From Burnout to Building Elevate | Julia Baldet's Founder Story

17:03Julia Baldet:your life anyway no i think you know i didn't have like so much time to think about like the outside life and again because i was spending so much time at work with like people from my classes that then eventually like became my friends yeah it was kind of like this kind of like bubble where even you know if we were going out we would go out with each other and it's just like people from work um so yeah it wasn't that hard in in that regards and you ended up in private equity after a little

17:31Olly Fawcett:while why did you make the move to private equity after having your apprehensions originally

17:35Julia Baldet:so just before moving to private equity i went to a family office right okay um which was essentially doing the same thing because in private equity or like a family office you're on the investment side so what you do is that you review like investment opportunities and like um you then buy like the entirety of the company or just a stake in the company um and for me i always found it like more interesting because then you have this kind of like ownership mentality right where you know you own a piece of the cake or the entire company so you have to make it work because when you're in investment banking you're just on the kind of like consulting side so you work on a project for like maybe eight weeks and then on to the next yeah whereas i think it was like much more interesting to have this ownership mentality where you say okay i'm buying this company now what's the strategy for the next five years to actually make this company grow and make sure we can exit in five years like doing a financial return on that yeah so i always thought it was more interesting um and when i got the opportunity to move to this family office they were focusing on consumer which is and has always been like my passion in terms of industry so So for me, it was like the perfect job.

18:43And I thought, okay, that's it.

18:45Julia Baldet:I found like my place. But then the reason why I moved to private equity is that one of my previous bosses from investment banking moved to this private equity fund. And he poached me. He was like, you need to come. Like, you know, like it's still like, you're still early in your career. Like you should like push yourself a bit more. And, you know, it kind of like worked. So I then like decided to join in.

19:09Olly Fawcett:And did you, was it worth moving?

19:11Julia Baldet:I think it was like I don't regret it um I think you know in terms of lifestyle obviously working in a family office is much better um and it was really tough working in private equity in terms of like um the pressure I ended up like doing a burnout so you know it was like things where I'm like okay that was not like optimal but I'm happy I've done it because it led me it led me to where I am today so in that sense I don't have like any any regrets yeah of course what led to the burnout I think is you know the kind of like constant long hours and I would you know I'm someone that can work this is not like an issue but when you work on a regular basis you don't finish work before 2 or 3 a.m and you know you have to be at the office at 9 a.m then it's like you know you can do that for a while and then it's just your body at some point it's just like giving up um i had like no weekends no holiday i was always like walking around like my laptop my two phones uh just in case you know i i needed to say send something or do something so yeah i think it was just like you know at some point like even if your mind like pushes you to keep going i think my body was just like okay i'm i'm tired and now now is the time to to actually stop it's interesting in

20:31Olly Fawcett:a way that finance and productivity and those industries are the last remaining industries that work in that way even i mean we've spoke to a lot of chefs in hospitality on this show and it's changed massively you know the last five to ten years like that whole industry has shifted for some reason productivity and finance and that world hasn't why do you think that is

20:53Julia Baldet:honestly sometimes i'm just like wondering myself i think now with ai like it's gonna it's gonna to help a lot because there's there were a lot of like tedious tasks that you have to do like you know you get like a database or you know like access to data room where you have like literally thousands of files that you need to to read and you know at the time it sounds like it was like 10 years ago but it was not like at the time you couldn't like you know upload everything into chat

21:17Olly Fawcett:gpt or cloud and you know it's mad that that didn't exist exactly and now i'm like oh how are we doing

21:23Julia Baldet:before and like we would go like manually like to kind of like do all this kind of like tedious task and just kind of also spend a lot of time you know working on like the financial models like making assumptions because you know like one small assumption that seems like nothing can just create like drastically like different results when it comes to like you know we can talk about like different like what assumption can lead to a difference in terms of like billions so that's kind of like really important to spend time and and i think there are also a lot of like stakeholders involved so you have a lot of like things to coordinate but it's true like sometimes I'm just like wondering why it's kind of like the only industry where that keeps like working like that but I genuinely believe that now with AI it's going to get like much better for especially

22:10Olly Fawcett:for junior do you think it's the money that keeps that industry in that way yeah of course is that is that like I've never spent I've never had a job right so I've started a business from college and that was it I had a couple of Saturday jobs but I've never been employed so I don't really know what that feels like I've obviously got clients who like bosses sometimes but outside of that not really experienced it and I've got friends who've done private equity and finance and obviously some some people I know within within the work world it seems that for me because the money is so big that's why people put themselves through hell sometimes in order to get through that I just can't work out why else you would in that makes sense that the job satisfaction piece which could be another reason doesn't feel as high as as a parameter um and in a way the career progression piece also doesn't feel like a reason to do do you know what I mean it's like I've always wondered why that is the case in that industry and it feels like money is the only reason

23:06Julia Baldet:I don't disagree with you because I think also like one of the reasons why I stayed for you know six seven years is was was the money so as mentioned I had like a student loan to pay so once that was repaid like we could say oh i could just like move on with my life and do something else but it's just like you know you you kind of like get used to the lifestyle and to the salary that you're getting um and there's also this mentality and like a lot of my friends are still thinking like that where they're like okay i'm waiting for the next bonus and then i will live

23:39Olly Fawcett:this is a thing isn't it people get that in the is it called the bonus trap or like the bonus Yeah, exactly.

23:43Julia Baldet:And it's just this you're waiting where you're just like, oh, it's like three months away so I can wait. So then you wait and then you're like, oh, that's like really nice to have 100k, you know, eating my bank account like that. And you kind of like forget like all the misery you've been through to go there, isn't it?

24:01Olly Fawcett:And I guess the question for you, which probably led you to make the decision to leave is, is the money worth it?

