Ep. 134 How To Trust Your Judgement & Learn To Say No With House of CB's Conna Walker

0:28Hey, it's Adam Grant from WorkLife, a podcast from TED. software, you'll work smarter, not harder. Freshworks uncomplicates. Learn more at Freshworks.com.

1:00Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, friends. Grace from the Working Hard podcast here. When you're stretching every dollar, a little goes a long way, and Walmart Business is here to help. They make it easy to order what you need from tech and cleaning supplies to everyday essentials, all at low prices and with helpful tools like spend tracking and tax-exempt purchasing for eligible organizations. Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started.

1:43What is up? I'm Grace Beverly and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast-shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

1:57today is a real full circle moment for me in this podcast first of all in case you haven't noticed we've had a bit of a spruce up um including some lovely new cover art and it very much got me thinking about where we all started so today's guest is connor walker she is founder of the incredible brand house of cb and she was this podcast's first ever guest i spoke to connor back in 2021 all about the brand success but since then house of cb has just got bigger and bigger and in her own words she has learned so much about how to build the business that she's always wanted to build. Conor started House of CB age 17 with just£3 ,000 and an eBay account and now it does nine figures in revenue every year with flagship stores on Oxford Street and across the US and customers like Beyonce and the Kardashians.

2:38I'm so incredibly excited to chat with Conor about her incredible growth strategy since we last spoke. One that saw her turn over£250 million last year, the US growth of her brand but more importantly her advice for growing a company, maintaining balance and achieving your dreams in business and in your lifestyle. One thing I really really wanted from this podcast was for it to just feel like a founder to founder chat, not least because I needed this founder to founder chat and I think seeing Connor really build the life that she has for herself from her business and the type of lifestyle she wants to lead and has been able to create has been a huge influence on me but also like at a point where I'm feeling very not stuck but kind of unclear in certain ways as to what I want my life to look like versus how hectic it got last year.

3:21This conversation was very much like a fly on the wall founder to founder completely unfiltered chat so I hope you really enjoy that. Before we get into the episode if you could just go on your podcast app to subscribe to our podcast. I know it's not something you might think of doing but it actually helps the podcast a huge amount and I know from myself that a lot of the podcasts I'm not actually subscribed to and it means you get the podcast exactly where you want it every Monday morning without even needing to think about it to give you the weekly boost you need. thank you so much and i hope you really enjoy the episode

3:56thank you so much for joining me of course thank you for having me the second time i know first time in person first time in person and first you were my first episode so it is like it's a real full circle moment us being here in la us coming back to do another one i feel like if anyone has listen to the first one I feel like they'll be able to hear the evolution of like everything like your business like your life the podcast the format I'm hoping everything has improved tenfold it's on growth um but first things first I always ask whether you are working hard or hardly working at the moment um both yeah maybe a little bit of both yeah I think you need I think you need both so always working hard of course a few days maybe you need to be hardly working Yeah, I really like that.

4:41And do you do you feel like you're good at keeping that balance? Not really. I do actually work most days. It's mostly working hard. But I mean, I think, yeah, you have to you have to put in those days where you're just like, you do nothing. I like to rot. I'm a rotter. I feel like you really need to know whether you're a rotter or not, because like knowing what recharges you is so important. Like I, I'm only a rotter if I've had like such an intense week where not just like hours wise, but like out and about wise, that is the only circumstance in which I can rot. Otherwise, like I tried to rot on Sunday and it actually made me feel like shit.

5:18And I was like, I need to get out and I need to do like outward rot. yes like that makes sense maybe a little walk a little a little gossipy podcast or a little working hard hardly working i don't even know the name of my podcast but like if you do the opposite one to the one you need yes it's actually really hard to genuinely recharge and feel like you know feel like you're kind of there's time for both balancing in the right direction yeah and i like to go outside i like to get some fresh air i like to go for a little hike and do a little workout wherever whenever else um but yeah for the most part it's working hard yeah which I enjoy I honestly think it's one of the best things ever to be in a position where the your version of working hard is also something that you enjoy and want to do and want to grow and want to like further like that is the more I think about it and the more I've spent time like trying to build a life that's like really designed around like the life I want to live in the life I see in the future for myself it's like it's it's not devoid of work it's just the type of work like I really want to make sure that type of work is something that I genuinely feel is fulfilling and enjoyable.

6:23Yes. And I think that realistically, if you want to have like longevity in your business or whatever it is, you have to enjoy it. Obviously, there's plenty of times where you're not going to enjoy it and it's going to be pretty shit. But you have to enjoy it enough to be like, OK, well, we'll keep pushing through. Yeah. No, I'm so with you. So for anyone who didn't listen to the last episode or maybe hasn't heard of your story, could you give us like a whistle stop tour of your background and let's do like how you started house of cb rather than how you got to where you are now because we've got a lot of questions on the growth and i feel like we've got a lot to dive into that um so i started house of cb by just like buying and selling some ready-made products that were dresses um and i put them on ebay i would list them myself i was still in school at the time i was like 17 um and and yeah so i listed them on ebay and i was selling them on eBay and sending them out myself.

7:21And then after like a year or so of that, I started designing my, designing loose term. I'm not much of a designer. I know what looks good. I'm the exact same. I'm like, I won't be doing you a tech pack. No. I can tell you exactly like what width that strap needs to be. Yes, 100%. Exactly. And I can tell you what we need, what products we need, how it needs to look, the kind of direction of that. But anyway, so then I went on. Yeah. So then I started designing some stuff some clothes um and then hired some designers and then turned into having my own in-house designed brand so we went from buying stuff already made and just kind of like just putting it on ebay to creating like its own brand and I want to go into that a little bit because I think that a lot of like there are a lot of people that have started this way and there are a lot of people who like I'm thinking a lot about people who have depot businesses at the moment for example and i think that the the leap from that to where you are now is so huge and i also think it's probably just like a sum total of a number of like good and relatively risky decisions first of all where were you getting the dresses that you were selling on ebay um i was getting them from like the marketplace in china i was going to um i was going to china with my parents because they were importing furniture um so i would just go around the clothing markets And I was like, I want clothes for myself.

8:42And then I was like, oh, I could sell these dresses. These are cool. And so I just filled up a suitcase and took them home with me and put them on eBay. Yeah, that's amazing. And I think to really like have that initiative, obviously, it was something that you were like seeing entrepreneurship around you, but to actually be like, oh, I can use what is out there like eBay to actually turn this into something. When you'd sold your first ones, was there any point that you just thought, oh, this is just going to like, it's only going to work like this. Like, I'm going to go to China, I'm going to get these pieces and then we're going to kind of like do it this way.

9:14Or did you always know in your head, this is going to be something that I'm going to evolve into my own clothing brand that I'm going to design or I'm going to get designed? designers? I think from the start, I was just trying to make money. I just was like, okay, you know, I can sell these, I can put them on eBay, that's cool. And I was obviously very fortunate. Like I lived at home. I didn't have to pay rent. My parents, I had borrowed£3 ,000 off of my parents. So like I didn't have a lot of stresses that maybe other people would have when starting a business. But I guess that also allowed me the freedom to just kind of see what happened um and so at first I wasn't really I wasn't like oh I'm gonna make a brand um but then after like a year or so I couldn't find the things that I wanted in the marketplace so then I was like okay I could design some myself um and so I did that and then and then at that point I was like okay I can make this like a real brand like an actual brand that's designed in-house and we produce it and all that kind of stuff so that cut that um what pushed me there realistically was the limit that kind of buying and selling ready-made products that that kind of ceiling that it kind of has um and so that's what forced me essentially into then making an actual brand and was there anything that you tried at that like very early stage in terms of like forming the business into an from an ebay store into your own brand was there anything that you tried that didn't work like that you wasted money on or just didn't turn out the way you thought it would not really i mean at the time I guess the risk wasn't so high like I didn't have super high numbers of stock and that kind of thing but for the most part I was lucky because where I had been um selling ready-made products I could see what they liked and what they didn't like like I kind of already had that trial and error so I already had an idea of what kind of thing that I wanted um so there wasn't in that stage there wasn't there wasn't much that was going wrong um but I think later down the line when we started experimenting with different things is when there was more there was there was some yeah i mean the more risks you take the more mistakes you're gonna make i personally don't think it's about making fewer mistakes i think it's about trying more things to be able to work out like the ones that actually work and like increasing that increasing that quantity of i guess trial and error that you're actually doing because you can't learn what works if you're not trying the maximal amount of things that you could possibly try that could potentially work Yeah, if you try 10 things and two stick and do really well, amazing.

