Do It Scared! Starting and Growing a Business. Uncut with Brittney Saunders

Today we’re welcoming back a guest who is one of the most impressive young female entrepreneurs in Australian business—Brittney Saunders. You might know her from YouTube, from her massive social media following, from her brand Fayt the Label, her cafés or her podcasts. She’s now also the author of a brand-new book Just Getting Started—an unfiltered look at the wild ride of building businesses from the ground up, making big mistakes and staying true to your vision. 

We’ve had the pleasure of having Britt on the podcast before (May 2023) for an episode titled Building the biz from the basement up. In that episode we spoke about: 
-being one of the OG influencers who leveraged her platform to create multiple extremely successful businesses
-fat phobia in the fashion industry and size inclusivity being a smart business decision and
-the businesses that Britt started before the ones that were successful!

Today we wanted to focus on the mindset you need to have a successful business and some of the lessons she has learnt more recently as her businesses continue to grow!

We spoke about:

• Why Britt wrote a book and the process of becoming an author
• The many hats that business creators wear and how to hand those jobs away
• How Britt structures the management of her business 
• Why Brittney didn’t put her name into her business
• The costly mistakes Britt made early on in business
• Pushing against expectations and judgement 
• Working so closely with her partner AJ
• Hiring decisions
• Why money shouldn’t be the main motivator for starting a business
• Staffing being the hardest part of running a business

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and I'm very excited to
introduce today's guest in the flesh. It's definitely not the
first time we have spoken to her, but the last
time we spoke to her, unfortunately, wasn't in the same room.
It was over the interwebs, which it's always better when
you can go good.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Don't prove through that episode, go back and listen to it.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, it's Britney Saunders and she is one of the
most impressive young female entrepreneurs I would say in Aussie business.
You might know her from one of our episodes, but
also from YouTube, her huge social media following, or her
brand Fate the Label, which is absolutely going gangbusters. She's
had cafes, she's got podcast. She's one of those people
that just puts her finger in every single pie.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm very, very jealous.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
But we're here today to talk about her brand new book,
Just Getting Started, which is an unfiltered look at the
wild ride of building businesses from the ground up, making
big mistakes and staying true to your vision.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
Already having so many fingers in so many parts, and
then you just decided to become an author as well, Like, yeah,
I just thought.

Speaker 5 (01:11):
Like I didn't have enough on so I'm not busy
enough Lane, But you know what, Okay, So we have
covered so much with you and also welcome to the Thanks,
thanks for having me back.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Thanks, it's good to be here in the flesh this
time though. Yeah, so we can hug you and touch
you in real life. Yeah no, but we've covered so
much on that. We did that episode in May twenty
twenty three, if anyone wants to go back and listen
to it. That was really deep dive into like how
you started Fate, the reasons behind it, the things that
makes Fate stand out in comparison to other brands in
the Australian fashion industry. Also, we talked about fat phobia

(01:44):
in the fashion industry. There was so much in that
and you also joined us at our live show as well.
So I feel like we've had a lot of Brittany
over the last.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Couple of years.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
But this is something and what you've put out into
the world around business and being a female entrepreneur in
the industry and growing that for Scratch and I think
the thing that's so interesting about your journey to this
is that it's not like you went to business school
and took a tradition.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
You know, there's a lot of like life lessons that
come along the way.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yes, before we get unpacking on all of what you
have been creating over the last couple of years, do
you have an actually unfiltered for us.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
I got stuck on this last time, and I'm stuck
on it again, and I can.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Tell the Brisbane show one there was only two thousand
people there, so there's gonna be all.

Speaker 6 (02:24):
I feel like I had two on that live show
night and I can't remember what the other one was,
but one of them was I jumped in a pool
with a pad on.

Speaker 7 (02:32):
I would have been like fifteen.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
So it was not recent and you didn't know the
aftermath of what was going to happen.

Speaker 6 (02:37):
Like I just forgot I had a pad on and
then I could feel it filling up and then I'm like,
oh shit, I had to get out of there.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
It's just like in front of like, yeah, you had
a party.

Speaker 6 (02:44):
Was it like our family home when we were younger,
and there was like I think we had friends over,
so I jumped out quickly.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
You know what's worse? You just reminded me. I just remember,
I reckon, Everyone's done this at some point.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I remember being at a friend's house or might have
even been my boyfriend when I was like fourteen. I
remember taking my tampond to change it, wrapping it in
the toilet paper, putting the other one in, but not
putting it in the bin. You know when you've walked
away later and you realize you've like let left all the.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Top of the oh.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And it's that thought of being like, oh my.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
God, like his mum's gonna find that because he's never
cleaned a bathroom in.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
His lives, mums will had to have put it in
the bin.

Speaker 7 (03:17):
I think we've all done that.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Every single person has a periods, So I'll never forget.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
When I was at the beach and my eighteen year
old boyfriend or seventeen, however old he was, he was like,
you've got a string hanging out, pulled my what he
thought was my bikini string, and pulled my tampon out. No,
not so, if we haven't want to have a moment
where someone wants to die on the spot.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
That was me.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
I mean firstly, congratulations on the book. It's such a
huge effort to go from I mean, you can know
all the things that there are to know about the
industry that you work in, but then to put pen
to paper and actually write about it is a whole
separate kettle of fish. What was the reasoning for wanting
to write the book in the first place.

Speaker 6 (03:52):
Funnily enough, my partner AJ has been saying to me
for a lot of years, like, you should write a book,
and I would always go, oh, like what would I
write about? And he's like, everything that you've done for
funny Yeah, So it was something that he had always
spoke to me about. And then it was just over
two years ago now that I got an email in
my inbox from the book Topia team and they're like, hey, like,

(04:13):
we're looking for new talent to kind of write books
with us.

Speaker 7 (04:17):
Would you like to do it? And I was like,
you know what, Yes, I will do it.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
That's a really fast turnaround on a book.

Speaker 7 (04:22):
Two years, yeah, yeah, two two years yeah, but it
was a bit slower.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
You could have got a one.

Speaker 6 (04:26):
I was being super slow with it, and so I
had the first couple of calls with them and like
I've never written a book, so I have no idea
how to do anything.

Speaker 7 (04:33):
I don't know how this works.

Speaker 6 (04:35):
And I remember I had the first few like zoom
calls with the team and we decided it would be
kind of like a memoir and a bit of a
business book all in one, and like a diary. And
after those first few calls, the guys that I've been
chatting with were like, all right, well, we'll wait for
the first draft to come through. And then I was
like what. I was like, Oh, like, you just want
me to write it, and they're like, yeah, that's that's

(04:57):
what happened. Because I've never done it, I thought maybe
I would like come down to Sydney and I'd sit
down with someone and do a big five hour interview
so they could get to know me. Then they would
help me, which I'm sure if I asked, they would
have offered, like to have someone help write it. But
they're like, just kick me in the deep end. We'll
see the first draft when you send it over.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Then they get it and they're like, holy shit, Okay,
can I in Sydney.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
We'll do there, like the sit down, we'll go through
that chatter structures.

Speaker 7 (05:21):
That's why I was worried.

