January 14, 2024 • 21 mins
Embark on an empowering journey with Lisa Eaton, a trailblazing tech entrepreneur who's not only defied the odds but is also shaping the future for female founders. As Lisa unveils her brainchild, Fabric—an inventive online training platform—listeners get an insider's look at her transition from service-based businesses to spearheading a tech company. She shares her own candid experiences, highlighting the hurdles she faced as a woman in the tech investment arena, and presents invaluable advice for entrepreneurs weighing their options.
Listen to learn:
-Lisa's unique insights on identifying market opportunities, nailing product-market fit, and the indispensable role of strategic marketing
- The impact of aligning educational resources with industry demands
- How to remain authentic in a space with gender biases
- How Lisa has mastered the art of public speaking and storytelling to captivate investors
#NPWPodcast #ListenNow #Podcast #WeArePower
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
The Northern Power Women Podcast for your career
and your life, no matter whatbusiness you're in.
Welcome to the Northern PowerWomen Podcast.
My name is Simone and thispodcast is all about
highlighting the phenomenal,fabulous role models, enabling
them to share their personal andprofessional stories with you.
We hope to bring you some greattop tips, advice, guidance,
(00:43):
support and strategies, whateverit is that will help you
navigate your way on throughyour own career path and journey
.
Without further ado, let's meetthis week's guest.
Today.
I'm joined by Lisa Eton, whohas recently recognised as one
of the most 23 influential womenin 23 by Startups Magazine in
Women in Tech Female FoundersIssue.
It's also a non-technicalfounder and public speaker.
(01:06):
A non-technical founder, thatsounds very technical.
Anyway, hello, lisa.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome to the pod.
Hi Simone, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's great to be here it was great to meet you before
Christmas.
Actually, you were over inLiverpool at a Female Founders
event, weren't you?
Which was a brilliant,brilliant panel.
Sometimes you don't find thetime to go to everything,
especially now we're full onback into face to face stuff.
I thought it was a reallypowerful panel.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It was.
It was a brilliant event.
Female Founders Rises has beenreally instrumental for me over
the last year, but it was verySouthern based Shocker.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I've been here for a long time about.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Can we get it up north?
We need it up here.
The event you and I met at wasthe last of the Northern tour
we've done.
We've done Edinburgh, newcastle, leeds and Liverpool.
There's going to be a lot moreof that coming this year, so
it's really exciting.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's really important , isn't it?
It's really important becauseeveryone has challenges in their
own roles, but actually thechallenges of building a company
from nothing.
It doesn't come with thistoolkit, does it?
Or guidebook?
How did you approach buildingyour company from the ground up?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, fabric isn't my first business.
It's actually my third business, so I'd had a little bit of
experience prior to fabric interms of building a company from
the ground up, growing it andmaking sure that it was a
sustainable business.
I guess this was a verydifferent type of business to
what I'd been used to and, quitenaively I guess, I went into it
(02:39):
thinking it would run verysimilarly to the other
businesses I'd had, which wereservice-based consultancy
marketing agency businesses.
It did not.
It's a very different type ofbusiness.
It's a SASS tech company.
So there was a lot of learningsaround that, almost the
learnings that I'd had over thelast 10 years in the other
business, kind of unpicking themand starting again.
(03:01):
But yeah, I guess for me, one ofmy massive passions has always
been taking something fromnothing this idea, this concept
and building it into an actualproduct or a brand or a business
.
So it's what I really love todo and there was a real need.
I'd seen a real gap in themarket for fabric and what we
now offer.
(03:22):
So it felt like a reallysensible route to build a new
business in COVID notnecessarily the most sensible
time, but it worked in our favoractually.
So yeah, and I guess for me itwas just following those steps
that I'd done originally makesure you there's a need in the
market there.
Make sure you understand youraudience.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Make sure you've got product market fit and build
from there and just tell us abit about fabric.
Like you said, you've createdit, or the idea came during
COVID.
So why was it so important tocreate?
Yeah, well, we're an onlinetraining platform.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So we work with businesses around the world to
help educate, upskill theirmarketing teams.
The reason fabric came aboutwas I was actually not intending
on building another business atall.
I had enough on my plate withthe business I had.
But one of the challenges I hadin that marketing agency was
recruiting really good strategicmarketing talent.
(04:15):
So not marketers who could justtactically deliver, but
marketers who could understand abusiness's ambitions and growth
plans, pick apart that businessplan and then build a marketing
strategy to activate thatgrowth.
And that was on niche servicein the agency.
That's what we were well knownfor.
And this lack of skill in theNortheast I thought originally
(04:36):
it was the Northeast regionalarea but this lack of skill set
around strategic marketers wasreally starting to hinder our
growth.
