You Don't Need Experience To Start | Nicola Gunby on Selling a Tech Business at 27 & Building Again (With 7-Figure Funding) | Co-Founder and CMO of Cliq

0:00Nicola Gunby:Welcome to Wish I Knew. I'm Emily Trinouth and this is the podcast where we explore the lessons, pivots and defining moments that shape our lives and careers. Today's guest is Nicola Gunby, who co-founded and sold a beauty booking platform to one of the world's largest beauty brands by age 27. She's now on a mission to tackle loneliness and help people build communities with her new app Click that she recently raised a seven figure investment for. Nicola's story is so inspiring. If you've been waiting to act on a business idea and don't know where to start, this episode is for you. Now let's get into it.

0:40Nicola Gunby:Nicola, welcome to Wish I Knew. I'm so happy you're here. Thank you so much for having me. So excited. So for anyone that doesn't know you yet, which feels a little bit criminal, to be honest, because I feel like you're everywhere at the moment in the best way possible. Nicola is the co-founder and CMO of Click, which is a social networking app trying to fix one of the biggest problems of our generation. And before that, you built and sold MyRev to Revolution Beauty in your 20s, right? Before what I feel like most of us have even figured out like what we want to do. So I've been personally so inspired by your career.

1:13Nicola Gunby:And I know that so many people listening will feel the same. So you've achieved more by the time that you were 30 than I think most people have in their whole lives. Were you always this ambitious? Absolutely not. No, I wasn't. When I was younger, I didn't really see myself as a business owner. I don't think you're ever really taught that when you're younger. It doesn't really seem like an opportunity that you can go into. And then I actually made a decision to go traveling. I quit university, convinced my partner, like, let's book a one-way flight, went traveling. And I do believe that opened up my mind to the possibilities out there.

1:45One, you're away from, like, your family and friends and all you've ever known. I'm from I'd say a smallish area not too big but everyone kind of knows each other it's all the same circle so you get out of that and then two you're around new people you've got to make new connections it's like this taste of independence and I do feel like that was what made me ambitious and when we're out there that's when me and my boyfriend decided to start our first business which was my rev which is crazy when I look back because in a way I'm like I don't even know how we came to that decision like we were just two people just traveling just living life in a new city and had this business idea and was like well if everyone else can do it why can't we do it and we were very into like podcasts self-help books all of these things so you see these people on social media I'm like if she can start a business why can't I and I think it was more the delusion that helped us start our first business than being ambitious but then certainly as I've gone on and on I have become way more ambitious I love that because I think that people always think that people were just born ambitious or not yeah how were your like friends and family when you decided to quit uni um supportive I'd say I think I went to uni knowing it wasn't even for me in the first place like I didn't want to go and then on that results day you get in on a whim and I'm like well everyone else is going somewhere as well kind of like following the crowds I think I was there for two months and I rang my mum being like this just isn't for me I think the main thing is I didn't really meet anyone that I clicked with and connected with which is so funny like thinking about click now it could have probably solved a lot of those problems you're like pushed into a flat and pushed into a course for people you don't know I didn't know anyone else that went to that university I just didn't really want to study for another three years and then I suppose after that felt very lost that you go back to live with your parents and then they're like comforting you and like no it's fine we'll find you something to do like go get a job and I went and got very boring office jobs and just hated every moment of it but I think my mum and my dad were more I don't know better about me quitting university than deciding to go traveling when I said we were going to go traveling she was like no absolutely not you're not booking one-way flight to thailand like are you insane i was like next week went back to like i've booked it and she was like fuming at me i think that was more the unknown and felt less safe whereas me returning back home felt quite safe for them um but they've always been really supportive whatever i do it's just yeah those big steps when i was so young i think was quite scary to them it's so interesting because um i didn't go

4:05Nicola Gunby:to uni at all I actually didn't finish school technically well I did GCSEs and then whereas I think now you have to stay to 18 yeah maybe um but I always felt like the outlier and that but similar to you I just couldn't imagine spending three plus years studying and then figuring out what I wanted to do I just wanted to get out and work and sort of see things and experience things and start on that career ladder yeah I think you're only ever taught like university or maybe apprenticeship that's all I was really taught and I was like well I don't want to do an apprenticeship so I have to go to university and then when I quit university I was like oh my god like you have a bit of a crisis because all your friends are out in these amazing cities they go to all these cool parties studying and then you're back at home which everyone's left and you have to figure it out and that's why for me I was like I need to get out of this country it's like doing the extreme of what I could have done was like fly to the side of the world so sounds so cringe but like find yourself because I had no idea what I wanted to do and I was like I don't want to spend three years of my life studying for something that I might not even go into anyway.

5:08Yeah. So might as well get out and experience things. But yeah, there was a lot of learning curves at that