Speaker 6 (05:22):
So I started writing the chapters, and I made like
a Google doc or whatever and shared it with them
so they could see what I was doing. So then
as I was writing, they were like making little comments
and notes to me, or like fixing up my punctuation
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, before we get into that, because obviously that's what
we're here to talk about. For anyone that hasn't heard
our episode with you, or might not have heard your
own podcast, give us the little elevator pitch on how
you got into business after dropping our school, moving out
a home, Like, how did.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
You find yourself there?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Because you were like a blogger, you were a YouTube blogger.

Speaker 6 (05:51):
Yeah, looking back now, there was so many things that
I did throughout my teens or even earlier that were
signs that I was always destined to be an entrepreneur.

Speaker 7 (05:59):
I didn't grow up with like the greatest parents.

Speaker 6 (06:02):
I've never had anyone tell me like I should have goals,
or like I should try hard in school or anything.
So from a young age, I was just kind of
forced to figure stuff out on my own. I think
that's one of my biggest strengths in where I'm at
now is because I didn't have any guidance or anyone
saying try hard, or go to UNI, or you should
do this. I guess I've kind of used that as
a positive thing and it's allowed me to be able

(06:22):
to think freely. But just from when I was a
little kid, I was always trying to do something of
my own, and I just thought it was hobbies, like
setting up a little stall out the front of my
house to try and sell like my toys or whatever.

Speaker 7 (06:34):
I don't think kids do that anymore.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
I think now there's a lot of like straight yeah.

Speaker 7 (06:39):
I was then I did lemonade.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
I said, I've just bought them from a store and
up sold them.

Speaker 6 (06:44):
No. I think what I did after Easter one time,
selling all my leftover chopping.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, brilliant waste.

Speaker 6 (06:50):
Not what not. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (06:51):
And so there was lots of little things like that
that I did.

Speaker 6 (06:54):
And then obviously I discovered YouTube when I was in
high school, which I feel like everyone knows by now,
maybe some people.

Speaker 7 (06:59):
Who discovered me more recently.

Speaker 6 (07:01):
But I discovered YouTube in high school and I thought,
that looks great. I want to give that a go,
And so I started making YouTube videos in high school,
just sitting in my room at home by myself talking
to myself. And to cut a long story short, I
dropped out of school because I just wanted to work.

Speaker 7 (07:15):
I just wanted to earn money.

Speaker 6 (07:17):
And I worked in over twenty jobs from the ages
of fourteen to twenty one, all the while trying all
these little business ventures mobile spray tanning, makeup.

Speaker 7 (07:25):
I tried to decorate.

Speaker 6 (07:26):
Phone cases and sell them on Facebook, like I tried
everything and anything. I had coffee scrubs at one point,
just trying to sell stuff and make stuff. Yeah, and
then by the time I was twenty one and I'd
worked in every industry possible because I just hated every
job that I got and nothing made me happy. I
grew that YouTube channel to eighty thousand subscribers, which was
a big deal back then, it was huge.

Speaker 7 (07:46):
You were like an early adapter. Yeah, it was before
the word influencer was a thing.

Speaker 6 (07:49):
It was when Instagram was just starting, so that I
was organically building this Instagram following. And then I threw
in my full time job at the age of twenty
one and thought, I'm going to make this YouTube thing
my job, and I haven't looked back.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
It's interesting because I think the thing about what sets
you apart in business is that there's people who run
small businesses, right, Like that's like a thing that a
lot of women are getting into creating small businesses. It's
a very big difference between being someone who works in
small business or works in medium sized business on one
specific thing versus someone who has an entrepreneurial spirit who
can like apply the same methods of business but roll

(08:24):
it out on a cafe or roll it out on
Fate the label, or roll it out on their social media.
And that's the thing about it's interesting to sort of say, oh,
like you started off as an influencer, but doing it well,
that's already a business like that has to be approached
with the same sort of mechanics of consistency and how
you're going to structure your content, how you're going to
like put a schedule together, like all of those things

(08:44):
that kind of just seem like, oh, someone just gets
a phone and does it.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I don't think you could correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't think we can call you a small business
owner anymore because you are You're far beyond a small business.

Speaker 7 (08:55):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (08:56):
Small once upon a time, and I talk about that
a lot on my podcast because I was there at
one stage.

Speaker 7 (09:01):
But yeah, now it's a big business.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, it's big, it really is.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
But really I think that the rules apply in terms
of like how you've managed to replicate this over so
many different types of businesses.

Speaker 7 (09:14):
Yes, And I learned it all well.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
I learned a lot of it from starting that YouTube channel,
like the discipline and the consistency of posting like then, yeah,
I've applied that in my businesses, and I think that
has been one of my biggest strengths in building Fate
to where it is today is just those skills that
I learned from building that YouTube channel. Because the YouTube
channel eventually got to a million subscribers when I was

(09:36):
twenty four, and then it was around them that I
launched Fate, and I obviously had just learned, you know,
how to build an audience online, so then I could
like take that and then build out our Fate social
media using those same skills that YouTube taught me.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
How do you figure out, because I think the big
thing when people make that transition, how do you figure
out the things that you want to keep that are
your jobs to do, Like the hats that you're going
to wear and the things that you're going to give
away to other people so that you can work on
your business rather than working in your business.

Speaker 7 (10:02):
Oh, it's one of the hardest things to do.

Speaker 6 (10:04):
And I think all business owners will go through that
period if their business is growing and they don't know
what to hold on to and what to let go.

Speaker 7 (10:12):
And also like you.

Speaker 6 (10:13):
Can become quite controlling in business as well and not
want to let go. And I remember maybe four years
ago I was finding myself in that sort of situation
where Fate was going from this little thing where I
was very hands on to me recognizing that I needed
to hire more people and then teach them how to
do all these things that I once loved doing, because

(10:33):
when I started Fate, I was doing everything with myself,
totally pack in the orders, doing the emails, doing the returns,
freaking I taught myself how to do eCOM photography. I'd
message friends of friends, say can your sister come model
for me? And then I'd shoot, Like you do everything,
and when you're young and it's your kind of first
proper business, it is hard to get to that stage

(10:53):
where Okay, maybe I don't need to be doing the
customer service emails anymore, even though you like hold on
to it. For some reason, I really did struggle, like
a few years back, like delegating and letting go just
because you get into the mindset of it's all right,
I'll do it, take me two seconds totally, and I'm
sure you could relate with your business totally, but you
also have to get to a point where you're like,
you've got to the only way to scale is to

(11:14):
get people in.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
You can do the job better than exacuate.

Speaker 6 (11:16):
And I think it's just coming to terms with that
and acknowledging that your business isn't always going to be
the same and you can very well stay doing the
same things and like just being involved in every part
of the operation of every single bit of the business,
but then the business will stay the same. It just depends,
like if you want to grow it, you've got to
like handshit away and trust people, which is difficult.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Some of the early chapters in your book, I mean,
one is titled hat Wearer for anybody that is interested
in going to read a little bit more about the delegating.
But there's another one called google It, which seems pretty
self explanatory.

Speaker 7 (11:47):
And do you want to know something funny too.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
As I wrote the book and was doing all the chapters,
and I did them like all out of order as well,
Like I would just go, I want to do a
chapter about this, and so I'd write it and then
i'd decide later where in the book it was going
to go. Like, I didn't the book in order, so
if it seems out of order, that's that's why. And
so as I had the Google doc happening and I
was writing all of these chapters, all the titles, I
just put them in there as like a draft like

(12:11):
Google it hat wearer, like I just and I thought, oh,
down the track will give them a better title.

