August 19, 2025 • 13 mins
Brittney Saunders first made her name as one of the original influencers on YouTube, building an enormous following while still a teen.
But she managed to parlay that online success into a bricks-and-mortar business, developing her own fashion company: Fayt the Label - which has grown, and grown, and grown.
At the same time she’s written a book called Just Getting Started, and hosts the Big Business Podcast with Nova Podcasts.
Sean Aylmer sits down with Brittney Saunders to learn more about her incredible entrepreneur story.
This episode is supported by Xero.
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Fear and Greed one on one. I'm sure, Alma.
We love a good entrepreneur success story on this podcast.
My guest today is Britney. Britney wears many hats. She
first made her name as an influencer on YouTube before
starting her own fashion business, Fate the Label. That's fayt
Fate the Label, which has grown and grown and grown.
(00:26):
At the same time. She's written a book called Just
Getting Started and hosts the Big Business podcast here at Nova.
This episode today is supported by zero. Britney Sauna is
Welcome to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Now let's start with the YouTube story. So you're actually
high school dropout? Is that right? Yes, proud, proud high
school dropout.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I hated school when I was there.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's not that I was bad at school, like I
did well with topics that I was the subjects that
I was doing, but I just didn't want to be there.
I was so eager to earn money, and when I
was really young, I remember trying to do anything for
pocket money when I was a kid. Got my first
job at Macis when I was fourteen. As soon as
I was old enough to work there. I just was
always obsessed with, I guess being independent. I didn't know
(01:09):
that I was obsessed with, like wanting to become an entrepreneur,
because I didn't know what that was. But yeah, as
soon as I could, I remember it was. I was
in year ten and I just desperately didn't want to
be at school. So I went down the avenue of Okay,
I'm going to become a hairdressing apprentice, like just anything
to get me out of school. But that flopped. I
did a few trials and never got the job. But
maybe it was the universe saying You're not meant to
(01:30):
be a hairdresser. But yeah, dropped out of school and
I was a waitress. And then I worked in over
twenty different jobs from the ages of fourteen to twenty
one because I just would get a job, and you know,
I would know within like a couple of weeks if
I didn't like it or not, and I'd be onto
the next. So I worked in every single industry possible,
(01:50):
from retail, fast food, hospitality, sales, worked nine to five
admin roles, and all the while I had this YouTube
channel that I started in high school. It was really
new the whole YouTube thing, and I thought this is cool, like,
this is fun. And I always thought I was a
bit of an entertainer, I guess. So I was just
making vlogs about my life. Nothing special, like nothing special.
(02:12):
It was just a hobby. And I did that for
many years, all the while working tons of different jobs.
I tried a lot of little side hustles back in
the day too. I was just always wanting to do something.
I just didn't know what it was. And then, yeah,
fast forward to when I was twenty one. I had
eighty thousand YouTube subscribers at the time, which was a
big deal back then, and I started earning a little
(02:33):
bit of money on the ads that were running on
my YouTube videos. I was working nine to five, probably
taking home six hundred bucks a week, and my goal
was to earn a thousand dollars a week. That was
my dream when I was twenty one, and so I
was earning a little bit of money off this YouTube channel.