So initially we were building atraining academy for the agency
as a recruitment talentpipeline, but realized very
quickly doing a research piecethat what education was,
teaching and marketing was justreally out of date.
What was being taught by CIMwas quite misaligned with what
(04:59):
industry really needed formarketers to succeed, and so it
felt really obvious to justbuild this product that we felt
would really fit the market andequip marketers to be successful
in their roles.
So it was a bit of an organicjourney, if I'm honest around.
You know, there's a problem, weknow how to solve it, we can
solve it for ourselves, but infact actually there's a much
(05:23):
bigger and wider need for this,not just UK wide but globally.
And so that's how the idea cameabout, really kind of trying to
serve that.
That missing alignment betweenI guess bridging the gap between
education and industry wasalways our plan.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And you're?
Would you identify as a serialentrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I guess.
So Probably not a type that Iwould give myself, but this is
my third business and I've alsohad property businesses and
things as well.
So I guess, yes, probably so,and what so?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
what was the challenge that surprised you
most about fabric?
And setting fabric up otherthan COVID was a challenge for
us all.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, covid was great for fabric in a sense
because it was very quiet in theagency and I therefore had some
brain space to really thinkabout building and getting a new
business off the ground.
Had COVID not happened, I'm notsure we would have ever made
the progress we made early dayswith fabric.
I think it would have been alot slower.
But I think for me one of thebig challenges is when we took
(06:24):
the MVP to market, we knew wehad something great.
I don't think we quite knew howvast it could grow and how
quickly it would grow.
And of course, we were right atthe very beginning and there was
me and one person part time, sothere was a one and a half of
us and it grew quickly and weweren't quite set up for that.
(06:46):
You know.
You know you want, you wantgrowth in the business, but you
want sensible and scalablegrowth at times and milestones
where you're ready and set forit, not where it will break you.
So it it ran quicker than wewere ready for in the early days
and that was a challenge tothen try and make sure we were
protecting the reputation,protecting the product,
(07:07):
protecting the brand, but webootstrapped the business.
So we didn't have unlimitedamounts of cash to suddenly, you
know, staff up.
So that was a real challengebalancing, you know, the demand
for the product with theresource that we had at the time
.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So what did you do?
How did you solve thatchallenge?
We worked yourself into twoprobably.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We worked phenomenally hard.
The person I had in thebusiness with me at the time.
She eventually came in fulltime and she was a phenomenal
team member.
She, you know, she just got it.
She worked at such a pace.
She was really great.
So between her and I we werereally able to accelerate what
we wanted to do quite quickly.
Once we realized there was areal demand for this, I made a
(07:50):
really tough decision about ayear in to actually step away
from the agency altogether andfocus my attention full time on
fabric, which made a bigdifference.
I knew that if I really wantedto make a success of fabric, I
had to be in it full time.
So so I stepped away from theother business to run this full
time and we used every tiny bitof revenue that we got to invest
(08:13):
straight back into the businessand very slowly started to
build.
But there is only so far thatyou can go with bootstrapping
before you start to hinder thatnext growth milestone, and that
was the prompt at that pointactually for us to raise
investment.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And there's so many reports out there, aren't there
about?
You know how much harder it isfor women to raise investment in
, particularly in male dominatedareas as well, and I know this
is absolutely a topic that thepanel that I watched you speak
on last year was was really verymuch focused and signposted to
this.
(08:49):
But how did you sort of tacklethat, that whole challenge
around gaining investment.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Quite honestly, it was like a baptism of fire,
simone.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Was that the first time you'd gone through
investment?
Absolutely, because that wassomething that stood.
You know, I've been running abusiness for quite a few years,
but you talk about raising,don't you?
You talk about raising, youknow, and it was this language I
was thinking.
I've heard this talked aboutbefore, but actually it was
great to have two people on thepanel who'd kind of been through
this.
But what was your?
How did you get through that?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
back to I was really lucky in the early days that I
had a really early stageinvestor, an angel investor,
who'd prompted me to startthinking about investment, and
there happened to be anaccelerator that was launching
up in the northeast just at thattime which I applied for and I
got a place on.
(09:41):
So the accelerator wasbrilliant for just really quick
and intense learning over a12-week period and I was exposed
to all sorts of differentfounders, investors, vc's, p's.
I went overseas and had sometime in San Francisco to see
what the investment world lookedlike out there.
So it was a really great way tolearn.
(10:03):
But it was a steep learningcurve.
I mean the language, what yousaid there is.
The language is so verydifferent you know the acronyms
that half of the time I didn'tunderstand what people were
talking about or when they wereasking me questions.