24:08Julia Baldet:I don't think any amount of money is worth. Really? your self-fulfillment and personal satisfaction. I think I was so miserable that for me, no amount of money could have made a difference. Because as we were discussing before, you could have given me 5 million on my bank account if you don't have time to actually use it and enjoy it. What's the point? You know what I mean? I was just working so hard, working 18 hours a day. no holidays um just feeling like miserable what's what's the point to life if it's just like uh

24:48Olly Fawcett:being trapped in completely was it a conversation you had with yourself or did other people around

24:53Julia Baldet:you start to address it with you so i think you know it's something that started like pretty early when you start working in finance you realize i think maybe after like two three years maybe you know everyone realizes okay like it can't be like a forever job um and obviously like people around me like my family my friends uh my fiance they would be all like what are you doing

25:17Olly Fawcett:like you know what i mean like so you both get married and still had this job yeah i mean no i

25:22Julia Baldet:mean i was with my fiance now fiance but it was like my my boyfriend at the time um but everyone was wondering like what what is wrong with you you keep complaining but you don't change anything about like your situation but that was exactly because of this kind of like bonus trap and this thing of thinking oh maybe it's gonna get better because it's always kind of like you're working really hard for like maybe six months and then you know it gets quiet for like one month and you're like oh i just forgot about like everything that happened before um so i think you know it was a lot of like for years like my family was like this is not normal you're not acting like a normal person to carry around your laptop like on a hike on a family hike like on the 15th of August you know what I mean like my parents and my family like they have like they compiled like um a photo album of me working in like the most random situations on like family holidays so it's just like came to that point where I was working like you know on a hike at a concert like really random things where you know now I'm like of course it's not normal but when you're in it and everybody around you is doing the same thing and accepting the same thing you just kind of like lose track of like what's normal or or not because it really becomes the norm in the industry and this is also what's expected from you and i would see you know like senior partners that would be working with that are you know 45 50 55 they would still like call me at like you know on a saturday night um at 10 p.m they would call me to just like saying oh i've been thinking about this we should run the analysis this way i'm like i'm trying to have a life like you know wife kids like things to do so i think it's just like no one can actually really escape that and it's just like when you stay into this mentality it's just like the way you end up like being did you struggle to listen to the people around you at the time yes it was really hard um because again also i think i have this this thing where you know if i set my mind to something and i start doing something i'm like no I'm gonna do it and I want to prove to myself that I can do it I want to prove it to other people and I don't want to be weak and just like give up so I think that was also part of you know me not letting go at first because I was really set on on on doing it and just like deciding deciding on on my own terms of you know I decide if I'm gonna quit or not and for me I was I think I was still not at the right place to say okay now it's time to stop and actually launch my own

27:53Olly Fawcett:business it sounds very similar to what I experienced sometimes in terms of like a lot of people give me advice and you know questions and I've met some amazing people over my career that like I would always listen to because of a very simple reason that I've kind of lived by this way of, I struggle to listen to unqualified opinions, right? And that's always been a real big thing for me is like, if your friends or your family or those really close to you or whoever it is, is giving you an opinion that this is wrong. I struggle sometimes when I'm like, but you don't know, like you aren't in this.

28:31Olly Fawcett:But when someone who is qualified gives me opinion, I feel like I listen to that a lot more. But I guess it's hard because to your point, people can see a different side of you very quickly that you cannot have any awareness of at that point does that kind of connect with what you're experiencing yeah you experienced 100 and i don't know if that was about

28:49Julia Baldet:like unqualified opinion because also some friends that i had like you know back in paris yeah we're working in finance and they were like listen i'm telling you this as a friend like you should like either change jobs or find like another like company but yeah you know even for them they were like this is a lot um but yeah I think it was just this kind of like also I think it's really hard to like quit something if you don't have like an idea you know of like what I'm gonna do next and I think because I never took the time to just like think about like what I liked or you know what I wanted to do because I was always kind of like didn't have time no exactly or going with the flow of like oh finance is prestigious so I'm gonna do that I never had the time to just like really think okay what it is that i want to do with my life and i think that's also why it took me a long time to actually quit because i waited to have this idea and the idea of like launching elevate that was the reason why i left i think that if i didn't have like this idea maybe i would

29:48Olly Fawcett:still be really 100 yeah that's so interesting because i was so risk averse that i would have

29:55Julia Baldet:never left without having any kind of like idea or anything on the side why do you think you are risk of us i don't know i think it's just like because you're kind of not as an entrepreneur

30:06Olly Fawcett:we'll get into it but you've done some things that are like risky yeah of course but i think

30:12Julia Baldet:you know it takes time it's something you can actually train and i think i've i was in this industry in finance for such a long time and went to business school which is kind of like terms of studies i've done the most like risk averse thing i've never kind of like picked anything which is like by definition not taking a risk yeah yeah and i think it's like always something I've been doing because I was like oh I want to have a stable job I don't want to have to kind of like ask myself any questions around like money and so for sure I wanted I was like attracted to stability.

30:41Olly Fawcett:Do you think you're at all addicted to the pace of the finance world? The rush of it the adrenaline of it?

