June 23, 2024 • 35 mins
Welcome back to the Wise Wealth Podcast! In this episode, we have a unique guest, Amy Knight, co-founder of Must Have Ideas. Unlike our usual seasoned industry veterans, Amy brings a fresh perspective as a young entrepreneur who has achieved remarkable success in the e-commerce space.
Amy shares her journey from studying law to managing a thriving business that specialises in innovative cleaning and home products. She discusses the challenges and triumphs of building a company that now boasts £60 million in revenue and a team of 135 people.
Join us as Amy talks about her background, the importance of digital marketing, the balance between work and family life, and her approach to handling the pressures of rapid growth. This episode is packed with insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and anyone interested in the dynamic world of e-commerce.
Don't miss Amy's valuable advice and inspiring story of turning a small investment into a multimillion-pound enterprise.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the Wise Wealth Podcast everybody. I've got a really interesting guest on the show.
Usually I interview guests that are like older than me and have been in the industry for decades.
This is a different story. It's going to be really interesting for me to find
out a lot more information about Amy Knight.
So I'm going to let Amy introduce herself. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
(00:22):
If you can give us an introduction to yourself and a bit about your background.
Yeah so hi I'm Ailey thanks for having me so I am one of the founders of Must
Have Ideas and Must Have Ideas is an e-commerce business we're selling cleaning products,
homewares, storage, garden products and currently just in the UK and we kind
(00:42):
of pride ourselves on bringing innovative problem-solving products and usually
via your Facebook Instagram through our more TikTok feeds.
So we are very much a digital marketing business and with the majority of our
marketing focused on those paid ads and creating those highly demonstrable videos,
that really kind of show off, show off our problem solvers.
(01:05):
And you're doing, that's interesting. Obviously we spoke previously at 27.
How on earth did you, do you feel that you, I get this question all the time
because I'm 33, do you feel that you got lucky or do you feel that you've done
something extremely right and worked your butt off to get sort of where you are today?
Well, I think we've worked incredibly hard to get to where we are.
(01:29):
And I think there's also an element of, in any business, being willing to kind
of take the risk, which I think a lot of people aren't necessarily prepared to do, which is fine.
But we all quit our jobs and kind of threw ourselves into this and just kind
of had to make it work because we didn't have any other option really.
But, you know, equally of good upbringing came from a reasonably fortunate background as well.
(01:54):
So I suppose there's always a little bit of luck thrown in there too.
I hate that question because I hate it when people say you're so lucky to be
in the position that you're in.
And I sit and think, no, that was the last 10 years of working my butt off to get here.
But thank you. Let's move on. Let's sort of have that conversation again.
(02:15):
Go so what was your background before you started this uh
so i um had two
police officer parents that were very senior in in
the police and kind of rose to kind of the third rank from the top within
the county so ended up doing a law degree because i suppose i'd been kind of
raised around that didn't really know what i wanted to end up doing but knew
(02:39):
that i should probably go to uni and didn't really know what to study so ended
up doing law hated every second of being at uni.
Not so much I found law interesting but didn't kind of
didn't have a lot of interest in being at uni and just kind of
wanted to be out in the world work so I
was doing a full-time law degree at the same time as working a full-time
(03:00):
job started off as a warehouse manager
and ended up as head of operations by the
time I graduated so my attendance was fairly
poor at uni but managed to scrape a degree anyway
and then met the two
people that are now our business partners and we the
business that we were working in was kind of an eco-friendly cleaning products
(03:23):
business selling to home shopping tv channels around the world and whilst we
were there we'd kind of started to test what were their Facebook ads and saw
some really good potential so when we left that
business to start mhi we felt that kind of digital
advertising was the future and that's what we should be and what we
(03:43):
should be focusing on and given our experience with
home shopping tv and you know essentially what
we were experienced it was video commerce and selling products via video okay
it was on tv in kind of 15 minute presentations rather than on social media
in you know 30 seconds or a minute or whatever but that's kind of what we did
(04:03):
so felt that kind of meant that we were well equipped for that kind of social media.
Advertising so yeah we all quit our jobs and I got on YouTube and taught myself
how to run ads on Meta and kind of went from there we've just kind of grown.
Hugely since then far faster than any of us anticipated that it would it would grow but.
(04:25):
Here we are how big's the company now so we
are on a run rate of kind of about 60
million in revenue and we've got 135 people in
the team now we a couple
years ago moved into a 40 000 square foot kind of
custom-built facility so um yeah
(04:46):
a lot bigger than we thought it would be and how do you
how do you feel like how do you feel about that being 27 and
having those sort of pressures i
think it's exciting it's kind of you know it's
you don't look stressed i mean there
are absolutely stressful times and you know you sometimes sit back
and go oh my god i'm responsible for you know 135 people's
(05:09):
livelihoods and you know their salary every
month but it's it's fun
at the same time no it's it's a challenge every day
is different and you know absolutely love being
my own boss and being able to decide what I
do and when I do it and you know we have crazy ideas at
10 o'clock at night and then come in at 9am the next
(05:29):
morning and go right let's make this happen and let's do it today so yeah have
you have you integrated your family or
friends into your organization not so
much one of my business partners is my husband so I suppose
there is there is that but aside from that
it's just a recipe for disaster really isn't it yeah yeah I was wondering that.
(05:52):
That's interesting though that this is part of your husband and so you see him
at work all day and then at home as well do you have a switch off do you between
work and family time we aren't great at it we're quite good at switching off.
When we're with the kids and just that being like family time but we can you
(06:12):
know we can start talking about you know work and stuff in the evenings,
but I think I don't think we're too bad I get a lot of people ask me about you
know what's it like working with your husband but,
we've always worked together and we work well together and like some people
can't imagine working with you know their husband or their wife I can imagine,
not it would just be strange because we have always worked together.
(06:37):
So you mentioned at the start of the call that we're
in the uk at the moment that's the
only place are you looking now to look outside of the
uk to expand yeah it's definitely kind
of in our sights as kind of the next next level
of growth and you know we are obviously constrained
just being in the uk we did a pilot in
(06:58):
the us a couple of years ago which showed kind of really good promise and we're
kind of really keen to to go back and kind of do that properly and set ourselves
up properly yeah unfortunately whilst the pilot did did do well it was kind
of the wrong time because it was as COVID was kind of starting and lockdowns
were starting and stuff and it kind of felt like we should just be focusing on.
The uk and what's going on in in the uk at that time but yeah we want to kind
(07:22):
of do that properly and set up warehousing properly and personal services and
everything out there so obviously initially you said that you predominantly
focus on like tv ads and then you went down youtube ads,
where would you say that your main focus is at the moment for gaining
your reach and you know 60 million is no
small number to be able to achieve are you doing that through influencer into
(07:44):
marketing are you doing that through youtube tiktok facebook where are you seeing
the growth the demand for conversions in your products yeah so the the teeny
ads were in the in the previous business that we worked in and it was never
kind of within our ideas and then,
mhi has always been kind of majority meta
ads it's it's kind of how
(08:06):
we started it's where the majority of the growth has come
from it it is for a
very long time was kind of solely a meta ads business that that was kind of
the only way that we we drove traffic to the website and we then kind of layered
on obviously email marketing more recently tiktok which is really starting to
kind of grow and it's not of the
size that meta is but it's definitely contributing a significant amount.