Speaker 7 (12:16):
No, they're all still like that. They didn't change it
at all.

Speaker 6 (12:19):
They're like Noah, And I'm like, oh, I just put
out there like because that's what I don't know.

Speaker 7 (12:25):
Anyway, the book's fucking hilarious.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
But it seems like such a I mean, Google it
seems like such a really basic obvious thing.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
But when Laura and I even.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Started this podcast we've like six years ago, we talked
often about the fact that we literally googled how to
start a podcast, and then you google every I was
googling how to do a contract. Yea, Like every single
thing that we did, we didn't know anyone in.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
The industry and we had to learn it ourselves.

Speaker 7 (12:47):
I've googled everything that I know.

Speaker 6 (12:48):
Like, I've never done a course, I never went to UNI,
I didn't finish school.

Speaker 7 (12:51):
It's googled. Yeah, I've googled everything.

Speaker 6 (12:53):
So there's a whole chapter in there because it's one
of the questions that I'll get asked, like how did
you learn how to do all this stuff.

Speaker 7 (12:58):
That you do?

Speaker 6 (12:59):
I literally just googled today in twenty twenty five, I'm
still googling shit every day.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Do you use any consultancy, Like do you have now
with the size of the business of where it is,
do you have any sort of consultancy programs that you
use for your staff or is everything kind of run
by top down?

Speaker 6 (13:12):
Yeah, everything's run top down, and like we have a
lot of programs now that we use and like internal
HR programs and everything. But we're still like just figuring
this shit out as we go. I'm being honest, we're
making chet up every day. Well, so I always go
we're just girls, like just we're just figuring this out.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Just girl.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
One thing I think is interesting that you do speak
about is like not putting your own name in your
business name, and that is interesting because you have a
name that people know, you have a huge following that
people can associate a name with. Yep, why do you
think it's so important not to have your name in
your business name?

Speaker 6 (13:45):
I think obviously there's some super successful businesses and brands
out there that have the founder's name in it. When
you think you know all the Charlotte Tilbury's and like
all those big brands. But when I was starting Fate, I.

Speaker 7 (13:55):
Was like Laurna Jane. Yeah, like I was twenty.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
Three or something when this idea about, and I just
straight away thought, I don't want it to be called
Britney someone as the label. First of all, I don't
think that sounds very good. And again, like I had
no idea about business. I just dabbled in things over
the years, but I just thought, I don't want this
to be completely tied to me.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
And I'm glad that I did that.

Speaker 6 (14:20):
And you know now that I'm so much further into
my business journey, like I speak with other founders and they.

Speaker 7 (14:26):
Talk about what's your exit strategy. Okay, you're going to
get out of this.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
You're going to sell it?

Speaker 7 (14:29):
Yeah, and not that I have any intention of selling it,
but I don't know. Back then.

Speaker 6 (14:34):
I must have thought one day this might be so
big that I sell it. And then it's really hard
to sell a business if your name is in it.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
There's two types of businesses though, from my observation, Like
there's your businesses like Zimmerman, for example, which is the
family name of the sisters who designed Zimmerman. But people
don't see Zimmerman as synonymous with the designers.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Because they weren't uber famous first.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Well, it's it's not that, it's more so the fact
that they didn't build the brand around their person. Whereas
like what we been and discovered now in terms of
social media is content creator lead. So creator led content
is like the absolute hero of how to get people
to engage with the brand. Samantha Wills is a really
good example of sort of an early adopter of this.
She was a content creator also create a led content

(15:17):
with the brand name, but then it came to a
place of selling it or she wanted to fold the brand,
but she was like, well, I can't sell it because
my name is attached to it. Yeah, so it really
depends on how you run your business. But if you're
going to be the face of it as well as
the name of it, you put yourself in a position
where you can actually.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Never sell it. And that's a problem.

Speaker 6 (15:32):
The hard thing is, and I think when people are
starting businesses is they and I was the same.

Speaker 7 (15:36):
You don't think that far ahead.

Speaker 6 (15:37):
And of course when I was starting Fate, like for
some reason, I didn't want my name in it, which
I'm glad, but.

Speaker 7 (15:41):
I never had massive dreams for Fate.

Speaker 6 (15:44):
Like people would look at Fate now and think, oh,
holy shit, she must have had some massive goals.

Speaker 7 (15:48):
No, I was just a girl. I thought, yeah, I'm
gonna start this business. I didn't have.

Speaker 6 (15:51):
Any dreams to have retail stores and seventy staff and
the size range that we have now, Like that's all
just happened naturally, because when you start a small business,
you have a small mindset. You don't think beyond I
didn't think beyond just getting it started in my shed.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
When you because I mean, you've approached retail in kind
of a unique way. A lot of people are pushing
everything online now and people are closing their retail stores,
whereas you're opening bricks and mortar stores at a rate
that's rapid, more.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Rapid than when I've ever seen anyone do it.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
How have you found that bricks and mortar has facilitated
and helped your online presence.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
I think it has, Like it's been amazing for us.
And it's funny that you say that, like so many
people have said to me over the last couple of years,
like retail's dying, Retail's dead, and we are seeing all
of these retail giants collapsing, like so many every day
I get on Facebook and it's like beings worst is
going under, Like it's crazy and it is scary. But
I also, at the same time, have seen a lot

(16:42):
of conversation around like with the rise of AI and
everything being so electronic and digital these days, that I
don't know, people are maybe going to have a bit
of a shift and want more of a human interaction
just because you get so frustrated sometimes, like with how
everything is so robotic.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
I also think it's a bit of a changing of
the gar because traditionally, like traditional retail, as in like
bricks and mortar stores was like your Maya's, your David Jones,
you know, you were really limited unless you were like
a big cotton on body or a soupre or something like.
You couldn't afford to have a store in a Westfields
for firstly, and some of the like the startup brands
or Australian brands just didn't have the size or scalability

(17:20):
to be able to have those types of stores. And
so like we were in Westfield at a really interesting
time where loads of stuff were closing and the reason
for that was because they hadn't jumped on online fast enough.
They didn't have robust online presence. They had really robust
bricks and mortar presents, but then people weren't shopping in
the same way. And what's happened over like the last
ten years is like now you have your brands like

(17:42):
Zulu and Zephyr, obviously Fate, they've all got their bricks
and mortar stores, but their online presence is so robust
that they both supported.

Speaker 7 (17:49):
People are like the social media will bring people in
the store.

Speaker 6 (17:52):
Now what I'm saying, I saw your TikTok and here
I am like in person totally. If you can create
a great product and then have beautiful staff and lovely
welcoming service, and no pressure to make a sale, like
you've created like a really enjoyable experience.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
So how many stores you have now five and you
have plans to continue taking over the world? I have.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
I mean again, I had no plans with Fate when
I started it. So the fact that we even have
five stores is just mind blowing to me right now.
Like this year, this is the first time in three
years that I haven't been working on our next door.
I kind of put the brakes on a little bit
at the end of last year and said, I just
want to make sure that the foundations are strong across
the whole company before we go and like do any more,

(18:35):
because I think it's so easy for founders to get
caught up in the growth and like rat race of
and it's such a thrill like to just be like
opening store five, six, seven A and you see all
these brands, like we've got twenty stores, just to be
able to say we've got yeah, and it's like thrilling. Honestly,
It's like drugs, Like you just get addicted to it.