30:49Julia Baldet:I think to some extent I have like an issue I don't know if it's an issue but I still work that way I still work really hard maybe harder than in finance so maybe I'm addicted to work that's that's possible I think all entrepreneurs are really it's the entrepreneurs curse that isn't it yeah and you know I think even I was at like um my parents home like last weekend um in this and I was like yeah I'm gonna take like a nice you know weekend off not working and just I ended up working all weekend like it was just like I couldn't help it

31:21Olly Fawcett:so I think it's one of I mean again I've spoken about this so many times with so many people and I can really resonate with it that like if you love what you do it's not about oh it's not a job it's just like you do become addicted to the way it makes you feel like that's the that's the way it works and I think a lot of um entrepreneurs addict I always call myself an addict I know I've got an incredibly addictive personality I think it's a trade that always comes through but I think if you didn't have that it would make hard stuff way harder it would make the easiest stuff probably less rewarding there's there's loads of balance towards all of that I think um so the idea for

31:56Julia Baldet:elevate where did it come from so i was you know as mentioned working very long hours and you know really feeling burnt out which led me to actually having health issues so i spent a lot of time like um going back and forth to you know the clinic to kind of like get checked i had like some heart issues so i had to wear like a portable like monitor and everything this is from the job

32:18Olly Fawcett:yeah exactly from the stress it made you that yeah it just like created so much like stress

32:23Julia Baldet:and inflammation in my body oh my god i ended up having like a fluid um around the heart which is something you know people usually develop when they get um some really strong inflammation like cancer for example yeah like that um and you know like they wanted to check that everything was okay

32:39Olly Fawcett:and the doctors were like listen your body otherwise like other than the stress and lack

32:45Julia Baldet:of sleep and you're not exercising and not eating properly it's just like normal so it's just like

32:51Olly Fawcett:coming from like the stress um god that must have been a horrible wake-up call yeah because then you

32:56Julia Baldet:realize you only have like one body you know and you're like okay i need to take care of it um which you know was kind of like my wake-up call and the doctor was like listen either you take some time off which for me was not an option it was like or you start like you know doing the basic things that are you know the baseline of a normal life like you don't skip like breakfast lunch and you know you don't eat like a delivery in front of your pc at like 10 p.m and you know you try to sleep a bit more exercise as well so i started you know like incorporating that a bit more into my my life like as i could and you know i think these the easiest fix was for me to start exercising like in the morning so at least you know i i knew that no matter what time i would finish at night i would still have time to exercise in the morning and this would be done and i don't have to think about it for the rest of the day so as I was walking out um of the gym you know going to the office I was always thinking such a shame that there's no place where I can get like a nice breakfast smoothie at the time you know like there was literally no smoothies in London you had like a couple of like here and there but what you had like wasn't like functional at all it was like full of sugars like really not healthy uh same for like protein shakes like there was nothing around apart from the gym itself like if you go to barris for example they have like amazing shakes but i wouldn't go if i didn't work out at barris for example so i thought that it's really interesting that you know wellness is a booming market everyone is like taking tons of supplements at home protein powder collagen but there's nothing like that like on the go in london so it's really where it started to kind of like click where i was like okay maybe there's something interesting to do here because also I was looking at the consumer you know industry as a whole food and beverage was one of the sectors I was looking at so I then decided to just like apply my private equity method to to that then just started to reach out you know LinkedIn to senior people from you know Starbucks or like Costa and just like speak with them saying hey do you have 15 minutes like for a quick call most of them you know would be actually very generous with with their time and I would just like you know ask them questions around like where do they see the market like going and everyone even though they were in the coffee industry was telling me oh yeah like consumers are asking for more like wellness products and right after that like Starbucks launched their collab with AG1 so there was a lot of things happening this is right after that Jo and the Juice launched their protein shakes and like smoothies so it was really very early on the market so yeah after seeing that I was like I think this is like my sign because I started to get obsessed with this idea of thinking oh I should really do it like but can I do this on the side as a kind of like side hustle and I quickly understood you know that um I didn't have time like in case that was not like obvious enough um and you know it was the perfect alignment when it comes to like me getting my bonus um me having this idea and like um this kind of like almost like yeah gut feeling instinct that it could work um so it's how I decided to design to then launch Elevate and really focus on that like field time is this when you decided to become a barista somewhere exactly so when I left my job um you know knowing that I wanted to open Elevate uh This is the type of like business like brick and mortar retail that requires obviously a big investment up front because, you know, you need to rent a place, you need to do the work.

36:32Julia Baldet:So I knew that I needed to raise money. And the first thing I did was like, OK, if I put myself in the investor's shoes, what's the number one reason why I would not invest in myself? And the number one reason was I don't have the operational experience. Like I have like a lot of like financial background and like, OK, maybe think about like the strategy and sector background. but you know it's like a physical business and I think it was something that could be easily corrected so it's when I decided to go and work as a barista over the summer so I finished my job my last day was a Friday the Monday after I was working as a barista.

37:09Olly Fawcett:Did you like it?

37:11Julia Baldet:I think it was like a great experience I would say that it was very enjoyable also because I knew what I was doing it um but I think you know it's like it was a massive shock when you come from like corporate and you just sat for so many hours in front of your laptop yeah um and then you just spend 12 hours like standing and doing like customer facing um you know like a customer facing job it's really intense it's really intense and you know it made me even like respect more like people working in like hospitality and or like services business because it's it's really a tough job so I think it's like really good that I've done it um because then I also understand what it is to be behind the bar um and you know it gave me also a good understanding of like how the sector is working what is the you know different positions you have in like a cafe or something like that um so yeah I I definitely would recommend to anyone like wanting to start you know physical business just go and like get the experience yeah would there be a reason why

38:20Olly Fawcett:you wouldn't find a co-founder to start the business who had more experience in that you

38:24Julia Baldet:know why did you feel you wanted to do it so i wanted initially to have a co-founder because i thought that there was no you know i think like it took me time to just like believe also in myself and just be like okay i'm 100 betting on myself and having no doubt about the fact that i could do it so for me I think it was like reassuring to think oh maybe if I find a co-founder it's gonna kind of like relief a bit of like the pressure that I'm feeling um but reality is is that my network was you know just focused on like finance consulting law I had no one like in my in my network that was qualified in like operations or you know that had this kind of like hospitality background and for me there was no sense in finding a co-founder if the person had the same skill set as I did.

