I’ve had a string of special recordings lately with guests I’ve been lucky to know through multiple chapters of their pathYAYS and today’s is absolutely one of those. But this is even more momentous not only because Seize the Yay was our guest’s first ever podcast back in 2019, but because her return comes literally days after some HUGE announcements and this chat was the first time she could speak about it.
Michelle Battersby is one of the smartest women I know and some of you may remember that when we last spoke she was aggressively growing Bumble in the Australian market. A year after that, she co-founded the trailblazing creator-led platform, Sunroom, allowing women and non-binary individuals to monetise their content.
Just last week, after scaling that business to over 20,000 creators, she was finally able to announce that she has sold Sunroom to Fanfix, the category leader in creator monetisation. And just days ago, she shared that she will be stepping into the role of President of Peanut, the gamechanging social networking app for pregnancy and motherhood.
…which is so perfectly aligned because, yes, another development since our last episode was the birth of her first son Alfie… followed 8 months later with the somewhat surprising news that her second is also on the way! So, at the time of this recording Michelle had just exited her business, accepted her dream job and all while 30 weeks pregnant so what an INCREDIBLE time to catch up with her and get her real time thoughts.
She has always been one of my favourite people to bump heads with but ESPECIALLY since becoming parents - I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was pretty determined to prove that I could do it,
that I wasn't going to change that much. Oh I
am different, I have changed, and I'm better changed in
an equal loss, it didn't equal less than But I
think you're so scared of who you're going to be
on the other side that you associate change with with
negative outcomes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the Sees the YA Podcast. Busy and happy
are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
one way. So this is a platform to hear and
explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
They adore the.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Good, bad and ugly. The best and worst days will
bear all the facets of seizing your Yea. I'm Sarah
Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned funentrepreneurs
wapped the suits and heels to co found Matcha Maiden
and Matcha Milk Bark. CESA is a series of conversations
on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
(01:02):
joy and fulfillment along the way. I've had a bit
of a string lately of very special, almost sentimental recordings
with guests that I've been lucky to know through multiple
chapters of their path yeas and today is absolutely one
of those. But this is even more momentous, not only
because CZA was our guest's first ever podcast back in
(01:25):
twenty nineteen, but because her return to the show comes
literally days after some huge public announcements about what comes next,
and this chat was the first time that she could
speak about them. Michelle Battersby is one of the smartest
women that I know, and some of you may remember
that when we last spoke, she was aggressively growing Bumble
in the Australian market, amassing over three million registrations on
(01:49):
the app during her time. A year after that, she
secured over ten million dollars in funding to co found
the trailblazing creator led platform Sunroom, that allows women on
non binary individuals to monetize their content. Just last week,
after scaling that business to over twenty thousand creators, she
was finally able to announce that she has sold sun
Room to fan Fix, the category leader in creator monetization.
(02:14):
Then just days ago at the time of recording, Michelle
shared that she'll now be stepping into the role of
president of Peanut, the game changing social networking app that
many of you will already know about that connects women
through many stages of their life, but particularly pregnancy and motherhood,
which is so perfectly aligned. Because yes, another development since
(02:34):
her last episode was the birth of Michelle's first son, Alfie,
just a couple of months after Teddy, followed eight months
later with the somewhat surprising news that her second is
also on the way. So at the time of this recording,
Michelle had just exited her business, accepted her dream job,
and all while thirty weeks pregnant. So what an incredible
(02:57):
time to catch up with her and get her real
time thoughts. Michelle has always been one of my favorite
people to bump heads with. Her brain just works in
such an incredible way. As you'll hear, but especially since
becoming parents. You'll hear that we have a very unhinged
two person group chat, which has kind of been like
therapy for me navigating with her the juggle of being
(03:19):
career driven mums, of finding out your identities and how
to make decisions in these new chapters while our priorities
have changed so much, and this episode is basically just
an extension of that group chat sharing with all of you, guys,
so many of the hopes, fears, and dreams that we
actually have as working mums, and that I'm sure many
of you do too. Michelle shares so eloquently about how
(03:41):
she's made these big decisions, how instinct has played a
role finding her new identity, and I'm so excited to
share that wisdom with you, guys. I hope you all
enjoyed this one as much as I did.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I honestly have.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is so weird, It's so lovely. Yeah me, she
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Okay, guys, this is particularly special for many reasons, but
firstly because you were our twentieth guest ever in January
twenty nineteen, which means that we recorded in twenty eighteen,
which is absolutely bananas.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And I always say what a great privilege it is
to have an audio record of who you were, who
I was at a time in our lives, and to
be able to go back and listen and be like,
oh my god, like how much has changed? How much
have we changed? So I've got a little snippet to
play for Oh my god, I.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Was twenty five and realized that you couldn't just wake
up every day and automatically feel happy. Happiness wasn't just
a given. That mindset almost led Bumble to finding me,
and me to find Bumble. I was presented with this
amazing opportunity. I knew this would never ever happen to
me again, so run with it, Like, better to try
and fail than not try it all. So weird to
(04:58):
hear that, To be honest, I.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Particulate, were you find you're surprised podcast? I'm actually surprised pleasantly.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I think it sounds worse today, So but it's interesting
to hear myself say that, because better to try and
fail than to not try it all. I just have
carried with me from like move to move since then.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And it's funny that the snippet was I don't think
I'd ever be offered such an incredible opportunity again. And
you've been offered or created for yourself multiple incredible opportunities
since then, including a very very current recent one that
we're about to talk about. But how funny that you
were like, this is never gonna happen to me again.
(05:39):
This is my one big thing.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, it actually like I have just that we'll get
to I've just taken an opportunity where I said to myself,
I will never get off again, like it must, I
must take this this one.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, so in seven years time, when we do, you'll
be like, wow, they just keep coming.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, God, how interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And I think it is really serendipitous timing that that
was your first podcast and now this is a really
pivotal moment for you, Like even this last twenty four hours,
it's been big. So I feel very, very lucky to
be here in real time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
It's weird because I feel like I almost went a
bit inward in the last few years of my career,
like I worked almost in a silo and a little
bit in private. I've hosted loads of podcasts, but I
haven't really done interviews in a long time. I also
was working on so many things I couldn't discuss for
(06:40):
about a year. So it's nice to come out the
side to let it out.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
And this is the first time, this is the first
time I actually spoken about it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'm not going to I don't have this story down.
I have no idea how I'm going to tell this story.
So oh, good luck.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Listen very very privileged and really excited to see how
it unravels. But first I think as this is a
sees the Baby episode, and we have both become mothers,
which is probably the biggest quantum shift in our last
of many, but in our last sort of seven years.
The title of Your Over your last episode was from
boat Sheds to Banking to Bumble Australia Meet the Queen
(07:17):
of the Aussie bee hive, and I'll add another bee
which is obviously baby and not one but two.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, oh my god, tell.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Us about motherhood. How old is Alfie?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Alfie is just fifteen months, little boy. Yeah, and I'm
currently thirty weeks pregnant.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Maybe thirty one, So do the math, guys, how many
months was Alfie when you found it?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You're pregnant eight months. So don't believe what they say
when they say you can't get pregnant while breastfeeding. And
that tiny thing that may you thought might have been
a period was a period. People say it's a shock.
It's like, Okay, you're sexually active. How much of a
shock can it truly be? But it is a very
(08:02):
big shock when you are breastfeeding. You consider yourself to
still be postpartum. You don't know that you're ovulating, like
I'd honestly had like half a period where I was like,
was that a period? Honestly I'd had sex four times.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I mean that's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I don't want people to think, well, like going for it,
because who has time for that when you've got a
newborn or feels like it many barriers. I think. Obviously,
I'm really grateful to be pregnant again, but it was
a massive, massive shock, and I still do not feel
(08:43):
ready for it, and I still feel very much in denial.
I don't know if you ever feel I don't know,
regardless of the age gap, if you really feel ready
to be taken back into the newborn phase. I think
the thing I've been trying to overcome is they say
you forget what it's like and then you have another one.
But I haven't forgotten.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Ye. Maybe that's good though, like you won't be out
of practice.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It's really interesting how you've delivered the news as well,
because you mentioned last night when we chatted that one
of the things you felt like you had to say
was this wasn't on purpose, and.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I'm doing it right now.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, So I clearly.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I sometimes feel like there can be a bit of
a badge of honor or something around having too very
close in age, like you're tackling something hard and you
want to be known as having the people have to
say two under two, and I don't really identify with
with that, Like I don't think it was almost like
something had happened that was the complete opposite of my personality. Yeah,
(09:44):
you know, I've always been very career orientated. It was
a very big deal me even having alpha so to
back it up so quickly, I'm like, whoa am I
even this person? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I don't want to represent myself as someone who had
this on the the plan in the calendar.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, but then it's like, what's wrong with that? If
you do want to really close in age, and if
you just love the newborn page and if you love
having babies, Yeah, I guess I am all those things.
But I'm also still like figuring it out as I go,
if that makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I think you've You're so enjoyable to follow because you
kind of have all these revelations in real time, Like
you really share your process, which I love because most
people don't. They kind of come to that realization and
then share when they're really clear on what they think.