5:13Nicola Gunby:point in my life. I can imagine. I think that's so great that you were able to do that. And your parents came around and were supportive because I think it's easy to get caught in the trap of just jumping into the workplace. And then it's like, how do you get off the ladder? So you've almost done it the right way around. Yeah, I've never really had like a proper corporate job. like when I was working it was yeah a receptionist and then when I was in Australia I was a makeup artist that was more creative so I've never really had like a corporate role which I do think helps you as an entrepreneur because you don't have any like I don't know expectations of things you just go straight in you don't see the bad stuff you don't see the risk you just go for it but then on the other hand when you start to like build a team and you don't have that experience what it feels like to be a team I think that's when it can be tricky and it's like the need for process and stuff like that it's hard to get the balance right isn't it I felt but on both sides because I've worked for startups and big corporates and I found that sometimes in startups it's like chaos you're running here and everywhere there's no process you just need to get something done which I love and thrive in but not everyone can work like that and then in corporates it's like the polar opposite it's like you have a process for everything and you have to follow that process otherwise like you're the odd one out yeah but then don't you think everything's so much slower in these bigger companies and it's crazy when you speak to these companies it's like oh it's got to go this person this person this and I'm like why can't someone just make a decision yeah so yeah I do think not being in a corporate role has benefited me as an entrepreneur but there's definitely things that I suppose I wish I knew maybe if I did have a corporate role before starting my businesses and so you went to Thailand you had this one-way ticket yeah where did the idea for my way I've come from so we did like the whole southeast Asia traveling like the backpacker experience didn't stay in a hostel once though I was like I'm trying to line at that it was so cheap though it's crazy um and then went to Australia so a couple of friends going to Australia and we're like okay why not try it my mom and dad thought we would be back for Christmas and I rang them like oh we've got an Australian visa we're gonna go there and see what happens and then we lived in Melbourne for two years which was like not in the plans but really just built a bit of a life for us like I said it's that taste of independence got a flat got a job all of these things and I was a makeup artist so I worked in their version of Sephora which is called Mecca doing like back-to-back makeup on weekends and then in the week I really wanted to get more like freelance stuff so I started doing some tv I did like the f1 I did like Melbourne Fashion Week it was amazing but I didn't feel like I could get those everyday clients so bridal makeup hen parties and people just going out on a weekend people just wanted the makeup done for events because I didn't know anyone so like one you're stuck with trying to build a network and make friends and then two I'm like I've got to build a client base and back then like Instagram was obviously a thing but it wasn't like it is now where people like building businesses and portfolios and showcase themselves so I was like tapping into the Instagram side of things but it was so slow because people weren't really looking on Instagram and I realized that no one had built like a beauty booking platform for freelancers when you look in the market there's all these big like salon platforms which help salons get more bookings and then in places like London and some of the big cities around the world you've got more concierge services where you work for that company as a makeup artist but you're not doing your professional services yourself right so they found that there wasn't like an Airbnb for beauty where you could book like a freelance hair makeup artist nail tech or anything like that um and I literally came to Jason one day and I was like I'm so frustrated I want to get this work where do I go and he was like oh I'll have a look if there's any websites for you had a look and he was like hmm I can't really find anything and then together we were just like do we start something ourselves and I don't like honestly that decision I don't even know how it happened because it feels like such a blur yeah but it was literally I was sat down one day and was like let's just try it we've got nothing to lose we knew we were coming back to the UK at some point because we could only get a two-year visa so we knew we'd come back to no job no mortgage we literally came back to live with our parents like why not try something and see and it was quite nice because it was our little secret so we didn't really tell anyone which in hindsight we didn't have any support which probably wasn't a great thing to do but it was just like we were building this like little business ourselves like whilst we're traveling and just seeing where it went and then yeah ended up turning into an actual business somehow that's incredible and what do you think is like because so many of us have an idea and then we'll simmer on it and just will never act so what do you think was the difference between you and Jason having this idea and then being like right let's let's kick it into action was it just a bit of like you said delusion and you just didn't really think any different or didn't know any different yeah I'd say delusion is one part of it but the other part of it was we were desperate to find out who we were on that trip so obviously went away to figure out what we wanted to do and then once we're out there was like toying around with maybe we could start our own business we didn't know if we'd do something together but like maybe we're quite entrepreneurial just toying around with the idea and then I think for us it was like we don't want to go back home with nothing and we wanted to go back with something as opposed to like obviously we have all these amazing travel stories and we'd lived like our dreams for like three years but we wasn't coming back to anything and we would have to start completely from scratch all our friends are buying houses getting nice cars settling down and we've come back to live with our parents like we desperately wanted to go back with something so in a way it was probably that delusion but also the ambition starting to come through and that drive of okay we can't go back and have nothing and start again because then we kind of like wasted our time a little bit that's so self-aware yeah how old were you at the time oh 23 24 so we were babies really and honestly had no idea how to build a business but I think we live in a world now where you can learn anything if you do want to and the resource and the tools are there for you when you've never built something before and then you're going to build a tech business we felt so out of our depth but it was nice because we had each other so we had each other to help and bounce ideas off and like go through the mistakes together whereas sometimes when you're a solo founder and you're making those mistakes on your own like it can feel so heartbreaking sometimes and there's no one to like bounce off or even just bring you up if you're having a day where you're feeling like this isn't working exactly what do you what is it like working with jason i mean it's amazing when we first started and obviously we're 23 24 and we started this business together like it was very unknown we one didn't know if we'd work well together two we're also trying to build something that we have no idea on so we're learning every single day and i think that was very difficult and we're like okay if we can get through that first early period that we get through anything and now it's been like what six seven years and we're our second business together there and it's amazing like you share the highs but you also share the lows obviously for us we live together so if we want to get stuff done it's so easy yeah because it could be like 10 p.m at night and I'm like watching tv and he's sat next to me and we're like I've got an idea and you can just act upon it whereas a lot of the time you've got to wait till the next morning for stuff to get done so we get stuff done so much quicker and like building your future together I think is so amazing like if I look back at 23 24 year old us that were like in Australia so young didn't know what we wanted to do and thinking that now we're here and we can build a future together and we've been so aligned on the whole process and the whole way I just think it's quite special and I do think it's our superpower I don't think everyone should start businesses with their partners because I know plenty of people I think oh my god it would not work for you but for us we're just yeah I think it just works because we're very different but we also have the same life goals yeah I think when you both can see that end goal and you have exactly the same goal it's very easy to get where you need to be i can imagine that it's also um like you both completely understand and there's less like resentment or anything like that right so like that you said if you have an idea at 10 p.m at night and you're on the sofa you could be like right i'm just gonna get my laptop and do it and there's no oh why are you doing that you know exactly it's like pros and cons yeah that because you never switch off but two if we're like out or we're doing something and he's like oh i just need to do this i'm gonna totally understand totally resonate because there's been times where I've had to do that and you just get it well then the byproduct of that is that the business never stops yeah but then I think when you have your own business anyway even if you're a solo founder whatever it is like you're always thinking about it 24 7 anyway yeah so if you're a partner that doesn't understand then that's when that mismatch might happen yeah whereas for us we just both fully understand why we need to get stuff done at 10 p.m at night yeah and do you find that you like don't really sort of have that sort of balance with him or in the sense of do you talk about work at dinner like do you have any rules that you set in or is it more just like yeah we have no rules you've tried rules but it kind of doesn't work and then you feel like you're forced into something whereas for us if we want to talk about a business at dinner then why not yeah because it is like our baby and we love it so much and it's not that we'd sit there and talk about all the awful things that happened to us like we talk about exciting things and goals and even if the conversation isn't about the business it probably will end up being about the business at some point so we're like more mindful I'd say and like my best piece of advice for someone that does work with a partner or someone really close to them is like get out of the situation so if you're feeling like it's becoming too much that you're constantly talking about it like get out go for dinner go for a walk go to a fitness class together go to a coffee shop if you're sat where your team works or you work so at home or in the office like of course you're going to talk about it whereas you can be more mindful when you are out of the work environment on a weekend if you do get yourself out.

14:41So we try and have like a lot of the time at the weekends that we do go out because then we don't talk about business.

14:46Nicola Gunby:Yeah. Whereas I don't know if it's like you, but if I'm sat watching TV at home, I feel guilty that I'm not working. Yeah. And I'm like this, whilst I'm watching TV on the laptop. Honestly, every night. Yeah. It's so bad. Yeah. And then I'm on my phone and I'm doing stuff on my phone. And then I'm literally like, am I wasting time? Or am I being productive? I can't quite understand where I sit. Yeah. I think it's because the lines are blurred with like what work and home is. whereas you think before covid where working from home probably wasn't everything which is crazy you go to the office you do your work you come home and that would be home yeah whereas now because we work from home it's like when is the switch off point we don't have one when i worked in big corporates actually a lot of people that i worked with would leave their laptops in the office interesting and i never really like got into that because i'd always be like so terrified in case something happened and i needed my laptop at home or like something happened the next day and I couldn't get in or something.

15:37Nicola Gunby:Yeah. But as like a behavior, I found that so like strange that people would be so trusting and like, right, six o 'clock. They're done. Yeah, I'm done. I'm going home and my laptop is here and I have nothing to do with work anymore. And I kind of admired it in some ways. I get it. But I'd feel so lost. Yeah. If I didn't have my laptop, even like bringing it to day, like I probably wouldn't need it. But I just need it with me to know in case something does happen. Yeah. Like you have to be on it. But I suppose that's if you have your own business or you've got more of a role where you are a bit higher up in the company or whatever it is, more responsibility is.

16:13Whereas if you do have a nine to five, like why not clock off at 5pm?

16:16Nicola Gunby:Yeah. I mean, fair enough. Yeah. And so looking back on like 23, 24 year old Nicola. Yes. In Australia, building this tech company, what's something that you wish you could tell her looking back now? Oh, good one. I feel like it would be care less about what other people think. I think with the first business, I never really put myself forward as like the face of the brand. I never did any personal brand stuff. Like if you went on my social media, you probably wouldn't even see it. Maybe I'd have it in my bio, but I wouldn't like post about it. Was not really on LinkedIn, all of these things. I was really scared of what other people would think.