11:38And I think that's really interesting what you say because I about like being at school at the time and living at home at the time and obviously like not having dependence. Like I think a lot of the moment about or even like I started super young and I think about how, you know, I was at university. So I it wasn't that I was like taking a big leap into entrepreneurship and like working out if it worked or not and like quitting my job and all of that. Nothing was changing other than the fact that I was doing this on top of university. and I think that that is so true and I stand by that what I also think is that a lot of the time especially when we're young our perception of risk is almost as if we're at the highest risk point rather than the lowest risk point I actually think the other way around I was gonna say I think when I was younger my um my risk assessment was like yeah this isn't much of a risk like I didn't consider really anything I was like yeah just try it cool well I think I think that's so funny and I'm like, yeah, what are we doing?

12:34That's what's so funny, because I think that a lot of people, because there's so much pressure now to like know exactly where your career is going and to know like what you're going to do. And then looking at everyone on social media, who's got these like amazing jobs and like amazing businesses. It's like, oh, shit, if this doesn't work, then I tried to start a business and it doesn't work. It's like, do you know the stats on like entrepreneurship? Like most people start, I don't know the stats. but they're like do you know the stats i don't know but it's like there's a good few times before you have a successful business is like what it's like statistically the success rate is not on the is not on the first go and i think it's so funny and i think i wonder what the impact is of social media on making us feel like we need to try and succeed like because actually the reality is like one of the things i always say on this podcast is like the best thing you can do in your 20s or while or while you're young is make mistakes and learn on other people's money and what I mean by other people's money I don't mean like stealing people's money it's like generally like employer's money or university's money or whatever it might be like how can you create a safety blanket even if you don't have one from parents or whatever it might be how can you create a safety blanket based on existing employment or already being at university or whatever it might be to be able to try other things that you can afford to lose like that you can afford to not work out and I do think there's like because of social media now we are a lot more risk averse because we see everyone else succeeding and i think that like i really felt that like getting to me for a bit before i like snap myself out of it i was like oh you're seeing everyone else doing all these amazing things so instantly you're being like must do less because can't risk this one thing going wrong failing in front of people and it's like okay it's actually the opposite because the one thing by not taking any risks the one thing you're promising yourself is that you're not going to do anything new yeah whereas it's like if you're trying like I've tried so much shit online that I've been like I don't know if you look back at my feed it's like that's been phased out but like that had to be that had to be done in order to move in the right direction I mean I think that it's really important to just try and if you don't try then of course you if you if you're not in the game you're not going to win so you have to try and I think actually um instead of judging people for failing we should judge more people for not trying yeah that's so true yeah I mean so what if you fail yeah just do it again you can keep going and going and going and everybody's failed and every and I just think the only people that judge people who have failed are people that haven't tried to do anything themselves and wish they had the balls and I yeah I really do think it's like a personal projection yes um and so yeah I think that people should be encouraged to take risks and within reason obviously like don't don't bet your home yeah yeah um but yeah within reason like you should take risks and if you want to try different businesses you want to try different products go for it what's the worst that can happen and I think the best thing is as well I mean social media does have that aspect in terms of you can be judged by people who are watching but at the same time like you have so many resources for free that people didn't really have before so you can market your product for free there's millions of people on instagram tiktok social media whatever um there's you know like the the shopify's of the world and whatnot you don't even have to really pay to set up a website anymore so there's so much you can do um now and the world has kind of like opens up so much obviously with the internet um i sound like i'm 90 um but it just there's so much opportunity is what i'm trying to say yeah and so you shouldn't let just the opinions of other people who haven't tried and haven't done anything and won't do anything deter you it's the same as like when you go to the gym and you think everyone's watching you oh yeah no one actually cares we have this perception of audience that actually we don't have part of my job is like having an audience and talking to an audience and like this community of people and that's like something that i like treasure very dearly but at the same time like most of the time like they're not just looking they've got their own lives like they're genuinely not look at like they're probably there'll probably be five people who notices if even with a significant audience if something just phases out or didn't work out or whatever it might be and I think almost pretending as if no one's looking because they probably aren't is so important you can give yourself this like inability to move anywhere because you feel like all of your school friends are watching you and all of like the people you went to uni with and all of like your colleagues and all of this it's like firstly they're probably not like they're probably checking their instagram story 10 times in the same day to see what a work of art is what's next cool like everyone has the attention span of about 30 seconds so even if it doesn't go well i agree i mean most people aren't paying attention realistically to what you're doing um even if they follow you and they're interested in what you do i'm sure that if i was to ask house of cb's followers hey what did we do this time two years ago they're like i don't know yeah and they They will not, I promise you, they will not know that design you did that you were like, fuck, that really dropped.

17:34That was awful. That bombed. Yeah, exactly. And so, like you said, it's just a lot of it is in our heads. No, I completely agree with that. And I think that's something that I need to like internalize a lot too. And I try and like constantly say to myself. It's harder for you because you have a big platform. I saw this really good thing, which was if you knew that you had to post this a thousand times and zero people would engage and on the thousandth time, it would like hugely take off. You would just take off each time. You'd just be like, great, cool. first time second time third time like great and same with like i don't know if you would actually welcome the fails you might call 99 at 98 97 yeah exactly until you get there you're like next next next exactly it's going to be there so let's start with some context how much has house of cb grown since we last spoke in 2021 oh my gosh i don't even in insane amounts it's grown insane amounts in in every aspect sales have grown dramatically last year we did about 200 million incredible nice congratulations thank you that's huge um and obviously we are self-funded we don't have any outside investors no debt no whatever so it's been a slow and steady growth but over the last well since i've seen you it's really um it's really propelled and obviously our team has grown massively um how many people are the team now approximately in in the head office it's not that big in the company as a whole it's probably about 2 000 but in the head oh my god but that's covering all of our yeah because you own the production yes yeah and stores and yes yes god so but our head office is pretty lean i like to keep my business quite lean i i think our head office is probably about 50 people if you count in a couple people that work kind of satellite remote yeah um and i like to keep our stuff quite mean i don't love having lots of and lots of stuff you need you just need a good balance yes and you need like a i feel like the way at least from the outside the way it looks like you guys work because it's like it's it's like a well-oiled machine like it feels like quite i don't know i feel like if i spent some time really studying it i'd be like oh this is the processes like i know when you do your releases I know like, you know, there's clearly like a formula behind everything, which is obviously like the absolute.

19:50It's like gold dust when it comes to building a business, because when you get processes in place and systems in place, it means that you can replicate like you can refine it. You can replicate. And even now we still put in new processes for different things. Like we still figure out like, oh, OK, we've been you know, we've been doing this wrong. We've been doing that wrong. And it's stuff that you just learn as you go. Of course. And then try and make linear. And what would you say the biggest turning point has been in that growth since we last spoke? Actually, probably around that time. I think one of our biggest things is how we've kind of evolved our product.