Whereas you you're very open about yesterday I felt like
(10:41):
this today I kind of feel like this. And I
loved that you were very open about how obviously we're
so grateful to be fertile and to be able to
have a positive pregnancy, but that it's quite normal to
be surprised in a way that's kind of your immediate
reaction might not have been positive. Yeah, And I don't
(11:03):
think that's normalized a lot for women who are because
there is so much loss around and so much tragedy.
You do feel a bit guilty for saying I wasn't
necessarily ready for this announcement and it took a while
to process that.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, And I think it does make a lot of
women feel like they can't express the angst and anxiety
and fear around something kind of being thrust on them
before they were ready for it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I've felt like ninety percent of people coming into
my DMS who have an under eighteen month age gap,
it was a very similar thing to me. Hadn't had
a period, still breastfeeding, barely sexually active, I need of
a surprise, Oh my God, and now you know you
want to have a second child, so you're like, I
(11:52):
may as well run with it. But it's a lot
for you to process whilst your hormones are still all
over the place, like mine still are now. Yeah, and
I'm not thirty weeks pregnant. Yeah, I don't know what
I think when your hormones are like this. It's also
so hard to know what even is a true thought
(12:12):
an emotion that I'm feeling, Yes, what is just completely
out of whack from my hormones? Yeah? Yeah, So I
think you can talk about the challenges of processing that
whilst still being super aware of how lucky you are
and how unfair this can be for so many women,
(12:34):
you know, and the struggles that we face.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah. I think another thing that we've bonded a lot
over since, Like we had a really beautiful relationship before
in our careers and our similar challenges as career driven
women in business, but then motherhood has added this whole
additional layer of like we had this moment where we
just sort of started dming each other and getting slightly
(12:58):
more unhinged as we sort of sussed out how much
the other was ready to receive and then it just
became this full blown therapy chat about being working moms,
and I have gained so much solidarity and reassurance and
relief over you echoing so many things that I have
felt about. Even planning the gap in siblings. I feel
(13:20):
like there was a lot less concern about when Teddy
arrived because it was sort of in a vacuum. It
was like, yes, we've started trying. Yes, I would love
to be a certain age when he's born, but whenever
he comes, he comes. Whereas now planning our second there's
a lot more pressure on what the GAP's going to be,
like like suddenly you've got a milestone to distance out
(13:42):
the first one. So there's so much in my brain
about the momentum, Like I've had a momentum pause, Do
I have another one really quickly and put them close
together or do I get a little bit of traction
back and then pause? And it's just something Nick doesn't
have to think about.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So that's hard. Yeah that Like hearing you explain it
like that, I'm like, oh, wow, maybe I'm really lucky
that this decision was made for me. Yeah, because I
think that would be so hard, and like if you
do start feeling like yourself. You've got your energy back,
your motivation, your baby's a little bit older, they're a
bit more independent, you've got a bit more freedom.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And then you're and then you say you voluntarily go
I'm going to need to pause that now, yeah and
start again. Yeah, that's a big decision. What stage had
you come to with Alphie? And like now, I mean
baby No. Two hasn't arrived yet, So what is your juggle?
What has been over the last yeah, fifteen months. Like
(14:40):
we've bonded so much over so many realities of it,
mainly the shitty bits. There's lots of joyful bits, but
I think it's like you need solidarity for the harder parts. Yeah,
and that identity piece.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, Like, I have changed a lot over the past
fifteen months, and it's interesting to reflect on the lead
up to even how I was planning how much time
I was going to take away from my company and
putting all these processes in place to stay connected. And
I took four weeks off work when I had Alphie,
(15:13):
and then I returned. I also live in la I
think it's kind of important to call that out. I
live in a place where the standard is three months
people take off work. It is not like Australia. I
think we all know America sucks when it comes to care.
The benchmark was pretty low in terms of what people
(15:34):
were doing. But I figured this out recently. I was
pretty determined to prove that I could do it, that
I wasn't going to change that much, that I could
do both these things, because I really didn't like the
thought that it had to be one or the other.
And I thought, I'm going to prove to myself that
(15:55):
I can do both these things.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I did the same five weeks, like a week extra.
And then I was like that relevance game in your brain,
I'm not going to fall off the radar. Yeah, I'm
going to be here and show everyone I can do
this from early.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, I didn't just birth a child. I haven't just
completely changed.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah I'm not.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It's funny, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And you don't even realize that you're doing it at
the time. It's not until later once you go through
that shift of oh I am different, I have changed
and I'm better. Changed didn't equal loss, It didn't equal
less than, It didn't equal less ambitious. It actually equaled
more focused. You know, like all these amazing things, but
(16:40):
I think you're so scared of who you're going to
be on the other side that you associate change with
negative outcomes. Yeah, but I think I was just in
a complete haze, to be honest. It was survival mode.
I don't have family living in the US, so we
got a nanny from when Alfie was about maybe three
(17:02):
months old because I'd kind of had family coming in
and out for those first three months. So the juggle
has looked from that point up until now really as
working four days a week, having nney four days a
week from eight thirty till three point thirty, and I
just go hard in those hours, and I think it
(17:24):
really proved to me how much time I was wasting.
Its Yeah, what was I doing? Yeah, it forces you.
I'd always been the kind of person that just like
floated through my day. I've never had much structure, and
that's suited working in a startup environment, like you actually
need to be able to context switch. There's no point
(17:45):
setting up really a daily plan because things just fall
on your lap. There's a quote I love where it's
like running a startup is like being slapped in the
face with a fry pan every day and just having
to keep going and it is like bad.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Also, motherhood is the same. It's just like two five
vans different directions.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, but it was kind of the first time where
I realized, oh, this going with the flow isn't actually
really going to work for me anymore. If I'm going
to come in here, get something done within these hours
and feel like I've achieved something, I'm going to need
to think a little bit differently about how I plan
my days. And so I actually adopted this productivity method
(18:24):
from Tim Ferris, where you write a list of three
to five of the things that you have to get
done that day, but you ask yourself the question, if
this was the only thing I got done today, would
I feel like I've achieved something? And the answer has
to be yes. And that's the thing you start with.
And there's a follow up question, and it's what is
(18:44):
making me feel most uncomfortable or anxious about my work
at the moment. And usually that's the thing that you're
procrastinating on. There's no point spending hours like moving through
emails and doing little bits and pieces. It's better to
just do the big thing and kind of get that
done and then you can focus on all those little
things maybe when you're like cooking or in bed of
(19:08):
an evening. I don't know if these are good habits,
but you can kind of get that other stuff done
on the go and get your coffee, you know. So
I did start to work my days differently, and I
think it made me more efficient. And I also chose
to only work on things that grew company revenue, so
I just like let go of a lot of other tasks.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You become so discerning. Yeah, I think if you're drawing
me away from my child, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
It has to be worth it one hundred percent. That
was one of the biggest penny drop aha moments for me,
where it also made me really understand mothers choosing all
different things on a much deeper level. And once you
become a mum, and if you've really loved your career,
like I would outwardly say before I was a mom,
(19:56):
my career is my unborne priority and I was willing
to sack a lot of things for it. I'm still
actually figuring this out. I'm like, a part of that
was really unhealthy, but a part of that was really
good because it did get me to a place where
I could actually command more, you know, and be in
this privileged position where I could make my own rules.
(20:17):
So maybe it was good and bad. But I think
what I started to realize with that, you know, you've
always prioritized your career, but now, for the first time
in your life, your career has a serious contender, and
it's the love you have for your baby, So you
better be worth it. And it really made me think
(20:37):
a lot about women who choose to have career pauses
and leave the workforce. I was just like, God, I
get it. We can't assume that everyone finds extreme passion
and joy in what they're doing. I'd love to say,
I'd love to say that there's this utopia out there
where everyone finds their calling and loves showing up to work,
(20:57):
but that's really not the reality. And so I just
think it broadened my perspective of the choices.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That people make. Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I sort
of thought. My first reaction looking back at even this
show is how could I have been talking for seven
years about people's metrics for life changing from chasing success
exclusively and financial metrics to fulfillment and joy. How could
(21:25):
I have had that conversation with mothers and not known
that this is the level that that was changing for
them on Like I've suddenly like it was I even
asking the right questions because there's this everything changed and
I was the same as you. I consider us both
to have been like extremely career driven and yeah, to
have been willing to sacrifice a lot for those careers. Yeah,
(21:47):
and to have expected not to have had such a
shift in my prioritization, Like I didn't think that I
would have a baby and then go, why is Nick
not a billionaire so I can not work? I just
did not think that that was going to be my reaction. No,
But I mean this time around for you has been
(22:07):
quite different to that. I mean, we could chat for
seventeen years about the juggle. I love talking about this
with you, But I have to ask because I feel
very lucky to be covering a very fresh new chapter
of the juggle with you for the first time, because
you've had to stay quiet about it for so long
(22:28):
until now, And so I want to move on to
this because you are such a powerful example that the
biggest shift that you've probably made in the last i'd
like since we spoke last, has happened with a fifteen
month old and pregnant with your second all at the
(22:48):
same time in a totally parallel realm to motherhood. So
talk to us about this.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Exciting new chapter. Yeah, it actually like does make me
feel so proud to kind of hear it be said
out loud, because it just challenges like all my fears
that I had around becoming a mom and maintaining my
career and doing big things. I don't know, but it's
like I actually wouldn't have been able to pull off
(23:16):
these two things if I wasn't also a mum. Just
becoming a mom. Yeah, it just really like cracked me
open and forced me to make decisions in a way
more conscious way. And it's it's kind of like the
first time in my life I can say I made
these decisions with my heart, not my head, and I
feel so good about them. Yeah. But I've sold my company,
(23:39):
so that's because that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, congratulation, thanks, And it's like massive meish like that is.
