Ep. 82 The Real Story Behind Odd Muse With Aimee Smale

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1:29it is safe to say that amy smale has had a whirlwind few years aged just 21 she left her job at asos to found odd muse a fashion brand known for tailoring and sleek silhouettes she openly admits that she had no experience running a business yet within her first three months she'd made over£100 ,000 after her designs captured huge audiences online. Now Odd Muse is going from strength to strength. I'm sure you've seen them. They are absolutely everywhere. They've just opened their first permanent store in London this year and I cannot wait for you to hear Amy's story. If you're sitting in a full-time job and you've ever wanted to set up your own venture, this episode is for you.

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2:32thank you so much for joining me thank you for having me i am so excited for this conversation I couldn't bet you I'm more excited. Wow. God, this is going to be fun. So I want to get all into it and find out how you got to where you are now. I'd love to know a little bit about your background. Like, tell me a little bit about where you grew up, what it was like. So I grew up like 20, 30 minutes outside of London in Essex. Very normal background. I remember I was such a tomboy growing up because I was obsessed with my brother. Hated my sister, obsessed with my brother. wanted to be a boy, was into all the boy things.

3:10Now I'm like surpass my sister in like fashion, beauty, love it all. The love for fashion really come as I was going into university, which is so strange because you'd think I would have loved it all along. But yeah, going into university was when I was like randomly, I want to be a fashion buyer. That was my upbringing. I loved learning, loved school. I did all the sciences. I loved everything about learning but fashion only really come into like my earlier life as I was like 17 18. And why do you think that was like where did the love for fashion come from? I think I think I was like really creative when I was younger but I didn't really know like where to like put it into and then I have like a really close family friend who's like a very very successful fashion buyer and I just found buying the most interesting contrast between that creativity of fashion but actually the numbers and like the analytics and the data.

4:06So then I just got obsessed with buy-in, studied buy-in, went into buy-in. Did you study buying at university? Yeah, I did fashion buying and brand management, which was actually the perfect course. So useful. What the fuck am I doing here with a fucking music degree? You have a music degree? Yeah. I didn't know that. I can tell you so much about the political landscape of music. It's so funny because when you speak to people, they always have like the most random degrees or their stance is like you don't have to go uni. I think like uni is such a, I don't know, conversation because you really don't have to go.

4:39I was very fortunate at that. Like I was like, right, I want to be a fashion buyer. Like I said, I'd just got to like 17, 18, realized I hadn't really done anything in school at all. And I just thought I just wanted to learn about it for a couple of years. um so it was a very like it was the least uni experience possible like I drove there every day I lived at home right it wasn't like I genuinely went there because I wanted to learn about fashion um but yeah it was literally the most perfect course because it was fashion buying but it was also brand management so like part of my final major project was creating a brand start to finish like branding product it was like design everything all in um and that's where I feel like I've got the first understanding of like A to Z.

5:22I really credit my time at ASOS for the experience, but I don't think uni or that experience was more important than the other because uni really taught me like what it takes step by step. I remember using my final major project, Brief, as a thing for Odd Muse to start Odd Muse. Really? Yeah, like the step by step, like everything we needed to complete. I used that for Odd Muse like a little bit later on. That's amazing. Yeah, I've never actually told anyone that. well here I am thrilled for the exclusive firstly um yeah no I think that's so interesting because I completely agree that like the educational background is less important than the attitude you have towards it and what you've done with it and I believe that through everything so like whether that is I don't know people I'm hiring like my personal team at the moment for example like we are video editor I'm sure she won't mind me saying she was an ophthalmologist in her last job and she's just great at video editing and like I worked with her for a bit as a freelance and I was like you're fucking great and she wanted like and I was like I would attitude and work ethic and all of these things are so much more important to me than that type of background especially because I personally believe that like with the right attitude and like a thirst for learning as you've said absolutely you can work your way into any experience yeah absolutely and I think I particularly have that approach because I have zero background in what I'm doing as well so that But I'm like, well, if I feel like, because I have a fucking useless degree, I feel like if I know that I can work to this position and I can put in the effort to do what I need to do here, then why wouldn't I believe that anyone else within their roles can transition in the way that they need to?

7:02I'd like to speak about you going to ASOS. Was that your first job out of uni? That was my first job out of uni. So I was a buyer's admin assistant. so I'd basically be assisting the buying team raising POS gold sealing samples getting samples shot um but it wasn't actually until I got my very last buyer before I left her name was Rachel and she really got me involved in just things that BAs don't do so I was going to appointments I was writing orders and I just felt like I got the best experience with her um so yeah that was such an amazing I literally loved that job the only thing was like the progression was like quite slow I I caught wind of it quite early because I just started and there was just so many there's there must literally be like five over 500 buyers assistants in ASOS like it's huge there's like literally like 6 ,000 people in that office it's huge it's huge there's like two to every department it's just huge um and I just quickly caught wind there's a couple girls that had been there for four years they were still BAs and I'm don't consider myself like a massive I'm just not competitive enough to like go for that promotion and like be against all these girls and it felt like that environment a little bit um because understandably everyone was a little bit frustrated waiting for that next step um but I just started and I was learning a lot especially when I got on the team with Rachel so I was sort of just like girl mapping the experience versus the money and then it wasn't actually until I got moved departments that literally I'm sure everyone at ASOS that knew me probably still speaks about how dramatic I was but I got moved to the beauty department and I literally acted like my whole world was like crumbling down because I was on I was on women's wear premium department it was immediately I was like these I'm gonna have a brand like this one that was all the Australian brands the department's like since like gone because it wasn't that successful but I loved it I was getting all the samples I'm pretty sure I was like egging that that department on just with spirit it wasn't getting cash um but I was just it was so relevant to me and then when I got on beauty it was just replaying orders there were I just felt like there was no creativity it wasn't fashion it's also a whole different thing yeah like as in yeah it's it's an entirely different it's just not what I studied at uni and not what I wanted to do and everyone was so lovely like they were trying to get me a bit more involved but I was a BA and needed to raise POs and I needed to get like replay and then there was like talks of like their new category opening up and it was I was going to be on like sex toys and I was like no this is where I've like this is like a sign I can't this is the straw this is breaking my back I can't do this um so I kicked and screamed like was ringing Rachel every get get me back on that department, get me back on that department.