20:22So we've gone from like super dressy, evening out, bodycon, bandage, hot girl fun, which I love, obviously. Hot girl fun? Who doesn't? Do I look like I love hot girl fun? I love hot girl fun. I know I'm wearing a cardigan, but I do love hot girl fun. and then we've moved into our cottagecore era right now and I think that tied in really nicely with with COVID because obviously everything's shut down and I you know in the news you'll hear that in the UK at least like loads of the bars and the clubs and stuff are closing down so there's been like a huge cultural shift that just so happened at the same time as we started trying out this other product which is a bit more daytime it's a bit more like multi-use multi-wear um so that has been huge for us that kind of change in a little bit of direction and we still have obviously kept true to our our roots in how we create our products um but yeah now we have both essentially and so I think that has made a huge huge difference yeah and I'm really interested in that in terms of the how you balance taking the customer's lead in terms of like what they're actually liking from a product and also maintaining your kind of company dna because you obviously started with you know the body con dresses the very like out out hot girl fun vibe um this is your new slogan by the way i'll give you a little brand consultancy fee we're going for hot girl fun um and um obviously you've evolved from that and i i can see certain parts that like really tie that evolution together like i know that me having been like a fangirl from early having like seen it go from bandage to then like lots of corsetry and then using that corsetry in like the like sundress era and all of that but i'm really interested with i think if you looked at now versus right at the beginning you'd be like is this the same business which that's not a criticism that's kind of like evolution no it is but i'm really interested with how you balance that consistency and staying true to your DNA with taking the customer's lead and also trends?

22:33I think realistically, you have to listen to your customer, of course, but you kind of, it's best to listen through the data rather than a lot of the times I'll see brands and we've done it before and we'll be like, hey, what do you guys want to see from us? And I think people kind of need to be shown what they want to see. But you can get really good feedback on specific products. and so a lot of the times like if they really don't like something um at christmas we release some products only five but anyway that they really didn't like yeah it was like berries and cream call gate all over tiktok and they let us know yeah that's good that's good it's good

23:16but then they also give us other feedback in things they'll say you know we we introduced a larger cup option and I think we were the first brand first commercial brand to do that for like clothing yeah yeah bras um and invented the bra yeah we invented the bra no um and we got to that because of the the data and the feedback that we were getting from the customers so they were telling us like hey this doesn't fit my bust this doesn't fit my bust um and so we addressed that issue um but then I think there's also the element of being the kind of the lead of your company Where do you want to take it?

23:53What product do you think is not being serviced for them? And it may be something they haven't considered. And it may be something you haven't considered up until that point. So I think you have to kind of mesh the two together. I think you can't be fully led by other people's ideas. Yeah. And I completely agree. And I think that customers are obviously core to any company, like especially those like key customers that have been there since the beginning or have been, you know, spend a certain amount with you a year or whatever. like they should absolutely be at the center of a lot of your decisions at the same time if you think how much we've learned by being in the rooms that are actually making the decisions in the businesses there is so much that like i would have thought from an outside perspective that actually then seeing it from an inside perspective you're like this doesn't work because of this this and this or like you say you love this but then every time we come out with it like we have it the whole time for example like we constantly get fatala they're like more colors more colors and every time we do a color it's like crickets it's like us in white dresses like we can't sell enough white dresses right and and so there's a difference between what people say they want and what they actually want in practice how do you know what the difference is say you're making a decision and say customers are being like we really want this we really want this how do you know whether to like try that or to just be like i'm telling you you don't and i'm telling you i'm going to spend a hundred thousand minimum on this and then you're going to not buy it how do you know the difference i think that you have to you have to trust your own judgment and i think instinctively as like an owner of a company you kind of know what's right for you and what isn't right for you and you also have to be open to hearing other opinions and i'm always open to hearing other opinions and i think i'm quite good at like filtering through what i think is applicable to us and what isn't applicable to us and yeah you just you just have to take all the feedback with a grain of salt but obviously if you keep seeing the same thing then perhaps there's something in it um but you also like if you look at your sales data for example with your tala stuff you know that like black sells all the time or the neutral sell all the time and you can see that so then you're like okay but they do really like the neutrals so we have to make sure that we're always doing neutrals right and so you have to make those decisions that maybe aren't so like I don't know interesting yeah um based off of what you have seen yourself because people just see what they and they they express what they themselves want but you have like a big you know plethora of people and and their their shopping date and whatever else to kind of decide what you want to do with it yeah I'm totally with you so yeah I think you just have to you have to listen to the feedback of course but you realistically have to really listen to yourself and trust in yourself that your decisions you're making you feel good about yeah and you're not just making them to like appease people and so what would you recommend to someone who's at like the beginning of their business journey who maybe doesn't truly have the intuition yet that you build over time that you truly know your customer and you know what they're going to like and you know what they're not going to like even if it's different to what they're saying what would you recommend to them in terms of like how much to test and how to test it to avoid over-risking themselves but also to avoid staying static because also if you'd never tried corsets then You would never be where you are now.

27:08I suppose the best thing to do is first look at what's selling and try and analyze why it's selling and also look at what's not selling and try and analyze why that's not selling. Maybe it's colors, maybe it's cuts, whatever. I'm assuming that this is fashion. But if it wasn't, you'd still analyze whatever it is. And then I think it's just part of being a leader, though. Even when you start, you do have an intuition going on that you're like, do I want to do this? Do I not? and so I think you do just have to lean into that more and listen to that more and sometimes if you have too many voices that you're listening to you'll get a little bit confused and so even though you may not necessarily trust your judgment yet I think if you don't try using your judgment then you're not going to get to the point of trusting it so you need to practice it you need to be like okay what do I think is you know next what do I need to do next yeah and lean into that I'm totally with you on that and I think that's such good advice and I also think that like you have to take responsibility for these decisions even if it was a terrible decision not because it's like oh someone needs to be blamed for it but more because like that is how you learn fast like i can remember probably about like five terrible decisions i've made if in my head i would be like that was this person and that was this person that was this person i never would have learned because i was constantly like pushing the blame on other people whereas like there are five things that i've been like like hands down we have to do this product and like it's gonna to take off and it's gonna sell out and it's gonna like go viral and all of this and it's literally like people are like that's nice um and I feel like that responsibility part of it isn't like you know it's not responsibility so that you can kind of like hit yourself over the head and be like damn I shouldn't have done that but it's actually responsibility so that because like that's why founders learn so fast like it's one of the best parts of being a founder is like you're in this like crash course towards being a really good founder that you can only get there through like making all these mistakes and it's like you can't build that intuition without without making those mistakes and without trying and like at the same time i think it's like you know it is a balance because i can imagine someone listening to this being like okay i need to know what my core is and i need to know what our dna is and at the same time like connor went from these bandage dresses to this cottage core and like that evolution has to happen years right over 15 years so if you imagine maybe the product lifestyle is a product life line is about five years perhaps in different industries maybe will be different things um but going back to your responsibility point that's actually always been something that's been at the top of of kind of what I think and it's you're responsible for everybody and so even if you delegate your work to somebody else and they make a wrong decision that's still your responsibility of course you hold people accountable if they do work that's not what you wanted um but it is your responsibility your company is your responsibility and you know realistically the responsibility falls on you and if the company doesn't do well people can leave they can go and get another job they're fine but you have to deal with whatever happens if things go wrong and so you have to be really comfortable with the decisions you're making and trust in the decisions you're making because ultimately it's you that pays the price whichever way it goes good or bad and yeah like like I said your staff can leave they can get other jobs and that's that but for you it's your whole life essentially so you have to you know you have to take that responsibility and take that trust and you you don't want to spend your whole career just being like oh what do I do do who do I ask you have to be able to do it yourself yeah and that's unfortunately one of the things that makes like being a founder so fulfilling is like when risk level is higher and challenge level is higher and you're pushing yourself more it's more fulfilling when it works out and it's also worse when it doesn't yeah it is much worse but it's also i think you have to just look at it it goes back to what we said about um not being afraid to fail and you just have to be like okay i didn't that didn't go well and you can be obsessed about it for a minute and then you have to be like okay why didn't that go well yeah and learn from it move on from it go on to the next The market's uncertain.