The metrics that I was beingasked about was so different to
the businesses that I've been inbefore.
So it was a steep learningcurve.
(10:24):
But I think I learned most ofwhat I did with my investment on
the job as such, like whilst Iwas physically in the raise.
So I did the accelerator fromthe September through the
December and then opened theraise initially in the February,
and you know there was lots ofmistakes made along the way.
(10:45):
It wasn't plain sailing by anymeans and when I look back now
in hindsight there was so manyobvious things I could have done
differently.
But when you're doing somethingfor the first time, you've got.
You know.
You, like you say there's noguidebook for this, there's no
science behind it, you've justgot to go and try and make it
work like grown a business.
So for me, it was very much acase of find a number of angel
(11:06):
investors that I thought alignedwith our mission, that could
fill some of the skills gapsthat we had currently in the
business.
So it was very much about addedvalue, expertise, networks and
cash, not just cash, and I wasvery picky and choosy about who
I went to speak to.
I was quite strategic about theangel investors I went after,
if you like, and so for me thatwas the start of it reaching out
(11:32):
to those people who I thoughtcould be aligned with the
mission and help us get therequicker, both by their kind of
expertise or past experience and, you know, bringing some money
to the table.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
What advice would you give to anyone listening out
there today who thinks thatinvestment might be something
they want to do, but they don'tunderstand the lexicon of
gobbledygook that's out there.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Three bits of advice probably here.
One just make sure investmentis right for you, first and
foremost.
Not every business needs a cashinjection and you are giving
away equity of your business toget that cash in.
So for my last couple ofbusinesses they were
service-based businesses They'vehad very little upfront costs
(12:17):
so we were able to build themorganically and bootstrap them.
If you have a product thatneeds manufacturing or a tech
product that needs building,often you do need that cash up
front and the only way to get upand running is to take
investment.
So I would say, just do yourhomework around.
Is investment right for me inmy business and do I really need
it?
There's a great book on thiscalled the SAS Playbook, which
(12:40):
talks about building a techbusiness and predominantly
bootstrapping it, and there'slots of different ways in it,
but it's a really great.
It's pros and cons aroundinvestment.
My second bit of advice isprobably I learned from one of
the mistakes I made know whoyou're going to and what type of
investment you want.
(13:01):
So I spent a long time in thebeginning thinking I was going
to go to VCs and go for VCinvestment and, quite honestly,
we weren't quite prepared or inthe right space for VCs.
We should have always gone theangel route first, but I was in
my head I had that we would goon VCs instead of doing the kind
of proper planning around it.
(13:21):
If I'd gone straight to angelsI would have done it much
quicker.
So just know the differenttypes of investment you can take
and try and figure out whichone is right for you in the
early days and then go fullforce with that one.
And I guess my last bit ofadvice is just it takes a lot of
time to fundraise.
There is absolutely no two waysabout it.
(13:43):
So trying to juggle running thebusiness with fundraising is
extremely difficult.
You need Ideally most peoplewill have a co-founder.
They can keep the kind ofwheels turning in the business.
I didn't have a co-founder.
I was lucky that I had a reallyexcellent team, but they were a
very young and inexperiencedteam, so leaving them for really
(14:05):
long periods of time was aworry to me.
They absolutely smashed it andthey did phenomenal, but you are
out of the business for longperiods of time.
So just be aware of that andplan for that, because that can
also have an impact on yourgrowth, on your finances, on
your team on your customers.
So just plan for that period ofabsence as well.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I'm literally taking it all in now, taking all the
finance.
What do you say to people outthere who suggest that women
need to be less feminine in theinvestment-seeking world in
order to succeed?
I've heard some horror storiesover the years where people said
oh, I've had to add, I've hadto make sure I've got mailboard
members who've actually gone inand pitched instead of me,
(14:48):
because otherwise I wouldn't betaken seriously.
What do you say to that?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Am I allowed to say this that it's completely
bollocks Like is that okay?
Absolutely.
I mean.
There is conflicting opinionson this right.
Of course there is, and I wastold a lot that I wouldn't get
funded because I was a solofounder not necessarily a female
, but a solo founder.
So a lot of the advice I gotfrom VCs was go and find a
(15:12):
co-founder.
They were most definitelyfavourable funding bids made to
mail counterparts.
But quite frankly, I trulybelieve you have to be your
authentic self.
You are going to pitch to thesepeople in an early stage of a
company.
They're buying into you thefounder or the founding team and
(15:33):
if you're trying to be lessfeminine or more aggressive or
more masculine or more, but likeyou're not your real self, it's
really difficult for them toget a feel of who you really are
and if you're capable of doingwhat you say you're going to do.