9:58Please, please, please. She was really lovely to check in with me every week. Eventually, I get back on the department. This is a really long story. Sorry, guys. No, no, that's funny. It leads into why I left, if that was the next question. Yeah, no, it is. And also, I feel like this type of stuff is so important to hear because I think that, like, throughout this podcast, I've spoken to so many people who have incredible businesses now or have done incredible things. And so many of the catalyst points happened unexpectedly. unexpectedly or like through things that like pushed them into that change yeah and I feel like that's always so interesting because I feel like for anyone who's listening who's going through a change that they weren't quite expecting yeah I feel like it is incredibly helpful to know everything happens for a reason 100 % so I'm back on the department and within four weeks we're all in a big call and the other BA is now being moved off the department I'm literally sitting there like that is my fault completely and I'm an Aries I feel everyone's pain I was literally looking at her in the corner like I am like the evil one here I literally rang her back straight after and was like I'm gonna quit I've been I've been like planning this brand like the whole time I've been here I'm just gonna do it like I've had some samples made I'm just gonna go for it and she was like okay I was like yeah so you can stand the department I'm gonna ring Rachel now she was like okay.

11:15And then that was it. And three years later, Alice is now a junior buyer at Odd Muse. Is she? Yeah. Oh, I love that story. Full circle moment. That's such a full circle moment. It was like a crazy 10 minutes. I was on like a call, went down and said to my mum and said, I've just quit my job. But I just felt like there were so many things like pushing me to just do it. And I just, I'd been planning Odd Muse for such a while, like on the way to to ASOS I was just like delusionally confident that it would work but I was also like so I just reached a point where I was like so what if it doesn't work yeah I'll just go back to what I was doing now's the time like I live at home so what if it doesn't work and yeah so I just quit my job I think that's amazing and can you tell me a little bit about the obviously you have some confidence at some point that you've got samples you're you know there's something you can press forward with it's not just kind of like a seed in your brain could you tell me how you even got to that point like while you were at ASOS what were you doing alongside how did you find the suppliers so I pretty much started ASOS straight from uni and I was so excited to have a job like all my friends either were older than me or didn't go to university so they'd been working for like four years I was finally ready to have a bit of cash and uh yeah the pay the pay wasn't great and also there was no I didn't really feel like at the time there was any brands that were like either not really luxurious and expensive or just plt I sort of come out of uni like why does everyone assume that younger women just want to buy from pretty little thing or boohoo or just fast fashion like why is there no one like the Australian brands for example that I was working with that are that mid luxury price point so and all this whole time I was thinking like even the brands I was working with at ASOS, I was sort of like, I love this mid-luxury price point, but there needs to be something else to justify me to buy it, to invest in it.

13:10So I just come up with this idea of just investment fashion and it would be that mid-luxury price point like the Aussie brands, but you would get more wear out of it because of the design of the product. And I just felt really strongly about this idea because I felt like I was the consumer living in this problem. um so that sort of built on for like a few years and by the time I got to it I was like I'm just gonna do it I really I really believe in it especially the blazer and that is the product out of the first collection that worked the most so that sort of solidified my idea to keep going and keep scaling and keep investing in it as well so talk to me about even like finding people to even like make the clothes like making the samples like getting the first few ones of those back feeling happy enough with them I mean obviously you had the buying experience so that's hugely helpful because I remember getting a t-shirt back and being like well the body fits the arms are fucking enormous and I don't know what to fucking do so I obviously as a BA you're like tracking shipments and chasing intake so I knew where a lot of the product was coming from I knew like what province in like a lot of the product was coming from China I knew what province in China that these mid-luxury brands were going for because even like China it's just it's absolutely huge all sorts of productions going on there um so I knew I knew sort of that but then I also knew the first conversations you would have with a supplier from uni so what's your lead time what's your minimum quantity order um I knew about shipping from ASOS so I basically literally spoke to like 50 suppliers everyone's favorite question for me is how did you find your manufacturers I literally just scaled Google and spoke to like hundreds and that was it there's no like quick fix of finding someone it is literally I went through so many blazer samples for example until I landed on the right one um so it was all just trial and error basically yeah no which I think is very important to know and I think also like it's that feels like such a huge obstacle like if I had to count the amount of people who message every day specifically saying I'm starting a clothing brand how do you find suppliers like it is it feels like this like magic question that if you don't know the answer you're not in the club but realistically almost every single person unless you have a huge amount of buying experience or supply or sourcing experience you are likely to come into this industry not having a fucking clue and actually the difference is being able to just like quantity when you're going out I always say to people like that is the least of your worries like once you find someone like the work really begins so I think yeah that is just a google search and it's like going through pages and pages and speaking to people and sometimes it just comes down to like just vibe checking people like what other brands do you work with like some people contact us like we make for boohoo and we're like like no or we can tell you what other brand what other brands are working on and we're like no because you're going to do that to us so yeah I think it's just sometimes it's just taking people through some quite some like non-conventional questions to see if they'll like protect you so let's talk about getting to first launch you've quit your job yep you're going all in on this idea that you've got some samples for can you tell me what happened next and how you even got to the point where you were like we're launching um well obviously one thing asos taught me is it costs a lot of money yes to start a brand especially when you're bulk producing so first of all i had to get the money and i you know asos wage wasn't cutting it um so this is a really other random story in my journey so over covid i started making 10 pound logos why did i start making 10 pound logos because everyone had a baking business everyone had a small thing going on that they didn't want a mega expensive logo for I taught myself the basics of graphic design this is such a weird story and I was making 10 pound logos for all the bakers out there amazing I was making like 30 logos a day at one point really finishing a sauce closing my laptop staying up all night to just make logos and eventually it was menus for restaurants and brochures and just random stuff but it got me 12 000 pounds for obmuse yes yeah oh my god yeah i always just my fucking first cookbooks did nothing livid please continue no it got to the point when i was working for like big industrial companies and making them brochures and i could like i could like send you know i wasn't char i wasn't charging the bakers too much but like when it comes to the brochures i was like putting myself on industry standard and at one I remember the last month I did it when I quit ASOS I'd made like six thousand pounds just in like my like graphic design.