31:16Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Let's be honest. Most HR platforms aren't exactly a joy to use. Deals different. It's AI native, keeps you compliant, and grows with your team, whether you're five people or 50 ,000.

31:56HR, IT, and payroll on one platform that just works. See for yourself at deel.com slash Sirius. We all have that piece. You know the one. The thing that's so you, you've basically become known for it. And if you don't have yours yet, you'll find it on eBay. Let me put you on, fashionistas. eBay is where you'll find those one-of-a-kind, can't-stop-researching, stay-up-dreaming-about-pieces. Again and again. I'm talking that Miu Miu off-the-runway red leather bomber. The Custo Barcelona top with the cowboy on it. Or that Patagonia fleece in the 2017 colorway. All these finds are on eBay. And they even offer millions of main character pieces backed by authenticity guarantee.

32:39eBay is the place for pre-loved and vintage fashion. eBay, things people love.

32:49At House of CB, you do such good takes on trends, but I very much noticed that you do not do all trends. Like I've seen a lot of trends this year that have been amazing and I have no doubt if you guys did them, they would have gone viral and I would have seen them everywhere, but you don't do all of them. How do you navigate trends whilst making sure that you're not dictated by them as a company? We, I mean, it's always good to stay informed in any business that you're in. It's good to stay informed with whatever is going on around you. Our business model isn't really one that's trend-based. You get a lot of like fast fashion stuff and they're super trend-based.

33:23And we're seeing obviously with like TikTok and that kind of social media that the trend cycles have become really shortened. And then there's all these kind of subsects of little trends and this and that. And so keeping up with that is realistically impossible for like a real brand if you're designing in-house if you're producing it's it's really just not feasible and i think as well it's so saturated that people don't really want it anymore um and they definitely don't want to spend more premium money on it so so if you're not working in a fast fashion space and you know you're not at the lower end of the price point it's like there's no point competing in that market um and when it comes to house of cb i think people want a classic house of cb products they they want house of cb and so it's really important for us to really focus on what works for us and of course we stay informed with trends we stay informed with what's going on but most of our decisions are made on what works for the brand so do we want to do sundresses do we want to be super girly do we want to go more sexy and like just yeah just trying to see what um is missing for the customer or what's next for our customer rather than what's next for everybody and do you have like a really this is like truly selfish interest do you have like a really clear say like one pager on exactly what the house of cbdna is that helps you decipher like this isn't an us trend or this isn't an us color or this isn't an us shape not really is it in your head yeah i better not go anywhere yeah no please um yeah no it is in my head and it's also something that continues to change yeah so maybe The things that our girl liked three years ago, she doesn't like anymore.

35:05But there's always obviously a core DNA. And there are things that like we obviously would not do. We wouldn't do poorly made products. We wouldn't do super trendy stuff. We wouldn't do streetwear. I don't know. It's just not true to our brand. And we've just got like our kind of pillars that are like being feminine, being well made, a real focus on like the shaping of the waist and all that kind of stuff. So those pillars are always there that we always refer back to. But in terms of specifics like colors or fabrics, not really. We just try. We see where we feel at the time. It's all very just.

35:42And how do you make sure that doesn't get affected by like your own fashion sense and like what you're into at the time? I think, I don't know. I think that it has always been a little bit affected by what I like and what I've been seeing. But that hasn't gone badly. you're like but it works sometimes it goes wrong some you know most of the time it goes right um but like previously when we did all our when we were in our bandage dress era we I was a bandage dress girl in the club and I'll still be a bandage dress girl in the club but not as frequently yeah um and so as I've grown up the brand has also grown up with me and my understanding of what people want and need has also grown um but I do think that there has always been a personal there's a personal connection to me and the collections yeah that we release there's things that I'm like yeah I like that I don't like that and if I don't like it it tends to not do that well yeah no I really really like that and I think that the pillars thing that you've said is really really important because I personally find pillars a good way to define like brand identity or like who you are as a company or your product DNA or whatever without being like overly restrictive because I think that for example what you said there with like feminine and probably like a cinch waist or like coming in at the waist and like this other stuff it's like that could both be like a really gorgeous track suit and a dress and all of that and that could all feel like your dna i think that it's really like i've yo-yoed before um in terms of like being too restrictive and being like no tala is just very specifically like this set of products and then it's like okay but we know she's wearing it with a blazer or we know she's wearing it with like you know she's wearing it with a bomber or she's dressing it up like this so like do we do that like where is the line and i've also been too flexible where we've had periods where i'm like this looks like a different brand every single launch and i think that you know part of it is trial and error but also i so strongly believe in pillars like and making sure like if ours are flattering like flattering higher quality than you'd expect from the market um versatile and multi-wear or multi-way And if it doesn't tick like all of those, it's not a Tala product.

37:54And I think that like it's weirdly taken us a very long time to like really define what that is. Honestly, ours has also taken a really long time to define. But weirdly, it's always been there. Yeah, no, exactly. I just didn't realize it. Exactly. It wasn't codified and it wasn't like. And I think that's been one of my biggest concentrations this year in trying to make sure that I'm not like overworking myself to the bone. because it's like if everything is in my head and people having to read my mind at the same time as me also being like I'm dying on the floor like someone help like there's there's this need to kind of be like oh okay this yeah this is what it is and sometimes there'll be a borderline product and we're like no but you know what she is really outfitting things with this like she really really really is and we need you know say like Pilates socks for example like they're not very multi-wear like you're not really wearing them for multiple different things and all of that but like it fits so perfectly with our product so it's like you need some flexibility but at the same time that like codifying of like no this is what the business is this is what it isn't I feel like is so important um and just to sort of clarify I would say that a brand could mostly go into anything like Tala could go into beauty house Sibi could go into beauty we could all you could go into pretty much any um category but it just has to be true to your brand so like if you wanted to do outerwear or whatever like house of cb can do outerwear and it will then it will have great quality it will have that kind of cinched waist and those features that like define the house of cb products um so i think you can go into any category you want even if you're a clothes brand and then you want to do homeware you can do all of those things as long as it's true to your kind of brand pillars yes and it seems authentic and it and it makes sense yeah um but you can kind of do anything yeah as long as it relates back yeah and so founder to founder question how do you deal with people stealing your designs um I think it's very flattering of course um no obviously she's a politician I mean it's nice it's flattering it's nice that um the designs we put out influence so much of the market and that is an honor truly like it's like wow this has really come from us that all these corset back dresses and all the adjustable and the and the sundresses and the cottage core that everybody's seeing at the moment I'm like great I'm so glad we did that um but of course it is also disheartening yeah and it's it's it's annoying when you're on Instagram and you see brands doing your exact I've seen some out it's not the exact product to be clear yeah but they do product that looks extremely similar and then they present it in an extremely similar way and even down to like content videos and the way in which it's being presented and and it's it is annoying of course you put so much work into it and you put so much money into it and you you take so much risk by introducing different types of product to the market um and so of course it is disappointing when loads of people do rip it off but I think that you know it's also part of the business it's how fashion goes we're obviously also influenced by vintage things and whatever else and it's just kind of part and parcel yeah um but yeah and i mean i'm glad that we have consistently put out products that people think is so good yes they should no and i do think that's like as in like i think that's very much like the right way to look at it and i think that it's you know it is so clear that you guys have had such a big impact on the market and i can see that like you can genuinely i think we are one of the brands that I could see that the most in terms of like the wider market.