16:52And I think looking back, that held me back in a lot of situations. And I've really had to build my confidence, I suppose, recently when building more of a personal brand being more active on socials like doing podcasts all that kind of stuff and becoming more of a face of the brand but it's scary doing that it's really scary putting yourself out there so I wish I'd have told her to do that earlier just to build that confidence earlier but also back then like personal brand wasn't that much of a thing like there wasn't many founders that were doing it it was obviously like your bigger founders which are more influenced that you look up to but you didn't see just normal founders talking about their story whereas now I think that's so powerful and gets you in so many more rooms and does actually really help the business like personal bandless brand is absolutely propelled our business but yeah I wish I'd have just built that confidence more and not been bothered about if I post on social media and someone from like 10 years ago would have seen it and laughed at it like who

17:45Nicola Gunby:really cares it's so funny that that's what you picked because I feel like that's something that almost like everyone has deep down yeah especially when it comes to social media or even in business whether it's like talking about it or just being more present or putting your hand up and asking a question in a room full of people yeah people are always so worried about what other people think and I don't know where it's exactly stemmed from with all of us yeah maybe it's growing up online or yeah true but also I think when you're younger you're not forced into situations where you have to put yourself forward so you don't really maybe if you did certain things at university we're not really like taught how to market yourself or how to sell yourself and then you go out into the world and even if you're like not a business owner like you're constantly selling yourself to people and the jobs that you do and the work that you do we don't get taught those things yeah I think it'd be quite scary and then also I think being a female like there's so much narrative around women should stay quiet they shouldn't shout about their achievements all of these things so think when you're growing up as a female you think oh I just should sit back and like not tell everyone what I'm doing yeah and even now like I downplay stuff still like Jason says to me like why have you just downplayed that it's more to like parents or family and I'm like yeah I just did this like really casually but it's such a big deal but I think as women we're taught like don't shout about your achievements because it's seen as bragging yeah yeah or sort of being overconfident or sure of yourself I was speaking at an event the other day about this of like as a woman you have no other option really but to be judged and it's like Like you could do one thing one way or the other way.

19:24Nicola Gunby:Like literally no one's. Yeah, you can't please everyone. No. And I think especially when it comes to being online, it's so like, it's hard to see when you first start to do it. But I've always said that the amount of people that you will help or inspire through sharing your story, no matter how big or small you think it might be, like way outweighs the amount of people that might have a negative opinion or a negative comment but actually the reality is most people don't really comment no negative things but they might think it but then who cares like we're all thinking negative comments all the time I think when I first start the personal brand thing I was so scared to put myself out there like I'd put click out there like all the time I'd shout about click talk about click all the time when it came to me I was so scared and it was that fear of being judged I'm like oh what if someone doesn't like my hair doesn't like what I'm wearing it's all like the really stupid things but I think that can really stop people from putting themselves out there and I think you just got to take that first step build your confidence slowly and get out your comfort zone like nothing good happens from your comfort zone and I've learned that the hard way looking back at the first business now click is so much bigger now in such a short space of time because of the first business I suppose I've learned a lot from that first business of what makes a good business but I do think a lot of it is the confidence that we have as founders and the things that we do as founders which a little bit more out of the norm of normal businesses and I think that's where it's got us where we are today yeah but you only see that in hindsight yeah yeah and like you said like the sooner that you start the more you'll grow and learn from it exactly and that's why I look at people now that are like so young they're like 18 and they're like online and they're building businesses and I'm like wow I wish that was me because you'd have a head start.

21:13But then I think you can't think like that because you wouldn't be who you were today. Yeah. If you had started that. But now I think there's more education and awareness around how important it is to build a personal brand no matter what you're doing. Like it'll get you in so many rooms, so many doors.

21:26Nicola Gunby:But that wasn't really taught. Yeah. When I was born in my first business. One thing I didn't fully appreciate before running my own business was just how much mental energy everyday decisions take. When you're spinning a lot of different plates and always thinking a few steps ahead, even the small things can start to feel surprisingly draining. After leaving corporate to set up my business last year, I realized if I wanted to stay focused and make good decisions consistently, I needed to simplify wherever I could, especially when it came to my health. When it comes to supplements, though, I've always really struggled with consistency, mostly because I felt so overwhelmed by having to take so many different ones.

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23:05Nicola Gunby:That's wishinew20 for 20 % off your first month. I hope you love it just as much as I do. And since you've started building your brand online, I mean, you have a great brand. Like it's actually like surprising to hear you say that because from someone looking at sort of from the outside in, you would never expect that. But from the moment that you started building your personal brand, have you found that it's opened way more doors for you and had lots of positive impact? yeah 100 % even doing things like this maybe share your story like you said if you didn't impact one person's life then why not um but so many things like panel talks podcasts everything I was always so scared to speak in front of people so like doing a panel talk or like a speaking event was like terrifying to me I remember the first time I was like this whereas now it just comes a lot more naturally yeah which is nice um and then opportunities for click as well like I do believe that is increased our user base and the amount of communities and all that type of stuff we have on the app because there's more of a personal resonance with it so me and jason and even the rest of the people on our team it's always like showcase your story why are you part of this team and mainly it's because one they've struggled to meet people two they have their own community and they're so like aligned with the mission and i think that makes people want to download the app more and be part of it because we're more front-facing they feel like they're supporting us as opposed to supporting like a billion dollar global company and i think it does make a difference it depends what you're selling and it depends what you're doing but i think if you've got personal brand story and it relates to your business like you should always share it yeah and actually for you both of your businesses are from tackling a real need that you couldn't find in the market right so you have a really personal story yeah exactly both businesses are issues that I faced and things that I've been through where I was like I wish there was a better way to do something so it's come from that personal mission but then realizing that you get to a point where it's not about you anymore so when you first start a business especially like in the early days when it was just me and jace building this thing it's like oh it's all about us every decision's like what we make how the brand looks everything is about us and then you get to the point you put it out there in the world and you're like it's not about us anymore it's about everyone else and how do we build something for other people which as an entrepreneur i think could be quite a weird transition because sometimes as a founder you can be like my idea is the best way i'm gonna build this feature everyone's gonna use it you make it live and then no one uses it and you're like why this is such a great idea just because you think it's a great idea doesn't mean that everyone else is going to think it's a great idea and I think as a founder you need to kind of step out of that as well because you can be quite selfish and then when you start growing a team and the business starts growing you need to be like no it's not about me anymore it's about other people it's so interesting isn't it because it's it's like that transition to then once you because it's almost like seeing that you've got a user base and it's becoming about their needs and about them right and it's no longer just about you and solving your problem it's actually your community and solving the problems that they're having which might feel different to where you're at at that time yeah I've certainly felt that at times on like the marketing side of things where we've been looking at working with different influencers and talent and I've been like oh I don't think that person's right and someone said to me once Emily but you're not really our target demographic I think it was like a younger like a Gen Z campaign I was like oh yeah that is actually true I'm humbled very quickly there but it's true you have to it's quite a hard thing and I think marketers do struggle with that in general of like stepping away from what I personally like or what I subjectively know and actually what's what do the what's going to serve the need of the audience I'm looking to target here yeah I think it's so interesting to say about you weren't their target demographic we've had things before like I had an article in CNBC which was amazing but obviously it's very American focused and then I think it was a few months later I got put on their Instagram page I'd like three or four million followers there's a picture of me and it's like um 30 year old builds a social networking app and raises 600k or something like that and my face is like next Donald Trump the comments on that were like awful but in my head I was like you're not my target audience so why would I listen to what you're saying but a lot of them were like faceless accounts a lot of them were old men that live in America that were like oh she's just had daddy's money to do this why does she think she's going to build an app that's going to solve loneliness look at her profile like she's not lonely all of these things like oh she's just a young female trying to make something of herself all of this stuff and I was like if that was me five years ago I probably would have sat and cried but now I'm like you're not my target audience so why do I care what you think like you're not going to down low click and go to meetups and enjoy the experience like you've never put yourself out your comfort zone because you're sat behind a faceless account.