So I genuinely believe you'vejust got to go and give it your
all you know give, puteverything behind it, but be who
you are, truly who you are.
(15:55):
And for me, I think that reallyworked in my favor because the
angels that did buy into me andcame in into our initial round
they really did buy into me andI didn't put this pretense on.
I was very open, honest,transparent, vulnerable, excited
, ambitious, like all thosethings that a good mix of a
founder should be.
(16:15):
But you know, these people arereal people as well.
They're not expecting you to besuper human.
They want to see you know thatvulnerable side as well.
So I would say don't, don'tchange who you are, and just
that.
That way you'll find the righttype of investor who really will
back you and, you know, fitwith your vision.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And you clearly are somebody that is positive and
has that positive outlook, evenwhen things are a little bit
tricky or unknown.
Is that something?
Is that authentically who youare?
Or sometimes do you have toreally kind of put a brave face
on some time?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
No, I think that's really authentically who I am.
You know, like that's not tosay, I don't have my moments of
worry or panic, or you know crap, are we going to make it
another day?
Like you know that stuff comeswith the job, doesn't it?
But I tend not to over worry.
I always think that you knowthere is a solution to almost
every problem out there.
You've just got to be willingto find it, and some are easier
(17:15):
to find than others.
The pandemic, for most people,you know particularly I mean the
business I had in the pandemicwe lost 83% of our revenue over
that first three month period.
And you know, I had the biggestteam I'd ever had.
I'd had fixed overheads that Icouldn't move.
You know we weren't aparticularly cash rich business,
you know.
So we had a buffer, but notthat lasted us the whole period.
(17:37):
And for me, I kind of thrived inthat strange environment of,
you know, initial panic, bloodyhell, what are we going to do
here?
And then, right, how are wegoing to fix this?
What are we going to do to fixthis?
And so for me, I've alwaysbelieved that you know, you will
get yourself into a problem atsome point.
Something will you know,there'll be a curveball throne
that you just weren't expecting,and nine times out of 10, it's
(17:59):
a curveball you've neverencountered before and you've
got no idea how to navigateyourself out of it.
But you will and you can.
You've just got to be willingto find the way out.
So I think I've always had thatmindset from being very young,
and I think that served meprobably quite well through my
business journey.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And you are.
You speak at a lot of events,podcasts.
That is something that doesn'tcome naturally to everyone.
Is this something that you'vealways enjoyed doing, or you
know you're really using that,that, your power for good to
pass on your knowledge andguidance.
What doesn't come come that wayto everyone?
What advice would you give topeople out there that think, oh,
I couldn't do that?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
You know, again, this is not something that I've
struggled with a huge amount,but I think it's because I've
been doing it for such a longtime and not always public
speaking around business or myspecialism, which is marketing.
But my very first business wasa salsa business and I used to
stand up in front of 100 peopleand teach salsa and, madly
enough, I think that hasprepared me a lot for public
(19:02):
speaking.
So, you know, it was anenvironment which was very
relaxed.
It was a passion of mine.
It wasn't, you know, although Iwas running a business, the
teaching of the lesson was apassion.
You know, we had huge groupsand I was constantly switching
between different mindsets,men's steps, women's steps,
couple of steps to to teach in apublic environment.
So I think that earlyfoundation served me really well
(19:25):
.
I also just think I genuinelylove going to see speakers, like
it's one of my absolutefavorite things to do.
It's something that I've alwaysdone, from being really young,
and I'm constantly inspired bypeople's stories.
I love their stories, that upsand downs and all the
in-betweens, and it's helped meon my business kind of path so
much.
So I genuinely think, no matterwhat what you think about your
(19:49):
story, somebody will beinterested and it will help
somebody overcome something thatthey're facing.
And therefore, I just think youknow, even if it feels scary,
you know, we're all just people,at the end of the day they're
people who have come to listento you.
Somebody will be interested,somebody will take something
away, and that's all you need togain from it.
And I guess just the more youdo it, you know, the more
(20:12):
comfortable you get, the betteryou get.
So, yeah, for me, just putyourself out there and think
about it as giving back.
If you can tell somebodysomething that would save them
doing something you did furtherdown the line, or if you'd had
that advice early on, it's areally powerful thing.
So, yeah, I'm really passionateabout sharing that knowledge.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Absolutely, and I'm so glad you have today and I've
seen you speak on that panel.
That's why I wanted you to joinus on the podcast today, lisa.
Thank you so so much forsharing your time, your insight,
your positivity with us today.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been brilliant and I loveNorthern Power Women.
You're doing a phenomenal job,so keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh, bless you, Thank you.
Thank you so much and thank youall of you for listening out
there today.