41:33And it's frustrating, I can imagine, because fast fashion is such fucking like, it's so litchy. And it's really tough. And at the same time, when you're marketing online, it's probably like when someone's shopping for the first time, they probably don't know the quality difference. And they probably don't know the fact that, you know, even if they don't know, it's not the original or whatever it might be like, that must be hard. What I'm interested in as well is like, when you're having a tougher time as a founder or just like as a person and like I don't know works really tough or like personal lives tough or whatever it might be how do you avoid something like that like affecting your headspace I think realistically you can't avoid it affecting your headspace it does affect your headspace if you're having a bad day and then I call on Instagram and I'm like oh great yeah you know it's it's not nice it's not enjoyable um but I think as with any problem you look at it like how can we address this is there anything we can do about it yeah um and how do we move on from it And that is how you just have to go through things.

42:29You can be upset about it, but you can't let it derail everything you do. And, you know, I mean, we've done a few different products. We did corsets. We did cottage that have influenced people. So we've done it a few times before, and we can do it a few more times. We can come up with the next thing. And, yeah, and it's just something you just have to deal with, I think. And it is disheartening, and it is upsetting. But it's also, like, it's fine. We just move on. And have faith in the thought process that got you there in the first place, which can be replicated to lead whatever trend is next.

43:03Yeah. And production in the past four years, fucking hell, four years since we spoke. I know. Crazy. Four years. Crazy. I feel like a lot's changed in terms of your production and like the evolution of your kind of, not necessarily your supply chain, but like what it looks like at least externally. I know that last year you opened your own factory. Yes. So we've actually had our own factory for years, but last year we opened a really big factory of our own. And previous to that, we've obviously worked with other factories. But for years now, for the most of the time of the brand, we've had our own factory.

43:43And that's what's kind of allowed us to control our quality and to control the designs and all that kind of thing. But yeah, we opened a nice, I think it's 500 ,000 square foot, which is fun. Guys, I've got a name on the roof. and it also has a pink buggy it wasn't quite how soupy pink so i was very disappointed no i'm joking that's a joke uh but it's it's nice it's really cool and it's really cool to see and obviously owning your own factory allows you to control um your well have more control over your sustainability over all of that kind of stuff um and obviously your product yeah and and how you manage your product and how you produce your product and i think a lot of people don't realize how important that is you know if you're over ordering you're not going to make any money even if you're selling lots of it if you've got too much it's your accounts aren't going to balance up um and a lot of the times you know if you're at the mercy of another supplier not always but sometimes you may not be a very big account to them you may not be very important to them and it may be a bit harder to grow um kind of they they kind of put limits on what you can and can't do when you're working with another factory that's not to say you shouldn't work with another factory because also opening your own is a whole other beast it's definitely not the first time no don't don't do that on your first round um but yeah and it's nice it's nice to have that control and it's nice to yeah we like I said we can just literally have have eyes over everything on every tab that's important to us um and the flow of product when you have quite a big machine is very important and it can easily get out of control.

45:19Yeah. And it can easily like tip you one end or the other. And of course, things like if you don't have the stock, then you can't sell it. So say this year, you're like, okay, I did 100 ,000 this year. Next year, I want to do 400 ,000. You have to have the stock of 400 ,000 worth of product to sell in order to do 400 ,000. If you go into the next year with the same amount of stock that you had the year before, you will only do the same as you had the year before so being able to manage that um is helpful in managing your growth so aside from that how did you find manufacturers at the beginning i know you originally went out to trade fairs okay trade fairs i think um people don't really realize about trade fairs it's just not maybe it's just not a thing that you really know but trade fairs are fantastic and there's lots there's there's there's ones in europe there's ones in asia there's ones everywhere and I think the best thing to do I think a lot of people want to start a business and just be online all the time and like you want to find a manufacturer online yeah and you want to speak to people online and it's just not really realistic in building a real business you have to go and meet people you have to go to the trade fairs in person and you have to go to different stands and see what ones you like and speak to them face to face and then you probably have to go and and make a visit to their factory and see if it works for you and see if you like how they work and a lot of that is all done the best work is done face to face and I think a lot of people are just like understandably googling like clothing manufacturers but you're not really going to find much there you have to find the trade fairs and then go from there but physically and in person if you can so if you were to start again from square one yeah like you're you're 17 again would you go straight to a local trade fair yeah and by local that might be like you know if you're in London maybe you've got to get on the Eurostar and go to Paris yeah um but yeah I was gonna say Birmingham no there is I think that the reason I am hesitant of producing well you can try it and it I mean it's like how long is a piece of string if you're making things that you are going to retail for thousands of pounds then you have the budget to be able to produce it locally um whether the skill is there locally anymore I don't know I think a lot of the fashion production that was in the UK has ceased to exist but that's a different thing um but yeah I think for me I would go to a trade fair and you want to find somebody who who can manage a small order there will be really big companies that have really big stands and that like really flashing like I want them but you're not going to be important to them yeah so you really want to be in a working with someone who values you and can grow a little with you yeah so maybe not the biggest yeah um somebody who's a little smaller who can manage the orders you don't want to order 500 dresses on your first go like what are we doing yeah so I think trade fair and then try and look for a partner that is comfortable that doesn't feel too big for you and who you don't also always need to pretend that you know everything you're speaking about because you learn so much from suppliers and having conversations with them and being like this isn't working like this product isn't working yet what do you think is wrong with it bearing in mind they've been making these things far longer than you have yeah and i think that like there's no shame in asking questions you know if you don't want don't know what an moq is say sorry what does moq yeah yeah who cares yeah they don't care it's fine um and you're not going to learn you're going to make more costly mistakes by like pretending you know minimum order oh i didn't know what that was and now you're signed up for 10 000 pieces literally that you're going to be living and it's what you're wearing for the rest of your life exactly so there's not there's no shame in asking that there's no shame in in doing that and then also you know there's also google yeah for some things if you were to look back at like the overall house of cb journey what would you say some of the biggest mistakes you made were oh my gosh so many what yes i mean of course we i mean we've been doing this for 15 years and so we've tried lots of different things in different areas there's been all different things one of our worst things is probably we like for example we tried to do beauty years ago and that was probably too soon for us we we weren't ready to do beauty and we were like filling them ourselves and it was just not we didn't have the infrastructure for it the brand wasn't big enough for it and it was just too much and I think I had wanted so much for the brand and I still do of course but I was kind of like getting ahead of myself a little bit um and i think also just the basics like just make sure you're always looking at your books and are you earning more than you spend and it sounds very basic and very simple but that is the most important thing um and you just have to really be on top of that because you like revenue doesn't really matter if your profit is zero or minus even worse um and i think that's one of the biggest things that people overlook that they they're like oh I'm not really interested in that but that that is what keeps you going and you you need to be looking at that and so if there's someone listening to this who's a founder who's like that's just not my area at all what would you recommend that they get to like support them to mean that that is someone's area within the business then I think you're gonna have to find like a business manager or an accountant I mean I always think that whenever you're starting a business you do need to find a lawyer and an accountant and they don't have to be super expensive but you don't want to be doing that stuff yourself yeah um jail don't do that um yeah no so I think you have to find somebody who can do it or hire somebody in the company who can do it but of course that also requires a lot of trust and they have access to all your finances and they could steal it so you know you it's best to try and have some understanding even if it's not your thing hire somebody but also try and learn as much as you can yeah and that is one of the best parts as i've kind of said before about like being a founder is like you do learn so much like about so many different roles and i've heard so much of advice of like really try and make sure you understand every role within your business like you don't need to be the person they would hire for it but like you do need to really understand it and i've really noticed that like strength coming through in the past few years in terms of like my work i've been like god if i didn't understand how this worked right now i wouldn't know that like that person just isn't quite right for that or like it's just not the right style or like whatever it might be and it's so easy to just be like god i like i need to delegate i need to delegate which you do and like you need to be able to delegate in order to get to where you want to but at the same time like you need to delegate whilst also having a good understanding of why what is coming to you might not be quite right or might not be the way that they should be looking at it or whatever it might be because otherwise it's so like i got so fucked over so early on within the business just constantly because i was like oh maybe perhaps delegated too early some of these things and to the wrong people you need to know what they should be doing and like i don't know how long it should take you know those kinds of basic things you don't necessarily need to know how to do it yourself but if you've hired a graphic designer you need to know how long it takes them to do a newsletter i don't know whatever um because they could be like yeah i spent all day making this newsletter i'm like why that should have taken you like an hour yeah yeah um and so you need to have that understanding of course and the only way of doing that is really just digging in and getting involved in those roles in the company and just like being open to ask questions and being like oh so what is that what is what does that do okay and I think just asking why repeatedly um with every problem you come to problem or job or whatever okay so why do you do that okay so why does that newsletter take you all day whatever it might be and asking why they can give you the information back that maybe you can troubleshoot or you can problem solve or maybe that's just the reality of what that task requires um but asking why will always kind of get you to the bottom of yeah what's there yeah yeah and you'll learn from it you'll learn the information you need rather than being like hey can you tell me what you're doing you need to ask like okay so why does this take that long Why do you need to do that?