39:11Julia Baldet:So, you know, I think having a co-founder is like marriage. So you don't want to find, you know, you don't want to kind of like get married to someone just because. So yeah, I couldn't find like anyone that I thought like could be my co-founder. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do it myself.

39:28Olly Fawcett:A lot of people have doubt, right? Like it's a thing when you're starting out, when you're entering a new career, et cetera. How have you overcome yourself doubt?

39:38Julia Baldet:I mean I still have doubt like today I'm I'm doubting like not every day but like still very often um I just think that you know once I start something I will go you know to the end to see that things and I've never kind of like given up on anything I think but it just comes with like discipline I think that's it because especially when you don't have a co-founder to just kind of also give you a pep talk if you're feeling like a bit down so that's like I'm you know gonna spend the day like just feeling self-pity for myself and being like oh my god I'm so I'm so stressed or anything I think it's just like discipline and this is really what keeps you going um when you're doubting or when the work is hard and you don't want to do it like I don't have a choice

40:24Olly Fawcett:yeah and after you kind of left the corporate world and you're doing a barista thing you're starting to build a business was your health starting to turn around was it making a positive impact on the thing that was making it negative did you feel that yeah of course and i think you

40:37Julia Baldet:know even like for the couple of months the last months that i was still in private equity like i i got better so i could definitely see you know the fact that it's true what they say if you exercise and you eat well you know it's the kind of like and you sleep that's the kind of like free pillars to actually like be healthy which is obvious but it's it's true have you ever fallen

40:59Olly Fawcett:the trap of and I know it's something that people are talking about a lot of over over optimizing health is that did that kind of become a thing for you with being quite unwell I mean heart related is is scary stuff right and I feel like your data analytical mind maybe slipped into that at all or did you did you manage to kind of balance look I need I need balance here that's the most important

41:18Julia Baldet:no and I it's more about like you know because I knew that I'm very kind of like data driven and And I would always check like data and analytics. I've always made a conscious choice of never getting like a whoop or like a roaring or like tracking anything. Because I know that I would like down the rabbit hole. It's over.

41:37Olly Fawcett:100 % less. Yeah, yeah, it's bad.

41:39Julia Baldet:So that's why I'm like, it's all about like balance. I think the most important part for me is more like listening to my body. Because now I think I kind of like understand where when I reach the kind of like point where I'm like, okay, I'm extremely tired. now i need to just like take a day off maybe and just like try to rest um but yeah i've consciously made the choice not to over optimize optimize like my health yeah it's so it's been spoken

42:02Olly Fawcett:about a lot at the moment i don't know if you've seen it but it's i've won a whoop for four years i think i think every time i go on the app i'm like atop what three percent and i become balanced with it but i can totally see the over optimization and i think what you said about listening to the body is so important because there are days where I wake up with 90 % recovery 10 hours sleep I mean it's quite rare but 10 hours sleep you know ready to go and I feel awful like I feel worse like it's just like your body's just like you know you're kind of going into that weird state of over over kind of resting whatever it might be and then I've had times where I'm you know two percent from a big weekend or whatever it is and like I feel ready to go it's just like I think that listening to your body peace and the gut feel we always talk about listening to our heads or listen to our gut i think that's such an important thing um don't get me wrong i do love a whoop and i do love the data of it but i listen i look about four metrics and that's about it and normally i like the satisfaction of knowing how hot you know yeah a big exercise or whatever it might be but it can be that trap so after the barista period because this was just a summer right you didn't do this for very long and so you went straight from that to trying to start to build the business and imagine you needed some cash to do that so what were the first steps you took

43:13Julia Baldet:so first step i took once you know i was done with uh my kind of like barista training um also you know prepare my investment deck and just kind of like get something that would be you know very solid and like with a nice business plan to put in front of investors yeah um but also knowing that at this stage of the business when the business like essentially doesn't exist and

43:37Olly Fawcett:it's just because it was always going to be brick and mortar exactly it was never going to be like a d2c thing or anything like that fine you can't really just start it exactly like a lot of people

43:48Julia Baldet:you know would tell me oh yeah you should start like doing a pop-up and the thing is that it doesn't really work that way and i knew what was required in terms of like investment to make it happen and i was like okay listen if i'm doing it i'm doing it like all the way i'm not just gonna do a pop-up on you know um on weekends like i rather focus my time and energy on like getting everything rather than doing something halfway um so i knew that i needed the cash so it's when i decided to reach out to over like 450 investors um on linkedin just like call emailing them um because again i you know it's it's hard to raise money but i think it's even harder when you don't have like an actual business in the sense that the business was not open it was not trading not generating any like income whatsoever so that was definitely like um a numbers game when it comes to

44:41Olly Fawcett:like uh finding investors is there an art to that because i feel like we've had you on the show i've had many conversations like when were you doing this as well was this 2023 24 24 harder time to raise as well right the market was a little bit all over the place as it's been for the last five years um but like you know not as good as 2020 and 21 where money was free basically um do you have some some strong advice with your two sides of the experience you know being family office pro exp then going out and raising from angels what is your best guidance you would give someone who's going down that route because i felt like a lot of people just go like if i email a thousand people one will reply or they'll go like very strong on the deal and maybe screw themselves over later to doubt there's so many things that go wrong at this point what is your best guidance there