Speaker 7 (18:54):
Not that I'm addicted to drugs.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Just from addicted to stores.

Speaker 6 (18:57):
Yeah, but I'm also just really mindful at like fate
has already grown so much bigger than I ever could
have imagined. But I'm still very much like got my
fingers in every pie across the across the whole business,
and I never want it to get beyond my control. Yeah,
So we've kind of like slowed down intentionally.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
This year, and well that also comes a tipping point
right where you're like you're making profit, but you're spending
all the profit to continue to grow, and so you
never have this rebalancing because you're like it's coming and
it's gone out open store, we're upstaffing, we're doing this
and like the foundations are there and the growth is incredible,
but also like that's not a sustainable model unless you
have times to like get on top of it.

Speaker 6 (19:35):
Yeah, and I think a lot of founders can get
addicted to just continuing to grow and not like.

Speaker 7 (19:41):
Just being happy with like where you're at.

Speaker 6 (19:43):
So it's what I've been doing a lot of this
year is just like slowing down a bit, making sure
like everything is like just everything from like our internal
staffing warehouse, Like we've looked at everything in a way
that we haven't really had a chance to over the
last few years because just been go, go go, and
just like being happy with where we're at and always
thinking about the next thing that we're doing and instead
just being like we're doing fucking great well.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
I think it's important from the outset.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
A lot of people, if they don't know like the
intricacies of your stories, it's very easy to look at
you and be like far out, like she's so successful,
she's killing it, she's got, you know, everything going for it,
which you absolutely do, but it wasn't always the case.
And I think it's really important to highlight some of
the failures or the mistakes that you've made along the way,
to really push the fact that, like these overnight successes

(20:28):
are not overnight success.

Speaker 7 (20:29):
Overnight it's so long.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, but you had quite a few like early issues
financially and some expensive lessons to be learned with like
importing goods and getting things through customs. Talk us through
some of those earlier mistakes and lessons that you learn.

Speaker 7 (20:42):
Oh, there's so many.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Where do I start.

Speaker 7 (20:44):
I'm still making mistakes every day.

Speaker 6 (20:46):
One of the first financial fuck ups that I made
was actually when I was full time influencing and again,
like I didn't have like any parents around to tell
me what to do, like, so I had no idea
how to do tax. And then obviously i'd drop out
of school and I'd been working all different kinds of
jobs and so I would.

Speaker 7 (21:04):
Get my pay slip and the tax was done for me.

Speaker 6 (21:07):
And so then I started earning all this money on
YouTube and started doing brand deals and everything, and I'd
moved to Sydney. I was just living by myself, like
I had no one to tell me, like, now that
you're self employed, you should put money aside tax and
you need to get an accountant, like I had no
one ever tell me.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's a rude shock. Although when you figure out how
much you were the first.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
Yeah, you don't learn it at school either, no, and
I had not, And so I think I went two
years there when I started earning a shit ton of
money like on Instagram and YouTube, and I didn't do
my tax for two years. And I got a call
off the ATO and I owed like one hundred thousand
dollars or like just over and then I was.

Speaker 7 (21:47):
Like, I'm going to jail, Like I thought I was
going to get done. I thought I was going to
get locked up.

Speaker 6 (21:52):
But then it was then that I got an accountant
and paid the money off, and luckily, like I'd saved
a lot of money too, like because back in the
twenties sixteen, like everyone was getting all the designer things,
and it was like, I don't know, the influenza era,
Yeah for sure, but i'd luckily like put most of
them money, like I'd had most of the money in
my bank, so I was able to pay that off quickly.
And then another one, which I think we spoke about

(22:14):
on the podcast that we did back in twenty twenty three,
was just like when we started making swimwear and then
we were importing it and we had to fill out
some like customs declaration thing, and again, I'm just a girl.

Speaker 7 (22:25):
I'm just figuring this out.

Speaker 6 (22:27):
You have to like declare the value of the goods,
and so I put the retail value like.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
The taxes, yeah, whereas most businesses put like way less.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (22:36):
No, I'll be honest. If I sell all this, I'm
going to make eighty thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
So here I am.

Speaker 6 (22:40):
I put eighty thousand dollars and then I think I
got tax eight grand or something. And then because I
was none the wiser, I was like, jeez, that's expensive.
I paid it anyway, but then I eventually worked out
you just meant to put the cost of goods, like
what it cost me to buy, not if I was
to sell it all.

Speaker 7 (22:56):
Fucking idiot, not your profit. Yeah you're not, but I
just paid.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
I was like, oh wow, that's expensive.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
But this is the thing.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Do you know what, though?

Speaker 4 (23:05):
What I love about your social media and I said
this to you we had on the show last time,
is how you managed to turn even like the current
fuck ups into like success stories, or you turn them
into brand building moments. So like I remember watching one
where you receive stock because something was wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
I can't remember.

Speaker 6 (23:19):
We made like these corset tops out of this like
kind of silky material, and the straps were like too
long for some people or maybe they would fit other
people perfectly, and it was my fault, like we didn't
put an adjustable slider on the strap because we just
wanted to be like a seamless kind of corset. And
so I was like, well, let's just give them away
for free, and so we just made a video like

(23:40):
we do in the warehouse. I just said, look, we've
got these corsets in four different colors and we're just
placing them in orders randomly this week, and I just
made a little, I guess, educational video to be like,
sometimes you fuck stuff up in your business. And then,
to my surprise, like we didn't say, you know, place
and order and hope that you'll get one, Like I
just shared these corsets. Then the orders just came flood
in on the website. We had people emailing dming, please

(24:02):
I need this size and this color, and it just
turned into this whole massive thing.

Speaker 7 (24:06):
The video like went kind of viral, and I.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
Was like, oh, but it's because it's so humbling, because
you don't see brands do that. That's the thing, right, Yeah,
Brands don't want to talk about when they mate mistakes.
Brands want to like cover that shit up and be
like reperfect, yeah, and seamless. And there's something really humanizing
about taking on that kind of that, like, oh, well,
not everything goes to time and.

Speaker 7 (24:26):
Honestly, in business, like nothing is ever perfect.

Speaker 6 (24:28):
And I think if you go into business thinking that
it's always going to be perfect, you're going to be
in for a rude shock because there's something going wrong
every single day and that's just.

Speaker 7 (24:36):
Part of it.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
You've mentioned a couple of times in this chat that
you didn't have necessary parental support around you or people
who you were able to go and speak to you
to get advice or guidance. That your English teacher had
such a lasting impact on you.

Speaker 6 (24:48):
Yes, So, as I mentioned earlier, I started my YouTube
channel when I was in high school, and I was
the only kid in the whole school with a YouTube
channel because it was so new, like YouTubers were barely
a thing, and obviously naturally all the kids in my
school found out about.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
It, and then it's a bit weird.

Speaker 6 (25:02):
Yeah, and look, my videos were weird, So I kind
of got to give them.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
That what was your angle?

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Early on, like I.