18:08Have you ever considered continuing that on the side? No because I did not enjoy it at all I was like it got to a point where people were like had to chase me and like I just I'm not if if my heart's not in it I won't do it like I'm not laughing or learning I'm not doing it the goal was to get the money and run. Yeah so you got your 12 000 pounds got the 12 000 pounds i'm ready to risk it um and the main bulk of my cost was stock i was determined to just one of the reasons why i felt i fell into the founder content was because i genuinely didn't have didn't really have the confidence to orchestrate a whole shoot get photographers in and act like i knew what i was doing and i also didn't really want to pay for models or anything so that's how the whole founder thing started and literally everything else i'd myself then that 12 000 pounds was all into stock and i remember i had to i had to buy 50 of everything minimum but the blazer i was like i just really believe in this i'm gonna get 100 units it's pretty good for moqs as well yeah it is i i can't really find that now yeah no i do you know what do you know what it is and this is a really lovely story with my manufacturers is we started at pretty much the same time.

19:19Okay. And we've grown so much together. So yeah, under 50 is quite rare. Yeah. But I just got very, very lucky with her and we've grown so much together. But yeah, I got 100 of the blazer and I just really believed in it. I felt like the rest of the products were just like, I didn't really believe in them. The collection as a whole didn't really make sense, but the blazer worked and the blazer sold crazily. And I remember we sold like 100 units within the first launch and I broke even instantly on the£12 ,000 and I had about 700 people who were waiting. Amazing. And how did that happen? It was a mix of things really.

20:03So I got quite a lot of attention through the fact that it was just COVID and everyone was on their phones. So you were doing this founder content. Was it on TikTok? Was it on Instagram? It was actually on Instagram. At the time, TikTok was just like, we're dancing on TikTok. We're making fluffy coffees. That's all it was. It wasn't really like a business place. Not making blazers. Yeah. So I was more actually on Instagram and I was really explaining my mission. I was like, guys, I know we can't go anywhere, but I'm not selling you like something that you only want to wear this weekend. I'm selling you something that I want you to wear for years and years.

20:38And don't just take my word for it. Like, look at the product. Like, when would you not want to wear this blazer? So the actual day of launch, we did quite well and instantly Pretty Little Thing copied it within like four weeks. Very on brand. Yep. And I remember thinking like, that is so annoying. And someone messaged me like, you have to put this on Twitter. Like, you have to use this as like just marketing. If they're going to use it, you might use it too. Yeah. So I basically put it on Twitter and it went majorly viral. And all of a sudden I had all these influencers buying the product. and they were like tweeting me back like I've just bought this I was like okay and then Lorna Lux bought it and I remember saying to everyone everyone be like who do you want to wear your brand and I would say Lorna anyone in the world Lorna because she was just this creator I followed that I felt I don't know I felt like she genuinely just had this like really fab life that she was taking us along for and she literally bought it put it on her story like just got my shipping notification like I'm receiving it tomorrow I'm going to shoot it in Paris I wish I had my old phone on me because I was literally on the floor crying like everyone walked in like what is going on like thinking that and my iPad's just going ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching like Shopify sales so Lux has just worn my blazer and like her influence is just absolutely crazy because of that thing that I recognize like she gen it is genuine like there's obviously there's so many there's like a twofold with creators nowadays and I feel like you can always recognize the sort of really influential people and she picked it up quite quickly and she I credit a lot to her she's very modest when I say this to her but she really changed the game for me and she gave me that exposure early on don't get me wrong I've literally run been running ever since that moment and I chased that stock I put 700 units on pre-order I knew these people weren't going to be waiting long I've been running since that moment but she really set me up for that and she really gave me the exposure that I needed it was like the right time and the right person yeah and that was the first launch well that's incredible and you don't get that without having an amazing product too like I think that this that same story could have happened like I'm such a big believer in product as marketing and like I think it's all in the reaction as well though yeah there's so many people that have like an amazing moment where someone really influential has worn their product but they don't know what to do I was like I am need to chase stock how soon can I get these these blazers like people want them and immediately I was like I need to put them on pre-order and that's how we fell into the pre-order model that honestly has scaled my business so much because essentially for a long time we are moving out of it now but essentially for a long time we've been able to sell as much stock without actually paying our suppliers yet I'm only just getting into a position where me and my suppliers can actually get on good payment terms because we both started so small together.

23:36But yeah, that's allowed me to like get the full potential out of all these launches because I'm able to put a lot of stock on pre-order and like de-risk a lot really. so what happened is that she obviously posted and then you basically obviously in order to be able to take advantage of the fact that she's posted about that did you already know that you could get a shipment within x amount of weeks or were you going to work that out after you'd put it on pre-order oh no I'd already had the order confirmed okay I did this I did this really weird thing which I put a response box on Instagram and said leave me your email if you want a blazer and I had thousands of people and I would I manually messaged them all like updates like it wasn't like I didn't didn't even know what Clavio was then like I didn't know about email marketing I didn't know now we have like Shopify apps that do all the waitlist for us but I was doing that manually and I think that I think that lends to like how personal people how like that personal feeling of muse has because at the beginning I was like thank you so much guys I'm like doing everything I'm messaging you all personally like this is crazy um and I really I I think it was two weeks between Lorna wearing it and me putting 700 units on pre-order and then that's when we hit 100k it was like in the first like two and a half months that is insane I know the day I did that pre-order we took like 60 ,000 pounds and I remember just sitting on my stairs looking at my mom and dad like I just say I don't know whether to say anything yeah I'm just I've got six i've just made 60 000 pounds like how insane i was literally just sitting on my stairs staring at everyone like do i say something what do i do it was almost like i didn't know how to act for a long time with odd muse i've i've not really known like how to whether to be like happy or like how to react because it is just sometimes like from how soon it scaled i almost got to a point where i found it a bit awkward like weirdest thing ever weirdest tangent ever um but yeah it It was just a crazy moment.

25:35And so you've had this first really successful product. And obviously that is amazing in and of itself. What I found through talking to lots of people who have had one like big product that people really loved is that it's obviously really hard to evolve from that point. And especially obviously before that point, it's not that was your first collection. so even going even upselling and kind of going oh well we actually have this that's been a bestseller for a few years or whatever it might be is really tough how did you evolve from that first blazer to what was next and how long did it take you to find I guess the next big thing I think it's definitely been a journey where I've dipped sometimes with product but from the first collection I immediately learned that I was right like I knew the blazer was going to be picked up and I immediately learned that sometimes it doesn't have to be a big collection.