45:27Julia Baldet:i would say first of all don't message like you know hundred or thousands of people just like copy pasting the same like email and just hoping that one would reply yeah um you know when you're an investor and i was doing like um angel investment before right so you know i would have people like reaching out like every day i would get like 10 messages of hey like i'm launching this business whatever and you know it was not like personalized or sometimes it was like the wrong name or saying oh you're an expert in you know technology like I'm not so I think like I would really advise not to send like generic messages which lead me to like what I would advise doing is really craft some very very personal like messages for investors um you need to understand like when you're asking money to someone they won't like give it to you just like to be nice with you in the sense that you know it's not to make you a favor like as an investor your goal is to make money so when you're approaching like an investor you need to show them how they can make a return on their investment and why it's interesting for them specifically because obviously like investors are specialized in like different sectors so I would say that's the biggest piece of advice like think about like what you're bringing to the table for this investor because a lot of people you know just like emailing or like messaging saying oh can i please get like you know like 100k you're an angel investor like i'm not you know you know what i mean like it's it's not something you need to really spend the time and that's something that you know now again like with claude or chat gpt you can get much of it right it's it's yeah but now i think you know like you can also like of course it takes time to just like go through the profile see what they have invested in and like what's the sector but i think that now it's so much easier also to get like this background information on on the investor that you know you get things in bullet point and you just have to spend maybe like 15 or 10 minutes thinking okay like knowing this information on the specific investor why would it make sense for them and you just like write a message that again you can write it yourself and say hey you've enlisted in that investment i'm launching something you know in the same sector um so that's that's the way i would i would approach it um being very kind of like specific and like take the time because again it's there is no shortcut to receiving investment you need to put

47:52Olly Fawcett:the work in what were some of the biggest doubts that the investors had outside of i mean you fix one of them straight away with knowing the operational side but the fact that you wanted a brick and mortar space like you obviously were you always aiming to be in london to start with i imagine so so outside of that was there any other big concerns from that i think the brick and mortar

48:12Julia Baldet:piece is definitely you know i would say maybe a blocking point for some investors because obviously it's a very different type of business it's not like you can scale you know from like zero to 100 million in 18 months because it takes time to open like those physical locations so I would say it's definitely one point that maybe you know is kind of like a blocking point for investors but again I think I was lucky enough to find like my investors that also understand like the retail space and so I don't have to educate them to explain saying oh retail and brick and mortar is a bit of like a longer game than you know investing in D2C where you know we've seen companies like literally being sold for like a billion dollar in you know three years or five years which is which is crazy but i know it's not the route that i'm taking and that's also something i'm very clear with my investors do you think a red flag when bringing

49:09Olly Fawcett:investors in is they can they've got the check and they want to invest the check but they clearly don't understand the vision do you think that's a big red flag i would say so and you know i would

49:20Julia Baldet:also assume that if they don't get the vision they would not invest in the first place um and that's always something you know i've kind of like noticed you know when i was doing like investor calls and like pitching the idea if i had to explain to them the wellness market and explain to them that you know it was a growing market i knew 100 of the time that they would not invest yeah but which makes sense yeah because you know if you don't understand the market specifically or you don't have like a strong enough conviction on the wellness market then it means it's not your type of investment so that's definitely that would be a red flag yeah yeah definitely so you

49:58Olly Fawcett:managed to raise the funds step two is find a location yes how was that i mean i know how it

50:03Julia Baldet:went tell me how it went yeah it was um you know again it was a journey and nothing was kind of like easy and it was a journey it's such an understatement and linear um because you know once you have the money it's one thing because it gives you the kind of like ability to you know put down an offer and just hope that you can pay the lease and go through um but the thing is like you know london is a very competitive market there are a lot of like um amazing brands out there that are also scaling and looking for the same type of locations that we were looking at so there is a lot of competition and again once you're in a business that essentially doesn't exist and you don't have like a proof of concept or something to show to the landlord you know I don't I don't blame them for deciding to go for you know with a more established brand or like a more established like coffee chain so it was again a lot of like um back and forth I've seen honestly I've stopped like counting the amount of locations that I've seen there was one that I really liked that we didn't get and you know it's just like it feels like you're kind of like wasting time but where did you want to be initially i wanted to open west um i wanted to be in like chelsea or nothing hill because i thought it's really where the kind of like wellness crowd is yeah and i was very focused on on that area which is one of the most competitive market at the moment because everyone wants to be there um rents are like very expensive so it was definitely my focus but then um you know i was presented with the opportunity to get this site in in the city and at first i I was like, oh, I'm not really sure.

51:43Julia Baldet:And so what I was doing is that I was going around with a clicker, like the bouncers would have, or like, you know, the flight attendant to kind of like count people. And I would just like stand outside at like various hours of the day and just click to see how many people were passing by. Because football is everything in retail. And, you know, when I've seen the difference between the city where, you know, at some point during lunch break, I've lost count of how many people were passing by versus somewhere like Notting Hill where it was very quiet like during the week. I think it's much more of a weekend trade.

52:17Olly Fawcett:Yeah. I was like, okay, maybe there's something to do here.

52:23Julia Baldet:And yeah, I just decided to, again, follow my instinct and like, okay, let's pivot. I think maybe some of my investors were kind of like, not concerned, but like, you know, questioning the move from like this very kind of like wellness crowd. to the city but I think it was the best move ever and now it's easy to say in hindsight but there's so much white space in the city where while you know the people working there actually like have a high like income they like to take care of themselves because again when you have like a demanding job most of the time you need to exercise and you know like be careful of like what you're eating and like so I think that was like the perfect location to to open the first site

53:07Olly Fawcett:and you secure the site and you go in to look at how you're gonna develop the site before we get onto that bit what was that feeling like knowing you now had a site for this thing that everything you've been through today the health stuff the working flat out for seven years everything then you're now stood in the city in this empty four walls that must have been a moment for you

53:31Julia Baldet:it was maybe more pressure than joy to be honest really because it's first of all it's out to kind of like process and you know be like okay now it's like happening but also I was like okay now it's actually happening and the clock is ticking and now you know we have to actually open and like get this thing off the ground because it's like really easy I think once it's just like still a project and you're still on your own but um you know once you have to hire people and like think about like all the various like operational processes it really becomes something where you know it's not only like myself but then I have also other people life or like job that