Speaker 6 (25:08):
Was doing like we dance videos like Kesher music videos
like really embarrassing niche. Yeah, well Kesha was really popular
back then, and it was cool to make like a
music video like and all little jump cuts, and so
obviously all the kids in my school knew about it,
and then it would became like a talk of the school,
and then the teachers got involved, and the principal got involved,

(25:30):
and then there was I had to go to the
principal's office and it was like you need to take
these videos down because everyone's talking about them, which is
so extreme, I know, but it was like I think
it's because it was I was the only one doing it,
and the teachers were like, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (25:42):
You're an outlier.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Yeah, they probably didn't want you to get bullied, as I.

Speaker 6 (25:48):
Was quite upset, and I remember crying to my English teacher,
who was always so nice, like I just loved her,
and she would.

Speaker 7 (25:57):
Say like fuck those little bitches, like you know, she
would she was in quiet like say that to me.

Speaker 6 (26:03):
I don't know if she used that word because I
don't want to get her in trouble, but she would
say like screw them, like you know you do you?
And then so I always remembered her saying that to me,
and I didn't stop with the videos.

Speaker 7 (26:14):
I just I kept going with them.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
And then earlier this year, like maybe in February, like
I dropped out of school, I don't know what. Year
two thousand and nine, I was sitting at the pub
having dinner with AJ and I had like a tap
on my shoulder and it was my English teacher.

Speaker 7 (26:26):
And she was like, oh my god, she's like you
remember me.

Speaker 6 (26:28):
I was like, of course I do, and we just
had this really special moment and she's like, let's get
a photo, and she was like hugging me and cuddling me,
and she's like, followed you know what I've been doing online.

Speaker 7 (26:36):
She's like, I'm so proud of you. I remember those
kids in school and look at everything you've done.

Speaker 6 (26:40):
And so we got this special little photo together and
I was like, oh my god, I love her.

Speaker 7 (26:44):
Could you be my mom? So and so.

Speaker 6 (26:50):
Then yeah, when I launched the book, like, I made
this cute little carousel of like photos and then I
shared the photo of her and I and then she
commented on it like the nicest thing.

Speaker 7 (26:58):
And then that was really nice because I must have like.

Speaker 6 (27:01):
A lot of teachers following me, and then I had
them all reaching out saying, you've just validated me that
like I'm going to leave a positive impact on at
least one kid.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, it's funny because we don't realize the impact that
just you, as one person can have on somebody else.
Like that teacher would have never thought that that one
conversation with a young student would change the direction of
your entire life.

Speaker 7 (27:22):
And she remembered it too, like she was the one
that brought it up to me at the part and
I was like, oh, you remember that. She's like, yes,
so yeah, you can.

Speaker 6 (27:28):
Just anyone can leave such an impact on one person
in one conversation, it is hard to overcome.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Maybe it's easier now because we're seeing a lot more
of it and every second person is starting their own businesses,
but it wasn't always the case back in the day.
Even when we started this podcast, which was only six
years ago. I remember I was just working in a hospital,
and I remember being mortified that my coworkers knew I
was doing it, Like I tried to hide it from
them because I thought, how embarrassing that.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
I'm trying a good job, because you've posted all over Instagram,
but I didn't.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
I remember the intern struggle of wanting to chase a
dream that was something unique and different in an outlier,
but also managing that with my normal nine to five,
like going to working scrubs, but then having a podcast
where I'm talking about sex that those same people in
the scrubs can listen to is really mortifying. And I
remember being like, when someone said, oh, are you doing
a podcast?

Speaker 3 (28:19):
I was, of course, this is lat of thing. Don't
listen to it like whatever, my friend. Yeah, but it's
really hard to.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Go against the grain sometimes, and like when all of
your like hats off to you, when all of your
skipping bullied for trying to do something and you didn't
stop doing it, Like, I think that that is the
important lesson there.

Speaker 7 (28:34):
Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
What's it like working with your husband, AJ? Because he's
not husband?

Speaker 3 (28:39):
I'm sorry, sorry, sorry you might.

Speaker 7 (28:41):
Have said this last time too, I just I didn't.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's such a throwaway to me to any long term relationship,
probably like your husband, what to like working with and
living with and doing literally everything and having such an
intricate life with your partner.

Speaker 6 (28:54):
Yeah, I've had a lot of people ask me this
over the years. I've had a lot of people say
I could never do that. Each other's heads off, which
is so fair, And I honestly think it just comes
down to us, like it just works for us, and
it doesn't work for everyone.

Speaker 7 (29:08):
And we're really lucky.

Speaker 6 (29:09):
And AJ and I when we first met and started
like dating, that's when I was like about to launch Fate.
So I'd already gotten it to the point of like
about to launch, and so he came to the launch party.
We did like a launch party in Sydney with like
influences and everything like eight years ago now, and I
just he was there and I just always laugh at
the thought of him being there, and he must have

(29:30):
just thought, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Like what what?

Speaker 7 (29:33):
Actually? Yeah, what am I actually doing? I'm like, come
to this launch party. I'm starting this business, you know.

Speaker 6 (29:38):
So he was there for the launch party and from
day dot like he's obviously been on the journey with me.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
But he was an electrician when we first started dating.

Speaker 6 (29:45):
But he was always super helpful and he would finish
work at like two, and like he moved into my
house pretty quick because he was like he'd been working
away and then he was back at his parents. So
like he just kept bringing clothes over and then all
of a sudden, yeah, and I'm like it's too late now,
Like I can't tell him, believe you know, he.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Still can't tell him.

Speaker 7 (30:01):
Yeah, So what would now?

Speaker 6 (30:03):
And so he would come home every afternoon and I
hired my first employee like in my house to like
help me like pack the orders and stuff, which is
so fucking random as well.

Speaker 7 (30:12):
Can you imagine, Hey, mom, I got a new job.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Oh what is that?

Speaker 7 (30:15):
Doing congrats.

Speaker 6 (30:15):
Oh, just working with this girl in her shared, like
she's just started this little thing, so random. But he
would come home and he would help us like in
the shared and so it was like that for the
first few years of fate, like AJ was just like
the unofficial employee. He would always come and help us
or we did you have a pay no no matroit fail.
And so then like we moved out of the shed

(30:37):
into our first little commercial warehouse, and again like he'd
finish work and come and help the girls and I.
He was just the unofficial employee for so many years,
and he just got to a point where he really
took a liking to like when we kind of had
a proper little warehouse setup, Like he loved setting it
all up and being amongst it. So he started to
just like he went four days electrical one day with us,

(30:58):
and then two days with us. And then it got
to the point where he like just threw in his job,
which was so big of him because that's all he's
ever done, Like he left school, did his apprenticeship and
then just worked as an electrician.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
And also going from that to working in women's fashion
is just a total.

Speaker 6 (31:11):
Pivot, absolutely and it was a big thing for him
to do because he was very much in the mindset
of like, no, I'm an electrician and that's what I'm
going to do for the rest of my life because
it was his family's business and we've never looked.

Speaker 7 (31:21):
Back, and like he absolutely loves it.

Speaker 6 (31:23):
He started like in our warehouse and now he's the
CFO and like does all of our finances and the
books and the pays and all that stuff, and it
just works for us. It also works for us because yes,
we work together, but like we don't work side by side,
Like we're not sitting at a desk together all day,
Like we have our days completely separate.

Speaker 7 (31:41):
And then we are home in the afternoon, I'm like,
what do you do today?