27:46So it's so interesting to see like, if it's not your target audience, why would you listen to them?

27:51Nicola Gunby:That is wild. I never knew that. I feel like I remember seeing that post, but I never would have seen like those comments. Like that is insane. Yeah. And then recently it got put onto Facebook. So I never, ever go on Facebook. And then I went on, I think you get invited to something on Facebook and you click on it after like six months. And I saw that a month ago it had been posted on Facebook again. and again the comments on there were crazy and it's always the same all men always the same type of people that just want to bring down a female and i'm like why like why can't we be supportive and also like why comment yeah like if you think that it's like you say say it in your head like why would you put that where i can see it do they not understand that but exactly not my i have so many opinions about trolls i could literally talk about this all day long but i feel like it's just the saddest part of the internet and it's always people that have like you say faceless accounts or even they don't and they're just like like you said the wrong demographic that you're not trying to reach or just people who are really like lonely and sad yeah and it's actually a really sad thing that that's what they're spending their time on exactly i'm like i'm trying to build an app that helps people be less lonely you've got a faceless account and probably are feeling really lonely and that's why you're making those comments like it doesn't match up yeah like you've hit a nerve but like do something about it like i'm trying to do something about it and change things you're not doing anything by sitting there and writing that comment yeah yeah well good on you for rising above and um and not letting it get to you because yeah i feel like i would probably cry over that i had like i've had a couple of comments like nowhere near that scale um um actually weirdly when I got engaged someone sent me again on a faceless account like a dm being like um this so-called lucky guy I can't believe I'm saying this so something like this so-called lucky guy never appeared on your account and I was like that's not true but also why do you it was like a man's name so I'd like who knows who it is but I was just like well first of all that's not true so you clearly don't look at my page that closely second of all why do you care yeah this person that i don't know off in the abyss like you know it is bizarre that people can't handle other people having positive things happen to them or seeing success especially women yeah so true anyway i feel like we could go on and that could take the podcast down a different route so true but so going back to my rev so what i find so fascinating is you not only went out of your comfort zone and you built a tech platform right this is before the days of ai so now you could easily just go onto a website and build an app yeah in those days you taught yourself right yeah and then you sold it within three years to revolution beauty one of the biggest beauty brands and then you went and built another app do i sound crazy in the best way possible yeah because i think everyone in the sort of startup founder world has this dream of like i'm going to build this company and I'm going to sell it and then I'm going to be on my yacht yes and you've almost done the opposite of going okay that was a great learning like opportunity I'm going to go and build something even bigger better now yeah is that like the right way of saying it yeah definitely I think looking back that felt like a stepping stone into click and it felt like that business was there to teach us one how to build a business to how to build a team how to market all of the skills that you need to build a company.

31:24I love that business so much. It was definitely my baby. Obviously being a makeup artist myself and then helping other makeup artists was amazing. I look back on it. I'm like, wow, we went through so much in such a short space of time. So typically businesses, they get investment and then they keep growing and they get more investment and keep growing. And acquisition is the end goal. For us, we take a no investment and went straight to acquisition, which is quite unheard of, but it is just being in the right place at the right time. We're trying to raise investment wasn't really working for us it wasn't happening um again living at our parents house thinking how the hell are we gonna get out of here and the business was doing really well but we got sucked into that you need investment to grow a business and it was very glamorized online and we're like okay this is the next step for us went into it with no thick skin being told no all the time and it really hit home and in your head you're like is this business actually gonna make it because everyone else telling me no and then just that relentlessness that you have as a founder just to keep going just one more week just one more week keep going keep going reaching out to everyone possible and reached out to found revolution beauty they'd just gone public at the time so it was all just like divine timing that this happened and when they offered us the acquisition we're like this wasn't even in the plants like we never even know this could happen to a business so small but there was so many things like for them they wanted to build a professional community they didn't have that also the data was really important to them so like who's booking what where what price point how do we get products out to them so like how do we kind of use both brands together so it was like a perfect partnership in terms of like demographic as well we wanted to be very mass market so we found that a lot of the platforms were more higher end you're paying like 150 pound to get your makeup done like not everyone wants to do that we had people that were charging 30 pound and people that were charging 150 pounds so you could choose the consumer and they really stood for that kind of mass market demographic so for us yeah it was just like a match made in heaven and just went into it and then just learned so much being inside at a public company like I said never come from any corporate background didn't know how like a board works how a team works all of these different things and we're in office with like 400 people just learning and being a sponge every single day and I do believe that's what led us to click and like I said before click is so much bigger and so much better because of that experience and yeah we didn't go sailing off into a yacht that would have been incredible but also I think I'd get bored like we were 27 I think probably when we sold it still so young like we still had so much more in us and in our gut I was like I know there's something else don't know what it's going to be yet you kind of feel a little bit lost because your identity has gone a little bit even though you've built this amazing incredible business you don't really have it anymore when you wake up in the morning and it's not yours anymore you do kind of go through a bit of a weird grieving process and but knew we had something else in us and then the idea of click came like four months later which isn't a long time but I think again it's just that divine timing of right place right time right idea going for it whereas not a lot of people would take action on those ideas like you said but for us I think the gut feeling again was so strong with click and was like okay we've spent three years building this amazing business what are we gonna do with all these learnings we might as well take it into a new business and where did the idea for click come from so with the first business moved to london so with the acquisition we literally moved to london within a week it was amazing it was such a whirlwind i was like i felt like my life had changed overnight i was always like dreamed of living in london as well but didn't really know if it would be achievable at any point so there was like so many things happening at once and it was amazing but then we got here and we were so busy with the business that we didn't really make any time to meet anyone new i wasn't going to like any events or anything again not building my personal brand so I didn't really have a founder community it was just me and Jason going into the office work on this business coming home work on the business also really trying to prove ourselves to the company that just acquired us and then when we didn't have it anymore I was like right it's free time what do we do also wanted to get inspired so I was like I want to meet other female founders don't really have a female founder network where do I find one start going to all these events and realizing a lot of them were like not worth my time I'm sure you've been to a few

35:31Nicola Gunby:where you walk through the door and you're like you just know instantly that you're probably not going to meet the right people yeah but you still do it and then you walk away from that and you're like okay on to the next one on to the next one and found it really difficult and realized that I wasn't the only person facing this problem I think everyone is looking to meet new people regardless of who they are and what they do like everyone's open to meeting someone new but to find those people where do you go and realize there weren't any apps out there that were solving this issue of finding communities finding events making it really personalized and we booked a one-way flight to Bali again there's a theme here saying it again um but we're like okay we need to also like recognize what we've just done I've just had an acquisition that it's amazing get out of the country and just be me and Jason switch our phones off not speak to anyone and whilst we're out there just was like toying around with this idea of click when it wasn't click yeah and thinking like okay when we go back to the UK like how do you meet people what do you do and then looking at bali and you've been to bali haven't you and it's like very community feel so you'll be sat in a cafe someone will come up to you and be like hey like what are you doing today or you don't get that in the uk as much and it just had this really nice community element to it and there's loads of like run clubs and all these types of things but again it was like finding them was so difficult because we wanted to go to these things so yeah just put two and two together and was like okay we've brought on that before we can do it again it started very basic it was just a place for people to meet people so it was just a place where communities can join and our idea was yeah like the run club the walk club the book club the female founder club have that looked people being being able to create their communities on there but the whole mission was like how do we get people in person again because like you look at the stats and like loneliness mental health screen time all of these things are going up and up and up and it's really not helping us as humans so how do we get back to using our phones as a tool and not be so addicted to it and using it to actually get out in person and meet new people.