54:08Olly Fawcett:at stake so I'm like okay you have to make it work yeah and month one you open am I right in saying your profits are profitable for month one how does that happen I think you know it's a

54:19Julia Baldet:combination of things um first thing is I decided to open the first site as really this kind of like proof of concept so I wanted to be really lean because I was like okay this is a test we're running like a test with one unit to see if that works and if we can make the unit economics like make sense so it was a very lean and tight ship in the sense that um i was working there like 24 7 almost like um so you know that helps like saving in terms of cost because i was still paying myself um 12k a year so that you know it's it helps you like keep the cost down yeah um and you know i think I was always also very much like checking the data every I mean I'm still doing it I'm just like refreshing the data every you know hour I'm like looking at the numbers and looking at what's happening so a bit like you would do with your whoopies number with um with with the sales and like understanding the numbers so I think it's like really it was really important for me to just kind of like navigate that by the data and saying okay now we've done like this amount of sale so I can justify hiring like one more person for example for the summer and I think that really helped on the more like I would say margin side of things but when it comes to like the revenue and driving sales I think you know it was a combination of getting the word out on TikTok because I've shared like the journey from you know six months before the opening and really the unfiltered behind the scenes so I think that really helped and you know why did you do that was that purely thinking ahead no i think the idea of doing that was i was thinking okay if you put yourself out there saying you're doing it now there's no way back you have to do it so that was kind of like fair enough this way of like being disciplined and like forcing myself to actually like do it um and so i think you know obviously a lot of businesses have have done that But then, you know, it was at the early 24.

56:21Julia Baldet:No, actually, early 25. Sorry. It was early 25. So a lot of businesses were starting to do that. And I thought, OK, I think, first of all, now I have to do it if I say publicly that I'm going to do it. But also, you know, it's like, why not, like, take a chance and, like, get this opportunity to get, like, literally free marketing? like it would be you know it's a cost of opportunity yeah to not put yourself out there in 2026 or 2025 when you know that um you know there are so many good things happening from social media so for sure i was like i have to do it and that i mean the brand that you've built

56:58Olly Fawcett:around it and i imagine it's still developing a lot you know after only two years i'm sure you've got lots of thoughts and perspectives on where you want the brand to go visually that piece for you, did you obsess about that? Or did that come quite naturally in terms of knowing what people want? Because it feels like with Elevate, you've built exactly what I think, being a marketer, I think the market want or wanted, right? Not just the product and the piece you said about what's available and those sorts of elements and where the footfall is coming from. But the brand and the identity, I think it feels that you've really nailed what the market is looking for from a brand perspective.

57:32Olly Fawcett:Did that come quite naturally? Or did you have to really dive into the

57:35Julia Baldet:data on that one thank you so much very kind um i think it came naturally but also it didn't come like um in one go you know i mean like it's been a lot of like iterations and like refinements so it would be it wouldn't be true to say oh yeah i just like woke up and just like put together

57:55Olly Fawcett:this kind of like you could say that you could if you wanted to but it's not true like you know i

57:59Julia Baldet:think like the brand guidelines and like the visuals and everything like it's it's changed a out and like now if i look at the first things we've posted on instagram they are not available anymore so yeah yeah i would be like oh my god like um you know it's like really not like where i want the brand to be but i think it also takes time to build that brand and also when you build a brand before you have your product and before you can you know spend money as well on like having a nice like photo shoot and everything it was a bit different so of course i think it's something that has evolved it that i think it was like very natural in terms of like evolution and for me it was more like instinctive of saying okay i want to bring the brand like to this kind of like artistic or creative direction yeah um rather than you know looking at some specific data um but yeah it's it's it's always like a evolving process and even today i think we're still kind of like refining where we want to be and like you know how we want the brand to look like and how we want people to think about the brand the phrase instagrammable what do you think of that phrase listen i it's it's twofold right i think it's really good to have like an instagrammable product yes um and i think that's the case for us but that's that's not enough we've got it i think it's it's something that you need to have like these days like you need to have something that people share i mean it's it's the best way to actually get free marketing it's just like people sharing on like instagram socials but i don't think you can completely rely on on that and that would be a mistake and i think you know for me like how do i measure success is by the amount

59:42Olly Fawcett:of recurring customers i was gonna say surely you can only grow with recurring right you can't grow with just tourists or you know people popping in and i can't like you know i can't build a business

59:53Julia Baldet:based on like one person coming and just like drink looks beautiful but then it does nothing for them or it doesn't taste good so that's i think like maybe a couple of brands have fallen to the trap of like saying oh it needs to look good for socials um but when i think about elevate and like the experience of all i really want it to be an enjoyable experience from like start to finish and for whatever kind of like sense you're asking about like visually like the taste like everything needs to be like a delight for the customers so i think it's like part of what we do and part of like building a brand but i would say there is no way you can just like build a successful business on something that is just like instagrammable yeah it's so interesting i mean i

1:00:37Olly Fawcett:saw marissa from perfect ted who's been on the show speaking at a conference it was a small bit of content on social recently and she was saying and i will abbreviate because i won't get it word for word but she was saying someone asked her about brand and content and you know virality and all these all these kind of popular terms that i think new entrepreneurs really obsess about and she was just like product still number one like it still is because we can deliver the best brand experience have the biggest faces on the front of the brand have the packaging the branding everything perfect for perfect head um but then if the product does nothing like you don't have the business like quite literally um but for you guys i mean you've done a lot in brand partnerships which has been an interesting move to see happen how did a lot of that come into your strategy to build the brand was that was that a purposeful decision or did that kind of just happen