Do you remember when I came to LA before you
launched and we had I think we're at Soho house probably, Oh, yes,
I remember lisat To and I my son room Mandanna
at my top and you explained it to me. Yes,
(24:05):
And to have been there when you were still in
that phase of this is this new thing. I'm not
really sure, Like I think I'm going out. I want
to go out of my own and this is what
I'm doing to like I have sold my company.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, honestly, it's it's been such a process.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I think as a founder you kind of have these
end goals of what you want to achieve, Yeah, and
selling a company is definitely one of them. I think
I'd always felt like maybe it was just a given
that that would that would happen. I've always had a
bit too much confidence, which I was amazingly not misplaced,
because you've got to do it, but it is accurate.
(24:44):
I don't know, I've kind of yeah, but it's like
to have actually now just gone through the process. It
showed me, Wow, this is very hard to get your
company acquired. So I'm kind of glad that it ended
up just being this complete roller coaster because it's made
me way more grateful for the actual outcome. Yeah, it's
(25:05):
so fresh, like it's being announced publicly tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh yeah, in timing is wild.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, but it's been such a long time coming, Like
if we were approached by a competitor in our space
about a year ago asking if we would be interested
in merging.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And I did just go there, Yeah, okay, And it
got Lucy.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And I thinking about, you know, why did we start
this business? It was always to make women a non
binary creators more money. Could we make them even more
money if we merged with another company or if we
started to look at acquisitions. So we engaged a banker
to help us run the process, which is probably an
entirely different story because we did also go through a
(25:49):
process of do we need help with this or can
we pull it off ourselves?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Like we'd always.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Raise money running the process ourselves, but we had no
experience selling a company and how to how to navigate
the conversation. So we got a banker involved, and we
started reaching out to competitors, but also social networks, talent agencies,
porn companies.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Really to the whole spectrum.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yes, which was a really interesting learning because we figured,
I guess we were being taught that you could package
your business up in loads of different ways to appeal
to different kinds of companies. And then we basically sold
the company to one of our competitors back in feb
It's now August.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It's been going on for a while, so I really
started to think about, oh wow, I'm like out of this,
Like what am I going to do after this?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I felt every emotion you could feel, like angst, fear, despair, excitement, hope, freedom.
So February were basically done with this deal, but the
company we were selling to end up having some public
legal struggles where there was just no way we could
sell to them, like something quite unethical came out, and
(27:08):
so we had to just pull back from that. And
that was such major whiplash because i'd you prepared, I'd
started to allow myself to think about my career, like, oh,
what do I want to do now that I'm a mum?
You know, I can kind of put this chapter aside,
(27:29):
and I'd started to think about would I start another business,
would I consult? Should I re enter the job market.
But this was February when I also found out I
was pregnant. So then came like the fear, like fuck,
like we no longer have this outcome, but I've already
started to think about all the other problems I could
(27:51):
be working on. And I'm in America and I'm pregnant,
so like, what the fuck is my next move going
to be?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And like, you know, do I stop working for a while?
Like just a lot of it was a really hard
period where I started to feel very scared about what
my future could look like. And I'm grateful I could
go through it because the first time I navigated pregnancy
it was from the very privileged place of running my
(28:21):
own company. But now I was going to be navigating
pregnancy from the perspective of do I start something from scratch?
Do I consult which is like less security, what happens
with my healthcare? Which is very important in the US? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Am I gonna have money? Like I don't know?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
L Can I eat? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Or do I have to interview and hide that I'm pregnant?
And that's something that comes up so often for people.
So it was interesting to navigate pregnancy from a different perspective.
But I guess the kind of blessing in disguise was
because We've got so close to this sale. We now
knew what all the terms should look like and how
to kind of de risk the deal from the perspective
(29:06):
of anyone who wanted to come and acquire us, and
so we've ended up with a way better outcome and
a way better fit, And we ended up being acquired
by a company called fan Fix, who are like the
category leader in our space. They've paid out hundreds of
millions to creators. They're on track to have paid out
(29:27):
a billion dollars to creators by twenty twenty Seven's amazing, Yeah,
and they have just very similar brand care for creators,
the same features we have and then some yeah, and
so it's felt really good to be able to get
on the phone with our creators. We kind of run
(29:48):
a process where we let as many of our highest
earning creators know about this before it's been publicly announced,
and just to kind of let them know how they
will transition over and they'll be looked after. And it's
been an amazing feeling to be able to get on
the phone with them and genuinely say we have found
the best place for this to kind of like continue
(30:11):
continue on and to be like guardian from yeah yeah Yeah. Lucy,
my co founder, and I are advising for fan Fix
for a year, so we're still going to stay close
to our creators and can be there for them and
have just been working with the fan Fix team for
kind of the past couple of months to just make
sure this integration is as smooth as possible. But it
(30:35):
was a pretty agonizing period to kind of to get here, Yeah,
to get to this, to get to this moment, and
to have had time to really reflect and think about
what I wanted to do next. It was like a
very long mutual breakup right where I could do a
(30:56):
lot of reflecting, which I knew at the time, even
though it was the most uncomfortable zone I've ever been
in with my career, I knew that I would look
back on the period of this year eventually and be
very grateful for it, And so I am just I
feel so relieved that it has because I also had
(31:18):
these moments where I just felt like, this feels a
bit too good to be true. When is this going
to fall apart? Do I deserve this?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Is this actually how it goes for me?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Is this my story?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I mean, it's been a privilege to watch in real time,
having known in our like trauma dump group chat we
should really name it that, the group chat being just
two of us like a small gang, to see you
go through this, especially as someone who's preoccupation and fascination
is with big changes in people's direction and how uncomfortable
(31:56):
those necessarily are. To even hear you say now that
fear was soch an overwhelming feeling, but then this time
around you trusted the discomfort and were able to sit
with it, knowing that it would lead to something else.
You know now that discomfort is the fire that forms
an amazing growth period and that it would work out.
(32:18):
But it's fascinating because often we make a jump when
the next opportunity becomes clear, whereas you'd made this jump
before you knew what you were going to do. And
I think that's quite rare, but does often happen to
women in maternity leave, where they have a little bit
of slowness for the first time, maybe a bit of
breaks on the daily grind, and you do suddenly have
this blank slate to think about your life, and for
(32:39):
some people that's the first time they've ever done it.
And I think it's been amazing to hear you articulate
how you then approach what comes next? What was the
thought process because you have now locked in your new position,
How did you wade through the do I found something else,
(33:00):
do I interview? Do I hide my pregnancy? Like that
is an unusual situation to be and in life where
you can pick really where you go.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, and weird from a different another perspective that it's
not like I could come out and say I'd done
this because there was still so much going on in
the background in terms of negotiation, tech integration. There was
just quite a lot of waiting that needed to happen
before we could actually come out and announce this and
make sure it was going to be as smooth as
possible for all of our users. To go back to
(33:31):
how you were describing that, you know, discomfort of figuring
out what you do, and how a lot of women
start thinking about it once they've got a moment and
in maternity leave. I just find that zone so fascinating
because it's kind of what I've just been going through
in a weird way. It's really really scary to start thinking,
(33:54):
to start feeling like you might be free to make
another choice, like to accept maybe I'm going to leave
my job, maybe I'm going to sell my company, maybe
I'm going to have a career change. If you start
to actually allow yourself to think about what does my
career look like now I'm a mom. It can be
a pretty uncomfortable conversation to have with yourself because that
change factor comes up again and you're already navigating the
(34:17):
biggest changing of your life in becoming a mom, and
now you're thinking you're going to do something different with
your career as well. I feel like it needs a
label or something, because I've been trying to articulate it myself,
and I think I've just realized that it's actually the
most powerful zone to make decisions from. Like I'd never
(34:38):
really kind of wiped the slate clean like that before
and thought, oh, you know, what do? What do I
want to do next? Where could I go?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Is it like consulting? Is it a break? Is it
starting another business? Is it going into a big workplace?
Is it going back into a startup? I kind of
like dabbled a bit in like different things just to
see how it felt. But I ended up one of
the companies. One of the options that we were going
(35:10):
through with our acquisition was a potential acquisition from quite
a big social network, and they couldn't acquire us in
the end, but they were interested in an aquahier, and
so started kind of looking into our team and then
said that they were interested in a few of us,
and so we started going through an interview process, and
(35:32):
I was like, Okay, this is good. I can kind
of explore what it might be like to go into
a big business, so I can actually see what kind
of salary I could command. And I almost did it
as this like.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Head fucky like valuation on yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yes, like I'd always said to myself, even like, regardless
of the outcome I got with Sun Room, I'd always said,
it doesn't matter if I start this business and I fail,
there actually is no failure because you inflate your view
your own worth so much like you just learn so
much about an industry, you become an expert in something.
(36:06):
You can walk into a business and present yourself as
such a leader and bring this really unique perspective in.
And I guess I'd felt in the back of my
mind that was the truth. But now I was going
to be able to test that theory in real life.