Please do keep the conversationgoing on.
All our socials at North PowerWomen on Twitter and Northern
Power Women on all the othersocials Check in via our digital
hub.
We are powernet for all of ourwebinars, our podcasts, our
virtual mentoring sessions thatwe have as well, so please do
(21:12):
stay connected.
My name is Simone.
I'm a host of Northern PowerWomen Podcasts and what goes on
media production.
The Northern Power Women Podcast for your career
and your life, no matter whatbusiness you're in.
Welcome to the Northern PowerWomen Podcast.
My name is Simone and thispodcast is all about
highlighting the phenomenal,fabulous role models, enabling
them to share their personal andprofessional stories with you.
We hope to bring you some greattop tips, advice, guidance,
(00:43):
support and strategies, whateverit is that will help you
navigate your way on throughyour own career path and journey
.
Without further ado, let's meetthis week's guest.
Today.
I'm joined by Lisa Eton, whohas recently recognised as one
of the most 23 influential womenin 23 by Startups Magazine in
Women in Tech Female FoundersIssue.
It's also a non-technicalfounder and public speaker.
(01:06):
A non-technical founder, thatsounds very technical.
Anyway, hello, lisa.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome to the pod.
Hi Simone, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's great to be here it was great to meet you before
Christmas.
Actually, you were over inLiverpool at a Female Founders
event, weren't you?
Which was a brilliant,brilliant panel.
Sometimes you don't find thetime to go to everything,
especially now we're full onback into face to face stuff.
I thought it was a reallypowerful panel.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It was.
It was a brilliant event.
Female Founders Rises has beenreally instrumental for me over
the last year, but it was verySouthern based Shocker.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I've been here for a long time about.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Can we get it up north?
We need it up here.
The event you and I met at wasthe last of the Northern tour
we've done.
We've done Edinburgh, newcastle, leeds and Liverpool.
There's going to be a lot moreof that coming this year, so
it's really exciting.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's really important , isn't it?
It's really important becauseeveryone has challenges in their
own roles, but actually thechallenges of building a company
from nothing.
It doesn't come with thistoolkit, does it?
Or guidebook?
How did you approach buildingyour company from the ground up?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, fabric isn't my first business.
It's actually my third business, so I'd had a little bit of
experience prior to fabric interms of building a company from
the ground up, growing it andmaking sure that it was a
sustainable business.
I guess this was a verydifferent type of business to
what I'd been used to and, quitenaively I guess, I went into it
(02:39):
thinking it would run verysimilarly to the other
businesses I'd had, which wereservice-based consultancy
marketing agency businesses.
It did not.
It's a very different type ofbusiness.
It's a SASS tech company.
So there was a lot of learningsaround that, almost the
learnings that I'd had over thelast 10 years in the other
business, kind of unpicking themand starting again.
(03:01):
But yeah, I guess for me, one ofmy massive passions has always
been taking something fromnothing this idea, this concept
and building it into an actualproduct or a brand or a business
.
So it's what I really love todo and there was a real need.
I'd seen a real gap in themarket for fabric and what we
now offer.
(03:22):
So it felt like a reallysensible route to build a new
business in COVID notnecessarily the most sensible
time, but it worked in our favoractually.
So yeah, and I guess for me itwas just following those steps
that I'd done originally makesure you there's a need in the
market there.
Make sure you understand youraudience.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Make sure you've got product market fit and build
from there and just tell us abit about fabric.
Like you said, you've createdit, or the idea came during
COVID.
So why was it so important tocreate?
Yeah, well, we're an onlinetraining platform.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So we work with businesses around the world to
help educate, upskill theirmarketing teams.
The reason fabric came aboutwas I was actually not intending
on building another business atall.
I had enough on my plate withthe business I had.
But one of the challenges I hadin that marketing agency was
recruiting really good strategicmarketing talent.
(04:15):
So not marketers who could justtactically deliver, but
marketers who could understand abusiness's ambitions and growth
plans, pick apart that businessplan and then build a marketing
strategy to activate thatgrowth.
And that was on niche servicein the agency.
That's what we were well knownfor.
And this lack of skill in theNortheast I thought originally
(04:36):
it was the Northeast regionalarea but this lack of skill set
around strategic marketers wasreally starting to hinder our
growth.
So initially we were building atraining academy for the agency
as a recruitment talentpipeline, but realized very
quickly doing a research piecethat what education was,
teaching and marketing was justreally out of date.
What was being taught by CIMwas quite misaligned with what
(04:59):
industry really needed formarketers to succeed, and so it
felt really obvious to justbuild this product that we felt
would really fit the market andequip marketers to be successful
in their roles.