Speaker 6 (31:44):
Because like we're just working in different areas of the business.
I think if we were working side by side five
days a week, eight hours a day, then yeah, sure,
that would test us.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
And I think that that's probably the thing that's like
the big difference is people when they look in they're like, oh.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
You guys like together doing everything. That's like, no, we have.

Speaker 6 (31:59):
We're not to lift in boxes together and like growing
up ladders together, Like no, we don't we do work
together and if there's a task that needs to be
done where it's like teamwork, we work really well together,
but we're not working like without hands in each other's pockets.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, and there's also like a sense of like I
know you can do your job and so I don't
have to micro manage you to do it. So yeah,
before you go do that, Yeah, I'll do this and
then we can come together.

Speaker 6 (32:22):
And it's crazy we always say this, like AJ is
just he does all of our finances, but he also
does the warehouse and he does all the maintenance, like
he does everything. And it's so funny that this business
that I started so long ago, really selfishly for myself
is now so beyond that.

Speaker 7 (32:36):
And like we couldn't do it without AJ.

Speaker 6 (32:38):
Now, Like I've always said, God forbid, if something was
to happen to AJ and I, he's got to stay
in fate somehow.

Speaker 7 (32:43):
It's like we literally couldn't do it without AJ. Like
if he was to walk out of my life, which
he never will because I'm so good.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Because I pay his bills.

Speaker 7 (32:51):
Yeah, Like I don't know what the fuck I'd do.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah, how do you manage like the culture of your
company when you're like growing so rapidly hwing new people,
how do you approach culture internally to keep it something
that's like you know, staff facing and building that from
the ground up.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
We've just had to put like some really back to foundations,
like solid foundations and strong management because yeah, like not
that long ago, it was just me and then the girls,
you know, but now like everyone has a boss that
is not me, and like I'm at the point now
where like I'm not really everyone's boss anymore. Like I
just work with our kind of I don't like to

(33:29):
like call it a hierarchy or anything, but like I
work with I guess upper management, and then they've got
teams underneath them, so it's just us making strategical hires
or growing people within the company into management positions so
that there's just like a nice structure and flow there.
It's taken a long time to get to that point
because the business has grown so quickly that we've had

(33:49):
to kind of keep up with it internally as well,
like making sure that we've got that solid structure in place.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
What have you learned about hiring along the way in
terms of friends, family, how who you hire?

Speaker 7 (34:01):
I could do a whole episode about that.

Speaker 6 (34:03):
But to put it in a nutshell, thinking back to
when I started Fate, or when anyone first starts a business,
you don't take it seriously yourself because it's so new.
And again, like when I started Fate, it was just
this fun little idea, Like I'd tried a million other
things by that point, like selling my Easter eggs, so
it's all just like fun and games. And in those
early days, I just was so excited that I just
hired like friends.

Speaker 7 (34:23):
I was like, Yeah, this would be so fun, We'll
be able to work together.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
You know. And I'm really hard.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
I'm yeah, I'm in my early twenties. I'd never had
a job for more than six months. Like I'd never
been a manager, Like I'd never gotten a promotion, so
I had zero management experience. And so in those early
days I did hire like friends of friends and family
friends and whatever. And it's not to say like it
wasn't great at the time, Like that was good at
the time for me, But I again didn't think beyond

(34:50):
that moment, and I didn't think, hang on a second,
if I want to turn this into something big, is
hiring my friends and my family the best decision for
me and the business, and it's not.

Speaker 7 (35:00):
It's never the best answer for anyone.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
It also can be really hard to manage because when
there's personal relationship, like it's harder to say, hey, I'm
not happy with how this you know, impossible.

Speaker 6 (35:10):
Because those boundaries are not there, lines are so blurred.
So like, yeah, the first like two to three years
of fate, I did make a lot of wrong hires.

Speaker 7 (35:17):
But it's not to say that it was wrong at
the time. I just had to do that to learn
for the future.

Speaker 6 (35:22):
Hang on a second, Like, it's probably not the best
that you hire friends and family friends or your friend's
cousin or whatever, because if you want this to turn
into a bigger business, you're going to need to hire
people that are actually serious about your business.

Speaker 4 (35:34):
And one day you're gonna have to fire your friends
and that sucks. Yeah, I don't have any more shifts
for you, but I love you.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
I know.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, that's the worst.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
You like very iconically describe yourself as a cash grabber. Firstly,
for anyone who might not be familiar, yes, that might
need some explaining, but also you talk about why starting
a business for the purpose of just making money should
not be like one's main priority.

Speaker 6 (35:57):
So I call myself cash grabber, and like people that
have followed me for many years call me cash grabber.
And it's just because one time, like three years ago,
once one.

Speaker 7 (36:07):
Time this wonder it was one time.

Speaker 6 (36:09):
So yeah, one person sent me a DM when I
was talking about something that we were doing, and this
woman said, you're such a cash grabber, like as if
though a woman starting businesses and trying to do something
for herself is a bad thing.

Speaker 7 (36:22):
And so I remember getting on my story and just saying, look.

Speaker 6 (36:24):
At this fucking idiot calling me a cash grabber, but
you know what, I am a cash grabber, and what's
so bad about a woman trying to make some money
for herself and start businesses.

Speaker 7 (36:33):
So that's where the cash grabber thing comes from. And
just ever since then, that's what I call myself.

Speaker 6 (36:37):
I often will not often, but like every now and then,
I'm like, I wonder if that person still follows me,
or if she got like to butt hurt by me
laughing on my.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
You grabbed too much cash base she's offered.

Speaker 7 (36:45):
And so that's where cash grabber comes from.

Speaker 6 (36:48):
And I guess people can start businesses for a multitude
of different reasons, like they want to work for themselves,
they want to make cash, they want to make millions
of dollars, but.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Of course we all want to make cash. You have
due to survive exactly.

Speaker 6 (37:00):
But I think because my whole career has been so
like I want to say, it's been really organic, because
it started from those YouTube videos and it's been you know,
almost fifteen years or something that I've been making content
online and my whole business journey has been so organic.
The money side of it was never my motivator, and
I think that's why I've been able to get to
where I am because I don't know, I've just enjoyed

(37:23):
every step of the way.

Speaker 7 (37:24):
And I think if someone wants to start.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
A business, and I think it would be it's especially
hard in twenty twenty five, like seeing how many businesses
there are now, and like when I started, there was
no such thing as like a business on Instagram, So
I just did it out of like passion for wanting
to do something of my own.

Speaker 7 (37:40):
And I think, if.

Speaker 6 (37:41):
Money is your number one motivator, by all means like
go for gold, Like if your dream is to be
a millionaire or billionaire, go for gold. But I think
people can have that as their goal and not understand
like the work that it's going to take to get
to that point and maybe be disappointed.

Speaker 7 (37:57):
And I just think it would be hard if money.