53:19Yeah.

53:47with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. And I want to talk a little bit about Founder Life. Yes. What does a typical day look like for you now? I don't really have a typical day. A dream. No, it's typically terrifying. So start with a cry. Yeah, start with a cry and ends with a cry. I like to bookmark the skips. Yeah, very Grinch coded. no it's it's very varied I mean I oversee a lot of different things and I oversee a lot of different people in different departments and I touch base with all all different things touch base so corporate um circle back I do a lot of touching base a lot of circling sounds like a lot of nothing um but no I I have to oversee a lot of things yeah and so my day is very varied um but I mean mostly I get up early go to bed quite early as well fun yeah but no yeah it's just kind of all over the place one day maybe I'm looking at production stuff and production issues another day maybe I'm looking at the creative direction of the collections I'm looking at fits I'm looking at you know what do we want next what what is our next big product where do we want to like move into what do we want less of what do we want more of um and I I just look at everything you just have to keep like looking at things yeah I know that sounds so dumb no no but it's true and And I think that things.

55:13Yeah, it's so true. And I think that like I often look at like the look at the amount of like work that's coming in and the types of things I'm reviewing. And like I remember sometimes like, well, I'll put out my daily schedule. I'll be like, everything's just like review X, review X, review X. And I'm like, am I actually doing anything? Like, do I do anything? Yes. And it's obviously like you build the team to a point where ideally they're doing the things so that you can use all of your time reviewing it. Because if you were doing it, you couldn't be reviewing all the other things. And then you don't have visibility over everything.

55:41Of course. But I do often have that thought. I'm like, do I do at all? What am I doing? I'm doing lots, but what am I doing? I'm seeing. What I'm doing is seeing. I think the ideal is for any founder is that you find a team that you can delegate to and that you can trust. But you shouldn't just be like, cool, see, you never, you deal with that. You should be having conversation with them and know what's going on. And then you're also going to be problem solving all the time. yeah and so that's kind of what's needed in that in that back and forth um and yeah you just it is a lot of reviewing one thing that i found as well is like often i'm the only one who is obviously departments talk to each other a lot and like you know especially like heads of departments and all of that but often like i'm the only one who's seen all of these different things so if i'm the only one who's seen these different five things like then i can see the connect between why these two things aren't going to work or why these two things are completely different messaging or like just won't work in the same month or whatever it might be so even being like i don't know i sometimes have this like crisis of being like as i said like am i doing anything or am i just like seeing everything and i think that actually just being like no i need to connect all of this i need to be the glue that holds this all together because i'm going to be the one that's instantly like that doesn't work or whatever because i'll have that gut instinct yes and you're steering the ship so you have to oversee all parts of the ship to make sure it's going in the right direction i think a good boss realistically doesn't have too much to do and i know that probably sounds a bit controversial but like you should be overseeing everything and you should be steering the ship and you should be directing where your company goes and and what it does um and it's evolution but you shouldn't necessarily be doing day-to-day tasks yeah a hundred percent and that's one of the biggest things that like i've no this is now just like founder therapy by the way you won't be paid but i really appreciate it i'll send you an invoice yeah yeah thanks so much but I like one of the things I've really struggled with over the past like year especially has been the fact that obviously like the team's grown so much and I feel like I've been I've always approved certain departments of work especially ones that I'm like particularly native to um so say anything in like socials influencer design like those are like you know I have my claws in those and and I think that's pretty classic for a founder especially because that's pretty much like what everyone else sees.

57:59But those teams have got bigger, which has meant that I'm approving more capacity of people's work. And it got to a point like last year where I was just like, oh my God, like I physically, if there were five of me, we would not be able to see all of this. And at the same time, every time I tried to delegate something, if it didn't go to plan, that's obviously still my responsibility. So up until pretty much the end of last year, November I was still seeing every single socials post every single influencer we were working with every single piece of content they submitted every single design sign offer every single stage like all of this and it was to the point where like on a Friday my non-meeting day I would sit down at like 7am literally not stand up and then by like 9pm I'd like come out of this like coma out of the case yeah and then I would I honestly wouldn't have even made a dent and I was like god this is both bad for the business it's bad for me because i'm about to fucking explode but also at the same time then when i'm trying to delegate things because the answer is always delegate of course at the same time then when a socials post didn't hit it's awful or didn't or like the there's an influencer thing that just like doesn't work or there's a product thing that doesn't work or whatever that is still your responsibility as the founder and of course it's other people's responsibility as well but what I always struggle with is the fact that you kind of it's a tiny bit of a lose-lose because you should be delegating it but if it if you don't delegate it then you should have delegated it and you shouldn't be in the weeds and you should be spending time on something else and if you did get delegate it and it doesn't well and it's not gone well and it's I think some people will listen to this and then be like oh it's always then you should just get like maybe someone's not right in a role and actually just the reality of like being a founder is that you're used to making mistakes so constantly that you know certain things to tweak that other people just might not know yet.

59:52And like with a company growing, it is, you know, like that's kind of part of it. Like, you know, it's so much better than anyone else. And it's like, this is really like something I've had to just be like, okay, I'm going to let go of this and like, hope nothing explodes because I was going to be the one exploding. But at the same time, I find it so hard to know like what is good to delegate and what if I delegate would be irresponsible of me for me i have a bit of a rule that's relatively new over the past few years that it has to be 80 correct because in my mind i want everything 100 and being 100 is just not realistic or feasible and so being 80 correct 80 is good enough yeah and so if 80 of the social posts are good and 20 % aren't fine um it's it's just kind of going all the way around you know on everything um if it's 80 % it's good and I think having that level instead of expecting everything to be 100 % will allow you some freedom um but then of course like you said there are some people that aren't a fit there are some people some people that you try with them and then you're like this doesn't work but there's that's also kind of an unspoken thing as well for for a founder in like not a huge company not a huge conglomerate you also have to train these stuff which is more work at the time than just doing it yourself i know i know and this is the biggest and this is i talk about this to people who are my direct reports as well because i see them doing it too and like i know you're doing this yourself and i know that that is easier because it makes sense but at the same time this is in the long term this is going to fuck us so much because we cannot grow this team or like whatever it might be but it is like you know when like something comes in at 10 p.m.