1:01:27Julia Baldet:at first that kind of just happened because the first partnership we did i think was like maybe first week request we had was like maybe 10 days after opening or like yeah like a week or 10 days and it was for ASOS. They were doing this big influencer and press event. So it was initially not part of the business plan because for me, the core of the business would be selling smoothies and protein shakes to customers. But we've seen a lot, I would say, in terms of marketing and especially for beauty and fashion lifestyle brand. They're evolving towards a more like you know sensorial kind of like marketing and there's a lot of like food and like beverages that are involved in this marketing um and at the same time you have also an interesting trend is that a lot of like the d2c brand that are you know most of the time only available like online or at the retailer but they don't have a physical space where they can kind of like bring to life this kind of like full experience they're trying to make up for that and organize like community events or you know things in person where you can almost taste the brand so i think that you know once i've realized that and seen the potential that there is um for me it was like a no-brainer to just like integrate that into our like strategy and business plan um all the brands that we've worked with they reach out to us um yes because i didn't have to diamond you know to be like okay

1:03:01Olly Fawcett:you seem often not to have the time for these things the trend exactly so i think it's just um it's been great but now you know we kind of like now that we've been open for a year i think

1:03:12Julia Baldet:for me it's also time to just like start doing a bit of like outreach and just kind of like also cure it this kind of like lineup of like brands that we want to work with yeah um so that's definitely part of like the strategy to just kind of like reach out to like more brands and do more things together because i think it's just like customers love when they get like novelty and like limited edition um so i think that also offering you know this kind of like limited um edition items on the menu and then they get like a gift with purchase or like they get an experience with that um is really something that is working really well what's been the most impactful impactful partnership you had um i would say potentially the one we've just done now with Roxy Nafusi.

1:03:57Julia Baldet:So it's a bit different from a brand. She's a best-selling author that I think really popularized the manifestation concept. And it's been definitely really successful because she also, you know, brought her audience to elevate and to our stores. So I think that was like definitely a very successful one. We did a community event together. So I think for me, like on a kind of like personal level, it felt like really really like a full circle moment because uh roxy's book was also one of the books that kind of like helped me to just reframe the way i think and just be like okay now you can you know feeling inspired and feeling inspired that there is more to life and that i can also just kind of like turn my life around and escape the the finance um world so yeah i think for me it was like definitely a very successful one on a personal level but also for elevate like it brought us like a lot of people that didn't know the brand um that decided to come and visit

1:04:57Olly Fawcett:how do you look at partnerships for the future of the business do you think it's now only you mentioned it's going to be the business plan but do you think it's almost now an integral part of

1:05:06Julia Baldet:what you're doing yeah and now you know we we kind of full until almost like october or november um full in terms of in terms of partnerships that we're really on the on the menu oh wow um so i think now for sure it's something that we start to plan like much longer in advance and try to align that you know with the kind of like calendar in general of like okay there is like christmas season or there is like valentine's day like all those kind of like big events i think now we have like a much more i would say long-term views of like those partnerships and i always want to do something different i just don't want to kind of like copy paste the partnership and say oh we've done that before they just change the logo and it's going to be fine yeah i think everything needs to make sense um so yeah that's definitely part of like the the business plan and it's part

1:05:53Olly Fawcett:of that really listening to your customer and how do you go about doing that for you guys how do you figure out what people want with the menu with the brand partnerships like what's going to work for them obviously you know there's an instagram to look at and see who's liking commenting right but outside of that how how do you look at it and how valuable do you think it is for you

1:06:12Julia Baldet:i would say that you know in terms of like brand partnerships most of the time because we want to do something that again makes sense for the brand we try to align it like for example if they're launching like a new product or you know like a new fragrance and we're just gonna kind of like take some of the notes of the fragrance to put it into like the smoothie and just kind of like align and continue like the experience and translate that into a smoothie um so i think that it's it's really coming from a kind of like authentic place then when it comes to like um you know seeing what customers like i think it's it's a lot of like market research when it comes to like you know reading like what's trending in the us in terms of like food reports um so yeah i i love to read this kind of like reports where they tell you oh in 2026 i don't know foams are going to be trending or like different textures so i think it's like really you know foams yeah i still

1:07:06Olly Fawcett:starbucks foam thing yes that where that comes from yeah but yeah possibly is that a thing they

1:07:11Julia Baldet:created a shortage in terms of protein because they're using yeah i saw this yeah it's crazy

1:07:17Olly Fawcett:that is nuts so it's a it's a is this in the states where this has come from this kind of

1:07:22Julia Baldet:foam on top of like an ice latte or whatever exactly interesting there's always another thing isn't there exactly so so that's kind of like how i kind of like make the decisions but also i think i try to be creative and i work with a chef that is also very creative so we spend a lot of time together you know thinking about okay what hasn't been done on the london market and what could we do that you know would create this enjoyable experience both like visually but also

1:07:48Olly Fawcett:in terms of like taste how hard is this process being for you because on the outside i love everything you guys do right and i love the content you put out and there's just such a you know we all we all talk about you know the successes and i think you've also got done a good job about talking about the challenges right i've seen a lot of content from you but how How hard has it really been to get to this point today?