26:29Like that one product made me£100 ,000. Like everything else, it was an eight-piece collection in total. None of the other products mattered. So I remember putting a lot of pressure on myself to build a range, but that sort of scaled me down to, no, I actually just need good refined product, no filler product, good refined product. And it was the belt that really saved me because immediately I put that into like a jumpsuit and dress version. and they were great sellers they were flying out I bought the blazer out in as many colors as possible I bought the jumps and dresses out as in as many colors possible and that worked for like a whole year and then when I started to design new product there wasn't really much direction it wasn't to my mission it wasn't solving any problems that I'd set that I'd said I'm here to do and I was surviving on blazer sales and I just realized it just wasn't sustainable to scale like I hit a point in like 2022 where it was like if I don't get another good product or get some sort of new direction this is all gonna go like I I remember I had to make that one person redundant in 2022 which was really really rubbish to do um and then it was the pearl dress that was the turning point really so we released the pearl dress in christmas of 2022 and that product alone just that one dress alone grossed like one million in quarter unreal so i remember we got to quarter four and we'd only taken about 400k for the year and then we ended the year on like 1.6 or something like that and again it just proved to me that you just have to have that one refined product and I had to change my direction a little bit because I was like elevate every day wear it all the time but I wanted to get into party dresses but then I would constantly tell myself well that's not investment fashion you're not going to wear that every day but then I was like no I want to get a dress that you want to pull out every season and every whether it's a graduation whether it's Christmas like you go for it and and I immediately thought of pearls like who I felt like sequins was maybe a little bit too typical but I felt like pearls were like the timeless odd muse thing like the belt um so yeah we released the pearl dress did you know it was going to be a hit yes because I knew it had that cinch that the blazer had I knew it had to have that everything has to be like quite fit we always say sophisticated and sexy so it's not like too much it's just like the right amount so I knew it would be successful I didn't know it would be that successful especially when we released it in the white as well which now led us down the bridal route um so that dress changed the game forever because then we was able to like confidently design dresses for a result like the strapless dress is essentially the sleeves taken off and the pearls taken off and it's like everyone loves that um and we've evolved so many dresses from that dress and really we've become a dress brand like 50 of our offering is dresses now amazing yeah that was a real turning point how long was there between that first identification of that blazer that was you know obviously a huge hit and the pearl dress two years so i think that's so important yeah because i feel like the especially because like you're doing so incredibly well now and like it's so great to see and you've done incredibly well throughout your entire journey I think what is often so easy to miss when you're looking at other people online and you're looking at the success and looking at like what we often call like an overnight success and all of this is actually how much it, like how much of it were these probably these months and months and months and you're thinking like, I'm not going to find the next product.

30:23I'm not going to find the next product. I think as well where it started quite strong and now it's strong now, people maybe don't consider that there was like this dip in the middle. And to be fair, like in the middle, like I was still trying. Like I remember I did this big party in LA that I did not have the money for. I was still on socials. You would have thought like Odd Muse is killing it. But behind the scenes, like no one was buying the new product because it wasn't good. So yeah, I don't think people consider that there was that whole like two year stint where it was like not good enough.

30:53Yeah, which is every single person's story. Like I remember one of our biggest announcements came after the literal worst time in our entire business's like lifespan and in my life and like all of this. And I remember as soon as I came out with that and people were like, ah, from strength to strength, like you guys never miss. And I was like, well, we've been missing. Like I've been on the floor begging for like a year and a half now. Yeah, it's so funny. It is really like and I it's hard as well because even though when you know that you still look at other people's things. Like, well, well, they're going from strength to strength.

31:30They're going from strength to strength. And I think like this is these are the conversations I want to have because I feel like it's so incredibly important. But also from those moments is what is where like these big successes come from. You probably had to dig deep to actually be like, yeah, I always say I had to find out like what odd news wasn't to find out who we are. I had to go through so many products that didn't work and so many colors that didn't work and so many fabrics that didn't work to sort of revert back to my original strategy yeah so yeah yeah and I mean I think you've done it so incredibly well and I think that it's like the evolution as a whole makes a huge amount of sense and being able to find multiple hit products is it's the name of the game in fashion but it's also really tough like if you look at the comparison between fashion and beauty almost every single beauty brand has a hero product that makes themselves year after year after year and they can rinse it in every which way and that is just not the case with fashion which makes it really hard like as when you think about fashion as an industry like I always say like if you want a lifestyle business and you want a business to go and be a digital nomad and be on your laptop right before never fucking start a fashion business like don't even think about it because you have to strike gold again and again because my boyfriend always calls me a digital nomad and i'm like girl i'm honestly not like i'm literally pulling my hair out every day like i'm in the most physical job ever yeah and it's the it's the constant working capital need for the inventory it's the constant need to like evolve like you cannot sit on your laurels within fashion and like that's what makes it exciting because you have a lot to talk about but that's also the best and worst thing yeah a hundred percent the market's uncertain revenues tied and hiring on hold.