37:25Nicola Gunby:It's incredible. And I looked into the stats recently, actually, because I think it's something like 73 % of Gen Z say that they feel lonely. It's crazy. But yet we're the most connected generation, or they're the most connected generation ever. Yeah. Why do you think people are so lonely? I think it's because we have the access to everything. I think now we're in a world where we're so addicted to our phones. Like we came here and we knew exactly what each other had been doing for the past few weeks. We haven't had a conversation. It's because I could see your Instagram stories and your posts.

37:53so we feel like we're connected so so many people go through weeks and weeks of not seeing anyone but feeling like they've had that connection with someone because it's online and we've really lost that sense of what in real life connection is and you see it happening a lot like a lot of businesses now are promoting this in real life element like build a band create a community like in real life events all of these things which I think is so amazing but I think we went through a period especially after COVID where no one really did that we got so used to being at home like not speaking to anyone and that was like our new norm and then we came out of that even though that was probably four or five years ago now it took a while for people to get back to it because that wasn't a choice like you look back and we were forced to do that and then people feel like that was normal for a few years afterwards and now I think the world's really returning but I don't think the loneliness stats are changing because of the digital devices that we have and you really need to use those at all I don't meet anyone that's like oh I'd love to have more screen time like everyone wants to get it down but it's like how do we do it when now it is an addiction it's like cigarettes alcohol of those things like your phone is now named as an addiction and it's that habit if it's near you you just want to pick it up and you get this like weird urge and sometimes you click on your pick up your phone and you look at it and you're like I don't even know what I want to go on yeah but you just instantly go on to like Instagram or tiktok or something before you even check your messages or your emails which is crazy but it's that dopamine hit yeah and what we found building through click and like looking at all of these stats is that all the big social platforms aren't going to do anything to help loneliness they're not going to do anything that's in person it's the dopamine hit they want to keep us scrolling they want to keep us addicted because that's what fuels the fire and makes these businesses bigger and bigger i feel like these big corporations are using us as guinea pigs and not understanding there's actually real people behind these phones and it's actually actually affecting the way that

39:43Nicola Gunby:we live hi my loves just a quick pause to say if you're enjoying wish i knew please please please hit the subscribe button and leave a quick rating or review it really makes such a difference to the show and helps us to keep bringing you amazing guests and stories now let's get back to the episode i mean it's really a telling sign that mark zuckerberg doesn't give his kids phones Yeah, I know. You're the founder of Facebook. The kids don't have Facebook. It's like, you know. Yeah. I think it's so true. Like the addiction part, we all feel like every age, you know, even I think about like my parents, you know, my dad uses TikTok and like uses that as a reference now for loads of different things.

40:24Nicola Gunby:And I think that you're right in the sense of just getting up and getting outside is the best thing for people and for people's mental health, right? Yeah. And so what are some of the success stories that you found with clicks? So you said it started with like run clubs, book clubs, that type of thing. How have you sort of progressed from there? Oh, there's a community for like everything. It's crazy. Sometimes things sign up and I'm like, that is so niche. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere. And then you look and it's got like hundreds of members and they're doing sellout events. I think sometimes we look at these big communities and that's like aspirations to get on to click because they're amazing and they're doing the social content and all of that kind of stuff.

41:00But then sometimes it's those really small communities. if you think about it in local areas people don't have community as much in london we've got so many communities and they're all amazing but there's a choice so you could go to a different run club every single night if you wanted to we've got so many like more local areas that have more people turn up to their run clubs than people do in london because there's less choice right and it's the only one that's really supporting people and we've got an amazing run club in surrey that actually charges membership now and she's making like thousands of thousands of pounds a month she's quit like a full-time job she's hired her sister all these amazing stories and it's like wow communities can actually be businesses i think that's also what we're trying to teach is that you can monetize in a community in a way that is still charitable like you can still do good for people and you can still give back but at the end of the day you can also turn this into a business