So going through an interview process with them and kind
of getting this offer created a really big safety net
(36:26):
for me. I'm like, you know what, I've got an
option now and it's like it's pretty good. Yeah, it's
like very tempting.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, I won't say numbers, but it was very tempting.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, it was like a fuck, Like, okay, that is unexpected.
I kind of went through the process like there's no
way I'm going to work here. I just need to
prove to myself I could be desired by a company
like this, you know, because I think when you've been
in small startups for so long, you get these titles,
but they don't feel real and.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Because you gave it to yourself. Yes, it's not like
you're sure I'm the CEO. I called myself. I can
pick whoever's the CEO. It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, it really doesn't. And even with like my bumble
titles and stuff. I've been in these businesses for so
long now, it's like if you're there early, you're gonna
get a big title. And sometimes those titles end up
screwing the business over once the adults need.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
To come into the room and save us all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
So I was just I was also curious about that,
like where I'm a leveled in a company like this,
So it was it actually just built my confidence at
a time where I was feeling deeply insecure and unstable
in this process, you know. But then at the same time,
I also reached out to one of Sunroom's investors, this
woman called Michelle Kennedy, who was actually on the board
(37:50):
at Bumble, and so she was kind of this famous
name at Bumble. She came up with the name Bumble. No,
it was just like an icon. And she then invested
in sun Room. So she's kind of like been there
throughout my whole journey. And she founded an app called Peanut,
which is a community platform for mums.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Anyone listening to us sees the baby episode will know
what Peanut is really one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Okay, because I also when I was pregnant with Alfie
in LA and I don't know anyone there, I downloaded
Peanut and went to a few events and like, you
can track your pregnancy through it. So I'd also been
a user of this platform, and so I reached out
to her just kind of saying, you know, I I
love your product. You know, she knew what was going on,
and then I was kind of in this period and
(38:37):
I was asking, you know, do you need anyone to
consult and she was she's based in the UK, and
she said, I'm actually in La next week. You should
come to my hotel. And so I went to her hotel.
I think we want to meet for half an hour
or an hour, and it was two and a half
hours later. We've just been sat there and by the
end of it, she brought up this idea of me
(38:58):
potentially coming to Peanut to help run her company. I
just got Yeah, I just got goosebumps and I have
them now.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, I have them now genuinely.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah. I got tears in my eyes. I was like, Oh,
there's no fucking way this happens like this, this is
like my dream, Like my whole career. I feel like
maybe in articles people have said what my dream job is,
but I've never said any of my jobs my dream job,
you know, I've just I've had cool jobs, for sure.
(39:32):
But now I was in this weird zone where I'm
operating from my heart and I'm really thinking, like where
is my true purpose and fulfillment and what problems do
I want to be working on? Like this is it?
Like if I was going to start my own company,
it would be something to do with the community that
in yeah, to do with mums like that's where my
(39:53):
mind had been going already. Yeah, So I'm like, why
would I not go to the place already doing it?
And you know a part of that. And so I
ended up having these two like very different options. One
that would feel incredibly this is so bad to say.
(40:13):
I don't think I would have had to try as
hard to earn amazing money at the social network. The
social network, that's not the company.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It's not the social network.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
It's like how many are there? Like I'll be narrowing
down by the end of this everyone or not. But
I was like, oh, you know, I'm about to have
a second kid. Do I want to go into a
big workplace where maybe I'm a bit more of a
cog in the wheel, Like I don't have to flog
myself as much. I make a really comfortable salary, but
I'm still a leader. That's really They've got amazing benefits
(40:54):
like that's it takes a lot of boxing, takes a
lot of boxes.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Or do I choose happiness?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, you're yeay, yes. Do I go to the
place where, like I think about this problem every day
as a regular human. I think about this in the shower.
I read articles about this industry. I identify so much
more with this problem already, but I'm gonna have to
(41:27):
work way harder. I'm going to have way more responsibility.
I need to go in here and be aggressive, like
I need to aggressively grow this company, and I have
more to gain in the long run. Yeah, you know,
it's like again, I think I'm like addicted to the
potential of anything Ticho. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
So I just and I.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Always ask myself this question. And that's why it kind
of comes back to the snippet that you played from
our first ever interview. I just thought, now that I
know I can get this, I can probably always get that.
I can probably always go back and get that big
offer now. Yeah, but like this other one, I don't
know if that will always be there for me. So
(42:11):
I just have to go with it. And so that's
how I ended up making the decision. Michelle was smart,
Like she got me to do. She got me to
work on some decks and actually like meet with her
investors and kind of present a few things. And so
I got to feel like how it would feel working
(42:32):
on that problem every day, and it reminded me of
how I used to feel when I worked at Bumble.
It was like this deep obsession with you know, like
staying up till midnight to work on a deck because
you just find it so fun.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So yeah, I'm like very excited I officially start tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Oh my gosh. Even more special to this like massive
junction and especially at one. That is the definition of
why I wanted to start this show. Empowering people to
make decisions that way, to not that you shouldn't ever
(43:14):
go to the big money, Like there are amazing ways
that you could have developed yourself and had a great
life and tipped so many boxes and learned and been
coached by clever, clever people. But when something calls you
the way that Peanut is calling you, Yeah, I just
think hearing real life examples of the way people's metrics
(43:37):
change in the way they decide things and then the
way that plays out in their happiness day to day
when they do that role. We need to hear more
of it, because you only, I think you so often
hear about the other type of decision, whereas this it
almost seems like it like it was agonizing to go
through the pros and cons. But it kind of the
way you've retold it to me sounded like you did
(43:58):
kind of always know which one you really wanted to do.
You just have to go through the process. Yeah, whereas
pre baby, would that have been easy for you to
make that decision or as easy.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I think motherhood like demands that you think a little
bit harder about the choices and the decisions that you make,
because there's just a bit more like writing. I don't know,
it's like I think your tolerance for the sacrifices you're
willing to make it becomes narrower. So for example, with
(44:33):
like the i'll call it like the comfier option I
could have taken. That problem wasn't going to light a
fire in me every day. Sure it was gonna like.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Pay lotts of bills, yeah whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah Yeah, But it's like I just became so aware
of like what I truly give a shit about and
kind of coming back to that that real life for me,
it's like when your career has a serious contender and
it's the love you have for your child. And this
doesn't mean that all people need to go and work
in like the motherhood and baby space. But I'm a
(45:10):
marketer and I've always been very drawn to solving problems
that I actually have myself. And in the Bumble era,
I really heavily identified with women making the first move
and you know, if you have the confidence to kind
of put yourself out there in the dating market, then
maybe you will ask for the promotion and will maybe
you will ask for the pay rise. That was so
(45:31):
heavily aligned with that period of my life. And then
like that transition into some room, kind of coming out
of COVID and realizing that women could wait make way
more money on the Internet and the creator economy was
becoming really legitimized. That was really interesting to me at
that point in my life. And now you know, I've
(45:52):
kind of changed, and the problems and things that I
think about, like are the everyday challenges that mus have
and how hard this is and how we do need
support and how there's so much judgment, and how I
think especially today's mothers like millennial and gen Z women,
(46:14):
I think we're navigating this really unique, interesting time where
many of us our careers came to be in the
girl Boss movement, many of the people that we idolized
and looked up to, you didn't really see like motherhood
happening alongside that at the same time that's so true,
or it was this really polished version where it's like
(46:36):
I can do it all, you know, and it almost
like has set us up for failure a little bit,
like it's good and bad. Kind of coming back to
again what I said earlier, like I'm so grateful to
have had that hustle, and like I'm owe a lot
of my career to the girl Boss movement. But it
also means that by the time we become moms and
we start realizing like, oh but I love I love
(46:57):
this too, you know, and maybe my love for this
superseds my love for my career, and so I do
want to have a pause. And then maybe you feel
guilt about that because you've been taught that you need
to work to show your kids ambition and respect. What
does that say? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Does that say if you don't work, that you don't
have it? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Like, there's so many things I think about, like things
that are said on either side, like that I need
to work so my kids respect me. I don't like
that statement.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I also don't like the statement that you're narcissistic if
you do go to work.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, well, you can't win honestly.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, Like I don't like either of these these things.
And I kind of think us millennial gen z mums
are like the first to straddle that, yeah, because we
kind of had a lot of opportunity in our careers
and like we're also dealing with like cost of living crisis,
and yeah, I just think we have unique challenges at
the moment, and I think about this stuff a lot.
(48:01):
So I'm just really excited to go into a space
where I can get paid to talk about those things.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Make a huge I am so excited to see how
I mean, Peanut is already incredible, but you have a
very unique and visible impact wherever you go, and I
can't wait to see how that plays out At Peanut,
We're so.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
High with so much.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Behind you. And I did say I knew we needed
a ten part series because I've barely even asked you
about the sail and as an M and a lawyer,
and like I wanted to know about the acquisition, but
I think that's.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Sure you know this stuff like the back of your hand.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Sort of even when we sold, I still needed to
get an M and a lawyer because I think you
do need the guidance of someone oh.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, our lawyers. We actually haven't made build for that yet.
Now I'm pretty scared, pretty scared.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
But I think that's a beautiful way way to end.