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33:55For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us. upgrade your business and get the same checkout aloe yoga uses sign up for your one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com retail all lowercase go to shopify.com retail to upgrade your selling today shopify.com retail your sausage mcbuffin with egg didn't change your receipt did the sausage mcbuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just five dollars only at mcdonald's for a limited time prices and participation may vary so i'd love to speak about your business now and how your growth and marketing plans are evolving and have evolved obviously like since this initial success i'd like to talk first about when you made your first hire yep how you knew it was the right time what role you thought it should be I feel like that's a big obstacle for people I think the first hire is definitely always way overdue I was pulling my hair out family and friends were helping me and it was like a beyond the 100k mark that I made my got my first hire and and I think any startup business has to be quite comfortable with hiring someone on the basis that the role is going to be a little bit of everything yeah I think people really stress that there has to be like one person for this one person for this and there's not the budget for that oh my god at the beginning we were like I had like one mini me who would just like help with everything yeah and had one we literally were like you're the business person you're the creative person like that's literally what we had yeah so I had my I remember I I my first title that I gave was brand support assistant and she would literally pack orders in the morning do emails in the afternoon and do do like refunds when they come in help with some marketing it was like everything um and it took me a long time to just put that role out because I was a little bit like how do I explain this and as well you can't really explain to someone in a startup company where their role is going to go just they just have to sort of believe in you more than you believe in them essentially it's a very particular type of person yeah um so yeah that was my first hire and then my team started to really gradually grow I remember my university got in touch with me and was like we've got some interns that really want to work with you um and I took on two interns that are still with me now in like a paid role so that took my team up to like three people then I brought Alice over from ASOS she actually first come over and as like business development managers helped me sort of manage the team um but this year specifically we have got all the people we need and people are able to be in like their own sort of regions in the business and how have you found that evolution from having like a really small team to being like 35 people um it's been quite I mean I would say it's happened so naturally like the demand has been there and we've hired accordingly and like one of the reasons I got into this is because I'm so interested in in business and stuff like that so for me I've kind of loved it don't get me wrong like 35 people's livelihoods on your shoulders it's a lot of pressure um and you know sometimes it can really you can have a set to-do list and you know it sometimes doesn't go that way when you are responsible for that amount of people and what does your role look like now so my role this year is a lot more refined but we're still getting there um my role is technically creative director for I've got my my business is sort of set out into sort of like product and marketing and I sort of like lead the creatives on both sides but in terms of product I'm designing the product in terms of marketing I'm in the content I'm in all the sign-off meetings I'm really like rolling out all new things that I want to try um but you know there's also this massive logistical part of owning a fashion brand where you know things need to be run past me and I do struggle with that because sometimes that can just knock my creativity so hard like but it's it's conversations that I just can't get out of that I'd be more concerned if I wasn't in so I'm sort of like I always say like I feel like I'm like doing an impossible role and there's parts of my role that I'm not able to like fulfill as much as I'd like to um but I'm getting there I'm I'm getting there I'm I'm a control freak I want to be involved in it all and that's the price I pay and so what are you struggling with most at the moment in that sense um I think it is just the creativity when you know you're coming out of meetings that are talking about warehouses and and logistics and just new freight new freight options and it's more so that because people will say to you oh Amy what do you want to what uh for example a problem in my week right now we need to design pre-full like this is late we're working with wholesalers now i need to show wholesalers my august collection literally in two weeks time um and it's like i can't just be like right done talking about freight now let's design let's bang out pre-full it's not going to work odd muses never released a product that wasn't well thought out well now we don't um so yeah i struggle with just that time that you need to be creative that time at home where it's just like you come up with even silly things like you come up with a silly TikTok idea and it just goes mega viral just that just time of nothingness that is actually such a strategy in a founder's role yeah and how do you think you're gonna fix that um how do I think I'm gonna fix that I don't actually know would you hire someone for the operational side like a COO I actually I actually hired a managing director this year and it's been going really really well yeah however I'm just like okay it's going well let's expand into the US let I'm gonna go view warehouses so like I am the devil I am creating this work for myself so and there's a lot of things that have been taken off my hands but I'm just creating new work because that's just me well you're speaking to one of your own so you're all good yep I'm sure that I'm like don't just fix my problems let's let's start some new stuff we fix that one so now we have space to do this one and we'll make loads more problems but I feel like that's one of the incredibly defining parts of being a founder and like what I constantly try and work out in my head is is this stretched because like is my time stretched so far in this way because actually I'm always going to be doing all of these roles or do I need to be delegating more or do I need to be hiring more or do I need to be just letting go of some of the areas and then at the same time knowing whether it's the right decision or the wrong decision whether you're letting go and that's a bad thing and the brand's going to suffer because of it or whether you're letting go and that's a good thing because you're being a control freak about it and you actually don't mean it's it's a constant battle in your head it's just like i could be doing this or you can justify it in any which way i always sometimes just say to myself sometimes when i'm really stressed like this is the price you pay like this is what you wanted this is a sacrifice it there is definitely going to come a point in my life where I'm like literally I like life comes at you fast like 27 in like two days like I need to slow down a little bit but for the moment I'm I literally like have have a bad week and then I get back up again it's that's that's what I'm doing just getting back up again that's my only thing I can give the only advice I can give right now yeah that what do you feel like would make your life a lot easier right now um just more time sure if possible there's literally not enough hours in the day because even when I'm sitting there just trying to relax like at the end of the day this is my hobby so I'm on I'm on Pinterest I'm looking at what we could do oh maybe we should do an event like that maybe we should I'm constantly like thinking of new ideas and creating more work for myself but I do love it like I you know if I have an idea at 10 o 'clock at night I'm staying up for that creativity comes in wins um so yeah more time would be great but on a more realistic if you ask if you ask me a more realistic question which I'm guessing you are um I'd say time management which I feel like you're a queen of um like you're scary productive um I I know only that way it's the only way it works yeah it's the only way it works in my head it's the only way it works but my thing is like I can have how do you like account on this is where I'm going to bounce back to you how do you actually like account for like all the stuff that happens in the day that you did not have on that schedule so I build buffers into every single block right so like the thing I always say for people starting to time block is like spend two weeks recording how long everything actually takes you so like if you're saying oh I need to draft this email and it's not like a you know quick little email it's like a hot you know it's like there's nothing like sometimes just think it doesn't does nothing ever like annoy you and you're just like oh like you spend like 30 minutes just get or just really knocking you off your game yes a hundred percent and that just like happens and it just like it comes and hits your day it's always the case I do that's exactly what I build the buffers in for yeah so like when I've started recording like how long everything's taking me I then make sure to basically add in whether it's 15 minutes onto the end of it whatever it might be and then you start noticing patterns as well like I have a big approvals block at the end of the day because I will not go home until I know that like every single thing that needs to be approved for that day from the different businesses has been approved and that's something that I absolutely need to do so that at the end is always a backstop because I have usually like an hour and a half two hours to bash through all of those every single day yeah often things can like float into that block yeah if I don't manage to get them done earlier in the day I am very I work this way because I work best this way and I kind of very like one of the things I suffer with the most is like I am so hyper fixated on whatever I'm doing and so actually this is what allows me to have the amount of structure I need in order to be able to be like okay well now you need to do this now you need to do this now you need to do this because I also find it really really hard to bounce through different types of things and that's one of the things I struggle most with in my role it's like okay I want to tell people about these new trials as we've done but I also need to sort out this big issue but I also need to review this marketing plan but I also need to do this and I find that really hard to bounce bounce between them so yeah the way I design my days is to have as minimum of that as possible today for example we're doing four podcasts in a row and that's what we do and we do this once a month yeah so that it doesn't detract from the rest of the work in terms of like having similar work next to each other but I do feel like it's really about working out where those obstacles are for you and you've seen the patterns of like actually every day after lunch something big comes up and so I'm just going to save an hour for literally whatever's popped up and that's going to be basically like my emergency block or whatever it might be or on a Monday morning you'll see that like every single Monday morning I have about an hour and a half to write up master to do's block out the entire week and send up everything from the weekend because I'm like you where I don't want to message people all weekend but I will have my best ideas when I'm doing less and so I'll write up literally like a huge amount of like whether it's ideas whether it's like pictures whether it's new projects whatever it might be yeah I'll do that all on a Monday morning and then get that out so that people can start actioning them yeah but I feel like it's really about noticing the patterns and then also realizing that you're never going to get it fully right yeah yeah which is also obviously Yeah, I can just, I can have my like focus affected so much.