41:50Nicola Gunby:which could change your life and other people's lives so it's really interesting to see the transition of people first starting these groups and they're being so small and like three people turn up to the event so many people would quit at that point but these communities just keep going keep going and like are so resilient and then like in a couple months time they've got 100 people turning up to an event and it's sell out and it's so crazy to see and we always get messages on our instagram of people that have built communities or people that are users of the app and they're like just want to let you know like your apps completely changed my life i moved to london i didn't have any friends and now i have an amazing community of people and i go to events every week and i feel so fulfilled and like those stories are just ones that really keep you going especially those hard times building business when you're building a business that is so impactful and has so much purpose and can actually change the way that people interact and change people's lives I think that's really what keeps us going yeah I can imagine I actually did a panel recently with um Tanvi who has South Asian social and she was talking about how it's just kind of taken off even without her now the sense of there was never really this community that existed for south asian women right yeah and we work with a lot of creators i think creators now we're thinking one i need more than just an audience two it can be an additional revenue stream for them but three like getting in person with their community is so valuable i think for tamvi she would have so many comments on her videos of being like oh i want to meet people like how do i meet people does any other south asian women want to meet up so she created her own community around that i think it's so interesting to see that creators and brands are now thinking how do they build communities but i do think the best creator community is when it works without you and when you can just let people meet and you don't need to facilitate or ever anymore i think at the beginning it's a lot of hard work you've got to be at every event you've got to be posting all the content you've got to be continuously active whereas it gets to a point where you can let other people take those reins off you and you don't need to be there and i think that is what is an amazing community and so many brands like you said earlier are like obsessed with community now and you see in so many briefs like i want to build a community when i build a community we want to do this what do you think it actually takes to build a community i think with the brand side of things so many brands jumped on that bandwagon of oh i need to build a community and it's so interesting because you've got those brands that built community from the very beginning like your sharks and stuff like that and now brands that didn't do that are now chasing their tail to build this community when they've been around for five ten years and they're really struggling and you see these challenger brands that are creating communities before they've even started and we've got a brand called hair gym that hasn't even got a product yet they create a community on click and started doing in-person events so they would do like sauna classes socials and they would do pilates in the park loads of different things because it's a mask that you wear in the gym and now they've got the biggest waiting list and it's like caught following and they don't even have a product wow I think that's so interesting the brand positioning as people are thinking now I need to build a community straight away but I think what brands don't do is the consistency I think especially when it's a bigger brand they've got to have someone within the team that's helping to manage that community and nurture it a lot of people think community is like replying to Instagram comments and DMs but it's not it's about having that tangible community of people that like live and breathe your product that you're doing something for that's digitally or whether it's in person and I think a lot of brands struggle to manage that so for us like with the brand piece at click like we can become that community manager for brands because we have access as well to all the best communities of their demographic I think when you're building a brand community you should also be tapping into existing communities because they've worked so hard to build a brand of your build a community of your demographic so why not tap into them whereas a lot of brands are like I'm going to start a run club because everyone else started a run club and I think it's cool and then they do one run club and they never do anything again yeah I think they've got a community whereas I think now we all say this is going to be the year of community like last year was but people were still testing it they were still like learning what they wanted to do whereas now I think people are really like serious about building communities and I think we'll see a lot of brands building communities this year I started my podcast here at cube in the frame their flagship podcast studio and it changed the game for me with my membership i work alongside a professional production team so it looks polished and sounds incredible as soon as the cameras start rolling they also have smaller self-service podcast studios with different set options so you can choose the vibe that fits you membership here starts from 145 pounds a month if you've been thinking about launching a podcast visit thecube.com or click the link in the show notes below it's such a good point i mean i never actually thought about it that the community manager role yeah literally it's in the name but that job function is literally to respond to comments that's not a community I never thought about it in that deed in that sort of way before yeah or it's where brands say like oh I have a community and it's like what your community and they're like oh we've got a thousand Instagram followers that's not a community yeah like I can follow you but I can't not part of your community I think there's like lines blurred with what community means but I think now there's more education around it I think brands will be more intentionally building a community definitely and i think like like you mentioned earlier for the more traditional brands it perhaps is a bit more difficult because they're sort of stepping into this late whereas the gym shark dgc brands challenger brands have come in you know like hair gym yeah and they're intentionally building community before they're almost introducing products it's almost like there's this massive advantage for the smaller more indie brands yeah definitely and you can use that for so many things like hair gym used it to build their product as well so like packaging which designed you like better which lids you like better and like actually getting people involved in the process whereas a lot of brands don't do that and then they launch and they panic that they need to build a community but like you've got this time before you launch as well why not start to build a community because then you're going to have loyal community members and you're also going to have loyal customers from that and that's why i think we see so many creators building these sellout brands and sellout products because they built the community first it's really inspiring and I don't even think that necessarily people were so intentional about it in the beginning but now it's a very intentional thing of people saying that the best creator brands are when they almost like drop crumbs of what they're looking to launch before they do it with their community build their community online and then they go and launch it and then that it's like that secret sauce that drives a really really successful launch yeah and I think that we've only just started to really realize that on my scale yeah I think if you're an influencer though especially if you've got like such a niche like I follow this girl and her niche was always her hair and her hair always looked amazing and she did these amazing blowouts and stuff and now she's launched her own hair care range and that is so smart because you really owned that niche and you were known for that and now you're building a product that fits that niche whereas I think sometimes influencers maybe they build something outside of their niche or do something a little bit different and I think that's where the response is a little bit like why are you building this you're just jumping on the bandwagon but i think if it really aligns with what your brand is and your personal brand is then like it has to sell out and if it doesn't then i suppose it's a problem yeah that makes so much sense i am i love sophia and chintzia i didn't follow them yeah and i saw yesterday they they dropped this new vase they dropped they didn't drop it hopefully dropped it in there um in their new product range is it from rooms yes yeah yeah and they said literally sold out within like minutes it's amazing isn't it and it's because of that it's because it's it's aligned with their aesthetic it's aligned with everything they post it's the same color palette that they usually use they've got pajamas robes all of these sort of cozy things yeah their podcast is the girl's bathroom it just all makes total sense yeah and i think the same with community as well like if you've got a really niche like cult following a certain demographic that your audience is and you build a community to fit that then people are going to want to join the community yeah I think sometimes creators like just jump on the bandwagon of community and I've started a community and if it again doesn't align with their brand then people aren't going to join it so I think with stuff like that has to be intentional and it has to be around what you're already talking about yeah absolutely and so I want to talk about speaking of community you've also got this um founder event series called the founder series yes when did that start because I saw you did an event the other day that was like over 100 people turned up right yeah it's crazy 120 I think which is our biggest event so me and my friend Sienna started that it was about two years ago as I said was going to all these networking events thinking these are absolutely rubbish and I actually met Sienna at one of these events she's the only person I think that I've met at these events and we just yeah became really close and both had very similar I suppose goals of what we wanted with our business and all these different things but I think what was so special with that is everything we did wasn't about business like we go to plies together coffee together and that's what I really wanted to meet I wanted to meet founders as friends not founders just to talk about business and go to like corporate networking events together so like a few months later I think it's probably a few months later we're like maybe we should start our own thing and we started what was first called the sub series and we started dinners five people including us came to our first dinner and the people that we invited we already know but we just wanted to start building that network and building that community I suppose and then from them it grew and grew and grew we were the supper series for about a year and then we realized we need to niche more into the founder element because it was always for female founders but it was always for female founders and creative women and we get a room full of founders and we get one person that wasn't a founder and I always felt so awful for that person because they weren't getting the value that they wanted I think the true value of our community was founders meeting other founders so yeah we rebranded to the founder series and we rebranded last year and since then our events have like done amazing every single event sells out we just want to create cool experiences places that we would want to go to for dinner or drinks or whatever it is place you take your friends but just so happens you're going with a group of people that you don't know but everyone is founders so everyone has that like-minded interest and it's amazing like the buzz in the rooms and the energy every single time is just incredible like me and sienna will stand at the side and we're watching and everyone's just connecting and like we don't even need to be there we really don't and i think that's such a powerful thing for thing with the community it's because people trust the community and it started off as just us yeah and people started to trust us and then people came and then they had the word of mouth and then more people got trusting and if you know that your friend's been to one of our events you probably think you're a good fit because you're both very similar so i think word of mouth is so powerful and we've done no paid marketing nothing everything's been organic and yeah we sell out events every single month and now we have a second business that is incredible I came to your dinner last year I think um with was it Florence yeah Florence London um and I was honestly just in awe of the entire room like it was a packed out room it was beautiful space it was also just really thoughtful with really nice touches um but there were people there that I'd like known maybe we'd like followed each other already but we hadn't actually properly spoken in person and it was that kind of moment where you're not in a business environment you're not like rushing off to a meeting you can actually sit and have a really nice chat with someone I remember someone commented on my blazer and I was like oh my god that's so and it stuck with me yeah because it's just those moments of like stepping out of your day-to-day and being in a room of like-minded people and I think it is really difficult especially with um not only how lonely people are today but I've had a few people ask me recently like as you you know get to different levels in your career or or as you get a little bit older or you turn 30 like how to deal with navigating your friendships going in different directions so true and I think that we're not only just getting lonelier and using our phones more but we're also having these sort of different um what's the word it's like grief in some senses of like some of my friends have kids some of my friends have divorced some of my friends have no kids and don't want to have kids I have a step child you know everyone's on a bit of a different path and I think that um we as a generation are probably one of the first generations that don't just have your core group of friends that you keep for life and then that's it it's actually that we've now got different groups of friends in different parts of the world different communities different events but finding those people in the first place is still really hard yeah it's like having friends for different purposes isn't it like you have your friends that aren't founders because sometimes you just need to get out of that mindset and just someone to tell you no you're being ridiculous why are you thinking of it like that and then you need to have friends that do similar things to you because I think when you speak founder to founder like if you tell me you've had a really bad day because of something like I understand that because maybe I've been through it or I just understand what it's like to be a founder and so you are doing so much I also because I follow you like you said earlier like I see what you're up to as well um and it seems like you are here there and everywhere how do you manage it all like do you uh go to the gym do you like prioritize your sleep is there anything that really helps you to stay focused yeah I think last year and this year has been really focusing on myself when I first started the business it's like you're here there and everywhere but then you're also working late every single night you're completely burnt out you're working on weekends you cancel all social plans absolutely everything whereas now I'm like I know I need time for me so I will cancel social plans for myself and not feel guilty whereas I feel like a couple of years ago I wouldn't because I felt like I had to be doing everything so I'm really strict on a few things I think one is like morning routine so getting up and doing something that makes you feel good every morning like not looking at your phone sometimes do a bit of reading I might meditate and just like chilling just having like a really peaceful morning before the chaos starts and then incorporating exercise into my day in some form it's really hard when you're so busy because you think like where the hell am I going to fit this in but I think also I own my own business and I own my own time so why am I not going to Pilates in the middle of the day because I can like that's one of the main reasons I wanted to have my own business was to have freedom and not feel guilty about it so yeah like Pilates going for walks going to the gym all of that kind of stuff like where I can really put my phone down and not look at it and And then sleep is a big thing.