So it was a bit of an organicjourney, if I'm honest around.
You know, there's a problem, weknow how to solve it, we can
solve it for ourselves, but infact actually there's a much
(05:23):
bigger and wider need for this,not just UK wide but globally.
And so that's how the idea cameabout, really kind of trying to
serve that.
That missing alignment betweenI guess bridging the gap between
education and industry wasalways our plan.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And you're?
Would you identify as a serialentrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I guess.
So Probably not a type that Iwould give myself, but this is
my third business and I've alsohad property businesses and
things as well.
So I guess, yes, probably so,and what so?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
what was the challenge that surprised you
most about fabric?
And setting fabric up otherthan COVID was a challenge for
us all.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean, covid was great for fabric in a sense
because it was very quiet in theagency and I therefore had some
brain space to really thinkabout building and getting a new
business off the ground.
Had COVID not happened, I'm notsure we would have ever made
the progress we made early dayswith fabric.
I think it would have been alot slower.
But I think for me one of thebig challenges is when we took
(06:24):
the MVP to market, we knew wehad something great.
I don't think we quite knew howvast it could grow and how
quickly it would grow.
And of course, we were right atthe very beginning and there was
me and one person part time, sothere was a one and a half of
us and it grew quickly and weweren't quite set up for that.
(06:46):
You know.
You know you want, you wantgrowth in the business, but you
want sensible and scalablegrowth at times and milestones
where you're ready and set forit, not where it will break you.
So it it ran quicker than wewere ready for in the early days
and that was a challenge tothen try and make sure we were
protecting the reputation,protecting the product,
(07:07):
protecting the brand, but webootstrapped the business.
So we didn't have unlimitedamounts of cash to suddenly, you
know, staff up.
So that was a real challengebalancing, you know, the demand
for the product with theresource that we had at the time
.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So what did you do?
How did you solve thatchallenge?
We worked yourself into twoprobably.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We worked phenomenally hard.
The person I had in thebusiness with me at the time.
She eventually came in fulltime and she was a phenomenal
team member.
She, you know, she just got it.
She worked at such a pace.
She was really great.
So between her and I we werereally able to accelerate what
we wanted to do quite quickly.
Once we realized there was areal demand for this, I made a
(07:50):
really tough decision about ayear in to actually step away
from the agency altogether andfocus my attention full time on
fabric, which made a bigdifference.
I knew that if I really wantedto make a success of fabric, I
had to be in it full time.
So so I stepped away from theother business to run this full
time and we used every tiny bitof revenue that we got to invest
(08:13):
straight back into the businessand very slowly started to
build.
But there is only so far thatyou can go with bootstrapping
before you start to hinder thatnext growth milestone, and that
was the prompt at that pointactually for us to raise
investment.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And there's so many reports out there, aren't there
about?
You know how much harder it isfor women to raise investment in
, particularly in male dominatedareas as well, and I know this
is absolutely a topic that thepanel that I watched you speak
on last year was was really verymuch focused and signposted to
this.
(08:49):
But how did you sort of tacklethat, that whole challenge
around gaining investment.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Quite honestly, it was like a baptism of fire,
simone.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Was that the first time you'd gone through
investment?
Absolutely, because that wassomething that stood.
You know, I've been running abusiness for quite a few years,
but you talk about raising,don't you?
You talk about raising, youknow, and it was this language I
was thinking.
I've heard this talked aboutbefore, but actually it was
great to have two people on thepanel who'd kind of been through
this.
But what was your?
How did you get through that?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
back to I was really lucky in the early days that I
had a really early stageinvestor, an angel investor,
who'd prompted me to startthinking about investment, and
there happened to be anaccelerator that was launching
up in the northeast just at thattime which I applied for and I
got a place on.
(09:41):
So the accelerator wasbrilliant for just really quick
and intense learning over a12-week period and I was exposed
to all sorts of differentfounders, investors, vc's, p's.
I went overseas and had sometime in San Francisco to see
what the investment world lookedlike out there.
So it was a really great way tolearn.
(10:03):
But it was a steep learningcurve.
I mean the language, what yousaid there is.
The language is so verydifferent you know the acronyms
that half of the time I didn'tunderstand what people were
talking about or when they wereasking me questions.
The metrics that I was beingasked about was so different to
the businesses that I've been inbefore.
So it was a steep learningcurve.
(10:24):
But I think I learned most ofwhat I did with my investment on
the job as such, like whilst Iwas physically in the raise.
So I did the accelerator fromthe September through the
December and then opened theraise initially in the February,
and you know there was lots ofmistakes made along the way.