46:00So I think it's more so for me, like protecting that. Like this year, I've been spending a lot of time working from home. It won't, when I first got my new office, it was the office. Sometimes my environment, sometimes my most like winning environment changes. And at the moment, that is home for me. So I just have to recognize that where I'm most focused. And at the moment, it does seem to be more how I'm going in for meetings. I have a lot of meetings anyway, so I'm not scarce in the office. But yeah. Yeah. So what I do for that, for example, is that I know that I'm more focused at home, but I know we make better progress with the business at the office.

46:34So I do Mondays and Fridays work from home. and I do them and I'm very strict about not having meetings Monday morning and trying to avoid meetings at all on a Friday because it can often get to the point where there are genuinely nine hours of approvals from the week that have like overflowed into the Friday so at least I can get through them and like signpost the weekend otherwise I will never take a weekend but what I also know is yes I'm less productive on a Tuesday to Thursday but actually as a business we have more of the ad hoc conversations that we otherwise wouldn't have so it's like grabbing someone in the corridor and being like by the way you know like this this this like shall we do this that event that we were talking about I was just thinking we scrap this and do it this way instead like that doesn't need to be a half hour call and that only gets done when you're off with me at least with the company like when people are able to like interact with each other oh absolutely so I do I think it's about understanding what the different aim of each day is and understanding how much of the week needs to be focused and how much of the week needs to be for progress in terms of like the stuff that only comes from like yeah in-person conversation yeah no absolutely but it's again there's never like a winning answer and i feel like it changes all the time i want to talk about your social media strategy yeah because i feel like that is best in class and really exciting to watch that's like i'd say my favorite part of the role that and designing the clothes are like my favorite completely agree I would love everything else to fuck yeah um but anyway and I also won't let it I said that that was news um so talk to me about your social strategy and the difference between the brand social strategy and your social strategy so the brand social strategy is we're very different on Instagram and TikTok and we take both very seriously.

48:30A lot of brands don't take TikTok as seriously. A lot of brands either do loads of TikToks and don't take Instagram as seriously. When I first started posting TikToks, I gave up on Instagram. I would post, but it was just to tick a box. And the thing with TikTok is it's great, but you have to see it as a bonus. It's not sustainable. So I remember in that like 2022 dip we were like banking on getting a tiktok to sell jumpsuits and like when we when we when we got a good tiktok we would sell a lot and it would like save us for the week um but it wasn't sustainable i wanted consistency i wanted my daily sales to be consistent um and instagram really gave us that taking instagram seriously doing what instagram says having a two-fold between silly little TikToks and a nice clean Instagram that shows your product amazingly.

49:26So that's our strategy that we continue to do. We take it really seriously. And I am in a lot of the content. Because I just at the moment, I just am for the longest time. It is just so constant, like you need to like be churning it out. And the only real way I see myself doing that is through me, like I'm the most adaptable person in this business. I'll throw rocks at my feet and I will dance like that's why I've been like the most involved but we've sort of realized it to be a great strategy and we don't really want to get rid of that so now we're in sort of talks okay how do we show diversity and how do we show our true like intentions um while I'm plastered all over the Instagram and the TikTok my own strategy something that I've just fell into this year I've only just like posting on my personal TikTok um because I just feel like this year I feel quite confident giving business advice in the last like up until it's taken me three years to feel like okay I've done okay like I can finally feel like I can you know tell you what I'm doing and maybe it might work for you um and I feel like the last three years I've been on an interesting journey I've never wanted to I don't ever want to do things for the sake of it like I didn't want to upload TikToks on my personal in the last two years because I just didn't feel like I didn't want to tick a box I didn't feel like I had anything to say as such but now I feel like I'm in this position where yeah like I can you know we've launched with all these wholesalers we've done we've done a lot we've obviously got the store now I do feel like I've got something to talk about um and that's actually working really well for the brand obviously you know firsthand like founder content I just feel like just gives you you are you are always going to be your own competitive edge so why would you not tell your story um so I've been taking that a little bit more seriously this year as like a bit of a strategic move um so yeah so TikTok gets the views and ideally converts over to Instagram or websites so they're either coming signing up to the newsletter or they're buying something which signs them up to the newsletter I'd say TikTok is like our biggest thing for like brand awareness right and then they move it like you said move over to the email subscribers they follow the instagram then that's when you can start getting your followers to not only enjoy your content but content but genuinely love your brand and love your product a hundred percent and i think that this is one of the big misunderstandings about the different social platforms and kind of prioritizing them in terms of effectiveness because i feel like that's such a false hierarchy yeah i don't think there is like effectiveness is determined by what you are trying to affect like what is your main kpi if your main kpi is growth or getting eyes on the brand or whatever it might be perfect yeah if you're but the problem is with that is that they might buy once or they might sign up to the newsletter and they might forget who you even were because they like everything is like perfect synergy like okay they found you on tiktok what's next like you can't just i i i've been there and i can guarantee there's so many there's so many people out there that are just chasing a viral video it's actually getting a little bit too much now like people can just sometimes people can like my view page is fucking terrible yeah everyone's just trying to go viral like whether they actually care about a scandal or not like everyone's just trying to like say something a little bit controversial or just everyone's trying to go viral and I feel like I don't really know what the future of TikTok is to be honest but um you know you gotta be in it to win it so yeah that's where we get the brand awareness yeah and then they convert over to a platform with more longevity which is generally i'd assume email or instagram and then they're able to be tied in again and again again to new launches to new content to new all of that yeah i feel like that's such an important thing to talk like email marketing is something that is like arguably more important than like social media like it at the at the moment for a long time it's been like 50 of our revenue and like as standard i think it should be like i think industry standard is like 20 um and i mean that that that is something that you no one really talks about like email marketing and looking at that brand loyalty that story a hundred percent so i our email list at tala for example is bigger than any social following yeah and that's like very very intentional yeah and i always talk about the fact that like you should be getting someone's email at any single point that you can yeah so I think that there's been so much focus in the past few years on followers and don't get me wrong obviously incredibly important yeah but it's like if you were to go on a night out and meet loads of great girls and have zero contact details for them like you might have had the best time ever they might have thought that you were going to be the best friend for life they might have thought like let's go out again like whatever it might be if you have no way of contacting them or no way of like remembering them then all of you are gonna forget and I think that that's what often with the kind of vanity metrics of social media of the follows the likes the views it's very very easy to prioritize that because it's this kind of instant gratification over actual list building yeah and I think that's what is like one of the things that I tell people over and over and over again like someone talked to me in like a cafe this week and she was like I'm about to start a like brand and you know what would you recommend first and all of this and I was like get the emails I was like get the like when audience build ahead of launch but most important part of audience building is getting emails and I think that once you start tapping into that you start feeling like all of these other things are feeding into that rather than you feeling like you have 20 different strategies on 20 different platforms yeah and they all work independently of each other Yeah, absolutely.