And we've covered so much and it has been so
beautiful to watch the last seven or eight years, and
I just can't wait to see the next So thank
you so much.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Oh my god, thanks so muching me. I'm glad it
was you.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, my goodness. I enjoyed this one so much.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I'm sure you could hear.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
And I feel like Michelle shares just so much value
on every topic really, but especially those big junctions in
your career and how to navigate all the factors of
making big decisions. If you enjoyed or took something away
from all of her wisdom, please do share the episode
and tag at Michelle batsby letting her know what you thought,
thanking her for her time, or even just sending your
(49:41):
congratulations on these huge milestones. I know we're a little
less regular it sees the baby chats, but I promised
you they'd be worth the wait, and even for me,
this one felt like such a cathartic diary entry, exploring
so many themes that working mum's face as always, let
me know if there's anything or anyone you want to
hear from more about and in the meantime, I hope
(50:02):
you're having an amazing week and are seizing your yam
I was pretty determined to prove that I could do it,
that I wasn't going to change that much. Oh I
am different, I have changed, and I'm better changed in
an equal loss, it didn't equal less than But I
think you're so scared of who you're going to be
on the other side that you associate change with with
negative outcomes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the Sees the YA Podcast. Busy and happy
are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
one way. So this is a platform to hear and
explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
They adore the.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Good, bad and ugly. The best and worst days will
bear all the facets of seizing your Yea. I'm Sarah
Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned funentrepreneurs
wapped the suits and heels to co found Matcha Maiden
and Matcha Milk Bark. CESA is a series of conversations
on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
(01:02):
joy and fulfillment along the way. I've had a bit
of a string lately of very special, almost sentimental recordings
with guests that I've been lucky to know through multiple
chapters of their path yeas and today is absolutely one
of those. But this is even more momentous, not only
because CZA was our guest's first ever podcast back in
(01:25):
twenty nineteen, but because her return to the show comes
literally days after some huge public announcements about what comes next,
and this chat was the first time that she could
speak about them. Michelle Battersby is one of the smartest
women that I know, and some of you may remember
that when we last spoke, she was aggressively growing Bumble
in the Australian market, amassing over three million registrations on
(01:49):
the app during her time. A year after that, she
secured over ten million dollars in funding to co found
the trailblazing creator led platform Sunroom, that allows women on
non binary individuals to monetize their content. Just last week,
after scaling that business to over twenty thousand creators, she
was finally able to announce that she has sold sun
Room to fan Fix, the category leader in creator monetization.
(02:14):
Then just days ago at the time of recording, Michelle
shared that she'll now be stepping into the role of
president of Peanut, the game changing social networking app that
many of you will already know about that connects women
through many stages of their life, but particularly pregnancy and motherhood,
which is so perfectly aligned. Because yes, another development since
(02:34):
her last episode was the birth of Michelle's first son, Alfie,
just a couple of months after Teddy, followed eight months
later with the somewhat surprising news that her second is
also on the way. So at the time of this recording,
Michelle had just exited her business, accepted her dream job,
and all while thirty weeks pregnant. So what an incredible
(02:57):
time to catch up with her and get her real
time thoughts. Michelle has always been one of my favorite
people to bump heads with. Her brain just works in
such an incredible way. As you'll hear, but especially since
becoming parents. You'll hear that we have a very unhinged
two person group chat, which has kind of been like
therapy for me navigating with her the juggle of being
(03:19):
career driven mums, of finding out your identities and how
to make decisions in these new chapters while our priorities
have changed so much, and this episode is basically just
an extension of that group chat sharing with all of you, guys,
so many of the hopes, fears, and dreams that we
actually have as working mums, and that I'm sure many
of you do too. Michelle shares so eloquently about how
(03:41):
she's made these big decisions, how instinct has played a
role finding her new identity, and I'm so excited to
share that wisdom with you, guys. I hope you all
enjoyed this one as much as I did.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I honestly have.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is so weird, It's so lovely. Yeah me, she
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Okay, guys, this is particularly special for many reasons, but
firstly because you were our twentieth guest ever in January
twenty nineteen, which means that we recorded in twenty eighteen,
which is absolutely bananas.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And I always say what a great privilege it is
to have an audio record of who you were, who
I was at a time in our lives, and to
be able to go back and listen and be like,
oh my god, like how much has changed? How much
have we changed? So I've got a little snippet to
play for Oh my god, I.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Was twenty five and realized that you couldn't just wake
up every day and automatically feel happy. Happiness wasn't just
a given. That mindset almost led Bumble to finding me,
and me to find Bumble. I was presented with this
amazing opportunity. I knew this would never ever happen to
me again, so run with it, Like, better to try
and fail than not try it all. So weird to
(04:58):
hear that, To be honest, I.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Particulate, were you find you're surprised podcast? I'm actually surprised pleasantly.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I think it sounds worse today, So but it's interesting
to hear myself say that, because better to try and
fail than to not try it all. I just have
carried with me from like move to move since then.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And it's funny that the snippet was I don't think
I'd ever be offered such an incredible opportunity again. And
you've been offered or created for yourself multiple incredible opportunities
since then, including a very very current recent one that
we're about to talk about. But how funny that you
were like, this is never gonna happen to me again.
(05:39):
This is my one big thing.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, it actually like I have just that we'll get
to I've just taken an opportunity where I said to myself,
I will never get off again, like it must, I
must take this this one.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, so in seven years time, when we do, you'll
be like, wow, they just keep coming.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, God, how interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And I think it is really serendipitous timing that that
was your first podcast and now this is a really
pivotal moment for you, Like even this last twenty four hours,
it's been big. So I feel very, very lucky to
be here in real time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
It's weird because I feel like I almost went a
bit inward in the last few years of my career,
like I worked almost in a silo and a little
bit in private. I've hosted loads of podcasts, but I
haven't really done interviews in a long time. I also
was working on so many things I couldn't discuss for
(06:40):
about a year. So it's nice to come out the
side to let it out.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
And this is the first time, this is the first
time I actually spoken about it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'm not going to I don't have this story down.
I have no idea how I'm going to tell this story.
So oh, good luck.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Listen very very privileged and really excited to see how
it unravels. But first I think as this is a
sees the Baby episode, and we have both become mothers,
which is probably the biggest quantum shift in our last
of many, but in our last sort of seven years.
The title of Your Over your last episode was from
boat Sheds to Banking to Bumble Australia Meet the Queen
(07:17):
of the Aussie bee hive, and I'll add another bee
which is obviously baby and not one but two.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, oh my god, tell.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Us about motherhood. How old is Alfie?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Alfie is just fifteen months, little boy. Yeah, and I'm
currently thirty weeks pregnant.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Maybe thirty one, So do the math, guys, how many
months was Alfie when you found it?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You're pregnant eight months. So don't believe what they say
when they say you can't get pregnant while breastfeeding. And
that tiny thing that may you thought might have been
a period was a period. People say it's a shock.
It's like, Okay, you're sexually active. How much of a
shock can it truly be? But it is a very
(08:02):
big shock when you are breastfeeding. You consider yourself to
still be postpartum. You don't know that you're ovulating, like
I'd honestly had like half a period where I was like,
was that a period? Honestly I'd had sex four times.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I mean that's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I don't want people to think, well, like going for it,
because who has time for that when you've got a
newborn or feels like it many barriers. I think. Obviously,
I'm really grateful to be pregnant again, but it was
a massive, massive shock, and I still do not feel
(08:43):
ready for it, and I still feel very much in denial.
I don't know if you ever feel I don't know,
regardless of the age gap, if you really feel ready
to be taken back into the newborn phase. I think
the thing I've been trying to overcome is they say
you forget what it's like and then you have another one.
But I haven't forgotten.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Ye. Maybe that's good though, like you won't be out
of practice.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It's really interesting how you've delivered the news as well,
because you mentioned last night when we chatted that one
of the things you felt like you had to say
was this wasn't on purpose, and.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I'm doing it right now.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, So I clearly.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I sometimes feel like there can be a bit of
a badge of honor or something around having too very
close in age, like you're tackling something hard and you
want to be known as having the people have to
say two under two, and I don't really identify with
with that, Like I don't think it was almost like
something had happened that was the complete opposite of my personality. Yeah,
(09:44):
you know, I've always been very career orientated. It was
a very big deal me even having alpha so to
back it up so quickly, I'm like, whoa am I
even this person? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I don't want to represent myself as someone who had
this on the the plan in the calendar.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, but then it's like, what's wrong with that? If
you do want to really close in age, and if
you just love the newborn page and if you love
having babies, Yeah, I guess I am all those things.
But I'm also still like figuring it out as I go,
if that makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I think you've You're so enjoyable to follow because you
kind of have all these revelations in real time, Like
you really share your process, which I love because most
people don't. They kind of come to that realization and
then share when they're really clear on what they think.
Whereas you you're very open about yesterday I felt like
(10:41):
this today I kind of feel like this. And I
loved that you were very open about how obviously we're
so grateful to be fertile and to be able to
have a positive pregnancy, but that it's quite normal to
be surprised in a way that's kind of your immediate
reaction might not have been positive. Yeah, And I don't
(11:03):
think that's normalized a lot for women who are because
there is so much loss around and so much tragedy.