56:21So I recently got an aura ring and I am like obsessed with it. I didn't think I would be so obsessed with sleep tracking, but now I am. And I really prioritize that because I noticed before if I didn't have a good sleep, obviously it affects the next day. We didn't really realize that. But now I've got this. I understand more. So, yeah, just trying to be more mindful, trying to focus on myself and prioritize myself more. And really, yeah, focus on my wellness. Because I do believe that makes you a better founder.

56:47Nicola Gunby:But what about you? What's yours? um I actually I use a whoop I'm not wearing it right now but um yeah I think whoop massively helped me with um my sleep and I think just acknowledging how you're going to feel the next day like what you're capable of doing the next day based on your sleep is such a big thing for like you not pushing yourself too far yeah and I think as well like similar to you like I used to get really bad burnout I also used to think that like I mean I used to do this I used to wake up at five go to a barry's class go to the office then go out after work for drinks yeah and i'd cram everything into one day and it just completely like made me feel bad made me look bad like i would just not be the best version of myself and so um since working for myself i've been able to have a lot more freedom to be able to say well i'm going to do a pilates class in the middle of the day or i can squeeze in my workout here and there but exercise is definitely a key thing for me um my immunity seems to like come and go in terms of sometimes I get really sick it's funny you talk about Bali earlier because I have been to Bali so many times I get so ill like almost it's almost a joke of like I just shouldn't go to my and I love the place I know but like I just get more and more sick so um I've definitely upped in terms of like supplements that I've taken um my nutrition what I'm putting in my body I don't drink alcohol really anymore like I've started to do like we'll drink a certain event or like you know to celebrate something but make it a really planned moment versus like just saying yes to all social drinks um and supplement wise I've been taking heights supplements so I take their vitals every day which is amazing that is two capsules and it's something like 14 or 15 different vitamins and minerals all in one and so that for me has been a massive thing because I used to get so overwhelmed and just buy loads of different supplements and then never take them all so that's massively helped they also have a really great um gut health supplement called biotic and then magnesium for my sleep as well and so those three are literally all that I need to be able to stay consistent and that's the main thing with me it's like even if I can't make it to the gym or I do a walk instead one day I know that if I'm staying consistent with most of my habits and routines then I'm fairly okay yeah I think there's so much pressure that you have to be doing everything every single day so you have to be doing your morning routine and then you have to be going for the walk and getting all your steps in and drinking x amount of water and taking all your supplements and eating really healthy and going to the gym but sometimes when you have a really busy day like you can't do it all so I think sometimes something's got to give yeah and as long as you are consistent like I don't know maybe five days a week you do that certain thing or four days a week that you don't have to be doing everything every single day because then also that is going to probably make you burnt out because you're thinking constantly like oh I haven't been to the gym today I must go now it's 9 p.m I'm going to cram it in and you know you're not feeling your best and then you don't sleep well so I think it's all about like balancing yeah I think the term like what is balance it probably doesn't really exist because it's so different for everyone else but I think the more that you can like balance things out throughout the week like you just got to be less like hard on yourself too that's exactly it and it's the it's the small micro habits that actually make the difference versus going really hard yeah and so I used to do like like I said berries I'm not hating on berries I used to go all the time but I used to be like right I'm going on holiday I'm going to do a month get a get a pack for a month and go like five times a week I don't know how you did that I used to put on weight because I'd be so hungry yeah and stressed and I'd be rushing from the office to get there or rushing there to get to the office and my cortisol levels must have just been through the roof so it is interesting that now we're sort of starting to learn and I feel like I've definitely felt better in myself and in my body since I've just slowed down a bit and been less harsh on myself yeah but I spoke on a another panel the other week with an amazing lady I'm going to plug her upcoming book actually she's called Deborah Joseph and she's been a journalist for many many years um and she said she felt that real corporate but corporate burnout um when she had her three kids and then she went back to work she was the deputy editor at glamour magazine i believe and she said she just couldn't do it all so what she decided mentally was i'm just going to go for 70 and i'm going to ignore the other 30 and that's my version of balance so like you can never be a hundred percent of like an amazing mother to your children in the workplace partner or wife you know to your friends and family and then have time for yourself it's almost like those little buckets that we have making sure that they're always you can always get to around 70 percent of them as an aim even um helps take the pressure off yourself yeah and I also think out of them buckets probably the one we prioritize the least is ourselves which is crazy because we're not performing the best and we can't give the best to other people and it's that whole thing like you one would always say to you oh you can't pull from an empty can't pull from an empty cup but I don't think you really understood what that means until you're older and you're trying to do so much for everyone else but then realizing that you're not prioritizing yourself and we're always the last person on the list aren't we yeah your to-do list is like everyone else and it's like oh I need to do that one thing yeah so let me just push it to the bottom how do you address that like you said earlier you sometimes say no to plans just to focus on yourself right i've gone better okay i've gone better at first i wouldn't at first i'd book everything in and then bail and i feel like bailing's worse than just saying no i used to do that all the time it's so hard and you'd be sat there thinking like i wish this person cancels i wish this person cancels and it's so awful because it's like you don't want to let people down but you know that you just can't give it whereas now i'm like saying no straight away to something and it's really hard like sometimes you get really cool opportunities come up and you want to do everything it's like last week obviously like international women's day turns into international women's week month all of that so many cool events and i was like you know what i'm going to say yes to the ones that i really want to but that week i'm probably not going to be on top of my work and that's okay i'm not able to do every meeting and i'm probably going to go to the gym like two or three times but that's okay whereas this week's more quieter i don't have any evening plans and i'm like this is heaven so I know that I can get my work done more and I can go to the gym or whatever it is and like focus on myself I think like you can see each week as something different and not feel like every week has to cram everything in and so I'm getting better it's hard saying no especially when you're a people pleaser I think I'm a massive people pleaser I'm like I don't want to let anyone down but then at the same time like you don't want to let yourself down yeah so you have to say no to things that don't fit in your schedule I actually think it's such a like flex as well to be really good at saying no like I always really admire people who have boundaries I have a friend who um is actually like a qualified nurse and she got me onto the whoop and you know it's really into her sleep and stuff and I used to be like right do you want to go out tonight whatever she'd be like no I'm tired she'd literally just say it like that I'm tired I'm just saying yeah and I'd always be like oh I kind of respect that though like I wish I could be as upfront as that and I don't think you have to be as direct as that but but I think um that's it's so important right and you are only your best self when you give yourself that time yeah 100 you've got to put yourself first okay I'm moving into oh my god I can't be over at the end um quick fire wrap okay what is the best piece of advice you've ever received

1:04:27oh best piece of advice I received okay so don't take advice from someone that you wouldn't switch places with so I think a lot of the time you're given so much advice constantly like you can speak to three people in one day ask them the same thing they're all going to tell you something different based on their life experience and who they are you can't take all of that advice in because you'd never do it and I think when you're a founder and especially like building a personal brand all these things there's so many people that want to give you advice even if you haven't asked for it and I always think okay if I wouldn't swap shoes with you and I wouldn't want to be where you're right in life I'm not going to take that advice that's really a really good one and it's so true yeah