(08:31):
And then yeah more recently we're looking at diversifying much more and and
have started to dabble in you
know the likes of tv ads more traditional marketing methods like print and
catalogs and things like that as well but it is
very much a oh and google as
well sorry but it's very much a meta and meta art business i find that so interesting
(08:54):
because maybe i should take a look out of your book of focusing on advertisement
i've just i just don't think i've got it nailed with the advertisement but i
suppose you know when you're going from a product business,
what's your sort of average demographic of the person that's buying it is it is it because i
would say there's a very big demographic change between sort of
(09:14):
facebook and tiktok and how have
you sort of factored that in because i would say facebook is your sort of like
40 plus i would say sort of like area whereas tiktok is definitely 25 and under
sort of approach yeah so we have quite a broad kind of age range of demographic it's very female um.
(09:39):
I was going to say, as you would expect, maybe you would expect that,
maybe you wouldn't, but it is incredibly female. But in terms of ages, it's incredibly broad.
We've got much older customers that are much more likely to find us on Facebook,
much more likely to phone up and order over the phone and are just that older demographic.
But equally, there is that kind of, even prior to TikTok, there was that slightly
(10:02):
younger house proud, follows Mrs.
Hinch and kind of loves everything that she does. and has found us on Instagram
and is that kind of younger demographic.
And I think TikTok has brought that slightly younger.
I think there are more, I want to say older, they're not that old,
but older people on TikTok.
They aren't all 18-year-olds doing dances.
(10:24):
There is still that, I mean, that clean talk kind of community is huge.
So tapping into that has been massive. it but um yeah i think tiktok has allowed
us to reach a kind of slightly younger younger demographic and just reach more
people really i suppose everybody needs you know we aren't particularly niche
everybody needs feeling products and storage products and yeah and would you say that from.
(10:50):
Tiktok you're are you predominantly doing paid ads on there or are you paying
influencers to promote your product.
We're predominantly doing paid ads but we are doing and we
are working with affiliates as well and we're still kind of growing growing
that side of it but um yeah we are we are doing through it so what does the
(11:10):
sort of journey look like then over the next sort of two three years for you
i mean it's pretty impressive i would say what you've achieved already at 27.
Do you feel that no one can really relate to you out there as in you know when you're talking,
i'm assuming the size of scale you're at you're a board you've got a board and that in place,
(11:30):
yeah well yeah yeah there's four of us yeah
okay fine and are the other two sort of like advisors or no there's the three
they're all kind of people within the business so they it's it's you know the
three founders and a finance director so you guys steering the direction like
as in And, you know, over the next sort of three to five years,
(11:52):
where are you pulling, where are you pulling those sort of ideas and plans from,
you know, the traditional way would usually be like on a board,
you've got sort of some like gray hairs that have been there,
done it, got the t-shirt.
And they would say, look, you're now at this stage, you should be focusing on
that being 27, where are you pulling on that, where are you pulling on that
(12:13):
sort of guidance or information or how are you making those decisions yourself?
Is it sort of like testing the waters and moving slowly in those ways or is
it you know someone else yeah i think we're open to kind of we're open to testing
kind of anything really which i think.
Helps so you know we come up with an idea or see something that we
want to try and we're usually pretty willing to kind of give
(12:33):
it a go and see what happens and you know
i am the youngest person on our
board so i suppose there is slightly more experience in the others but no
no kind of real gray hairs and yeah i
think we like to think of ourselves as being
that kind of young dynamic business that is
willing to kind of give stuff a go and and just
(12:55):
go with it rather than being you know
stuck in doing things the old way and whatever you know we want to be ahead
of the curve rather than just following the pulse yeah and but that's not to
say that we might at some point get to a scale where it may be beneficial to
have more experience on the board.
(13:17):
But yeah, I suppose at the moment we're just winging it as we always have been.
Just winging 60 million revenue. Do you know what I think?
I don't know how well that would go down. Can you imagine your staff listening
to this going, just winging it?
Maybe they'd think, yes, she is. now it's confirmed yeah it's a bat,
(13:45):
Yeah, I think in terms of kind of direction over the next couple of years,
just the plan is just to keep growing and just to keep up that growth curve, really.
We've talked about kind of the US and expanding territories.
Adding new products to the range is kind of really key. We're all about kind
of that kind of discovery.
And we're really keen that every time a customer comes back to the website,
(14:06):
that they find something that they haven't seen before.
And our whole product range is based on that kind of new product discovery.
So you need to kind of keep adding products to the range.
And that's also kind of really key to our growth is to keep adding.
And do you have like a whole department that are sitting there putting together
these ads for TikTok that are pushing them out?
(14:27):
Yeah, we do virtually everything in-house. So yeah, all our advertising is done
in-house and kind of content creation and stuff.
So we've got a team of, I think it's about 15 people now whose job it is just
to create great videos and great content for us then to come up with channels as ads.
And they're putting that all out on your TikTok? It goes out on TikTok and across
(14:51):
Meta as well on Facebook and Instagram.
That is nuts. So they're sitting there.
Because from like an ad side of things so i
can i was looking at i was looking at your tiktok and there
is a there's a lot of stuff out there you can see so
some of them you're pushing basically that are on adverts and
the others are just sort of like organic you're posting them out and you're
(15:15):
going in because when you look at something like 60 million revenue and you
sit and go they've got 40 000 followers on tiktok how on earth are they how
are they pulling how How are they pulling that reach or pulling that audience?
But would you say that your advertisement is, you know, if you was to go between
Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, which one is it more weighted towards? What would you say?
(15:41):
It's more weighted towards Facebook.
Facebook was the biggest, then Instagram and then TikTok. TikTok is definitely
the smallest of the three.
I mean, partly, I suppose, because it's the newest. I mean, we've been building
Facebook and Instagram for,
um the last six years whereas tiktok
is much much more recent but um yeah it's definitely it's
(16:03):
definitely facebook that's the largest of the channel that's super
interesting and over those years have you seen that sort of change
so are you seeing your team become more interested in focusing on instagram
tiktok and less on facebook or would you see they're just bringing in more avenues
is that the approach or is it they're seeing sort of social media trends changing
(16:25):
to the other social medias, so to speak?
Well, I think the focus hasn't moved away from Facebook, but yeah,
we have looked to kind of bring on new avenues.
I think what has changed is how...
People consume content on those platforms. You don't sit on Facebook and scroll
through your feed anymore. You sit and watch reels.
(16:48):
So although there is still a lot of focus on Facebook, how we are approaching
advertising on Facebook has changed a lot.