You do feel a bit guilty for saying I wasn't
necessarily ready for this announcement and it took a while
to process that.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, And I think it does make a lot of
women feel like they can't express the angst and anxiety
and fear around something kind of being thrust on them
before they were ready for it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I've felt like ninety percent of people coming into
my DMS who have an under eighteen month age gap,
it was a very similar thing to me. Hadn't had
a period, still breastfeeding, barely sexually active, I need of
a surprise, Oh my God, and now you know you
want to have a second child, so you're like, I
(11:52):
may as well run with it. But it's a lot
for you to process whilst your hormones are still all
over the place, like mine still are now. Yeah, and
I'm not thirty weeks pregnant. Yeah, I don't know what
I think when your hormones are like this. It's also
so hard to know what even is a true thought
(12:12):
an emotion that I'm feeling, Yes, what is just completely
out of whack from my hormones? Yeah? Yeah, So I
think you can talk about the challenges of processing that
whilst still being super aware of how lucky you are
and how unfair this can be for so many women,
(12:34):
you know, and the struggles that we face.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah. I think another thing that we've bonded a lot
over since, Like we had a really beautiful relationship before
in our careers and our similar challenges as career driven
women in business, but then motherhood has added this whole
additional layer of like we had this moment where we
just sort of started dming each other and getting slightly
(12:58):
more unhinged as we sort of sussed out how much
the other was ready to receive and then it just
became this full blown therapy chat about being working moms,
and I have gained so much solidarity and reassurance and
relief over you echoing so many things that I have
felt about. Even planning the gap in siblings. I feel
(13:20):
like there was a lot less concern about when Teddy
arrived because it was sort of in a vacuum. It
was like, yes, we've started trying. Yes, I would love
to be a certain age when he's born, but whenever
he comes, he comes. Whereas now planning our second there's
a lot more pressure on what the GAP's going to be,
like like suddenly you've got a milestone to distance out
(13:42):
the first one. So there's so much in my brain
about the momentum, Like I've had a momentum pause, Do
I have another one really quickly and put them close
together or do I get a little bit of traction
back and then pause? And it's just something Nick doesn't
have to think about.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So that's hard. Yeah that Like hearing you explain it
like that, I'm like, oh, wow, maybe I'm really lucky
that this decision was made for me. Yeah, because I
think that would be so hard, and like if you
do start feeling like yourself. You've got your energy back,
your motivation, your baby's a little bit older, they're a
bit more independent, you've got a bit more freedom.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And then you're and then you say you voluntarily go
I'm going to need to pause that now, yeah and
start again. Yeah, that's a big decision. What stage had
you come to with Alphie? And like now, I mean
baby No. Two hasn't arrived yet, So what is your juggle?
What has been over the last yeah, fifteen months. Like
(14:40):
we've bonded so much over so many realities of it,
mainly the shitty bits. There's lots of joyful bits, but
I think it's like you need solidarity for the harder parts. Yeah,
and that identity piece.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, Like, I have changed a lot over the past
fifteen months, and it's interesting to reflect on the lead
up to even how I was planning how much time
I was going to take away from my company and
putting all these processes in place to stay connected. And
I took four weeks off work when I had Alphie,
(15:13):
and then I returned. I also live in la I
think it's kind of important to call that out. I
live in a place where the standard is three months
people take off work. It is not like Australia. I
think we all know America sucks when it comes to care.
The benchmark was pretty low in terms of what people
(15:34):
were doing. But I figured this out recently. I was
pretty determined to prove that I could do it, that
I wasn't going to change that much, that I could
do both these things, because I really didn't like the
thought that it had to be one or the other.
And I thought, I'm going to prove to myself that
(15:55):
I can do both these things.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I did the same five weeks, like a week extra.
And then I was like that relevance game in your brain,
I'm not going to fall off the radar. Yeah, I'm
going to be here and show everyone I can do
this from early.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, I didn't just birth a child. I haven't just
completely changed.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah I'm not.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It's funny, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And you don't even realize that you're doing it at
the time. It's not until later once you go through
that shift of oh I am different, I have changed
and I'm better. Changed didn't equal loss, It didn't equal
less than, It didn't equal less ambitious. It actually equaled
more focused. You know, like all these amazing things, but
(16:40):
I think you're so scared of who you're going to
be on the other side that you associate change with
negative outcomes. Yeah, but I think I was just in
a complete haze, to be honest. It was survival mode.
I don't have family living in the US, so we
got a nanny from when Alfie was about maybe three
(17:02):
months old because I'd kind of had family coming in
and out for those first three months. So the juggle
has looked from that point up until now really as
working four days a week, having nney four days a
week from eight thirty till three point thirty, and I
just go hard in those hours, and I think it
(17:24):
really proved to me how much time I was wasting.
Its Yeah, what was I doing? Yeah, it forces you.
I'd always been the kind of person that just like
floated through my day. I've never had much structure, and
that's suited working in a startup environment, like you actually
need to be able to context switch. There's no point
(17:45):
setting up really a daily plan because things just fall
on your lap. There's a quote I love where it's
like running a startup is like being slapped in the
face with a fry pan every day and just having
to keep going and it is like bad.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Also, motherhood is the same. It's just like two five
vans different directions.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, but it was kind of the first time where
I realized, oh, this going with the flow isn't actually
really going to work for me anymore. If I'm going
to come in here, get something done within these hours
and feel like I've achieved something, I'm going to need
to think a little bit differently about how I plan
my days. And so I actually adopted this productivity method
(18:24):
from Tim Ferris, where you write a list of three
to five of the things that you have to get
done that day, but you ask yourself the question, if
this was the only thing I got done today, would
I feel like I've achieved something? And the answer has
to be yes. And that's the thing you start with.
And there's a follow up question, and it's what is
(18:44):
making me feel most uncomfortable or anxious about my work
at the moment. And usually that's the thing that you're
procrastinating on. There's no point spending hours like moving through
emails and doing little bits and pieces. It's better to
just do the big thing and kind of get that
done and then you can focus on all those little
things maybe when you're like cooking or in bed of
(19:08):
an evening. I don't know if these are good habits,
but you can kind of get that other stuff done
on the go and get your coffee, you know. So
I did start to work my days differently, and I
think it made me more efficient. And I also chose
to only work on things that grew company revenue, so
I just like let go of a lot of other tasks.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You become so discerning. Yeah, I think if you're drawing
me away from my child, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
It has to be worth it one hundred percent. That
was one of the biggest penny drop aha moments for me,
where it also made me really understand mothers choosing all
different things on a much deeper level. And once you
become a mum, and if you've really loved your career,
like I would outwardly say before I was a mom,
(19:56):
my career is my unborne priority and I was willing
to sack a lot of things for it. I'm still
actually figuring this out. I'm like, a part of that
was really unhealthy, but a part of that was really
good because it did get me to a place where
I could actually command more, you know, and be in
this privileged position where I could make my own rules.
(20:17):
So maybe it was good and bad. But I think
what I started to realize with that, you know, you've
always prioritized your career, but now, for the first time
in your life, your career has a serious contender, and
it's the love you have for your baby, So you
better be worth it. And it really made me think
(20:37):
a lot about women who choose to have career pauses
and leave the workforce. I was just like, God, I
get it. We can't assume that everyone finds extreme passion
and joy in what they're doing. I'd love to say,
I'd love to say that there's this utopia out there
where everyone finds their calling and loves showing up to work,
(20:57):
but that's really not the reality. And so I just
think it broadened my perspective of the choices.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That people make. Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I sort
of thought. My first reaction looking back at even this
show is how could I have been talking for seven
years about people's metrics for life changing from chasing success
exclusively and financial metrics to fulfillment and joy. How could
(21:25):
I have had that conversation with mothers and not known
that this is the level that that was changing for
them on Like I've suddenly like it was I even
asking the right questions because there's this everything changed and
I was the same as you. I consider us both
to have been like extremely career driven and yeah, to
have been willing to sacrifice a lot for those careers. Yeah,
(21:47):
and to have expected not to have had such a
shift in my prioritization, Like I didn't think that I
would have a baby and then go, why is Nick
not a billionaire so I can not work? I just
did not think that that was going to be my reaction. No,
But I mean this time around for you has been
(22:07):
quite different to that. I mean, we could chat for
seventeen years about the juggle. I love talking about this
with you, But I have to ask because I feel
very lucky to be covering a very fresh new chapter
of the juggle with you for the first time, because
you've had to stay quiet about it for so long
(22:28):
until now, And so I want to move on to
this because you are such a powerful example that the
biggest shift that you've probably made in the last i'd
like since we spoke last, has happened with a fifteen
month old and pregnant with your second all at the
(22:48):
same time in a totally parallel realm to motherhood. So
talk to us about this.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Exciting new chapter. Yeah, it actually like does make me
feel so proud to kind of hear it be said
out loud, because it just challenges like all my fears
that I had around becoming a mom and maintaining my
career and doing big things. I don't know, but it's
like I actually wouldn't have been able to pull off
(23:16):
these two things if I wasn't also a mum. Just
becoming a mom. Yeah, it just really like cracked me
open and forced me to make decisions in a way
more conscious way. And it's it's kind of like the
first time in my life I can say I made
these decisions with my heart, not my head, and I
feel so good about them. Yeah. But I've sold my company,
(23:39):
so that's because that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, congratulation, thanks, And it's like massive meish like that is.
Do you remember when I came to LA before you
launched and we had I think we're at Soho house probably, Oh, yes,
I remember lisat To and I my son room Mandanna
at my top and you explained it to me. Yes,
(24:05):
And to have been there when you were still in
that phase of this is this new thing. I'm not
really sure, Like I think I'm going out. I want
to go out of my own and this is what
I'm doing to like I have sold my company.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, honestly, it's it's been such a process.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I think as a founder you kind of have these
end goals of what you want to achieve, Yeah, and
selling a company is definitely one of them. I think
I'd always felt like maybe it was just a given
that that would that would happen. I've always had a
bit too much confidence, which I was amazingly not misplaced,
because you've got to do it, but it is accurate.