Speaker 6 (37:58):
Was the number one motivator, because you know, what if
you go into a low period, what if you're not
making sales, then you're feeling shit about yourself when there's
like so much more to business than just making money.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
It's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I can't remember this guy's name, but he's no one famous,
but he was just a businessman that started.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
He had a startup over in like San France. He
was acquired for.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Hundreds of millions of dollars and he did a post saying,
you know, like this is how much I made. I
never have to work again, My friends don't have to
work in my family doesn't have to work again.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
And he's like, I've never been more unhappy. Wow.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yeah, And because all of a sudden, he's like, I
don't have a purpose. I've got nothing to fill my
day with. And money doesn't necessarily like you know, I
don't trust a lot of the people around me. Money
doesn't necessarily.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Bring you what you think.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
It's going to bring you, and he always worked towards
selling it and for this huge acquisition, got to that
pinnacle and thought, it's actually not what's going to make
me happy. And I think this is why you can't
do things purely if your intent is money.

Speaker 7 (38:54):
Yeah, exactly. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I think a lot of people like sell their
businesses and then just go on to start another business, right, Well,
he will, no doubt. That's the thing.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Like, if you're doing it because you love being an
entrepreneur and you love creating businesses, the reason why people
sell them is because they're like, well, cool, I've built
this one up, I can do another one. Yeah, and
I can do that whole process from scratch again, rather
than just working on something that's established.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
What would you say your biggest challenge since becoming such
like a huge entrepreneur or maybe something about business that
no one warned you about.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
I would say the hardest part for me, and probably
a lot of other founders would agree, it's the staffing
side of business. Because again, like you start a business,
especially if it's like a small business where it's just
you and maybe like one person that's coming in like
two days a week to help in the shed. And
I have no previous management experience obviously and never worked
a job for more than six months. And I would

(39:41):
say the biggest challenges that I've faced now and throughout
the entirety of Fate, there's just been like the people
and culture sidetal business, just dealing with you know, so
many different people and like we've got a team of
seventy now, so just like, can you just imagine like
having a room of seventy people that you're with every
day and like ensuring it all of them are like
one hundred percent happy one hundred percent of the time.

(40:01):
It's absolutely impossible, and people will just test you beyond belief,
and it's hard because business isn't personal, but it feels
personal when it's your business.

Speaker 7 (40:12):
But it's not like it's it's.

Speaker 6 (40:14):
So weird, but just that constant feeling of like someone
always having an issue with something and trying to problem
solve and maybe never being able to make everyone happy
and then being hard on yourself for that and beating
yourself up over it, when at the end of the day,
like that's just life. We're never going to be able
to make people happy in life in general.

Speaker 7 (40:31):
And you're never going to.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
Be able to make people one hundred percent happy one
hundred percent of the time in business. And that's definitely
where I've faced most of my challenges. And I'll take
any other challenge any day, logistics, shipping stuff going missing,
massive tax bills or whatever. But the people of the business,
like they're everything in your business and you need them
to run the business. But that's also where I think

(40:52):
most of the challenges in business are.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
I think as well, like retail, I mean, there's other
industries that are the same. Retail can be a particularly
tricky one because a lot of your core stuff, especially
when you have bricks and mortar stores, are staff that
are working in store and that's not necessarily their passion.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
They're doing it because that's the.

Speaker 7 (41:09):
Hard thing as well.

Speaker 6 (41:10):
It's like this is my passion, and like I can
give examples, like obviously I'm super passionate about fate and
everything we do.

Speaker 7 (41:16):
So then I make a massive song.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
And dance online saying these are our stores, this is
our grand opening, blah blah blah, and then like the
store opening happens and you've got this store.

Speaker 7 (41:25):
You're then putting so much trust in those staff.

Speaker 6 (41:28):
To have the enthusiasm, Yeah, but accepting and understanding that
that's just a retail job for them totally, and being
okay with that and knowing that, like it's not their
responsibility to have that same enthusiasm as you do. And
then you know, we've had numerous times over the years,
people going into store and again back to having that
like online brand, people are walking into our stores with

(41:50):
an idea in their mind of exactly how this is
going to pan out for them. And then if that
person working one day is like having an off day
or they're feeling like shit, or they're hungover or whatever,
because we're just human at the end of the day,
if they don't give that person the service that they
thought or the experience they thought, then that falls back
on me totally.

Speaker 7 (42:08):
And it's you said that your store experience was amazing.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Like she's twenty one, went out of the weekend. Yeah, right, No,
it's really difficult, but it is. It's a really hard
thing to manage because you can then err into the
territory of micromanaging it. But at the same time, we've
all had jobs, but we did it because we did
it because we earned money.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
You're not passionate about.

Speaker 7 (42:28):
I've seen both sides.

Speaker 6 (42:29):
I see the customer's disappointment, but I also remember myself
working in retail and saying, fuck this.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
You know, so I worked in a nightclub that I
wasn't enthusiastic about it. Yeah, I can take a drink and.

Speaker 7 (42:38):
I no, it's so difficult.

Speaker 6 (42:39):
And that's the scary thing with opening more and more
physical stores, is that just physical side, you're opening the
doors to people actually coming into your business in person, whereas.

Speaker 7 (42:48):
That's where your online is more safe.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
How do you manage like people and like not just staffing,
but like everyone wanting a piece of you because you're
so entrenched in your brand like Fate is, even though
the names are different, and especially if that's because kind
of the way it's been set up across social media.
But I would dare say that because of that setup,
your staff probably all feel a connection to you or
an excitement or like hiring there, like I know Brittany

(43:11):
and I want to work for her, But also so
to customers, like how do you manage your time when
there's probably a thousand people who will want a little
bit of Brittany.

Speaker 7 (43:19):
Ah.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
Again, I think it comes back to our workplace structure,
like for example, with our stores, like I'm not involved
in their operations. There's someone that is like that oversees
all the stores, so that I'm not. And again when
we first opened, like our first and second and third store,
I was doing that wrong. I was in the group chats.
I was worrying about their rosters. I was so involved.
I was texting them all, you know, and I learned,

(43:41):
you know, maybe after store two or three.

Speaker 7 (43:42):
Hang on a second, I don't need to be in
the work group chats.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
I don't need to be looking at their shifts, just
because I was just opening myself up to like so
many people contacting me at all times. Sure, and again
it just has to you have to delegate and have
that person doing that. Otherwise she's just going to burn
yourself into the ground worrying about who's still lunch cover
at Miranda today because someone's so caught in sick and
like you know.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
As someone's going to figure it out.

Speaker 6 (44:04):
As a CEO, I can't be worrying about that kind
of stuff because I need to work on like moving
the business forward.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Well, when you do have your own business, and I
even think of this from the perspective of life on cut.
But when you have your own business, you don't ever
turn off right.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Your brain is always thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
And we are unique in our very small business because
we will talk to each other at midnight sometimes or
six am or whatever. We don't have boundaries, but what
we need them. We need them, but we're also friends,
so we get away with it. But what do you
and aj A, your partner, put in place to protect
your relationship in a way because you are both in
the same business. It is both it's like you're you know,

(44:40):
you're both working towards the same goals. Yes, I imagine
it's very hard when you come home in a relationship
to not want to continue talking about work and not
prioritize work. Do you have any rules where it's like, hey,
no work, no phone from seven to nine, We're going
to talk.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
We're gonna have a date night, you.