55:11And what's worked most successfully for the brand socials? I would say that point where we stopped relying on TikTok so much and saw it as a bonus and started taking Instagram quite seriously. Because that's when I saw the consistency across the board. Daily sales, followers every week. um I think one thing I don't think I've touched on as well is like the the paid market the paid social side of things like that's really important and um I think you have to have that balance between organic and paid I think a lot of people miss that as well um but yeah I'd say it was I'd say it was the the point where we started taking Instagram really seriously because a lot of people gave up on Instagram and just thought TikTok is where it at and people do think that like there's so many there's so many creators out there that are huge on TikTok and not so much Instagram and they make sure to put like their uh TikTok following in their bio because that's sort of where their following is but I feel like Instagram is just this longevity piece like you said um so when I come back to Instagram that was the biggest thing for both uh TikTok and like the social as a And what type of content do you find people really respond to on Instagram?

56:35I think at the moment, obviously it always changes. At the moment, people, they like to see this. I feel like the Pinterest era is coming back and I'm so happy about that. They love like detailed carousels and like behind the scenes. But they also love like, we always will post like a real one. If we have like, it's all in the writing that I put on there. I rarely ever post a reel with no hook, whether it's I don't know who needs to hear this, spring has sprung. I did one the other day, Journey one, that got like 5 million on Instagram. And honestly, that is like getting 20 million on TikTok. What that did for the brand, we got like 150 ,000 followers in one week, which is just crazy.

57:19And that was just getting everything from the last three years together and just saying when you started, when you cinched a blazer and all of this. So I think people like to see the journey on Instagram in an aesthetic way is my sort of strategy at the moment. Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that it's also like there's so much, especially when you're selling something, like it's so easy to think that, okay, I'm selling something. This is my marketing and therefore it all needs to be about specific selling. Yeah. And actually understanding how much of it needs to be about education in the journey, in the product, in whatever it might be to actually have that type of like that is what selling is.