And we're having to move towards less polished content that is shorter and snappier
and vertical and sits in a reels feed rather than these...
We used to put out two-minute videos that were
really produced and polished and you know would
(17:10):
would be an ad in a feed and nowadays that
trick that just wouldn't work i mean people just wouldn't watch it and wouldn't
be interested and but you know six years ago that that
worked well and that that was all we did and you know
now there is much more of a focus on creators and much more
authentic content that that doesn't feel like they're
being advertised to and feels feels real and i
(17:31):
suppose over your six years you'll really probably built up
a unique unique image of who is your demographic that
you're targeting on ads do you even produce ads
to a male audience or is it predominantly when
you're going through the facebook ad settings are you clicking
female and set subcategories of
what your what your target is no we
(17:53):
um we we've targeted so we do we do try
to target men as well we do a mixture of
kind of targeting based on on who we
feel is going to buy but also you know leaning into that
kind of ai piece as well and letting you know
the algorithm does do what it does and try to find us customers
whoever they're not so um we do
(18:14):
do we do do much broader border targeting as well as the
more kind of focused focused stuff but um it's
we do i mean we do have male customers it's just.
Not as many as not as many as the uh as the
women but and we use male and actors
and creators and things as well and so we
are kind of trying to diversify yeah and
(18:36):
have you seen over the years of starting your business sort of
like the click-through rate the cost per ad increase
or decrease where you've sort of seen that sort
of air of the market change for you as a business i think
yeah ad costs as a whole goal have gone up
over the last six years and it's
nothing massively dramatic but you
(18:58):
know they have increased and we can only control that so much so when we do
see those increases we just see it as okay we've got to get better at everything
else you know if if the cost of advertising is just going up we've got to be
creating better content so that more people will click and we've got to be creating
better web pages so that more people want to go on and buy.
(19:19):
So, yeah, it's just a kind of challenge for us to be better to kind of counteract that.
Yeah. And I suppose from like an ad side of things, let's take Facebook.
Are you doing any sort of carousel adverts or are they all real-based adverts that you're promoting?
No, there aren't any carousels at the moment. We're currently working on a bit
of a test to see whether that is something that would work for us because previously it hasn't.
(19:45):
But they are all video ads. ads and there's no
kind of nobody wants to buy from just an image like
what are you even looking at with our products if you're
just looking at an image and the whole point of our products is that they're really demonstrable
and they're solving a problem and we want to show you what that problem
is and how we're fixing it so they are all video ads
but a mixture of reels and you know there are
still some kind of square feed ads and
(20:07):
things going going in there as well but there's definitely a
shift towards reels and vertical content you
make your business sound very simple it surely isn't
as simple as sort of like how you're making it up you know you're basically
saying we're a digital marketing agency we'll chuck some ads up on our lovely
products and we end up getting sales i think you summarized it pretty well no
(20:32):
it can't be so why tell me then why why do other businesses Why are other businesses struggling?
Why do other businesses struggle? Let's take another company.
I don't know. I don't want to name any companies, but why is it that assumption
then that ads aren't working?
Is it that they've just not nailed the content?
(20:55):
I think content is the most important thing. I think it's really easy,
particularly a few years ago, I think there's probably been a bit of a shift
in the kind of narrative, but I think it's really easy to overcomplicate running the ads.
You know, we are absolutely over the data when we need to be,
but we aren't kind of micro-managing the ads and looking at every tiny statistic and, you know,
(21:22):
analysing how many people have watched a video for years, three
seconds and and every kind of tiny tiny bit
we take a much more kind of broader overarching
you know looking at the acquisition costs and the
relevance of ads and not going into
kind of each little bit of targeting and there's just
there's so many tools out there and it's really tempting to think i've got to
(21:45):
use every single one of them and actually just taking a much simpler approach
to to to actually managing the ads and running the ads um and just letting the
algorithm do its thing and then just going okay i'll switch off what's not working
i'll continue with what's working.
It's just much more straightforward i think the content the most important thing
you've got to know the content you've just got to keep testing it's just keep
(22:07):
putting stuff out there and keep seeing what's working and if it's working increase
the budget and if it's not working,
cut it and move on and and learn from learn from what's working and keep optimizing
but What does a 60 million revenue business spend on ad spend?
What are you spending? Is your cost per acquisition expensive? Is it low?
(22:31):
How are you factoring that in? I mean, I suppose it's all kind of relative.
We're actually a little bit slower at the moment because there's an amount of
stocks and stuff, but we're spending about 50,000 pounds a day on Meta and TikTok.
In terms of acquisition costs, I mean, it's, you know, it's different for kind
(22:53):
of each business as to what they are looking for.
We look to make a 30% margin and we look to be profitable in every single order.
So unlike some e-commerce businesses where, you know, it's a lifetime value
play and you're happy to lose money on that initial order and the plan is that
that customer keeps coming back,
(23:13):
we're not happy with that and we want that first order to be profitable.
And if that first order is profitable, then everything after that is bonus and it's super profitable.
So, yeah, there's a real kind of focus on making sure that absolutely every
order that we take to our website is positive.
That's super interesting. So you're working like an order by order basis,
(23:37):
not we've now acquired that customer, whether they're going to re-spend with us.
Yeah, I mean, we do. We absolutely are looking to make sure that we are remarketing
to them and we're kind of bringing them back as much as possible.
We have a great email marketing strategy to kind of cover that.
But the strategy has always been that that initial order is profitable and we
(24:00):
don't want to move away from that. It's always worked for us.
And yeah, it's important that even as we're acquiring people,
there are profitable buses.
So have you had any orders not be profitable?
I mean, yeah, I kind of say that, but we are actually looking at every single
individual order. that we're looking at as kind of an overall thing and doing
(24:23):
the maths and going, you know, what's each order profitable?
I mean, yes, we've had unprofitable periods of time.
Overall, the business has always been, you know, touch wood,
very profitable and we've been profitable from day one.
But, and yeah, that has of course been more challenging periods of time.
Particularly, we got stuck quite a lot during global, global shipping crisis during COVID.
And which made things much more challenging because obviously a lot of that
(24:46):
profit was being eaten by the huge container costs. Yeah.
I would have thought that your business would have surged with home products
and stuff like that, with people being under lockdown. I would have thought
you would have seen a big uplift.
We did initially. When the first lockdown was announced, we couldn't keep stuff
in stock. Everything sold.
(25:07):
But when we started paying $22,000 for a container instead of $2,000,
it then became much more challenging to bring that. I mean, firstly,
getting the containers and getting the stock to the UK was incredibly challenging.
They were all limited, and we just couldn't get the space on the vessel to even ship stuff.
And what we could ship, you know, we were paying such a huge freight surcharge
(25:29):
that it then became really difficult to then sell that stock practically.
That is interesting. And have you seen any freight issues with the Israel-Gaza?