(24:44):
I don't know, I've kind of yeah, but it's like
to have actually now just gone through the process. It
showed me, Wow, this is very hard to get your
company acquired. So I'm kind of glad that it ended
up just being this complete roller coaster because it's made
me way more grateful for the actual outcome. Yeah, it's
(25:05):
so fresh, like it's being announced publicly tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh yeah, in timing is wild.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, but it's been such a long time coming, Like
if we were approached by a competitor in our space
about a year ago asking if we would be interested
in merging.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And I did just go there, Yeah, okay, And it
got Lucy.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And I thinking about, you know, why did we start
this business? It was always to make women a non
binary creators more money. Could we make them even more
money if we merged with another company or if we
started to look at acquisitions. So we engaged a banker
to help us run the process, which is probably an
entirely different story because we did also go through a
(25:49):
process of do we need help with this or can
we pull it off ourselves?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Like we'd always.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Raise money running the process ourselves, but we had no
experience selling a company and how to how to navigate
the conversation. So we got a banker involved, and we
started reaching out to competitors, but also social networks, talent agencies,
porn companies.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Really to the whole spectrum.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yes, which was a really interesting learning because we figured,
I guess we were being taught that you could package
your business up in loads of different ways to appeal
to different kinds of companies. And then we basically sold
the company to one of our competitors back in feb
It's now August.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It's been going on for a while, so I really
started to think about, oh wow, I'm like out of this,
Like what am I going to do after this?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I felt every emotion you could feel, like angst, fear, despair, excitement, hope, freedom.
So February were basically done with this deal, but the
company we were selling to end up having some public
legal struggles where there was just no way we could
sell to them, like something quite unethical came out, and
(27:08):
so we had to just pull back from that. And
that was such major whiplash because i'd you prepared, I'd
started to allow myself to think about my career, like, oh,
what do I want to do now that I'm a mum?
You know, I can kind of put this chapter aside,
(27:29):
and I'd started to think about would I start another business,
would I consult? Should I re enter the job market.
But this was February when I also found out I
was pregnant. So then came like the fear, like fuck,
like we no longer have this outcome, but I've already
started to think about all the other problems I could
(27:51):
be working on. And I'm in America and I'm pregnant,
so like, what the fuck is my next move going
to be?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And like, you know, do I stop working for a while?
Like just a lot of it was a really hard
period where I started to feel very scared about what
my future could look like. And I'm grateful I could
go through it because the first time I navigated pregnancy
it was from the very privileged place of running my
(28:21):
own company. But now I was going to be navigating
pregnancy from the perspective of do I start something from scratch?
Do I consult which is like less security, what happens
with my healthcare? Which is very important in the US? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Am I gonna have money? Like I don't know?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
L Can I eat? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Or do I have to interview and hide that I'm pregnant?
And that's something that comes up so often for people.
So it was interesting to navigate pregnancy from a different perspective.
But I guess the kind of blessing in disguise was
because We've got so close to this sale. We now
knew what all the terms should look like and how
to kind of de risk the deal from the perspective
(29:06):
of anyone who wanted to come and acquire us, and
so we've ended up with a way better outcome and
a way better fit, And we ended up being acquired
by a company called fan Fix, who are like the
category leader in our space. They've paid out hundreds of
millions to creators. They're on track to have paid out
(29:27):
a billion dollars to creators by twenty twenty Seven's amazing, Yeah,
and they have just very similar brand care for creators,
the same features we have and then some yeah, and
so it's felt really good to be able to get
on the phone with our creators. We kind of run
(29:48):
a process where we let as many of our highest
earning creators know about this before it's been publicly announced,
and just to kind of let them know how they
will transition over and they'll be looked after. And it's
been an amazing feeling to be able to get on
the phone with them and genuinely say we have found
the best place for this to kind of like continue
(30:11):
continue on and to be like guardian from yeah yeah Yeah. Lucy,
my co founder, and I are advising for fan Fix
for a year, so we're still going to stay close
to our creators and can be there for them and
have just been working with the fan Fix team for
kind of the past couple of months to just make
sure this integration is as smooth as possible. But it
(30:35):
was a pretty agonizing period to kind of to get here, Yeah,
to get to this, to get to this moment, and
to have had time to really reflect and think about
what I wanted to do next. It was like a
very long mutual breakup right where I could do a
(30:56):
lot of reflecting, which I knew at the time, even
though it was the most uncomfortable zone I've ever been
in with my career, I knew that I would look
back on the period of this year eventually and be
very grateful for it, And so I am just I
feel so relieved that it has because I also had
(31:18):
these moments where I just felt like, this feels a
bit too good to be true. When is this going
to fall apart? Do I deserve this?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Is this actually how it goes for me?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Is this my story?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I mean, it's been a privilege to watch in real time,
having known in our like trauma dump group chat we
should really name it that, the group chat being just
two of us like a small gang, to see you
go through this, especially as someone who's preoccupation and fascination
is with big changes in people's direction and how uncomfortable
(31:56):
those necessarily are. To even hear you say now that
fear was soch an overwhelming feeling, but then this time
around you trusted the discomfort and were able to sit
with it, knowing that it would lead to something else.
You know now that discomfort is the fire that forms
an amazing growth period and that it would work out.
(32:18):
But it's fascinating because often we make a jump when
the next opportunity becomes clear, whereas you'd made this jump
before you knew what you were going to do. And
I think that's quite rare, but does often happen to
women in maternity leave, where they have a little bit
of slowness for the first time, maybe a bit of
breaks on the daily grind, and you do suddenly have
this blank slate to think about your life, and for
(32:39):
some people that's the first time they've ever done it.
And I think it's been amazing to hear you articulate
how you then approach what comes next? What was the
thought process because you have now locked in your new position,
How did you wade through the do I found something else,
(33:00):
do I interview? Do I hide my pregnancy? Like that
is an unusual situation to be and in life where
you can pick really where you go.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, and weird from a different another perspective that it's
not like I could come out and say I'd done
this because there was still so much going on in
the background in terms of negotiation, tech integration. There was
just quite a lot of waiting that needed to happen
before we could actually come out and announce this and
make sure it was going to be as smooth as
possible for all of our users. To go back to
(33:31):
how you were describing that, you know, discomfort of figuring
out what you do, and how a lot of women
start thinking about it once they've got a moment and
in maternity leave. I just find that zone so fascinating
because it's kind of what I've just been going through
in a weird way. It's really really scary to start thinking,
(33:54):
to start feeling like you might be free to make
another choice, like to accept maybe I'm going to leave
my job, maybe I'm going to sell my company, maybe
I'm going to have a career change. If you start
to actually allow yourself to think about what does my
career look like now I'm a mom. It can be
a pretty uncomfortable conversation to have with yourself because that
change factor comes up again and you're already navigating the
(34:17):
biggest changing of your life in becoming a mom, and
now you're thinking you're going to do something different with
your career as well. I feel like it needs a
label or something, because I've been trying to articulate it myself,
and I think I've just realized that it's actually the
most powerful zone to make decisions from. Like I'd never
(34:38):
really kind of wiped the slate clean like that before
and thought, oh, you know, what do? What do I
want to do next? Where could I go?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Is it like consulting? Is it a break? Is it
starting another business? Is it going into a big workplace?
Is it going back into a startup? I kind of
like dabbled a bit in like different things just to
see how it felt. But I ended up one of
the companies. One of the options that we were going
(35:10):
through with our acquisition was a potential acquisition from quite
a big social network, and they couldn't acquire us in
the end, but they were interested in an aquahier, and
so started kind of looking into our team and then
said that they were interested in a few of us,
and so we started going through an interview process, and
(35:32):
I was like, Okay, this is good. I can kind
of explore what it might be like to go into
a big business, so I can actually see what kind
of salary I could command. And I almost did it
as this like.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Head fucky like valuation on yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yes, like I'd always said to myself, even like, regardless
of the outcome I got with Sun Room, I'd always said,
it doesn't matter if I start this business and I fail,
there actually is no failure because you inflate your view
your own worth so much like you just learn so
much about an industry, you become an expert in something.
(36:06):
You can walk into a business and present yourself as
such a leader and bring this really unique perspective in.
And I guess I'd felt in the back of my
mind that was the truth. But now I was going
to be able to test that theory in real life.
So going through an interview process with them and kind
of getting this offer created a really big safety net
(36:26):
for me. I'm like, you know what, I've got an
option now and it's like it's pretty good. Yeah, it's
like very tempting.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, I won't say numbers, but it was very tempting.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, it was like a fuck, Like, okay, that is unexpected.