58:00Like people are on social media, they're not on social media for themselves, they're not on social media for you. Like they want to either learn or be entertained or whatever it might be. And actually understanding that that doesn't just mean being like, hi, buy this, hi, buy this, hi, buy this. And it's more about being like, hi, we have this or this is who we are or whatever it might be. if that appeals to you fantastic yeah and that will naturally happen if it does but it's understanding like the difference between needing to push that versus needing to like attract the type of customer that you want absolutely absolutely I always want I always want our Instagram to be something that people enjoy whether they buy a product or not and I think that strategy lends to just like people organically come into odd news let's talk about physical retail okay you launched your first store not that long ago November how did that come about so I actually did a pop-up shop a year ago in a similar sort of area in Covent Garden and that went really well um and I just from that I just immediately wanted a permanent store I was like sign me up on a five-year lease I'm ready um and also with the pop-up you obviously can't do too much to it because you know there's no point like getting out a shop that you got to move out of so soon so I really had this passion to like make something my own in London like I wanted to paint it pink and I wanted to do all this stuff um and the the effect that the pop-up had on my brand even on socials was insane it did everything for the brand as a whole when we opened that pop-up shop our daily sales increased by a lot and that was just because I like to do things that add credibility to the brand and I feel like a physical presence adds the credibility I felt like when we did runway that was adding credibility I feel like Harvey Nichols and launching with other it's all in the credibility of the brand and it's just doing different things that isn't so typical for an e-commerce brand um so pretty much it was a pop-up that led to okay I want to I want to now say to people I'm opening a flagship um and I think the next step for that is like I really want like an international store I really want a store in the US I always want to be doing like what okay what's the next thing for like the credibility of the brand um but it's just it's just done amazing like you I just like honestly I just can't believe that you know a physical store could because I don't know like even when I think back to when we open pop up like we're used to like so many people being on site and checking out at one time um online because there's just no cap on that and physical physical stores it's a very different experience but it's just it's just been so good for the brand yeah and have you found that's because people have gone down and seen the products and then come back and shopped online or discovery or I think it's the the best part about it is it's all of the above like people either discover the brand people walk in like oh my god I've seen you on tiktok um there's just all types of customers that walk into that store um and it's yeah it's just been the best experience but literally all of the above like there's there's just so many different types of odd news customers that walk in um and it's it's funny to see the pattern like we'll always anyone who's not heard of the brand will walk in and buy a blazer a lot of them will then go online and get a dress anyone who's heard of the brand already has a blazer so they walk in and buy a dress like just the patterns and everything is so interesting yeah um but yeah and just the fact that it is just pretty cool that i have a pink store in cotton garden yeah no it absolutely is did you feel scared signing that five-year lease uh no really no i don't get scared until like the it you know it goes down the pan yeah I mean it makes sense um do you want to scale the business at any point soon to a point where you are less involved than you are now um I don't really know I I'm really loving getting more and more people involved and hiring more people and getting people's input and handing things over that's where I'm at at the moment I do find the whole like scaling and and that quite interesting but I just don't personally feel like I know enough about sort of if I was to go out to investors and stuff like that um but for the moment I'm happy in the direction it's going I my ideal world would be me being sort of like in the social media and having the time to creatively design the product um and like all the logistics stuff separately yeah that can because sometimes I'm literally like that I'm being asked big questions and I'm like I'm not smart enough for this today I'm so sorry I've not woke up smart enough literally every day but also like you in order for you to be able to do the things that have made the brand so special you need to be able to free up headspace and mental load absolutely like one of the things I say is like the product to this point has been like so to my taste I've been all the content I really don't know anything else so I need to protect that as much as I can um while I explore what might work um like this social campaign we're doing next week that's a big test for the brand and I really hope it'll work and I really think it will work um but yeah I think I would have to reassess my involvement in the social media I don't want to be like you know doing the shoots all the time and then doing the live before we launch and all stuff like that definitely want to share my responsibility in that realm but I always want to be involved that involved personally in the content yeah no completely understandable I want to talk quickly before we end about general founder life and how you find it and what you find great and what you find awful I'd love to know what your hardest moment has been as a founder um my hardest moment and I really hope my mom and dad don't watch this because I'll tell you um my hardest moment was when I sometimes I can go a little bit far with um how confident I am in the brand um and last year I decided I wanted a store in Dubai okay yep got very far into it signed a lot of things I shouldn't have signed um and I ended up losing around 55 ,000 pounds yep and the reason I had to leave was because total investment was going to be like way over like 400 000 pounds just to get out of store don't really know why my london store was like not yeah that sounds sounds expensive it was like a whole they would they were talking to me like yeah like 400 000 pounds and i'd be like and immediately all i could think was i i remember i still i've only just come out of that because there was there was a window of time where I thought I was committed to that 400 ,000 pounds and I couldn't sleep I couldn't eat I was up all night and it was the worst point I was far too embarrassed to tell my mum and dad my sister was also crying herself to sleep like I honestly thought I was done and and that was like a really hard point like that was so scary for me because it's actually like this is I feel like there was something in that that really say I really have my mom dad doesn't watch about me losing 55 ,000 pounds keep thinking about that um there was something that happened that saved me and it was I was supposed to hand over all the checks um for like the the lease for the whole four years this had nothing to do with the 400 ,000 fit out but I was supposed to hold out a sign monthly rent checks for the whole four years and for whatever reason I could not get that checkbook I had a courier bring it to my hotel I opened the envelope and it was empty and it was all this big stress the day before I was leaving and I left Dubai and I couldn't sign them checks if I would have signed them checks I would have been in it for four years no matter what even if I couldn't pay the 400 ,000 pounds of it out so yeah there was that window of I didn't know that until later like it would have been like highly illegal if I didn't pay all that rent while if I've signed checks um so that was the first time I got myself in to some really hot water and what did you learn from that situation I learned to read what I'm signing um and I learned not to let people rush me because we wanted that store in Dubai and I remember like this guy rang us and was like this never comes up like this is the best opportunity we need you to like do all this we need you to get like a 3d drawing of how you're going to set out the store we need you to present yourself and I was like wow like they was like they really want you like and I was just caught up in it all and I didn't actually consider okay is this now everything before I go into anything it's like right how long is it going to be to like return on investment like I've I've changed the way I go into things so rapidly um but that was that was probably the the lowest point in probably my life because I didn't really I was far too embarrassed to tell everyone and also worry people I didn't want my mum and dad thinking that I was gonna be banged up abroad yeah yeah um and yeah sometimes I go back to it I'm like oh why did I do that like I feel like so stupid um but we live and learn I'm over it I think yeah yeah I feel like those things do take a long time to get over and I feel like it's exactly those things that make you that you're most embarrassed about and you feel like why the fuck did I do that and how did I get myself into that situation that are also the things that make you a great entrepreneur yeah because there will also be things that you look at and you're like that didn't make any sense and I did it and it worked yeah and yeah I mean my whole three three years has been like rushing into things and it working and that was the first time I rushed into something that it didn't work and it's it it was a huge lesson I would never do that again but exactly that it was a huge lesson and I feel like everyone could have told you that and everyone could have said like you know don't do this and think more about it and until you make that mistake you're not going to know that lesson and I do think that it probably just needed to happen and like sure it's an expensive mistake but 55 ,000 is not the same as 400 ,000 and if that had sunk the rest of the business then and it sounds like there were a huge amount of red flags from those like from those people and ultimately no fit out needs to cost 400 ,000 if you don't want it to you can have a fucking single rail in a store unless it's like within a specific place where they have you know like they have specific way it needs to look and then that should have yeah yeah it was just a bit of a hellish time to be honest um but yeah I felt like I've learned so much from it yeah um and how have you grown your confidence over time in terms of these types of things or in terms of the brand as a whole I think odd muse is success has really helped with that like I like each each year we go by I'm like okay I know what I'm doing like I said this year I'm like really on my TikTok like it's taken me three years to get in front of a camera and actually speak about me and my journey which is weird because I've always been in the content um but I think at the beginning I knew I was I was timid but I had really big dreams and I knew that was going to be like a nice story so I just pushed myself to like be on the Instagram even though I was like thank you so much like I don't know what's going on and I've grown it like quite naturally through the years and it's just through just feeling confident that I know what I'm doing um but yeah I was so timid when I started odd muse like and what advice would you give to yourself at that time if you could go back and like talk to her um I would give the same advice I gave to her back then and just to just go for it like I really put myself out there to be the I think I think how like sort of timid and shy I was like really translated to people just wanting to support the journey like the product was also good but you know it was this girl that just left asos and was just like really just trying her luck um so yeah just to like go for it because i feel like people are really now doing that on social media and it's a great thing but anyone who you know perhaps hasn't got that like burst of energy yet it is just not caring what people think and just going for it so what if you fail yeah no i think that's so important and what's what's the next big thing and what are you most excited about as a whole um I um I'm most excited for a US expansion because I was odd muse was a lot bigger in the US before the UK we only really caught the UK with the pearl dress like before that I was sending all my orders to the US um so I'm really excited to just be out there and fulfilling orders and I really want a store out there I've been on the hunt for ages um and yeah it's all in the US for me at the moment exciting well I can't wait to see it thank you so much for joining me thank you I really enjoyed that you've been fab you're amazing oh thank you

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