your mantras is anything is possible yes so much so that you launched a personal development brand on that theme and a podcast of the same name yes do you genuinely believe holly moore soon to be holly bennett that anything is possible so it's funny you should ask me that because we are going to talk to you about this people were going through changing the name of it at the moment because the interesting thing was that I do believe that in some ways but not now because when I did the last conference which was April 24th.

35:50You had hundreds of people turned up.

35:51Holly Moore:Yeah 450 people we had mega sponsors it was honestly absolutely amazing and life-changing I nearly two years later still have people message me on a weekly basis saying the conference and the podcast changed their life which is what we wanted to do but I was running make and that and when I delivered the conference on in April 24 I developed this massive we were talking about eyes before um cyst the size of a mini egg in my eye that I had to have removed 10 days before going on stage I also then had a load of other health issues had another operation under general a week later and as soon as I had that after the conference that general was when I had my OCD blip I literally came out of the anesthetic and it was like the like it was I was back there so I realized that I'd hit probably for the first time ever burnout you'd overdone it yeah completely so my mum and dad were worried about me Joel was worried about me so I was like I think I'm going to need to pause it for a while so on reflection was anything is possible well no because it wasn't possible for me to run two businesses I do believe we can make as many things possible as possible but it has given me that pause I still believe the message and the message was anything is possible for you at any age.

37:05Holly Moore:I still believe that you can achieve so much at any age, but I want to just slightly reposition it because actually in the end it all was too much to do it all, if you see what I mean. Yeah, I can. I do see what you mean as well. And the reality is you're not 22 anymore. Yeah. I'm certainly not 22 anymore. And the phrase that I hear a lot, listen to your body, you know, because it's talking to you. Yeah. And actually it's not a badge of honour to be taken into hospital because you've collapsed. You and Joel recently bought a business called the PA Club, which is a network of senior PAs and EAs.

37:39Why did you do that for them? What's your vision?

37:42Holly Moore:Yeah, so Joel's worked in the business since 2020, and genuinely, I think after COVID, I probably would have either wound it down or started something again after COVID because it had been difficult up to COVID. So I would say that he took us into our next phase of growth, and he's like the unsung hero, but like we he was amazing anything joel doesn't do no no um no joke he's he cook yeah yeah and he cleans does he yeah does he take the bin out yeah that's it then that's it yeah i have the pink jobs which are few and he has the blue jobs um yeah so he so basically we'd grown it together but obviously everyone is always going to think of make as me because i'm the founder and he kept saying like I'd love to do something together because we love working together and we took on a chair like 18 months ago and he brought this business to us so it was founded 20 years ago by a couple and he had sadly passed away from COVID in 2021 she sort of wound it down and she was looking to sell because she's at 69 but she really wanted a couple and she really wanted a couple that understood events so the opportunity was brought to us and we'd gone through a bit of a dice a year with the business cancellations it really affects that's what i'm saying you you can think you've got a great year ahead but if somebody's business changes and they cancel the event that massively affects you so we just thought you know what it's another revenue stream also eas and pas are like who we would work with at make anyway and we wanted to branch make into london so it all made sense um so yeah we we did that and we never thought we'd acquire anything so that was really interesting in itself like being on that acquisition side and like the vision is um kind of when we get back from honeymoon we've done a rebrand we want to actually make it much more so joel's quite techie so we want to develop an app whereas it's just like very like a website at the moment and we just want to grow the community but we want to kind of build in the personal development side into it so at the moment it's much more about it's like about venues and you know giving ea's access to different venues and different experiences and we want to bring that educational piece into it as well amazing amazing um last few questions you're a female founder one of your best friends is lily shippen who we mentioned earlier at the top of the show as well how important is it do you think for founders to have networks especially female founders yeah i think um i mean there's differences in it between like your friendship and your network i would say i know a lot of people i would say that i struggle to get out a network as much as I should um I've actually realized so I've not been drinking like the last three months because of um just prepping for the wedding uh and I've realized and this is going to sound awful but how much I used to say yes to and I would say yes and I would have a drink just because the thought of going wasn't inspiring me and I think that it does negatively affect you I just think it is the way it is like I know that at times the business would do better if I was at more openings or more this some of that but at what point do you sacrifice how many hours of the day can you be doing stuff that maybe isn't as aligned to anymore so i have got a really good network i think again does that not come with age oh holly no i think for me maybe but i think for me it's come with realizing like why do i feel the need to have a drink every time i go to something like that there's something that's not right like if I really wanted to go I should be fine with driving and enjoy it and I think yes I know there's a lot you have to do as a business owner that maybe you don't want to do but the hours are long enough anyway and then I'm putting all this on the top of it and it just wasn't it there was something in it that just didn't wasn't sitting right with me that it was just causing habits that I didn't want to have anymore um and um yeah so I think your network is important but I think for me my diary still is absolutely chocker and I sit with my EA and there's nothing I can move out so basically what my kind of plan is for when I do come back and get married is to really try and free that diary and say yes to more because I think so many like inspiring interesting people are always saying to me should we have a coffee should we do this and I'm having to say no and then I feel rude and you know you miss those opportunities and I think as a founder I think I do need to have more space in my diary to be able to make the most of these opportunities because so much comes from those yeah but you don't want 10 coffees a week otherwise you know otherwise you won't sleep at all for different reasons so the last question we always ask holly on the naked founder podcast is there's a tradition in the u.s where the outgoing president will write a letter to his or her successor with advice to the to the successor if you're writing a letter to your successor or to a young holly moore or to a founder at the start of their journey what would you write so probably two things actually one is i've never worked at an events agency before I started make I'd been a client and I'd been a venue and I'd been a supplier but not been an agency so it took me ages to work out how to price properly I figured it all out myself because I didn't have any insight so I would say if you are going to set something up it's probably a good idea to have experienced that business before because I just had to make everything up and then good people because I think you you know at the start you're mindful of salary and you know you haven't got much money but actually like if you bring in one person that you may be paying more and has got more experience than like two that are cheaper but you think you're going to get more work i think bringing in the things that you're not good at at the beginning is really important sage advice as always holly massive thank you to you that's all for this episode of the naked founder podcast thanks for our sponsor financial the home of money for women If you've enjoyed 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43:39That's all for this episode of the Naked Founder podcast.