Because I remember they were talking about the Red Sea, and there was a lot
of freight stuff. Have you seen that affect your costings or anything in that
area? Yeah, so the containers have absolutely gone up all the cost by four times,
I believe, and are continuing to rise.
(25:53):
So it's something we're kind of keeping an eye on. But at the moment,
they're still way below the peak of COVID levels.
And we are starting to see some kind of supply issues with actually getting
the physical containers to put the stock in, because the routes are taking so much longer.
They used to take six weeks, and now they're taking over eight weeks, usually.
Wow. There's definitely kind of container supply issues and the shipping lines
(26:16):
prioritizing the larger containers and not so much smaller ones.
So it's quite difficult to get your hands on a smaller container.
But yeah, it's something we're kind of keeping an eye on. It's not as bad as
it was in COVID days, but yeah, there is.
And then I suppose from like being a successful individual,
are you constantly reinvesting into your business or have you started to look
(26:41):
externally about maybe acquisitions into other businesses or stock portfolios?
Have you started to sort of like broaden your horizon on different avenues?
Yeah, I mean, at the moment, we are just kind of constantly reinvesting in the business.
We did go through, well, we kind of started a private equity process last year,
(27:04):
but decided that it wasn't for us.
And the business just kind of wasn't at a stage that we were kind of ready to take that step.
There was more that we wanted to do before we were kind of ready to bring something like that on board.
But it is something that we would look to do again. and in terms of kind of
acquisitions i think it's something that we would we would all really love to
(27:27):
do it's just finding the right business we haven't kind of really been out there
looking for businesses but are very open to if the kind of right business came
along that we felt we could,
bring into kind of mhi it it would
make sense and we would be very open to doing that it's super
interesting yeah just wondered because it's like if you're growing at such a
(27:48):
pace you know I'm surprised you haven't looked more at like investing even even
on basic things you know like I know UK gilts 5.2 percent things like that you
know being able to sort of lock in cash for.
Good margins and not affect the business I'm just it's interesting to see whether
(28:09):
or not that's ever sort of crossed your mind or if it's something you guys have
thought about yeah I suppose it's
probably just something that we've never yeah we just want to talk to it.
There's always a million and
one things going on and trying to find the.
Time to think about other things can be challenging sometimes so yeah it's
just yeah probably not super exciting I always
(28:31):
like to try to leave the listeners with like a lesson
I think that this is really awesome
because I think having not only
27 year old but also a mother of
two and being in a position that you've been in and with
you being female i think that
it's actually such a essay it sounds really
(28:54):
bad i'm saying it but it should be motivational to a
lot of women to show that this is achievable and that you
shouldn't necessarily be you know held
back for that i'm trying to
think of the most politically correct way to you know i
think there's i think there's a lot of sort of stigma around that isn't it that you
know women CEOs successful women children coming
(29:17):
and not having enough time to be
able to run your own business how do you juggle that act and what
sort of advice could you give to female listeners
that are potentially wanting to start
their own business and sort of follow in your footsteps because obviously it's
very motivational for what you're doing from such a young age yeah I mean it's
(29:39):
a hard one because juggling it is hard I mean Having kids is hard for anybody
and it's a lot being needed all of the time.
But I think when you're spending time with your kids.
Being able to try and just switch off from it so that you feel like you're fully
in that moment, so that you don't feel guilty when you're then having to work
(30:05):
and not spend time with them.
Yeah, I think it's just finding that balance of, you know, how much time do
you spend on the business and how much time do you spend with the kids?
And I think we found a pretty nice balance.
I spend two days a week with the girls and I'm physically in the office three
days a week and then kind of try to pick up everything else in the evenings
(30:27):
and things when they're sleeping.
But yeah, I think, you know, having two girls as well kind of motivates me as
well. well, I want them to see me going to work and doing something so that
they feel like they can go and do that as well.
And, you know, I'm very fortunate that they go to a really great nursery and
have spent time with their grandparents as well. And they absolutely love all of that.
(30:50):
And both of them have really kind of thrived from being in that kind of nursery
environment and interacting with other kids as well.
It was something that with my first, I felt very guilty about.
And, you know, how can I possibly go back to work? You know,
I should be at home looking after her.
And actually she loves every second of it and has made amazing friendships and
(31:11):
amazing relationships with the adults there as well which she,
adores and would ditch me in a heartbeat to go and play with one of them which helps so,
yeah it's I mean it is that is the hardest bit I think of,
running this entire business the hardest bit is trying to juggle having kids
at the same time yeah i think hats off to you i think you know congratulations
(31:35):
i think it's very very inspiring if you was to sort of give a tip or something to one of those females,
that are wanting to fall in your footsteps what sort of tips would you give them to,
get on the path way to starting their own business that's a tough one what would it,
can't be a cheat either like email hr and come and get a job.
(32:00):
I think it would be like just just go
for it and don't doubt yourself i think the minute
you start doubting yourself you you start you kind
of believe that and then can't do it like you've
got to go into each bit going i'm just
going to do it i've just got to get on with it i'm going to to do it and forget
that you're female and approach it as anybody else would yeah don't walk into
(32:24):
a room thinking i'm the female in the room you've got to yeah just did you have
to battle any of that sort of stigma when you started yeah i think there absolutely
have been occasions where,
you know i walked into a room and somebody would prefer to speak to my husband
over me and but yeah i think it's just i think it's probably a mix of me being
(32:45):
female and also my age but,
it is what it is and they're going to have to listen to me anyway whether they
want to or not so yeah there has been there has been some of it on kind of certain
occasions I think particularly within,
kind of certain areas of the business I mean it doesn't happen within the business
but certain areas of the business potentially where.
(33:08):
It kind of makes sense to somebody external that it would be a
man that would run kind of that area of the
business and yeah and i suppose one question for me is was this your first idea
first business that you brought to market and it was a ground success or was
there businesses prior to this where bell and you had hurdles and it wasn't
(33:31):
successful and you diverted off that.
Uh no this was our this is my first business that
we've that i've ever run but that
doesn't mean there hasn't been hurdles that we've had to we've just
had to call over them how much
capital did you start your business with we put in
a thousand pounds each so we have three thousand pounds to start
(33:52):
with wow so there you go everybody that's literally
a thousand pounds to 60 million in revenue and in
how many years we're approaching our
sixth birthday wow wow wow
wow wow very very cool very impressive honestly i
think thank you so much for joining us on the podcast i
(34:13):
think with you know i think any business owner
can sort of take away some snippets of advice
from yourself i think it's just awesome to be
able to see the success that you've achieved and
also with a cool head usually i'd say
at 27 and having that weight of you know 130 odd
families on your shoulders is you know it should be stressful but hopefully
(34:35):
you know it's it's amazing that you've you've been able to navigate through
everything and specifically going through covid as well i suppose that was then
well what was that going into your third year so So when was the first one? Probably.
Yeah, it was early on. I can't remember exactly. So you sort of know what to
(34:56):
expect if the world collapses again.