(10:45):
It wasn't plain sailing by anymeans and when I look back now
in hindsight there was so manyobvious things I could have done
differently.
But when you're doing somethingfor the first time, you've got.
You know.
You, like you say there's noguidebook for this, there's no
science behind it, you've justgot to go and try and make it
work like grown a business.
So for me, it was very much acase of find a number of angel
(11:06):
investors that I thought alignedwith our mission, that could
fill some of the skills gapsthat we had currently in the
business.
So it was very much about addedvalue, expertise, networks and
cash, not just cash, and I wasvery picky and choosy about who
I went to speak to.
I was quite strategic about theangel investors I went after,
if you like, and so for me thatwas the start of it reaching out
(11:32):
to those people who I thoughtcould be aligned with the
mission and help us get therequicker, both by their kind of
expertise or past experience and, you know, bringing some money
to the table.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
What advice would you give to anyone listening out
there today who thinks thatinvestment might be something
they want to do, but they don'tunderstand the lexicon of
gobbledygook that's out there.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Three bits of advice probably here.
One just make sure investmentis right for you, first and
foremost.
Not every business needs a cashinjection and you are giving
away equity of your business toget that cash in.
So for my last couple ofbusinesses they were
service-based businesses They'vehad very little upfront costs
(12:17):
so we were able to build themorganically and bootstrap them.
If you have a product thatneeds manufacturing or a tech
product that needs building,often you do need that cash up
front and the only way to get upand running is to take
investment.
So I would say, just do yourhomework around.
Is investment right for me inmy business and do I really need
it?
There's a great book on thiscalled the SAS Playbook, which
(12:40):
talks about building a techbusiness and predominantly
bootstrapping it, and there'slots of different ways in it,
but it's a really great.
It's pros and cons aroundinvestment.
My second bit of advice isprobably I learned from one of
the mistakes I made know whoyou're going to and what type of
investment you want.
(13:01):
So I spent a long time in thebeginning thinking I was going
to go to VCs and go for VCinvestment and, quite honestly,
we weren't quite prepared or inthe right space for VCs.
We should have always gone theangel route first, but I was in
my head I had that we would goon VCs instead of doing the kind
of proper planning around it.
(13:21):
If I'd gone straight to angelsI would have done it much
quicker.
So just know the differenttypes of investment you can take
and try and figure out whichone is right for you in the
early days and then go fullforce with that one.
And I guess my last bit ofadvice is just it takes a lot of
time to fundraise.
There is absolutely no two waysabout it.
(13:43):
So trying to juggle running thebusiness with fundraising is
extremely difficult.
You need Ideally most peoplewill have a co-founder.
They can keep the kind ofwheels turning in the business.
I didn't have a co-founder.
I was lucky that I had a reallyexcellent team, but they were a
very young and inexperiencedteam, so leaving them for really
(14:05):
long periods of time was aworry to me.
They absolutely smashed it andthey did phenomenal, but you are
out of the business for longperiods of time.
So just be aware of that andplan for that, because that can
also have an impact on yourgrowth, on your finances, on
your team on your customers.
So just plan for that period ofabsence as well.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I'm literally taking it all in now, taking all the
finance.
What do you say to people outthere who suggest that women
need to be less feminine in theinvestment-seeking world in
order to succeed?
I've heard some horror storiesover the years where people said
oh, I've had to add, I've hadto make sure I've got mailboard
members who've actually gone inand pitched instead of me,
(14:48):
because otherwise I wouldn't betaken seriously.
What do you say to that?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Am I allowed to say this that it's completely
bollocks Like is that okay?
Absolutely.
I mean.
There is conflicting opinionson this right.
Of course there is, and I wastold a lot that I wouldn't get
funded because I was a solofounder not necessarily a female
, but a solo founder.
So a lot of the advice I gotfrom VCs was go and find a
(15:12):
co-founder.
They were most definitelyfavourable funding bids made to
mail counterparts.
But quite frankly, I trulybelieve you have to be your
authentic self.
You are going to pitch to thesepeople in an early stage of a
company.
They're buying into you thefounder or the founding team and
(15:33):
if you're trying to be lessfeminine or more aggressive or
more masculine or more, but likeyou're not your real self, it's
really difficult for them toget a feel of who you really are
and if you're capable of doingwhat you say you're going to do.
So I genuinely believe you'vejust got to go and give it your
all you know give, puteverything behind it, but be who
you are, truly who you are.
(15:55):
And for me, I think that reallyworked in my favor because the
angels that did buy into me andcame in into our initial round
they really did buy into me andI didn't put this pretense on.
I was very open, honest,transparent, vulnerable, excited
, ambitious, like all thosethings that a good mix of a
founder should be.