1:01:36and you're looking at it and you're like I'm just gonna do this literally just like me literally lying in bed and being like right laptop back out like all of this and I'm just gonna sort it and it doesn't take me long it takes me half an hour but it takes me 50 of my mental health that's the thing it may not take a long time but it takes a lot of brain capacity yeah but yeah I think that if you have a rule where if they're 80 good enough then that's good enough yeah and I think where it's your own thing you look at everything under a microscope you're like this is the worst social post I've ever seen in my life meanwhile it doesn't yeah it's fine and also like if it got three likes and everyone hated it then also we know what not to do but one of the biggest things I've I think I've been doing for the past few years as well is I've taken learning opportunities away from my team based on the fact that and like they are amazing and they've all been hired for a reason every single person there should be there but it's like I I have been like oh I'm going to tweak this and tweak this and tweak this and then it doesn't get what I was worried about it getting and then no one learns from it because it I was the one who tweaked it and actually you're you're you're basically depriving them of that feedback loop because if everything then goes out and it was like 10 improved or whatever and it's that 90 good or that like 100 good or whatever it's like well then they're not getting that feedback loop so then you've created a crutch rather than actually helping and that is you're doing and that is only going to come back and bite you yeah and then they'll also just kind of get used to that and for you to like they'll start to feel like oh she wants me to send her this so she can give her edits i don't want to send you that's so true i want to and i i i always thought i was very direct but there are ways of communicating that maybe you feel direct but you're not actually being direct yeah and so you want to be nice as well yeah you yeah and you do need to be nice well you don't need to be nice but you do need to be polite yeah perhaps yeah no no no there's a difference between like being kind and being nice and there have been times previously where like years ago that I'd have a designer and they'd be like but I really love this dress and I'm like okay we can make it didn't sell I knew it wouldn't sell because I didn't like it but I didn't have the heart to be like no because I felt like I was saying no so much no is actually my favorite word yeah um I say no a million times a day yeah I start sentences I'm sweating people yeah people tell me things I'm like no and then I continue and it's just I I think no is a great word.

1:03:57And you have to be direct with what you tell your staff. And when you're hiring staff, you have to be prepared for the commitment of training them. And they may be wonderfully trained. They may come from like great places and stuff, but they may not do things the way you want to do them. And so you may feel like inside, you're like, they're not doing this right. They're not doing this right. But have you actually explained what they're not doing right and how you would like it done? Yeah. Or are you, I do the same. I'm like, oh, this is wrong. Change this, change that, blah, blah, blah. but instead you need to say hey I don't like this that keeps appearing we need to change this moving yeah and can you look out for that can you look out for that and blah blah and you have to put rules in and like maybe the rules are I don't know the copy always has to align with this the imagery always has to align with this and once you start setting rules less things go wrong people understand what you want and being clear with with your nose yeah no is a great way yeah jasmine larian the founder of cold gaia she she has a saying like clarity is kindness and like clarity often involves being like what someone might it might upset someone in the moment but like if you're not clear you're going to upset them more in the future because actually being like oh this might work when you know in your head they're going to come back with version two and you're going to be like it's a big fat no yes so sorry but like this is keeping me up at night yeah and i think sometimes being overly nice does hinder you and i mean i guess especially as a woman i think and i hate to go on about those things but sometimes i do feel like we try and be a bit nicer yeah um no no i do think that's true and actually someone someone on my team the other day she goes like you always say when you're saying she always you always say when you're saying no like oh it's great i'm really or no she was like she was like i hate to say this and i'm really sorry to be annoying and like all of this and she's like this is why we're here and i was like yeah but i really think that like like i just don't want to be the like and i'm quite a it's funny because i'm like a very headstrong and direct yeah but then you do that yeah and at the same time i'm like very aware of how something might come across on slack versus like when i say it to them in person or whatever so i'll just like send like 50 platitudes in the same message of it as like a capital no and me being like but i love it but unfortunately not i think that getting that balance right is quite difficult and you want um you want to be like positive and you want positive reinforcement but constantly being like oh I'm so sorry I think being apologetic is not the best thing and I think you just need to be direct and clear and be like you know what I don't love this yes and if you want any clarity on this let me know and then you also in your brain have to be like this is why I don't like it and you have to express that yeah and I think when hiring staff you have to also consider um when I even now when I hire stuff sometimes I get it wrong sometimes I've made a mistake and I'll interview them and I'm like this is the right person and And then you find out that they're not the right person.

1:06:49And there's that balance, isn't there, of allowing somebody enough time to try and also making sure that you're giving really good direct feedback to them and not holding it on inside and just in your head. Like, I don't like this. I don't like that. But you're not really having those actual conversations. It's weird because you think you are because it's in your head. I know. But you think you're getting it out to them. Yeah. And you might be like, I don't like that. But you're not really. Me literally imagining myself in my head is like Miranda Priestly, like Devil Wears Cardiff. and be like ah and me literally be like i'm so sorry i'm really like maybe i'll just buy 500 of those shorts instead like me i was like i'll make the dress it's fine it's not fine i don't like it yeah and it's much better for everyone when you're more direct but i was saying that to say that you know hiring people and knowing when to hire and knowing um when to try people and to delegate and this and that there is a fine balance there's a balance that intuitively you'll be like this is not the right person for me i've picked the wrong person yeah And then other times it's like you do have to give people a chance and you do have to be present enough to be able to essentially train them in what you want.

1:07:53Yes. And by train, I don't mean train them to do their job. They should be able to do their job, but train them in how you want your preference. Yeah, yeah. I'm totally with you. And do you feel like you've built your ideal like lifestyle? Like, do you feel like when you see the like build your dream life and build your dream, all of this. Do you feel like you've built yours? No. Tell me more. My favorite word. No, no, I just I just think that as you as you get older, as you do different things, you're just the things you want may change or your goalposts may change. Maybe one day you I don't know, you want a really nice car and then you get a really nice car and then maybe you want a house with a library in it.

1:08:37I don't know. Or maybe you want to spend more time. Not me at all. I don't want a house with a library in it. or a spa suite uh that's not on my list um but yeah uh you i think that always changes doesn't it and as your life changes the things you want change the things you value change like maybe before i was like i really want these bags and then now i'm like ah i don't really care i want to like lay on the beach and no thinky yeah you know like the things you want change I'm big on no thinking. Me too. I'm a big no thinkier. But yeah, I think that like lifestyle wise, that always changes. And of course, I'm very grateful for the life I have.

1:09:19I have so much freedom and I get to own and direct the company that I love and that so many other people love, which is, it is really nice. And it is great when you go out and people are like, I love House of CB. And that feels fantastic. It feels like you've done something. But at the same time, I also just, you know, I also value that I can do what I want and I have that full freedom. So yes and no. Of course, I love my life. What are you doing over the next year or so to build, I guess, more of what you see as your dream lifestyle? For me, I am a worker. I like to work. And my focus at the moment is very much on House of CB and making House of CB so much bigger than it already is.

1:10:01and also just kind of touching points on different product lines and different things that I would really like for it to reach. But I think I also, you know, you also want to have that balance of enjoying your life and being in the moment. And I like to have a good time. I like to go. I like to have fun. And so I think it's just always having those things. Do you want more of that, like, time off? More fun. I don't actually love time off. I like like I enjoy it when I'm having fun. That sounds stupid. But yeah, I don't I I'm not a person that wants to like retire. Yeah, agree. I think like the difference for me is that like it's not that I want to be on a beach all the time.