So, I mean, it's a very painful lesson, but you know how to navigate it.
So really, really interesting. But yeah, thank you so much for joining.
And if anybody wants to sort of find out more about you or your business,
what's the best way that they can find out more about you? Head into our website, probably.
Yeah, or give us a Google. or there's a few bits and pieces out there but um
(35:18):
yeah most of it's on our website awesome thanks so much amy i really appreciate
your time thanks for having me.
Welcome back to the Wise Wealth Podcast everybody. I've got a really interesting guest on the show.
Usually I interview guests that are like older than me and have been in the industry for decades.
This is a different story. It's going to be really interesting for me to find
out a lot more information about Amy Knight.
So I'm going to let Amy introduce herself. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
(00:22):
If you can give us an introduction to yourself and a bit about your background.
Yeah so hi I'm Ailey thanks for having me so I am one of the founders of Must
Have Ideas and Must Have Ideas is an e-commerce business we're selling cleaning products,
homewares, storage, garden products and currently just in the UK and we kind
(00:42):
of pride ourselves on bringing innovative problem-solving products and usually
via your Facebook Instagram through our more TikTok feeds.
So we are very much a digital marketing business and with the majority of our
marketing focused on those paid ads and creating those highly demonstrable videos,
that really kind of show off, show off our problem solvers.
(01:05):
And you're doing, that's interesting. Obviously we spoke previously at 27.
How on earth did you, do you feel that you, I get this question all the time
because I'm 33, do you feel that you got lucky or do you feel that you've done
something extremely right and worked your butt off to get sort of where you are today?
Well, I think we've worked incredibly hard to get to where we are.
(01:29):
And I think there's also an element of, in any business, being willing to kind
of take the risk, which I think a lot of people aren't necessarily prepared to do, which is fine.
But we all quit our jobs and kind of threw ourselves into this and just kind
of had to make it work because we didn't have any other option really.
But, you know, equally of good upbringing came from a reasonably fortunate background as well.
(01:54):
So I suppose there's always a little bit of luck thrown in there too.
I hate that question because I hate it when people say you're so lucky to be
in the position that you're in.
And I sit and think, no, that was the last 10 years of working my butt off to get here.
But thank you. Let's move on. Let's sort of have that conversation again.
(02:15):
Go so what was your background before you started this uh
so i um had two
police officer parents that were very senior in in
the police and kind of rose to kind of the third rank from the top within
the county so ended up doing a law degree because i suppose i'd been kind of
raised around that didn't really know what i wanted to end up doing but knew
(02:39):
that i should probably go to uni and didn't really know what to study so ended
up doing law hated every second of being at uni.
Not so much I found law interesting but didn't kind of
didn't have a lot of interest in being at uni and just kind of
wanted to be out in the world work so I
was doing a full-time law degree at the same time as working a full-time
(03:00):
job started off as a warehouse manager
and ended up as head of operations by the
time I graduated so my attendance was fairly
poor at uni but managed to scrape a degree anyway
and then met the two
people that are now our business partners and we the
business that we were working in was kind of an eco-friendly cleaning products
(03:23):
business selling to home shopping tv channels around the world and whilst we
were there we'd kind of started to test what were their Facebook ads and saw
some really good potential so when we left that
business to start mhi we felt that kind of digital
advertising was the future and that's what we should be and what we
(03:43):
should be focusing on and given our experience with
home shopping tv and you know essentially what
we were experienced it was video commerce and selling products via video okay
it was on tv in kind of 15 minute presentations rather than on social media
in you know 30 seconds or a minute or whatever but that's kind of what we did
(04:03):
so felt that kind of meant that we were well equipped for that kind of social media.
Advertising so yeah we all quit our jobs and I got on YouTube and taught myself
how to run ads on Meta and kind of went from there we've just kind of grown.
Hugely since then far faster than any of us anticipated that it would it would grow but.
(04:25):
Here we are how big's the company now so we
are on a run rate of kind of about 60
million in revenue and we've got 135 people in
the team now we a couple
years ago moved into a 40 000 square foot kind of
custom-built facility so um yeah
(04:46):
a lot bigger than we thought it would be and how do you
how do you feel like how do you feel about that being 27 and
having those sort of pressures i
think it's exciting it's kind of you know it's
you don't look stressed i mean there
are absolutely stressful times and you know you sometimes sit back
and go oh my god i'm responsible for you know 135 people's
(05:09):
livelihoods and you know their salary every
month but it's it's fun
at the same time no it's it's a challenge every day
is different and you know absolutely love being
my own boss and being able to decide what I
do and when I do it and you know we have crazy ideas at
10 o'clock at night and then come in at 9am the next
(05:29):
morning and go right let's make this happen and let's do it today so yeah have
you have you integrated your family or
friends into your organization not so
much one of my business partners is my husband so I suppose
there is there is that but aside from that
it's just a recipe for disaster really isn't it yeah yeah I was wondering that.
(05:52):
That's interesting though that this is part of your husband and so you see him
at work all day and then at home as well do you have a switch off do you between
work and family time we aren't great at it we're quite good at switching off.
When we're with the kids and just that being like family time but we can you
(06:12):
know we can start talking about you know work and stuff in the evenings,
but I think I don't think we're too bad I get a lot of people ask me about you
know what's it like working with your husband but,
we've always worked together and we work well together and like some people
can't imagine working with you know their husband or their wife I can imagine,
not it would just be strange because we have always worked together.
(06:37):
So you mentioned at the start of the call that we're
in the uk at the moment that's the
only place are you looking now to look outside of the
uk to expand yeah it's definitely kind
of in our sights as kind of the next next level
of growth and you know we are obviously constrained
just being in the uk we did a pilot in
(06:58):
the us a couple of years ago which showed kind of really good promise and we're
kind of really keen to to go back and kind of do that properly and set ourselves
up properly yeah unfortunately whilst the pilot did did do well it was kind
of the wrong time because it was as COVID was kind of starting and lockdowns
were starting and stuff and it kind of felt like we should just be focusing on.
The uk and what's going on in in the uk at that time but yeah we want to kind
(07:22):
of do that properly and set up warehousing properly and personal services and
everything out there so obviously initially you said that you predominantly
focus on like tv ads and then you went down youtube ads,
where would you say that your main focus is at the moment for gaining
your reach and you know 60 million is no
small number to be able to achieve are you doing that through influencer into
(07:44):
marketing are you doing that through youtube tiktok facebook where are you seeing
the growth the demand for conversions in your products yeah so the the teeny
ads were in the in the previous business that we worked in and it was never
kind of within our ideas and then,
mhi has always been kind of majority meta
ads it's it's kind of how
(08:06):
we started it's where the majority of the growth has come
from it it is for a
very long time was kind of solely a meta ads business that that was kind of
the only way that we we drove traffic to the website and we then kind of layered
on obviously email marketing more recently tiktok which is really starting to
kind of grow and it's not of the
size that meta is but it's definitely contributing a significant amount.