(16:15):
But you know, these people arereal people as well.
They're not expecting you to besuper human.
They want to see you know thatvulnerable side as well.
So I would say don't, don'tchange who you are, and just
that.
That way you'll find the righttype of investor who really will
back you and, you know, fitwith your vision.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And you clearly are somebody that is positive and
has that positive outlook, evenwhen things are a little bit
tricky or unknown.
Is that something?
Is that authentically who youare?
Or sometimes do you have toreally kind of put a brave face
on some time?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
No, I think that's really authentically who I am.
You know, like that's not tosay, I don't have my moments of
worry or panic, or you know crap, are we going to make it
another day?
Like you know that stuff comeswith the job, doesn't it?
But I tend not to over worry.
I always think that you knowthere is a solution to almost
every problem out there.
You've just got to be willingto find it, and some are easier
(17:15):
to find than others.
The pandemic, for most people,you know particularly I mean the
business I had in the pandemicwe lost 83% of our revenue over
that first three month period.
And you know, I had the biggestteam I'd ever had.
I'd had fixed overheads that Icouldn't move.
You know we weren't aparticularly cash rich business,
you know.
So we had a buffer, but notthat lasted us the whole period.
(17:37):
And for me, I kind of thrived inthat strange environment of,
you know, initial panic, bloodyhell, what are we going to do
here?
And then, right, how are wegoing to fix this?
What are we going to do to fixthis?
And so for me, I've alwaysbelieved that you know, you will
get yourself into a problem atsome point.
Something will you know,there'll be a curveball throne
that you just weren't expecting,and nine times out of 10, it's
(17:59):
a curveball you've neverencountered before and you've
got no idea how to navigateyourself out of it.
But you will and you can.
You've just got to be willingto find the way out.
So I think I've always had thatmindset from being very young,
and I think that served meprobably quite well through my
business journey.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And you are.
You speak at a lot of events,podcasts.
That is something that doesn'tcome naturally to everyone.
Is this something that you'vealways enjoyed doing, or you
know you're really using that,that, your power for good to
pass on your knowledge andguidance.
What doesn't come come that wayto everyone?
What advice would you give topeople out there that think, oh,
I couldn't do that?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
You know, again, this is not something that I've
struggled with a huge amount,but I think it's because I've
been doing it for such a longtime and not always public
speaking around business or myspecialism, which is marketing.
But my very first business wasa salsa business and I used to
stand up in front of 100 peopleand teach salsa and, madly
enough, I think that hasprepared me a lot for public
(19:02):
speaking.
So, you know, it was anenvironment which was very
relaxed.
It was a passion of mine.
It wasn't, you know, although Iwas running a business, the
teaching of the lesson was apassion.
You know, we had huge groupsand I was constantly switching
between different mindsets,men's steps, women's steps,
couple of steps to to teach in apublic environment.
So I think that earlyfoundation served me really well
(19:25):
.
I also just think I genuinelylove going to see speakers, like
it's one of my absolutefavorite things to do.
It's something that I've alwaysdone, from being really young,
and I'm constantly inspired bypeople's stories.
I love their stories, that upsand downs and all the
in-betweens, and it's helped meon my business kind of path so
much.
So I genuinely think, no matterwhat what you think about your
(19:49):
story, somebody will beinterested and it will help
somebody overcome something thatthey're facing.
And therefore, I just think youknow, even if it feels scary,
you know, we're all just people,at the end of the day they're
people who have come to listento you.
Somebody will be interested,somebody will take something
away, and that's all you need togain from it.
And I guess just the more youdo it, you know, the more
(20:12):
comfortable you get, the betteryou get.
So, yeah, for me, just putyourself out there and think
about it as giving back.
If you can tell somebodysomething that would save them
doing something you did furtherdown the line, or if you'd had
that advice early on, it's areally powerful thing.
So, yeah, I'm really passionateabout sharing that knowledge.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Absolutely, and I'm so glad you have today and I've
seen you speak on that panel.
That's why I wanted you to joinus on the podcast today, lisa.
Thank you so so much forsharing your time, your insight,
your positivity with us today.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been brilliant and I loveNorthern Power Women.
You're doing a phenomenal job,so keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh, bless you, Thank you.
Thank you so much and thank youall of you for listening out
there today.
Please do keep the conversationgoing on.
All our socials at North PowerWomen on Twitter and Northern
Power Women on all the othersocials Check in via our digital
hub.
We are powernet for all of ourwebinars, our podcasts, our
virtual mentoring sessions thatwe have as well, so please do
(21:12):
stay connected.
My name is Simone.
I'm a host of Northern PowerWomen Podcasts and what goes on
media production.
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