1:08:10Julia Baldet:It's, I don't know if I would say it's like hard, but it takes a lot of work. And, you know, I work more than when I used to work in finance. And I think, again, there is no secret to life. There is no shortcut to anything. And a lot of the time people like to call like successes or businesses like, oh, it's an overnight success just kind of like happened from, you know, one day to the other. but I always believe and maybe you know there are a couple of exceptions but I always believe that

1:08:39Olly Fawcett:there's nothing that you know you can't do if if you're actually putting the work that goes behind

1:08:45Julia Baldet:so that requires a lot of like sacrifices of course which means that you know I'm working possibly until you know I go to bed so yeah I'm working like maybe 18 or 16 hours a day but again it's very different because i know what i'm why i'm doing it um and i do it for myself so it's just like very very different and i think as an entrepreneur you have this thing and i'm sure must be the same for you where you kind of like have this delayed gratification moment where you know it's gonna pay off like maybe not tomorrow but maybe in a couple of years and you just like because you know it's gonna happen it's just enough to like keep you going and you know you're

1:09:27Olly Fawcett:want to reap the rewards at some point yeah no definitely I've actually never asked this question I don't think on the podcast but I really want to know your your answer and it's a very classic question so for those listening forgive me do you think anyone could be an entrepreneur no I don't

1:09:42Julia Baldet:think I don't think anyone could be um I think it takes I mean of course like if you want to go for it you can but I think it takes a certain type of like people to be comfortable with like risk and having this kind of like self you know discipline and like motivation and it's something I'm speaking with with some of my friends like listen for me I wouldn't want to be an entrepreneur I like the stability of my job like I I like knowing that you know once it's Friday night I'm just like done so I don't think it's made for everyone I think like anyone could try and like do it if they want but I think not everyone like feels like entrepreneurship is is the thing and I think we've seen online a lot of like glorification of like entrepreneurship as if it was the kind of solution to any you know questions you would ask yourself when it comes to like um you know people not knowing what they want to do with their life and some people say oh yeah just start your own business i don't think it's true i think a lot of people enjoy like having a stable job and i understand that i also understand and i think it's also there's definitely a lot of like advantages to yeah being employed by by someone else it's like a really popular question that's kind of going

1:10:53Olly Fawcett:around a lot at the moment i know simon squib talks a lot about it and he's he's very much of the mindset they're like everyone should be an entrepreneur and everyone should be their own boss and there's a world for that and i i do i think i agree with what you said which is everyone should try but not everyone should expect it to to happen you know i only know that life like for me personally um and it seems like most people that become entrepreneurs often stay entrepreneurs you know most of most of people sort of stay on that probably 90 i don't know what the stats are but something around that um but i think you're right in the glorification because it just doesn't exist like and often i've met so many people that like i want to start this thing and i'm like but it's a bit like saying you want to move jobs the grass is always greener in your mind always every single time the grass is greener there's no way sometimes it isn't unless you say no to the job or you know you don't even look at it but i think that the idea that anyone can do it it's not even around they can do it because i think most people could do the job of entrepreneurship i just don't think most people want to like actually want to it's the want versus the can in my head because i think there are probably more capable people that i know that are in jobs that could do could be great entrepreneurs but if you don't really want to do it you're going to get chewed up and spat out completely what what is your advice to someone who's weighing up the options of whether or not to start something or stay in a safer lane for you now going through it?

1:12:15Julia Baldet:I would say that my advice is that if you think about it hard enough and it's something that is always on top of your mind and you're like, oh, should I do it? Should I not? And it's just a recurring question you have. I think just do it. It's better to maybe try something. And that's that's the way I was thinking when I left my job I was like listen I rather you know maybe I've I'm wasting like one or two years of my corporate life and experience yeah but at least I won't have the regret of like not trying so I rather try what it is you know if you take like one or two years on the scale of your entire career it's nothing yeah so I would say that you know if someone is like considering entrepreneurship and isn't sure about like doing it or not I would say do it like you miss 100 % of the chances you don't take.

1:13:08Julia Baldet:So just try. Worst case scenario, you know, it's like an ego bruise. And, you know, it's still the same for me. I don't know if Elevate is going to be successful in 10 years. And, you know, maybe something's going to happen. We can never know. We can't predict the future. And I think worst case, it's just like ego bruise where, you know, you're like, okay, that hasn't been as successful as I wanted to. and maybe a year that you've lost in your corporate like progression but you know it's just such a learning and also you increase your chance to actually make it so I would say don't

1:13:42Olly Fawcett:hesitate and just go for it amazing so what does the future look like for Elevate I'm sure you've got a thousand one different plans but what are your what's your big north star for the brand

1:13:51Julia Baldet:where do you want it to go so I think that you know in the next like 12 months I want to open like for most sites so really consolidating 12 months yes how many sites you're two at the moment and you want to do four in 12 months yes love it i mean i did two in 10 months on my own so i'm like okay like for you know now that i have like a property and like i have an amazing team so i'm like now it's fine it's gonna be fine um so that's definitely what's you know on my mind kind of like consolidating london market um and then i want to expand internationally um so you know would it be like middle east um okay why not like um europe or united states i think it's just like anything like further away than 12 months is just like nothing that you know is set in stone because there are so many things happening you know i thought like it would be nice to do um to start like expanding in in the middle east but given the current situation you know it's just exactly so i think you know my my next priority is really kind of like locking down the the london market and really consolidating there.

1:14:56Julia Baldet:And then I would see where we actually expand.

1:14:59Olly Fawcett:Amazing. Well, my final question is what does it take? What does it take to build a business like Elevate?

1:15:05Julia Baldet:I think it just takes hard work. Again, like if you're putting in the hours, there's nothing, you know, that you can't do. So it's obviously lots of like sacrifices and, you know, holidays that I didn't go to or things that I didn't buy because I'm not like paying myself. But again, I'm really a big believer in like hard work. And I think that once you set your mind to something and just like commit to it, there's nothing you can't do.

1:15:37Olly Fawcett:Amazing. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. And thanks for telling your story. And I mean, what a story as well. And it feels like I think we should do another episode in a couple of years and see where things have got to. But congratulations as well, because I know it's not easy at all to build that kind of business. Brick and mortar. It's a different game. There are so many challenges we probably haven't even spoken about. but thank you so much for coming on the show I really appreciate it and I'm sure we'll see you soon

1:15:58Julia Baldet:Thank you so much, Julie

1:15:59Olly Fawcett:Pleasure