1:10:42I want the freedom to be able to say, do you know what? It's Friday night and I'm not going to work. Like as in like I'm not going to work tonight and I nothing's going to blow up if I do that. And I want to or to suddenly be like like one, you know, near cause of breakdown was I was with like a load of um really high up people and like they were CEOs of much bigger companies than me and they were like oh should we go should we go get a drink after this and in my head I was like there was physically no way I can go get a drink after this like I have to I've been doing this all day would also work just another version of it I have to get to my computer and I have to do this and there's no way and I literally went home and I was like oh I was like all of these people have much more important things than me and I yeah physically like as in in my mind I instantly was like there is no way if this was like the you know I don't know I'm trying to think of someone like who I would really really want to go for a drink with like I was like there is physically no way and I was like literally I was like that means I have not built my dream life yet like as in like i the difference between me and my dream life now is the freedom to be able to say no and say we're not right now we do the power of saying no um and the fact that actually you know i'm i'm not going to do this or i this has come up and i would really like like i always have these things where like an amazing lunch comes up and it's in three days time and i'm like physically no ability yeah i'm like that's not freedom i've not built freedom for myself i built my own things but my own things are my like they do not give me freedom and therefore i have not built myself freedom and i think like that for me yeah it's what i'm trying to build i'm fortunately i feel like i'm already kind of there yeah i can take whenever i i can't go and take a month off yeah i can't disappear for two weeks yeah but i realistically have all the flexibility that I need.

1:12:46Oh, love. I can just, you know, if I don't want to work today, I don't have to work today. Oh, we'll be texting you. I'll just binge watch a TV show. But I think, I don't know, I think there's things that I just, I really want House of CB to do and that is my focus. Yes. And actually the freedom that you talk about is, it goes back to a lot of the things we've discussed, which is finding the right team and giving them the work and that 80 % rule and saying no and all that kind of stuff, all eventually gets you there yeah and and me doing the work as well to actually be like okay because i think so many times i've hired the right people and then i've not done the work to be like cool i need to empower you with all of this information and the ability to make mistakes that yes might come back on me online but we both know us too that it's fine yes and it's all good and it's you know no one's gonna die and you know like it didn't go how it needed to or we missed target by 100k like whatever it might be fine yeah no one dies yeah yeah yeah and i think that and that also comes that like less there's always stress there's always a lot of stress but you always after like for example i've done this obviously for 15 years now um and you have trust in yourself you build trust in yourself to know that hey yeah i've i've shown many times i've solved many problems we haven't died yet yeah and today is not going to be the day and it's having a bit of that belief of like yeah I mean I figured this out before maybe not the same product problem I'd hope not if you figured out why don't do that um but yeah then you can be like you know what we've come this far and it's just kind of being like no this will not break us yeah we will figure this out and we will find out how to solve this issue and like in any business you're never going to get to a point where there are no issues there's always an issue There's always something going wrong.

1:14:35And like when you're when you're early on, you'll be like, oh, this fabric came back the wrong color or the wrong quality or whatever. And then when you're older, it's like, oh, we've bitten off more than we can chew or whatever. You know, like these these things aren't being watched properly. These this is out of control, whatever it might be. And those are all growing pains. And unless you are partnering with someone who's super seasoned, which for the most part people aren't doing, you have to go through all of those things and you just have to be like yeah I'm going to figure this out in the middle of it you get some freedom yeah to yourself to be able to do kind of whatever you want but then it also doesn't stop I think that when you own a business realistically like people are like I'm going to take a month off I'm like one what are you going to do like why you can't I'm trying to I agree with that and I think for the past like year or so I've been like I just need a month off and I think realistically what I need is a life that I do not need a month off from so fucking regularly yeah but I think also in the jobs we do the stress is there and that is part of it and you know it's all the risk and all the reward and all the loss as well depending on where that falls yeah and I don't I don't know I'm not the CEO of like a fortune 500 company but I would imagine a pretty fucking huge amount of money I would say I would imagine that realistically the stress is always there and it just shows up in different problems.

1:16:05And of course you'll have a little more freedom and more money, hopefully. To make you have more freedom. And do you set a lot of goals for yourself? I'm not really a goal person. Really? Yeah, I'm not a vision boarder. Although I suppose in the last year or so I'll just write one thing. It's not a vision board. It's a word. I'm against vision boards, it seems. but yeah it's literally like a word on my wall um but no a vision board um but I'm not a goal person really yeah I think that I just I don't have like a set specific I have targets I don't know if they're goals goals to me are more like this is what I would like in five or ten years and that's not really the way I work I'm much more just like this is the thing I want us to do next this is the thing I want us to focus on the I want to introduce these product lines I want to sell the company yeah on every podcast if that is a joke it's not a joke um just in case anyone's got a billion dollars um no and so the targets i have come up and then we achieve them hopefully um and then new targets come up yeah but i'm not a huge you have to be obviously you have to be strategic but i'm i'm not set in stone is what i'm trying to say i'm not like we must achieve these specific goals right focus on the next step yes focus on the next step and the next step for us is here and then and I'll have things in mind that maybe I want to happen or or whatever it might be you know things that I'm like okay yeah I would love for this to happen I would love for us to do this and we're heading in that direction but it's not like a really specifically plotted out path yeah yeah it's like we just do bit by bit and see where we land and yeah I really love that and I think it's important I think that like there's so much on goals online and I very much contribute to that hands up hands in the air but but i think that also but i also think that like different people work with different things like i did not set any goals this january and i am firm in my decision for that because i set them in september and i feel clear in them and i feel like it would just be a vanity exercise of just like spending some time feeling happy about goals rather than actually doing the work yeah and i feel like you need to know where you are in that cycle and what works for you yeah which i like diversity and goal setting abilities yeah exactly Exactly.

1:18:19And like it is having a goal. Like if I'm like, hey, I want us to, I don't know, have bridal stores. That is a goal. I just see it more as like a target and something we will do. And then we get to that point. And then what's the next thing? I like that. And there might be an overarching thing. Like, you know, I want House of CB to be a lifestyle brand. I want everybody to love it. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And everything we do is going towards that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not necessarily in a specific route. I'm with you. I think you have to be flexible. and what would you say the best piece of advice you've ever been given is um I used to say that everything is figureoutable and I think that that is um really important that like you know you can solve every problem that comes your way and not to just kind of every everything has a solution it may not be a solution you like but there is a solution and I think that having that kind of trust that you can sort out the problem and that there is an answer the fact that there is an answer is very helpful.

1:19:18And it kind of gives you a sense of ease that like, no matter what happens, there's something I can do about it. Again, you may not like what the answer is, but there's something there. But recently, it has actually been what I kind of referenced before is that like 80 % is good enough. And I have always held everything we do to such a high standard. And I still do. 80 % of my 100 % is probably somebody else's 200. So that's fine by me. and I think just if you really want to scale your company you need to have that trust and just be like yeah this is good enough yeah I really like that well thank you so much for coming you've been amazing and thank you for my therapy for free and I can't believe we're all the way I know from start to well not finish obviously oh you've been so amazing no thank you so much thank you for having me

1:20:22This is Hannah Burner from Giggly Squad. O-Pill is the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the U.S. Let's be real. Getting a birth control prescription is not always easy and it's so much admin. In fact, about a third of women face barriers to access prescription birth control. Between scheduling appointments, missing work, class, or just trying to exist, it's a lot. but now Opill is putting birth control in our control. Opill is a daily birth control that's FDA approved, full prescription strength and estrogen free and 98 % effective when used as directed. Grab it online or at most major retailers, no prescription or doctor's appointment needed.

1:21:01So if you're thinking about birth control, check out Opill to see if it's right for you. Use code Giggly for 25 % off your first month of Opill at O-P-I-L-L.com. That's code Giggly at O-P-I-L-L.com. birth control in your control. We love to see it. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary. Always so fresh, delicious, and nutritious, Eggland's best eggs fuel the body with six times more vitamin D, 10 times more vitamin E, and 25 % less saturated fat compared to ordinary eggs.

1:21:44Visit egglandsbest.com to learn more.