This is when we saw brands starting to clue on
to people like me that had eighty thousand subscribers.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And I was starting to.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Do little paid promos, you know, promoting stuff with my
YouTube videos and So I had this full time job
that I absolutely had, working in an office, and I thought,
you know what, I'm gonna quit my job and try
and make this YouTube thing work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I quit my job.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I text my boss and said I quit, which was
really unprofessional of me, but I just didn't care. And
I then spent the next three years from twenty one
to twenty four, hustling on that YouTube channel and also
organically promoting this cool app called Instagram that I was
on as well, and the YouTube channel went from eighty
thousand to over a million subscribers in three years.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
When you say hustling, what's that actually mean?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Uploading four or five videos a week every week and
just being super consistent with it and building an audience.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And you're I mean, now, I don't know what it
was like then, But now you're talking about renovating or
creating a store for Fate the label. You're talking about
your relationship with AJ, you're talking about relationship with your
best friend, you're talking about products. It's not like there's
an absolute theme.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
No, I've always been like a mixed bag of lollies
when it comes to what I online. Whilst now, you know,
I'm well into my business journey, so my content is
kind of angling more towards like my entrepreneurship. But even
back then and when I was making my YouTube videos,
it was just whatever I was feeling, like making videos about,
whether it's a video of me going to the shops,
a video of me doing my makeup, trying out some
(04:18):
new lollies that I bought in America.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Like, it was just videos.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Like for entertainment really, and they were like quite embarrassing
when I think about it, but you know, they were
cool at the time and people loved it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So you did that and you built your audience. And
how quickly did that audience build me? It took years,
not month, It took years.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So, like I said, I started the YouTube channel maybe
when I was about fifteen. So from fifteen to twenty one,
I got to eighty thousand subscribers because YouTube was so new,
and then over three years I went from eighty thousand
to a million. That's how long it took.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, and then Instagram. You've got six hundred.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Thousand, yeah, six hundred thousand on Instagram. So Instagram came
out while I was building this YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So naturally.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I made a profile on Instagram, and then I would
say at the end of my videos, anyway, come follow
me on Instagram. Like it was just this organic push
to get people to follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And when Instagram first came.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Out, it was a photo app, so you'd just be
sharing selfies or photos of your food and whatever. And
we've seen Instagram evolve since then and now it's all
about the reels and the videos and the content. But yeah,
it's just been one massive, organic journey to build my
social profiles.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Was there a moment where you thought, Wow, have this
massive social profile, I've got to do something with it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I always knew in the back of my mind when
I was you know, when I'd quit my job and
then I was a full time influencer, if you want
to use that word. I always knew deep down that
it wasn't sustainable and that I couldn't do it forever
because I, like, weirdly enough, I knew I was destined
to do something big in life.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I've felt that way since I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I used to do dancing when I was a kid,
and I just remember like being up on the stage
and like having this feeling of like I'm gonna do
something great and very call that you know, whatever you want,
But I just it's always new And that might sound
stupid to say, but I feel like if you know,
like you just know I'm going to do great things.
It was just a matter of me figuring it out,
figuring out what it was. And so when it come
(06:10):
to starting Fate, I was twenty four when I launched Fate,
and prior to that, I dabbled in a few other businesses.
So Fate wasn't like my first business that I'd ever tried.
I had like a spray tanning business when I was
a teenager. I taught myself how to do makeup, and
I had like a freelance makeup mobile service. I tried
to decorate iPhone cases and sell them on Facebook at
(06:31):
one point there, like I went to Spotlight and bought
some like gems and put them on.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Facebook saying buy these for fifteen dollars. This sold none.
But like I just loved just trying to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, So when it come to launching Fate, I always say,
you know, I didn't have some big, grand business plan.
It was just another one of those ideas. The difference
was I had that big audience.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Okay, so we come to Fate straight after the break.
Stay with me, Brittany will be back in a minute.
My guest this morning is Britney Saunder's entrepreneur and podcaster. Okay,
so had you decided to start Fate? Why Fate?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Why did I decide to go into fashion again? It like,
obviously I love fashion. I feel like every young girl
growing up loves fashion, but it wasn't my true passion
at the time. I just wanted to try another thing.
Ye And it's funny to say now because we're dominating
the women's fashion space, but back then, it really was
just me going, yeah, I'm going to give this a go,
(07:31):
much like the spray tans, much like the makeup, much
like the phone cases and everything else I tried, much
like the YouTube channel. It was me just given something
else a go. But it just so happened to be
the one that's stuck. And I started Fate at home
in my garage. And when I started it, I had
obviously no experience in business, nothing, but I thought I'm
going to give it a go, and I didn't see
(07:52):
past that point. I hired my first employee to come
and work with me in my garage, just a casual
family friend's friend's.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Daughter, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And she came and worked with me, you know, two
or three days a week, helping me pack the orders
and do the returns. I taught myself how to do
absolutely everything. I just googled everything, right, So.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
What about the actual supply? Where did you get them from?
Did you google that?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah? Googled that and like met some people that also
worked in fashion and they connected me with a few people.