I kind of went through the process like there's no
way I'm going to work here. I just need to
prove to myself I could be desired by a company
like this, you know, because I think when you've been
in small startups for so long, you get these titles,
but they don't feel real and.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Because you gave it to yourself. Yes, it's not like
you're sure I'm the CEO. I called myself. I can
pick whoever's the CEO. It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, it really doesn't. And even with like my bumble
titles and stuff. I've been in these businesses for so
long now, it's like if you're there early, you're gonna
get a big title. And sometimes those titles end up
screwing the business over once the adults need.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
To come into the room and save us all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
So I was just I was also curious about that,
like where I'm a leveled in a company like this,
So it was it actually just built my confidence at
a time where I was feeling deeply insecure and unstable
in this process, you know. But then at the same time,
I also reached out to one of Sunroom's investors, this
woman called Michelle Kennedy, who was actually on the board
(37:50):
at Bumble, and so she was kind of this famous
name at Bumble. She came up with the name Bumble. No,
it was just like an icon. And she then invested
in sun Room. So she's kind of like been there
throughout my whole journey. And she founded an app called Peanut,
which is a community platform for mums.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Anyone listening to us sees the baby episode will know
what Peanut is really one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Okay, because I also when I was pregnant with Alfie
in LA and I don't know anyone there, I downloaded
Peanut and went to a few events and like, you
can track your pregnancy through it. So I'd also been
a user of this platform, and so I reached out
to her just kind of saying, you know, I I
love your product. You know, she knew what was going on,
and then I was kind of in this period and
(38:37):
I was asking, you know, do you need anyone to
consult and she was she's based in the UK, and
she said, I'm actually in La next week. You should
come to my hotel. And so I went to her hotel.
I think we want to meet for half an hour
or an hour, and it was two and a half
hours later. We've just been sat there and by the
end of it, she brought up this idea of me
(38:58):
potentially coming to Peanut to help run her company. I
just got Yeah, I just got goosebumps and I have
them now.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, I have them now genuinely.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah. I got tears in my eyes. I was like, Oh,
there's no fucking way this happens like this, this is
like my dream, Like my whole career. I feel like
maybe in articles people have said what my dream job is,
but I've never said any of my jobs my dream job,
you know, I've just I've had cool jobs, for sure.
(39:32):
But now I was in this weird zone where I'm
operating from my heart and I'm really thinking, like where
is my true purpose and fulfillment and what problems do
I want to be working on? Like this is it?
Like if I was going to start my own company,
it would be something to do with the community that
in yeah, to do with mums like that's where my
(39:53):
mind had been going already. Yeah, So I'm like, why
would I not go to the place already doing it?
And you know a part of that. And so I
ended up having these two like very different options. One
that would feel incredibly this is so bad to say.
(40:13):
I don't think I would have had to try as
hard to earn amazing money at the social network. The
social network, that's not the company.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It's not the social network.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
It's like how many are there? Like I'll be narrowing
down by the end of this everyone or not. But
I was like, oh, you know, I'm about to have
a second kid. Do I want to go into a
big workplace where maybe I'm a bit more of a
cog in the wheel, Like I don't have to flog
myself as much. I make a really comfortable salary, but
I'm still a leader. That's really They've got amazing benefits
(40:54):
like that's it takes a lot of boxing, takes a
lot of boxes.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Or do I choose happiness?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, you're yeay, yes. Do I go to the
place where, like I think about this problem every day
as a regular human. I think about this in the shower.
I read articles about this industry. I identify so much
more with this problem already, but I'm gonna have to
(41:27):
work way harder. I'm going to have way more responsibility.
I need to go in here and be aggressive, like
I need to aggressively grow this company, and I have
more to gain in the long run. Yeah, you know,
it's like again, I think I'm like addicted to the
potential of anything Ticho. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
So I just and I.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Always ask myself this question. And that's why it kind
of comes back to the snippet that you played from
our first ever interview. I just thought, now that I
know I can get this, I can probably always get that.
I can probably always go back and get that big
offer now. Yeah, but like this other one, I don't
know if that will always be there for me. So
(42:11):
I just have to go with it. And so that's
how I ended up making the decision. Michelle was smart,
Like she got me to do. She got me to
work on some decks and actually like meet with her
investors and kind of present a few things. And so
I got to feel like how it would feel working
(42:32):
on that problem every day, and it reminded me of
how I used to feel when I worked at Bumble.
It was like this deep obsession with you know, like
staying up till midnight to work on a deck because
you just find it so fun.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So yeah, I'm like very excited I officially start tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Oh my gosh. Even more special to this like massive
junction and especially at one. That is the definition of
why I wanted to start this show. Empowering people to
make decisions that way, to not that you shouldn't ever
(43:14):
go to the big money, Like there are amazing ways
that you could have developed yourself and had a great
life and tipped so many boxes and learned and been
coached by clever, clever people. But when something calls you
the way that Peanut is calling you, Yeah, I just
think hearing real life examples of the way people's metrics
(43:37):
change in the way they decide things and then the
way that plays out in their happiness day to day
when they do that role. We need to hear more
of it, because you only, I think you so often
hear about the other type of decision, whereas this it
almost seems like it like it was agonizing to go
through the pros and cons. But it kind of the
way you've retold it to me sounded like you did
(43:58):
kind of always know which one you really wanted to do.
You just have to go through the process. Yeah, whereas
pre baby, would that have been easy for you to
make that decision or as easy.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I think motherhood like demands that you think a little
bit harder about the choices and the decisions that you make,
because there's just a bit more like writing. I don't know,
it's like I think your tolerance for the sacrifices you're
willing to make it becomes narrower. So for example, with
(44:33):
like the i'll call it like the comfier option I
could have taken. That problem wasn't going to light a
fire in me every day. Sure it was gonna like.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Pay lotts of bills, yeah whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah Yeah, But it's like I just became so aware
of like what I truly give a shit about and
kind of coming back to that that real life for me,
it's like when your career has a serious contender and
it's the love you have for your child. And this
doesn't mean that all people need to go and work
in like the motherhood and baby space. But I'm a
(45:10):
marketer and I've always been very drawn to solving problems
that I actually have myself. And in the Bumble era,
I really heavily identified with women making the first move
and you know, if you have the confidence to kind
of put yourself out there in the dating market, then
maybe you will ask for the promotion and will maybe
you will ask for the pay rise. That was so
(45:31):
heavily aligned with that period of my life. And then
like that transition into some room, kind of coming out
of COVID and realizing that women could wait make way
more money on the Internet and the creator economy was
becoming really legitimized. That was really interesting to me at
that point in my life. And now you know, I've
(45:52):
kind of changed, and the problems and things that I
think about, like are the everyday challenges that mus have
and how hard this is and how we do need
support and how there's so much judgment, and how I
think especially today's mothers like millennial and gen Z women,
(46:14):
I think we're navigating this really unique, interesting time where
many of us our careers came to be in the
girl Boss movement, many of the people that we idolized
and looked up to, you didn't really see like motherhood
happening alongside that at the same time that's so true,
or it was this really polished version where it's like
(46:36):
I can do it all, you know, and it almost
like has set us up for failure a little bit,
like it's good and bad. Kind of coming back to
again what I said earlier, like I'm so grateful to
have had that hustle, and like I'm owe a lot
of my career to the girl Boss movement. But it
also means that by the time we become moms and
we start realizing like, oh but I love I love
(46:57):
this too, you know, and maybe my love for this
superseds my love for my career, and so I do
want to have a pause. And then maybe you feel
guilt about that because you've been taught that you need
to work to show your kids ambition and respect. What
does that say? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Does that say if you don't work, that you don't
have it? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Like, there's so many things I think about, like things
that are said on either side, like that I need
to work so my kids respect me. I don't like
that statement.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I also don't like the statement that you're narcissistic if
you do go to work.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, well, you can't win honestly.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, Like I don't like either of these these things.
And I kind of think us millennial gen z mums
are like the first to straddle that, yeah, because we
kind of had a lot of opportunity in our careers
and like we're also dealing with like cost of living crisis,
and yeah, I just think we have unique challenges at
the moment, and I think about this stuff a lot.
(48:01):
So I'm just really excited to go into a space
where I can get paid to talk about those things.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Make a huge I am so excited to see how
I mean, Peanut is already incredible, but you have a
very unique and visible impact wherever you go, and I
can't wait to see how that plays out At Peanut,
We're so.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
High with so much.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Behind you. And I did say I knew we needed
a ten part series because I've barely even asked you
about the sail and as an M and a lawyer,
and like I wanted to know about the acquisition, but
I think that's.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Sure you know this stuff like the back of your hand.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Sort of even when we sold, I still needed to
get an M and a lawyer because I think you
do need the guidance of someone oh.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, our lawyers. We actually haven't made build for that yet.
Now I'm pretty scared, pretty scared.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
But I think that's a beautiful way way to end.
And we've covered so much and it has been so
beautiful to watch the last seven or eight years, and
I just can't wait to see the next So thank
you so much.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Oh my god, thanks so muching me. I'm glad it
was you.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, my goodness. I enjoyed this one so much.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I'm sure you could hear.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
And I feel like Michelle shares just so much value
on every topic really, but especially those big junctions in
your career and how to navigate all the factors of
making big decisions. If you enjoyed or took something away
from all of her wisdom, please do share the episode
and tag at Michelle batsby letting her know what you thought,
thanking her for her time, or even just sending your
(49:41):
congratulations on these huge milestones. I know we're a little
less regular it sees the baby chats, but I promised
you they'd be worth the wait, and even for me,
this one felt like such a cathartic diary entry, exploring
so many themes that working mum's face as always, let
me know if there's anything or anyone you want to
hear from more about and in the meantime, I hope
(50:02):
you're having an amazing week and are seizing your yam
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