(08:31):
And then yeah more recently we're looking at diversifying much more and and
have started to dabble in you
know the likes of tv ads more traditional marketing methods like print and
catalogs and things like that as well but it is
very much a oh and google as
well sorry but it's very much a meta and meta art business i find that so interesting
(08:54):
because maybe i should take a look out of your book of focusing on advertisement
i've just i just don't think i've got it nailed with the advertisement but i
suppose you know when you're going from a product business,
what's your sort of average demographic of the person that's buying it is it is it because i
would say there's a very big demographic change between sort of
(09:14):
facebook and tiktok and how have
you sort of factored that in because i would say facebook is your sort of like
40 plus i would say sort of like area whereas tiktok is definitely 25 and under
sort of approach yeah so we have quite a broad kind of age range of demographic it's very female um.
(09:39):
I was going to say, as you would expect, maybe you would expect that,
maybe you wouldn't, but it is incredibly female. But in terms of ages, it's incredibly broad.
We've got much older customers that are much more likely to find us on Facebook,
much more likely to phone up and order over the phone and are just that older demographic.
But equally, there is that kind of, even prior to TikTok, there was that slightly
(10:02):
younger house proud, follows Mrs.
Hinch and kind of loves everything that she does. and has found us on Instagram
and is that kind of younger demographic.
And I think TikTok has brought that slightly younger.
I think there are more, I want to say older, they're not that old,
but older people on TikTok.
They aren't all 18-year-olds doing dances.
(10:24):
There is still that, I mean, that clean talk kind of community is huge.
So tapping into that has been massive. it but um yeah i think tiktok has allowed
us to reach a kind of slightly younger younger demographic and just reach more
people really i suppose everybody needs you know we aren't particularly niche
everybody needs feeling products and storage products and yeah and would you say that from.
(10:50):
Tiktok you're are you predominantly doing paid ads on there or are you paying
influencers to promote your product.
We're predominantly doing paid ads but we are doing and we
are working with affiliates as well and we're still kind of growing growing
that side of it but um yeah we are we are doing through it so what does the
(11:10):
sort of journey look like then over the next sort of two three years for you
i mean it's pretty impressive i would say what you've achieved already at 27.
Do you feel that no one can really relate to you out there as in you know when you're talking,
i'm assuming the size of scale you're at you're a board you've got a board and that in place,
(11:30):
yeah well yeah yeah there's four of us yeah
okay fine and are the other two sort of like advisors or no there's the three
they're all kind of people within the business so they it's it's you know the
three founders and a finance director so you guys steering the direction like
as in And, you know, over the next sort of three to five years,
(11:52):
where are you pulling, where are you pulling those sort of ideas and plans from,
you know, the traditional way would usually be like on a board,
you've got sort of some like gray hairs that have been there,
done it, got the t-shirt.
And they would say, look, you're now at this stage, you should be focusing on
that being 27, where are you pulling on that, where are you pulling on that
(12:13):
sort of guidance or information or how are you making those decisions yourself?
Is it sort of like testing the waters and moving slowly in those ways or is
it you know someone else yeah i think we're open to kind of we're open to testing
kind of anything really which i think.
Helps so you know we come up with an idea or see something that we
want to try and we're usually pretty willing to kind of give
(12:33):
it a go and see what happens and you know
i am the youngest person on our
board so i suppose there is slightly more experience in the others but no
no kind of real gray hairs and yeah i
think we like to think of ourselves as being
that kind of young dynamic business that is
willing to kind of give stuff a go and and just
(12:55):
go with it rather than being you know
stuck in doing things the old way and whatever you know we want to be ahead
of the curve rather than just following the pulse yeah and but that's not to
say that we might at some point get to a scale where it may be beneficial to
have more experience on the board.
(13:17):
But yeah, I suppose at the moment we're just winging it as we always have been.
Just winging 60 million revenue. Do you know what I think?
I don't know how well that would go down. Can you imagine your staff listening
to this going, just winging it?
Maybe they'd think, yes, she is. now it's confirmed yeah it's a bat,
(13:45):
Yeah, I think in terms of kind of direction over the next couple of years,
just the plan is just to keep growing and just to keep up that growth curve, really.
We've talked about kind of the US and expanding territories.
Adding new products to the range is kind of really key. We're all about kind
of that kind of discovery.
And we're really keen that every time a customer comes back to the website,
(14:06):
that they find something that they haven't seen before.
And our whole product range is based on that kind of new product discovery.
So you need to kind of keep adding products to the range.
And that's also kind of really key to our growth is to keep adding.
And do you have like a whole department that are sitting there putting together
these ads for TikTok that are pushing them out?
(14:27):
Yeah, we do virtually everything in-house. So yeah, all our advertising is done
in-house and kind of content creation and stuff.
So we've got a team of, I think it's about 15 people now whose job it is just
to create great videos and great content for us then to come up with channels as ads.
And they're putting that all out on your TikTok? It goes out on TikTok and across
(14:51):
Meta as well on Facebook and Instagram.
That is nuts. So they're sitting there.
Because from like an ad side of things so i
can i was looking at i was looking at your tiktok and there
is a there's a lot of stuff out there you can see so
some of them you're pushing basically that are on adverts and
the others are just sort of like organic you're posting them out and you're
(15:15):
going in because when you look at something like 60 million revenue and you
sit and go they've got 40 000 followers on tiktok how on earth are they how
are they pulling how How are they pulling that reach or pulling that audience?
But would you say that your advertisement is, you know, if you was to go between
Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, which one is it more weighted towards? What would you say?
(15:41):
It's more weighted towards Facebook.
Facebook was the biggest, then Instagram and then TikTok. TikTok is definitely
the smallest of the three.
I mean, partly, I suppose, because it's the newest. I mean, we've been building
Facebook and Instagram for,
um the last six years whereas tiktok
is much much more recent but um yeah it's definitely it's
(16:03):
definitely facebook that's the largest of the channel that's super
interesting and over those years have you seen that sort of change
so are you seeing your team become more interested in focusing on instagram
tiktok and less on facebook or would you see they're just bringing in more avenues
is that the approach or is it they're seeing sort of social media trends changing
(16:25):
to the other social medias, so to speak?
Well, I think the focus hasn't moved away from Facebook, but yeah,
we have looked to kind of bring on new avenues.
I think what has changed is how...
People consume content on those platforms. You don't sit on Facebook and scroll
through your feed anymore. You sit and watch reels.
(16:48):
So although there is still a lot of focus on Facebook, how we are approaching
advertising on Facebook has changed a lot.
And we're having to move towards less polished content that is shorter and snappier
and vertical and sits in a reels feed rather than these...