Just learn how to do everything just by like chatting
with people, googling stuff. Remember googling how to ship parcels
in Australia. Oh, set up for Australia Post account, like,
you know, just figuring it out as I went. I
was absolutely clueless, but I was passionate and I think
that was why it worked out for me. And when
(08:39):
I started it in the shed and hired my first
employee and she would come over three days a week
to work in my house, I didn't think beyond that point,
Like I didn't have a goal, Like I didn't think
one day, We're going to be this big, massive women's
fashion bran. I'm gonna have stores everywhere and we're going
to have hundreds of thousands of customers Like I just
I did it because I wanted to do it in
that moment, and I had, oh, idea, what the next
(09:01):
you know, eight years would have in store for me?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So this is an impossible question. But eight years time
you run this great fashion label, You've got physical stores
in Melbourne, Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney. You have turnover measured in
the millions. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thirty million?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Thirty million turnover?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You've got twenty seconds to tell me how you did it?
How did you do it?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I'm going to say it's come down to sheer determination
and self belief and not fucking around and just doing
something when you think of it.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think a lot of people hesitate.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Or like, oh, I don't know if I should do that,
Whereas I've always been the person like, if I think
of something and I'm like, yep, this is a great idea,
make it happen, like, don't fluff around or go oh
but what will people say? What will the girls I
went to school? We say, just fucking do it? Yeah,
I reckon, That's how I've got where I've gotten.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, what about help? I mean, Aja your partner now
is the CFO of the business. Obviously, we have zero
helpings out with this, so you must use zero products.
How important or how hard was it to get your
head around all this other stuff. You might love fashion,
but finance is a whole different field.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And when I started Fate, I wasn't doing anything right financially,
Like I didn't know the importance of even just like
having an accountant to help me with the things. And
so for the longest time, we didn't really have any software,
like we were just figuring it all out as we went.
Like this whole journey of Fate has been me figuring
it out. But now you know, we're logged into our
zero every single day. Aja kind of handles all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Once upon a time I was doing like all of
the finances and our pays and the super and everything.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But he, for some reason took a liking to doing
all that.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I'm like, this is fanta a Jay's an electrician
here who decided to have a change of heart.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah yeah, so he absolutely loves all the numbers and
he looks like also just like all of our daily
sales and our profit and loss.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So he's really all over.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
That and he uses zero just absolutely every single day.
He's jumping in there reconciling all of our invoices because
being such a big business with so many stores, so
many stuff, so many suppliers, like, the amount of transactions
that we have every day is just on another level.
And so he's in there every single day and it
really helps him in his role.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So where does fate go from here? Thirty million dollars,
you've got one, two, three, four or five physical stores? Yep,
what next?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's a good question because if I think back to
eight years ago, like I did not think we would
be where we are now. I have very much just
been winging this entire business the whole way.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Like I'm going to be completely honest with you.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
You're like, it's not a strategical plan, and yeah, next
year are doing this, the year after the we're doing that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I just roll with the punchers.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Do how many people we have come into this studio?
So you have a plan, you go from A to
B to C to D and sometimes you've got to
go to Z before you get to deep.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, I've operated that way, and maybe that could be
the worst thing in the world. I'm sure that people
would hear that and absolutely shudder that I am just
kind of winging it. But absolutely everything that I've done
up until this point has basically been off the cuff.
And I listen to my community. You know, they're saying,
open a store here, you open a store there. Okay,
I'll look into it, go meet some real estate agents,
and you know, figure out the rest.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And were totally out of time here. But it's kind
of like analytics for one of a better term yours,
just put it in a different way, you to say,
speak to my listen to my community.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
How important is that everything that we've done is because
of our community. You know, when you start a business
and it's a small business that you're doing everything yourself,
You almost start it selfishly because you want to have
your own business. But then if that little business turns
into something big, it's all of a sudden, actually not
about me at all. Our business is about our customers
and our staff. So everything that I do is for them.
(12:41):
Everything that I'm doing now is for our community. So
I listen to them every single day, and they're such
an inspiration and driving force behind fate and where we go.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So where to for Fate.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
In the future, bigger, bigger, but also better and stronger.
I'm really focusing this year on our foundations because it
has grown so much much, especially in the last three years.
I want to say that I don't want Fate to
outgrow me or become out of control. So we've been
focusing a lot on our processes and our foundations this
year before we continue to scale bigger and bigger. But
(13:13):
I mean, the sky is a limit, but also like,
I'm so happy with where we are now and I
never could could have imagined that in a million years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Rit thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That was Britney Saunder's, founder of Fate, the label, host
of the Big Business podcast and user of Zero A
great supporter of this episode. This is Fear and Greed
one on one. Join us every morning for the full
episode of Fear and Greed business news you can use.