Speaker 6 (44:56):
Guys, We definitely say that to one another week go
out for dinner and we say we're not talking about work.
Or AJ's started to become like more involved a little
bit with like more meetings at work that happen, so
that I'm not having to go home and tell him
what's happened. So I've like started bringing him more into
my role and the people that I kind of oversee,
so that it's not like I'm doing all these meetings

(45:17):
in the day and then I go home and have
to repeat it all to him, which we've only just
recently kind of started doing. And I think that's going
to be really helpful. But also like most of the time,
the stuff that we're talking about is like pretty exciting,
or we're like thinking of the next big thing that
we're going to do. So when we go out for dinner,
if the topic is work, like we're never really talking
about negative things. We're talking about like exciting stuff or ideas.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
You're on the same page, which.

Speaker 7 (45:41):
We don't mind.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
Yeah, but if sometimes at night he'll like pull out
his laptop and then start going, so and so hasn't
done their time sheet. I'm like, put your fucking laptop
away and I'll sort it out in the morning. I'd
April has not put her time sheet in, and every
Friday after and they're like time sheds.

Speaker 7 (45:57):
Like, so AJ doesn't go, what the fuck is he done?

Speaker 1 (46:00):
The pace so he doesn't have to be chasing everyone.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
You wrote a really beautiful chapter towards the end of
the book about what it is that you're proud of,
like throughout this journey, and that is like I mean,
we can always talk about like stopping and smelling the
roses and actually having this time to reflect, but what
was it that you learned in doing that process and
actually taking time to be like, Okay, these are the
things that I'm really proud of myself achieving. I think overall,

(46:22):
like writing this book and it reads like a diary,
like if you read it, and I've been saying to everyone,
it's a really easy read as well.

Speaker 7 (46:29):
Like when I wrote this book, I didn't try to sound.

Speaker 6 (46:32):
Like a polished author or use like fancy vocabulary or
you know, wording.

Speaker 7 (46:37):
It's just very much written in my own words.

Speaker 6 (46:39):
And I think one of the coolest things to come
out of doing this book was just actually writing everything
down and writing out my life story and all the
things that I've done, because it allowed me to like
stop and reflect on everything that I've achieved. Because, like
I mentioned earlier, it's such a rat race being in business,
and you can just get obsessed with the growth and
always wanting to achieve more, and weirdly enough, the more

(47:00):
that you achieve.

Speaker 7 (47:01):
The less you feel like you're.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Achieving, it's like a weird thing because you have a
new benchmark to compare to.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
So you achieved that, and I need to do more
as ass creep.

Speaker 7 (47:10):
Yeah, I saw a quote the other day.

Speaker 6 (47:13):
It was something like, maybe you feel like you're never
achieving anything because you're just continuously raising the.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Bar one hundred percent your standards become higher.

Speaker 6 (47:21):
Yeah, but like and again I was adding in those
chapters at the end because I felt like it was
never finished or like it wasn't perfect enough. But get
to put it in a nutshell, Like one of the
biggest things I've gotten out of the book was just
like being able to sit down and just like write
out my feelings.

Speaker 7 (47:34):
Like it feels like I've written a journal or a diary.

Speaker 6 (47:37):
And I was even saying on my story, even if
you no one plans on writing a book, like, just
sit down and write.

Speaker 7 (47:41):
Some stuff about your life.

Speaker 6 (47:43):
Like it's really like a nice exercise to do, cathartic. Yeah,
it's like relaxing and therapeutic and it allows you to
stop and reflect because life is just a rat race
and so is business. So yeah, I actually loved it.
Like people are like, would you do another one? Yep,
I reckon, I'm just going to start writing it like
just for fun. Like no one's asked if I want
to do a second one, but I'll just write it
and give it.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
To Itself Publishing FIRS.

Speaker 6 (48:06):
Because it was just like, actually so enjoyable, even though
throughout it I would stop for two months and then
I'd get an email from book type you of being like, hey, Britt,
how's it going.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (48:15):
Sorry, I'll keep going, But yeah, I really liked it.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
You said when you started out, you didn't have a
lot of support, and I imagine it would have been
lovely for someone to have been there to guide you
into your business journey. For anyone now that has either
just started a business or really wants to start but
they don't know what to do, what's your advice for them?

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Read my book.

Speaker 7 (48:33):
I'm going to be lame. But the book is called
Just Getting Started.

Speaker 6 (48:36):
And the reason why it's called that is because I
still feel like I'm just getting started, even though I've
done so much.

Speaker 7 (48:41):
And also sometimes it's about just getting.

Speaker 6 (48:44):
Started, like we were chatting about earlier on like when
you were talking about how when you started this podcast
and you were working in the hospital that you were
worried that people were going to find out and you
were worried about what they might say or think. That's
like the number one thing that holds people back from
doing anything in life is just a fear of judgment
from others. That's literally what stops people, like even if
they know exactly what they need to do, it'll just

(49:06):
be that fear. And one saying that I have been
using a lot lately and I'm absolutely loving is do
it scared. And that quote is in the book as well.
Just because you're scared doesn't mean that you should not
do it. But people go, I'm not going to do that.
I'm too scared, and then like that is the reason
that they don't do it, Whereas like you should reframe

(49:27):
your mindset to just do it scared anyway, Like whether
it's coming on a podcast, asking for a pay rise,
asking to take on some more responsibilities at work, having
a tough conversation with your partner, whatever it may be,
just do it scared anyway, because you can still do
things even if you're scared, and just do it with
that scared feeling.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
I also love what you said in the last episode
we spoke about, which is about just not having to
have things perfect, oh, like to do it imperfectly.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Just fucking do it, just like you know.

Speaker 6 (49:54):
Google everything, make sure you know all the basics that
you need and just start and then figure out the
rest as you go, because like, truthfully, I'm still figuring
out how to do everything as I.

Speaker 7 (50:04):
Go, and I'm so many years into my business journey now.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
But you're doing it.

Speaker 6 (50:08):
Yeah, I'm doing it and figuring it out. You make
mistakes and go well, next time that happens, I'm going
to do it differently. But it's just a matter of
just starting. And if you've got the idea, if you've
got the enthusiasm, the passion, the idea and the basics
and the things that you need to get started, just
give it a world Like what's the worse is going
to happen?

Speaker 2 (50:25):
You know, there are a bunch of I was my
Hen's party on the weekend and there are a bunch
of girls on there that didn't know this interview was happening.
I hadn't said anything and they were talking about you
and how oh really yeah, because some of them have
just started a business, and they were talking about how
excited they were to read the book, and I thought,
that's really cool. So I mean the purpose of that
is just to tell you that you are making a
really big difference, even if sometimes you think you aren't.
And you and I were just talking off Mike before

(50:46):
about like the imposter syndrome on writing a book.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
You're like, You're like, I can't write a book. Is
anyone going to want to read it? Do I have
anything to say?

Speaker 6 (50:52):
Because it was new for me, Like, you know, I've
done a lot of things, but I've never written a book.

Speaker 7 (50:56):
I was like, no, one's not coming good enough. But
it is.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
But it's a brilliant book just getting started. If you
guys know anything about Brittany, you're going to want to
read this. If you're starting a business, you've just started
a business.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Grab this book.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
We've absolutely loved it, We've loved having you on.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
You're truly you can keep coming back.

Speaker 7 (51:12):
You see there anytime, like honestly, just let me know.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
And congratulations. We're putting all the links to.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Podcasts, YouTube's, books.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Everything, everything's going to be there.

Speaker 7 (51:22):
But there are twenty linksylow.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
But thanks for coming in and having the chat today.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Thanks for having me, Thanks Brittany,