We used to put out two-minute videos that were
really produced and polished and you know would
(17:10):
would be an ad in a feed and nowadays that
trick that just wouldn't work i mean people just wouldn't watch it and wouldn't
be interested and but you know six years ago that that
worked well and that that was all we did and you know
now there is much more of a focus on creators and much more
authentic content that that doesn't feel like they're
being advertised to and feels feels real and i
(17:31):
suppose over your six years you'll really probably built up
a unique unique image of who is your demographic that
you're targeting on ads do you even produce ads
to a male audience or is it predominantly when
you're going through the facebook ad settings are you clicking
female and set subcategories of
what your what your target is no we
(17:53):
um we we've targeted so we do we do try
to target men as well we do a mixture of
kind of targeting based on on who we
feel is going to buy but also you know leaning into that
kind of ai piece as well and letting you know
the algorithm does do what it does and try to find us customers
whoever they're not so um we do
(18:14):
do we do do much broader border targeting as well as the
more kind of focused focused stuff but um it's
we do i mean we do have male customers it's just.
Not as many as not as many as the uh as the
women but and we use male and actors
and creators and things as well and so we
are kind of trying to diversify yeah and
(18:36):
have you seen over the years of starting your business sort of
like the click-through rate the cost per ad increase
or decrease where you've sort of seen that sort
of air of the market change for you as a business i think
yeah ad costs as a whole goal have gone up
over the last six years and it's
nothing massively dramatic but you
(18:58):
know they have increased and we can only control that so much so when we do
see those increases we just see it as okay we've got to get better at everything
else you know if if the cost of advertising is just going up we've got to be
creating better content so that more people will click and we've got to be creating
better web pages so that more people want to go on and buy.
(19:19):
So, yeah, it's just a kind of challenge for us to be better to kind of counteract that.
Yeah. And I suppose from like an ad side of things, let's take Facebook.
Are you doing any sort of carousel adverts or are they all real-based adverts that you're promoting?
No, there aren't any carousels at the moment. We're currently working on a bit
of a test to see whether that is something that would work for us because previously it hasn't.
(19:45):
But they are all video ads. ads and there's no
kind of nobody wants to buy from just an image like
what are you even looking at with our products if you're
just looking at an image and the whole point of our products is that they're really demonstrable
and they're solving a problem and we want to show you what that problem
is and how we're fixing it so they are all video ads
but a mixture of reels and you know there are
still some kind of square feed ads and
(20:07):
things going going in there as well but there's definitely a
shift towards reels and vertical content you
make your business sound very simple it surely isn't
as simple as sort of like how you're making it up you know you're basically
saying we're a digital marketing agency we'll chuck some ads up on our lovely
products and we end up getting sales i think you summarized it pretty well no
(20:32):
it can't be so why tell me then why why do other businesses Why are other businesses struggling?
Why do other businesses struggle? Let's take another company.
I don't know. I don't want to name any companies, but why is it that assumption
then that ads aren't working?
Is it that they've just not nailed the content?
(20:55):
I think content is the most important thing. I think it's really easy,
particularly a few years ago, I think there's probably been a bit of a shift
in the kind of narrative, but I think it's really easy to overcomplicate running the ads.
You know, we are absolutely over the data when we need to be,
but we aren't kind of micro-managing the ads and looking at every tiny statistic and, you know,
(21:22):
analysing how many people have watched a video for years, three
seconds and and every kind of tiny tiny bit
we take a much more kind of broader overarching
you know looking at the acquisition costs and the
relevance of ads and not going into
kind of each little bit of targeting and there's just
there's so many tools out there and it's really tempting to think i've got to
(21:45):
use every single one of them and actually just taking a much simpler approach
to to to actually managing the ads and running the ads um and just letting the
algorithm do its thing and then just going okay i'll switch off what's not working
i'll continue with what's working.
It's just much more straightforward i think the content the most important thing
you've got to know the content you've just got to keep testing it's just keep
(22:07):
putting stuff out there and keep seeing what's working and if it's working increase
the budget and if it's not working,
cut it and move on and and learn from learn from what's working and keep optimizing
but What does a 60 million revenue business spend on ad spend?
What are you spending? Is your cost per acquisition expensive? Is it low?
(22:31):
How are you factoring that in? I mean, I suppose it's all kind of relative.
We're actually a little bit slower at the moment because there's an amount of
stocks and stuff, but we're spending about 50,000 pounds a day on Meta and TikTok.
In terms of acquisition costs, I mean, it's, you know, it's different for kind
(22:53):
of each business as to what they are looking for.
We look to make a 30% margin and we look to be profitable in every single order.
So unlike some e-commerce businesses where, you know, it's a lifetime value
play and you're happy to lose money on that initial order and the plan is that
that customer keeps coming back,
(23:13):
we're not happy with that and we want that first order to be profitable.
And if that first order is profitable, then everything after that is bonus and it's super profitable.
So, yeah, there's a real kind of focus on making sure that absolutely every
order that we take to our website is positive.
That's super interesting. So you're working like an order by order basis,
(23:37):
not we've now acquired that customer, whether they're going to re-spend with us.
Yeah, I mean, we do. We absolutely are looking to make sure that we are remarketing
to them and we're kind of bringing them back as much as possible.
We have a great email marketing strategy to kind of cover that.
But the strategy has always been that that initial order is profitable and we
(24:00):
don't want to move away from that. It's always worked for us.
And yeah, it's important that even as we're acquiring people,
there are profitable buses.
So have you had any orders not be profitable?
I mean, yeah, I kind of say that, but we are actually looking at every single
individual order. that we're looking at as kind of an overall thing and doing
(24:23):
the maths and going, you know, what's each order profitable?
I mean, yes, we've had unprofitable periods of time.
Overall, the business has always been, you know, touch wood,
very profitable and we've been profitable from day one.
But, and yeah, that has of course been more challenging periods of time.
Particularly, we got stuck quite a lot during global, global shipping crisis during COVID.
And which made things much more challenging because obviously a lot of that
(24:46):
profit was being eaten by the huge container costs. Yeah.
I would have thought that your business would have surged with home products
and stuff like that, with people being under lockdown. I would have thought
you would have seen a big uplift.
We did initially. When the first lockdown was announced, we couldn't keep stuff
in stock. Everything sold.
(25:07):
But when we started paying $22,000 for a container instead of $2,000,
it then became much more challenging to bring that. I mean, firstly,
getting the containers and getting the stock to the UK was incredibly challenging.
They were all limited, and we just couldn't get the space on the vessel to even ship stuff.
And what we could ship, you know, we were paying such a huge freight surcharge
(25:29):
that it then became really difficult to then sell that stock practically.
That is interesting. And have you seen any freight issues with the Israel-Gaza?
Because I remember they were talking about the Red Sea, and there was a lot
of freight stuff. Have you seen that affect your costings or anything in that
area? Yeah, so the containers have absolutely gone up all the cost by four times,
I believe, and are continuing to rise.
(25:53):
So it's something we're kind of keeping an eye on. But at the moment,
they're still way below the peak of COVID levels.
And we are starting to see some kind of supply issues with actually getting
the physical containers to put the stock in, because the routes are taking so much longer.