I'm chanelma Enjoy your day.
Welcome to Fear and Greed one on one. I'm sure, Alma.
We love a good entrepreneur success story on this podcast.
My guest today is Britney. Britney wears many hats. She
first made her name as an influencer on YouTube before
starting her own fashion business, Fate the Label. That's fayt
Fate the Label, which has grown and grown and grown.
(00:26):
At the same time. She's written a book called Just
Getting Started and hosts the Big Business podcast here at Nova.
This episode today is supported by zero. Britney Sauna is
Welcome to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Now let's start with the YouTube story. So you're actually
high school dropout? Is that right? Yes, proud, proud high
school dropout.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I hated school when I was there.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's not that I was bad at school, like I
did well with topics that I was the subjects that
I was doing, but I just didn't want to be there.
I was so eager to earn money, and when I
was really young, I remember trying to do anything for
pocket money when I was a kid. Got my first
job at Macis when I was fourteen. As soon as
I was old enough to work there. I just was
always obsessed with, I guess being independent. I didn't know
(01:09):
that I was obsessed with, like wanting to become an entrepreneur,
because I didn't know what that was. But yeah, as
soon as I could, I remember it was. I was
in year ten and I just desperately didn't want to
be at school. So I went down the avenue of Okay,
I'm going to become a hairdressing apprentice, like just anything
to get me out of school. But that flopped. I
did a few trials and never got the job. But
maybe it was the universe saying You're not meant to
(01:30):
be a hairdresser. But yeah, dropped out of school and
I was a waitress. And then I worked in over
twenty different jobs from the ages of fourteen to twenty
one because I just would get a job, and you know,
I would know within like a couple of weeks if
I didn't like it or not, and I'd be onto
the next. So I worked in every single industry possible,
(01:50):
from retail, fast food, hospitality, sales, worked nine to five
admin roles, and all the while I had this YouTube
channel that I started in high school. It was really
new the whole YouTube thing, and I thought this is cool, like,
this is fun. And I always thought I was a
bit of an entertainer, I guess. So I was just
making vlogs about my life. Nothing special, like nothing special.
(02:12):
It was just a hobby. And I did that for
many years, all the while working tons of different jobs.
I tried a lot of little side hustles back in
the day too. I was just always wanting to do something.
I just didn't know what it was. And then, yeah,
fast forward to when I was twenty one. I had
eighty thousand YouTube subscribers at the time, which was a
big deal back then, and I started earning a little
(02:33):
bit of money on the ads that were running on
my YouTube videos. I was working nine to five, probably
taking home six hundred bucks a week, and my goal
was to earn a thousand dollars a week. That was
my dream when I was twenty one, and so I
was earning a little bit of money off this YouTube channel.
This is when we saw brands starting to clue on
to people like me that had eighty thousand subscribers.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And I was starting to.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Do little paid promos, you know, promoting stuff with my
YouTube videos and So I had this full time job
that I absolutely had, working in an office, and I thought,
you know what, I'm gonna quit my job and try
and make this YouTube thing work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I quit my job.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I text my boss and said I quit, which was
really unprofessional of me, but I just didn't care. And
I then spent the next three years from twenty one
to twenty four, hustling on that YouTube channel and also
organically promoting this cool app called Instagram that I was
on as well, and the YouTube channel went from eighty
thousand to over a million subscribers in three years.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
When you say hustling, what's that actually mean?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Uploading four or five videos a week every week and
just being super consistent with it and building an audience.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And you're I mean, now, I don't know what it
was like then, But now you're talking about renovating or
creating a store for Fate the label. You're talking about
your relationship with AJ, you're talking about relationship with your
best friend, you're talking about products. It's not like there's
an absolute theme.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
No, I've always been like a mixed bag of lollies
when it comes to what I online. Whilst now, you know,
I'm well into my business journey, so my content is
kind of angling more towards like my entrepreneurship. But even
back then and when I was making my YouTube videos,
it was just whatever I was feeling, like making videos about,
whether it's a video of me going to the shops,
a video of me doing my makeup, trying out some
(04:18):
new lollies that I bought in America.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Like, it was just videos.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Like for entertainment really, and they were like quite embarrassing
when I think about it, but you know, they were
cool at the time and people loved it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So you did that and you built your audience. And
how quickly did that audience build me? It took years,
not month, It took years.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So, like I said, I started the YouTube channel maybe
when I was about fifteen. So from fifteen to twenty one,
I got to eighty thousand subscribers because YouTube was so new,
and then over three years I went from eighty thousand