1:05:10Nicola Gunby:um it's also like not even just an advice I feel like opinions as well I mean similar thing but I feel like people want to give you opinions all the time and like you say I wouldn't want to yeah and it's so hard because if you listen to every single opinion every single piece of advice like say your business and you took in every piece of feedback from every single user that you had like you'd never do anything because everything will be so conflicting and I think with click what we've done so well is like we take on board that piece of advice if we hear that five to ten times then we'll make the change but if that one person wants one thing like you can't change the whole business just for that one person yeah and i suppose that's the importance of looking at data right and almost like trends in data of what the consistent patterns that you see versus the like outlier and just one person's opinion or experience yeah so true um what's a no that turned out to be a blessing in disguise so recently i actually posted this on my linkedin this morning so last week we were going into like a big partnership with like a global like billion dollar company was incredible that they'd even want to partner with us they pulled out in the last minute so we've had conversations probably for six months i'd say um going through all these integration ideas loads of different things with the team like marketing and stuff and they pulled out last week but they pulled out because they now see us as a competitor which is crazy because they are like multi multi multi like billion dollar company um own a lot of the market share in terms of like events and ticketing and stuff like that um but now they pulled out because their team feel like we're too much of a threat which I'm like that is it's not exactly like I know that's turned out to be something else but I feel like in hindsight like looking at it that is such a compliment that is yeah that's incredible whereas at the time we're like oh my god they don't want to partner with us and we read the rest of the email and they're like yeah because we see you as a threat and I was like wow okay that is I mean that is a stamp of validation or approval if you ever needed one right 100 % that's well I bet that was a bittersweet feeling in the moment yeah exactly um what do you do if you ever feel lonely even now oh what do I do if I feel lonely open click yeah literally go on my own app um yeah it's really hard i know really hard i suppose that i'm very lucky that i work with my partner and like we do everything together so we literally sometimes go to the gym together we go to walks together go to shops together like this weekend i don't think we've probably spent an hour apart maybe from like going in the shower like that's the only time like we spent apart yeah so i think i'm very lucky that i can do everything with that person but then that can't be your everything and I think I've realized that so I'm very much a person of like you need separate lives too so like spending time with friends doing stuff on my own like even if I feel lonely like sometimes going to something or doing something and like just pushing yourself out your comfort zone and spending time with yourself can be so impactful but then also surrounding yourself with the right people yeah absolutely and probably a great way that you've got the founder series yeah exactly because that like fills that hole I feel like I always had that hole in my life where I'm like I'm building this amazing business I work with my partner I've got great friends all of this but I didn't really have anything that fit that hole of I'm around people that get it and also women that you can chat with about a business thing but then you can also be talking about oh my god like this happened at the weekend like you hear your friends like dating advice all that kind of stuff built into one and everybody had that whereas now I do obviously having the founder series and having founder friends like very lucky that I can call any of my founder friends and ask for advice and they're going to be there to support yeah there is something so powerful about a room of women coming together yeah it's like anything can be made to write like the world could be made to write from that one that one meeting or event so true um a daily habit that keeps you grounded oh really into meditation at the moment and I'm quite strict on it that I can't look at my phone until I've meditated and sometimes it's five minutes sometimes 10 minutes sometimes 15 minutes depends how much time I've got but I do feel like after you've meditated you just have this like really clear outlook it's crazy like you can wake up in the morning you can still feel a little bit like flustered and all over the place and like a bit of brain foggy and then you do that and you just feel like you've got so much clarity it's like it gives your brain a refresh so yeah I've got into meditation recently i'm hoping i can keep it up because it's quite a hard one to be like no i'm gonna sit down for 10 minutes and not do anything and just like listen to meditation but i think it can be so powerful do you use like an app or yeah so i use insight timer oh yeah yeah so it's a free one i've tried like headspace and stuff before but that's quite easy because there's loads of different ones and i literally just sit there and i scroll and i stop and out of the five that are on there i just pick one yeah um and just go for it oh that's great i think meditation is one of those things it's like if you can get the consistency bit nailed then you see the benefits yeah whereas I feel like a lot of people will start try and not see the benefits and then stop yeah I also used to do it at night but I didn't feel like that was really doing anything right okay because I feel like you go to sleep yeah so it's kind of like you're switching off anyway whereas I like doing it in the morning as like a task so it helps you to get ready for the day yeah and i do feel like i think so much more clear it clearly i like work better if i've done it on the days that i don't do it i do notice i'm like i didn't meditate this morning like i'm so tell um you've actually really inspired me to start okay again so i'm actually the opposite of you i do it at night to go to sleep almost like this is quite bad now but like it's almost like an addiction like i have to have a sleep meditation on yeah um and funny enough talking earlier about like looking at data and patterns i use calm and um the founder of calm i've met a couple of times and he basically said that because they used to just do sort of traditional meditations and they found this pattern that people were constantly using their app at nighttime so they basically were using their meditations but to try and make them go to sleep and so then they started this whole thing of sleep stories where they have like matthew mcconaughey so cool steven fry and idris elba and all these people um which basically read you bedtime stories which sounds really strange yeah but it's so nice yeah honestly matthew mcconaughey's voice i see why yeah i know my partner's like not not as happy about that but um even just like rain sounds or something for me especially living in a city i feel like i need something like that to be able to properly switch off yeah we always have like sleep music on i don't really like the meditation sleep ones you know where it like talks you through it so like it distracts me a little bit but yeah i'm the same like i feel like i can't sleep without anything now yeah and but yeah meditate in the morning is a game changer okay i'm gonna give it a go um a founder or brand that you really admire right now oh i'm gonna say emma greed yeah i love her because she is that person that just like goes for it doesn't take no for an answer doesn't care what people think I'm like I feel like I need to be more like Emma Greed yeah I think she's such an inspirational founder and she's just got such a like direct yeah no waffle approach exactly so yeah I'd say her a lesson or quote that you live by oh I always say jump and the net will follow because I think sometimes we get so scared to jump because of the unknown we don't know what's going to be on the other side but like the net will always catch you and I think it's so true I look back on so many moments in my life where we've made a decision I'm like I don't know where this is gonna go but it always works out in the end and it's always meant to be I really love that I'm actually gonna add one more okay what advice would you give to people that are looking to raise investment oh advice there's a lot there's a lot of advice I'd say start earlier than you need to I think a lot of people think like oh I've got a three-month runway I need to raise investment I'm going to get it all closed off but it typically does take a lot of time and a lot more time than you think investment is relationship building so a lot of the time people want to know you a little bit before they commit to investing whether it's a couple of months and they're just like following your journey you're keeping updated whether they want like weekly monthly calls like everyone's so different I think especially when it's someone's personal money I give people time so the more runway that you have and the longer that you have to raise I think the better and you just raised an incredible seven figure investment right yes congratulations thank you but yeah that was a lot of time a lot of relationship building a lot of people ghosting you but you just got to keep going we had a couple of stories along the way of just people that just weren't who they said they were and like just not trying to scam us but we'd wait like six weeks and be like putting all our eggs in that basket we go through everything with them deep dive into all our data and then it turns out that they pull out in the last minute and you look back and you think there was so many red flags like so many people want to know a lot about your business and that's the perfect time for them so I think like you've got to have your wits about you a lot and don't trust everyone because there's a lot of people out there that are a bit sharky when it comes to investment um but yeah it took about eight months in total from like start to finish which isn't like an awful amount of time but when you're also running a business and every day you can't stop thinking about the investment eight months feels like eight years so yeah giving yourself as much time as possible is like crucial and not expecting it to happen overnight overnight there's so much like overnight success you go on linkedin and it's like 18 year old in harvard has raised six million pounds for his business and like you see all these stories and you think why am i not raising well you really can't compare yourself to other people because like what they have as well isn't always an overnight success exactly exactly well congratulations that's the perfect place to finish thank you so much for coming on and being here today and sharing your story I um have learned so much from you I've been so inspired by you but I'm also just personally really excited about your growth journey because it feels like you've done so much but you're also like on the cusp of doing so much more as well so huge kudos to you and I can't wait to see you thrive and flourish even more.

1:15:42Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.