They used to take six weeks, and now they're taking over eight weeks, usually.
Wow. There's definitely kind of container supply issues and the shipping lines
(26:16):
prioritizing the larger containers and not so much smaller ones.
So it's quite difficult to get your hands on a smaller container.
But yeah, it's something we're kind of keeping an eye on. It's not as bad as
it was in COVID days, but yeah, there is.
And then I suppose from like being a successful individual,
are you constantly reinvesting into your business or have you started to look
(26:41):
externally about maybe acquisitions into other businesses or stock portfolios?
Have you started to sort of like broaden your horizon on different avenues?
Yeah, I mean, at the moment, we are just kind of constantly reinvesting in the business.
We did go through, well, we kind of started a private equity process last year,
(27:04):
but decided that it wasn't for us.
And the business just kind of wasn't at a stage that we were kind of ready to take that step.
There was more that we wanted to do before we were kind of ready to bring something like that on board.
But it is something that we would look to do again. and in terms of kind of
acquisitions i think it's something that we would we would all really love to
(27:27):
do it's just finding the right business we haven't kind of really been out there
looking for businesses but are very open to if the kind of right business came
along that we felt we could,
bring into kind of mhi it it would
make sense and we would be very open to doing that it's super
interesting yeah just wondered because it's like if you're growing at such a
(27:48):
pace you know I'm surprised you haven't looked more at like investing even even
on basic things you know like I know UK gilts 5.2 percent things like that you
know being able to sort of lock in cash for.
Good margins and not affect the business I'm just it's interesting to see whether
(28:09):
or not that's ever sort of crossed your mind or if it's something you guys have
thought about yeah I suppose it's
probably just something that we've never yeah we just want to talk to it.
There's always a million and
one things going on and trying to find the.
Time to think about other things can be challenging sometimes so yeah it's
just yeah probably not super exciting I always
(28:31):
like to try to leave the listeners with like a lesson
I think that this is really awesome
because I think having not only
27 year old but also a mother of
two and being in a position that you've been in and with
you being female i think that
it's actually such a essay it sounds really
(28:54):
bad i'm saying it but it should be motivational to a
lot of women to show that this is achievable and that you
shouldn't necessarily be you know held
back for that i'm trying to
think of the most politically correct way to you know i
think there's i think there's a lot of sort of stigma around that isn't it that you
know women CEOs successful women children coming
(29:17):
and not having enough time to be
able to run your own business how do you juggle that act and what
sort of advice could you give to female listeners
that are potentially wanting to start
their own business and sort of follow in your footsteps because obviously it's
very motivational for what you're doing from such a young age yeah I mean it's
(29:39):
a hard one because juggling it is hard I mean Having kids is hard for anybody
and it's a lot being needed all of the time.
But I think when you're spending time with your kids.
Being able to try and just switch off from it so that you feel like you're fully
in that moment, so that you don't feel guilty when you're then having to work
(30:05):
and not spend time with them.
Yeah, I think it's just finding that balance of, you know, how much time do
you spend on the business and how much time do you spend with the kids?
And I think we found a pretty nice balance.
I spend two days a week with the girls and I'm physically in the office three
days a week and then kind of try to pick up everything else in the evenings
(30:27):
and things when they're sleeping.
But yeah, I think, you know, having two girls as well kind of motivates me as
well. well, I want them to see me going to work and doing something so that
they feel like they can go and do that as well.
And, you know, I'm very fortunate that they go to a really great nursery and
have spent time with their grandparents as well. And they absolutely love all of that.
(30:50):
And both of them have really kind of thrived from being in that kind of nursery
environment and interacting with other kids as well.
It was something that with my first, I felt very guilty about.
And, you know, how can I possibly go back to work? You know,
I should be at home looking after her.
And actually she loves every second of it and has made amazing friendships and
(31:11):
amazing relationships with the adults there as well which she,
adores and would ditch me in a heartbeat to go and play with one of them which helps so,
yeah it's I mean it is that is the hardest bit I think of,
running this entire business the hardest bit is trying to juggle having kids
at the same time yeah i think hats off to you i think you know congratulations
(31:35):
i think it's very very inspiring if you was to sort of give a tip or something to one of those females,
that are wanting to fall in your footsteps what sort of tips would you give them to,
get on the path way to starting their own business that's a tough one what would it,
can't be a cheat either like email hr and come and get a job.
(32:00):
I think it would be like just just go
for it and don't doubt yourself i think the minute
you start doubting yourself you you start you kind
of believe that and then can't do it like you've
got to go into each bit going i'm just
going to do it i've just got to get on with it i'm going to to do it and forget
that you're female and approach it as anybody else would yeah don't walk into
(32:24):
a room thinking i'm the female in the room you've got to yeah just did you have
to battle any of that sort of stigma when you started yeah i think there absolutely
have been occasions where,
you know i walked into a room and somebody would prefer to speak to my husband
over me and but yeah i think it's just i think it's probably a mix of me being
(32:45):
female and also my age but,
it is what it is and they're going to have to listen to me anyway whether they
want to or not so yeah there has been there has been some of it on kind of certain
occasions I think particularly within,
kind of certain areas of the business I mean it doesn't happen within the business
but certain areas of the business potentially where.
(33:08):
It kind of makes sense to somebody external that it would be a
man that would run kind of that area of the
business and yeah and i suppose one question for me is was this your first idea
first business that you brought to market and it was a ground success or was
there businesses prior to this where bell and you had hurdles and it wasn't
(33:31):
successful and you diverted off that.
Uh no this was our this is my first business that
we've that i've ever run but that
doesn't mean there hasn't been hurdles that we've had to we've just
had to call over them how much
capital did you start your business with we put in
a thousand pounds each so we have three thousand pounds to start
(33:52):
with wow so there you go everybody that's literally
a thousand pounds to 60 million in revenue and in
how many years we're approaching our
sixth birthday wow wow wow
wow wow very very cool very impressive honestly i
think thank you so much for joining us on the podcast i
(34:13):
think with you know i think any business owner
can sort of take away some snippets of advice
from yourself i think it's just awesome to be
able to see the success that you've achieved and
also with a cool head usually i'd say
at 27 and having that weight of you know 130 odd
families on your shoulders is you know it should be stressful but hopefully
(34:35):
you know it's it's amazing that you've you've been able to navigate through
everything and specifically going through covid as well i suppose that was then
well what was that going into your third year so So when was the first one? Probably.
Yeah, it was early on. I can't remember exactly. So you sort of know what to
(34:56):
expect if the world collapses again.
So, I mean, it's a very painful lesson, but you know how to navigate it.
So really, really interesting. But yeah, thank you so much for joining.
And if anybody wants to sort of find out more about you or your business,
what's the best way that they can find out more about you? Head into our website, probably.
Yeah, or give us a Google. or there's a few bits and pieces out there but um
(35:18):
yeah most of it's on our website awesome thanks so much amy i really appreciate
your time thanks for having me.
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