to a million. That's how long it took.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, and then Instagram. You've got six hundred.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Thousand, yeah, six hundred thousand on Instagram. So Instagram came
out while I was building this YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So naturally.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I made a profile on Instagram, and then I would
say at the end of my videos, anyway, come follow
me on Instagram. Like it was just this organic push
to get people to follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And when Instagram first came.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Out, it was a photo app, so you'd just be
sharing selfies or photos of your food and whatever. And
we've seen Instagram evolve since then and now it's all
about the reels and the videos and the content. But yeah,
it's just been one massive, organic journey to build my
social profiles.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Was there a moment where you thought, Wow, have this
massive social profile, I've got to do something with it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I always knew in the back of my mind when
I was you know, when I'd quit my job and
then I was a full time influencer, if you want
to use that word. I always knew deep down that
it wasn't sustainable and that I couldn't do it forever
because I, like, weirdly enough, I knew I was destined
to do something big in life.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I've felt that way since I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I used to do dancing when I was a kid,
and I just remember like being up on the stage
and like having this feeling of like I'm gonna do
something great and very call that you know, whatever you want,
But I just it's always new And that might sound
stupid to say, but I feel like if you know,
like you just know I'm going to do great things.
It was just a matter of me figuring it out,
figuring out what it was. And so when it come
(06:10):
to starting Fate, I was twenty four when I launched Fate,
and prior to that, I dabbled in a few other businesses.
So Fate wasn't like my first business that I'd ever tried.
I had like a spray tanning business when I was
a teenager. I taught myself how to do makeup, and
I had like a freelance makeup mobile service. I tried
to decorate iPhone cases and sell them on Facebook at
(06:31):
one point there, like I went to Spotlight and bought
some like gems and put them on.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Facebook saying buy these for fifteen dollars. This sold none.
But like I just loved just trying to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, So when it come to launching Fate, I always say,
you know, I didn't have some big, grand business plan.
It was just another one of those ideas. The difference
was I had that big audience.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Okay, so we come to Fate straight after the break.
Stay with me, Brittany will be back in a minute.
My guest this morning is Britney Saunder's entrepreneur and podcaster. Okay,
so had you decided to start Fate? Why Fate?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Why did I decide to go into fashion again? It like,
obviously I love fashion. I feel like every young girl
growing up loves fashion, but it wasn't my true passion
at the time. I just wanted to try another thing.
Ye And it's funny to say now because we're dominating
the women's fashion space, but back then, it really was
just me going, yeah, I'm going to give this a go,
(07:31):
much like the spray tans, much like the makeup, much
like the phone cases and everything else I tried, much
like the YouTube channel. It was me just given something
else a go. But it just so happened to be
the one that's stuck. And I started Fate at home
in my garage. And when I started it, I had
obviously no experience in business, nothing, but I thought I'm
going to give it a go, and I didn't see
(07:52):
past that point. I hired my first employee to come
and work with me in my garage, just a casual
family friend's friend's.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Daughter, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And she came and worked with me, you know, two
or three days a week, helping me pack the orders
and do the returns. I taught myself how to do
absolutely everything. I just googled everything, right, So.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
What about the actual supply? Where did you get them from?
Did you google that?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah? Googled that and like met some people that also
worked in fashion and they connected me with a few people.
Just learn how to do everything just by like chatting
with people, googling stuff. Remember googling how to ship parcels
in Australia. Oh, set up for Australia Post account, like,
you know, just figuring it out as I went. I
was absolutely clueless, but I was passionate and I think
that was why it worked out for me. And when
(08:39):
I started it in the shed and hired my first
employee and she would come over three days a week
to work in my house, I didn't think beyond that point,
Like I didn't have a goal, Like I didn't think
one day, We're going to be this big, massive women's
fashion bran. I'm gonna have stores everywhere and we're going
to have hundreds of thousands of customers Like I just
I did it because I wanted to do it in
that moment, and I had, oh, idea, what the next
(09:01):
you know, eight years would have in store for me?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So this is an impossible question. But eight years time
you run this great fashion label, You've got physical stores
in Melbourne, Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney. You have turnover measured in
the millions. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thirty million?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Thirty million turnover?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You've got twenty seconds to tell me how you did it?
How did you do it?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I'm going to say it's come down to sheer determination
and self belief and not fucking around and just doing
something when you think of it.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think a lot of people hesitate.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Or like, oh, I don't know if I should do that,
Whereas I've always been the person like, if I think
of something and I'm like, yep, this is a great idea,
make it happen, like, don't fluff around or go oh
but what will people say? What will the girls I
went to school? We say, just fucking do it? Yeah,
I reckon, That's how I've got where I've gotten.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, what about help? I mean, Aja your partner now
is the CFO of the business. Obviously, we have zero
helpings out with this, so you must use zero products.
How important or how hard was it to get your
head around all this other stuff. You might love fashion,
but finance is a whole different field.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And when I started Fate, I wasn't doing anything right financially,
Like I didn't know the importance of even just like
having an accountant to help me with the things. And
so for the longest time, we didn't really have any software,
like we were just figuring it all out as we went.
Like this whole journey of Fate has been me figuring
it out. But now you know, we're logged into our
zero every single day. Aja kind of handles all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Once upon a time I was doing like all of
the finances and our pays and the super and everything.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But he, for some reason took a liking to doing
all that.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I'm like, this is fanta a Jay's an electrician
here who decided to have a change of heart.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah yeah, so he absolutely loves all the numbers and
he looks like also just like all of our daily
sales and our profit and loss.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So he's really all over.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
That and he uses zero just absolutely every single day.
He's jumping in there reconciling all of our invoices because
being such a big business with so many stores, so
many stuff, so many suppliers, like, the amount of transactions
that we have every day is just on another level.
And so he's in there every single day and it
really helps him in his role.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So where does fate go from here? Thirty million dollars,
you've got one, two, three, four or five physical stores? Yep,
what next?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's a good question because if I think back to
eight years ago, like I did not think we would
be where we are now. I have very much just
been winging this entire business the whole way.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Like I'm going to be completely honest with you.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
You're like, it's not a strategical plan, and yeah, next
year are doing this, the year after the we're doing that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I just roll with the punchers.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Do how many people we have come into this studio?
So you have a plan, you go from A to
B to C to D and sometimes you've got to
go to Z before you get to deep.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, I've operated that way, and maybe that could be
the worst thing in the world. I'm sure that people
would hear that and absolutely shudder that I am just
kind of winging it. But absolutely everything that I've done
up until this point has basically been off the cuff.
And I listen to my community. You know, they're saying,
open a store here, you open a store there. Okay,
I'll look into it, go meet some real estate agents,
and you know, figure out the rest.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And were totally out of time here. But it's kind
of like analytics for one of a better term yours,
just put it in a different way, you to say,
speak to my listen to my community.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
How important is that everything that we've done is because
of our community. You know, when you start a business
and it's a small business that you're doing everything yourself,
You almost start it selfishly because you want to have
your own business. But then if that little business turns
into something big, it's all of a sudden, actually not
about me at all. Our business is about our customers
and our staff. So everything that I do is for them.
(12:41):
Everything that I'm doing now is for our community. So
I listen to them every single day, and they're such
an inspiration and driving force behind fate and where we go.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So where to for Fate.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
In the future, bigger, bigger, but also better and stronger.
I'm really focusing this year on our foundations because it
has grown so much much, especially in the last three years.
I want to say that I don't want Fate to
outgrow me or become out of control. So we've been
focusing a lot on our processes and our foundations this
year before we continue to scale bigger and bigger. But
(13:13):
I mean, the sky is a limit, but also like,
I'm so happy with where we are now and I
never could could have imagined that in a million years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Rit thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That was Britney Saunder's, founder of Fate, the label, host
of the Big Business podcast and user of Zero A
great supporter of this episode. This is Fear and Greed
one on one. Join us every morning for the full
episode of Fear and Greed business news you can use.
I'm chanelma Enjoy your day.
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