Welcome Back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why do you wake up every day and work on mama, may I do this because I know that parents deserve better um and we deserve better products and our kids deserve better. And so being able to connect with other parents with similar age Children who are getting that support that they need for mama made, who can't live without us, you know, who are buying extra freezers just to be able to hold more products. Um it's it's an incredible feeling and is the main reason why you have to keep going. I love that Question. Number two is in your journey building this business. What's been your favorite marketing moment so far? I actually would say again, and not just because of the theme of this episode, I would say that first um cedars campaign that we ran was just it was an incredible way to build validation and authority um in trust in the brand because we got our customers that we're really buying into what we were doing and then from a kind of like profile professional peers point of view, also kind of getting welcomed into this kind of startup ecosystem because it was very validating in that way.

So yeah, I would definitely say that that first cedars campaign for sure, love that amazing question. Number three is at the moment, what's your go to business resource, like what are you reading in terms of newsletters or books or podcasts that keep you kind of up to date and you know, learning, I guess. I've actually recently stopped reading too much business stuff. I've actually been trying to tap into more of my creative side because that's ultimately what I love doing, that's like where I get my energy from. And I felt like I was getting very bogged down in the kind of like, running a business stuff or like, yeah, I just wasn't getting enough of like, creative side of my brain going. So I've been listening more to podcasts about like, creative writing and trying to incorporate more of that into my life to try to balance things out a little bit more. So I actually haven't been actually purposely avoiding this. I love that this one obviously, obviously I'm kidding.

So for creative writing, like, do you have a recommendation? Sounds really interesting. I have been listening to there's this amazing woman, Penny Winter um she is Australian, Australian, but she's been living in the UK for years. Um and she has a podcast called, not called, not too busy to write, which is just people who have busy lives like me, like you who just make a point out of their day to sit and write. And for me it's been fascinating because I think I always think of like, okay, this is my job and this is all I'm doing and then I feel sort of like, oh, but I wanna, there's other things I want to be doing. And so yeah, it's just nice to hear how people balance their busy lives. I think in a, in a way that's not about like business work life balance, it's much more about feeding that creative part of your soul. Oh, I love that. I'm gonna check that out for sure. Thank you. Great recommendation question number four is how do you win the day? What are your am or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and motivated and self care, loved. I love that.

I've been, I've put a lot of pressure on myself over the years to have that kind of like perfect routine. But when you have like two small kids, I feel like it's really hard to have everyday look the same. So instead I've been thinking more about like overall like weekly things that I want to do more of. And so for me that is yeah, making sure I have that time to do kind of more of that creative writing stuff that I feel like spills me up so like journaling or something like that. Making sure I make time to speak to the people. I love making sure I have time to just like be quiet by myself because I'm very much an introvert who needs that. And yeah, just kind of giving into the reality that every day is going to be a bit hectic. But if over the course of the week, I kind of take those boxes. It helps me keep a bit more stable. Mm Absolutely. I feel like I'm the same. I need a lot of like, quiet time of just like being by myself. I used to not be like that though. I changed during Covid, I realized I was a lot more introverted than I thought I was. I get like really overstimulated, which I never, ever experienced before.

So I've actually started to go to these sensory deprivation pods, like sort of obsessed. It's like, yeah, yeah, I haven't done it before. Oh my God, it's you're literally just like in pure darkness. No distractions. No. Sounds um Yeah, I need, I need that. Like, I, I get so overwhelmed by like, my senses just get very overwhelmed. Yeah, I need to try that. I've looked into that before. That sounds so cool. Question # five, What is your worst money mistake in the business? And how much did it cost you? Gosh, Where to begin? I like, like look back at all the expenses that I wish I could get back. I regret paying influencers as much as we have paid influencers. Um is the truth. I think being mindful of why you want an influencer to be paid. So, if it's, for example, there's a specific kind of content you would like to have created. I think it's very worthwhile, but in my experience, it does not always translate into a return on your investment.

And oftentimes if they love your product, they will just post it because they're happy to have it in their lives. So I know it's a fine balance because obviously I want to like support people whose careers it is to create content, but as a brand whose young, I do feel like we've wasted quite a bit of money on influencers though, we wouldn't be here without them. Most of the great influencer support we've gotten is from just genuine fans who I suspect would have kept posting for us anyway. So I don't know, a bit of a controversial take, but yeah, no, but I see it, I see it what's a like dollar figure of like an influencer you worked with ballpark that, you know, it just didn't drive any R o I like, are we talking like 1000 $13,000 campaign? No, No. So like we've done things like that, where I do feel like it's been great and we've gotten the content and they've gotten paid and we continue to work with them, but we've also paid influencers like £6,000 for real. That. But yeah, we have, we have some like, we basically see it as like, there's some influencers are content creators, we have them on retainer and are amazing for us um and it's a love love situation.

Um and other influencers where it's been like, we've paid a bit more because they have bigger audiences and I just don't know, you need to have that connection, I think with one another for it to really work. I actually love that as an idea having the content creators who actually really do drive results and, and actually do really love the product and have a more organic vibe to promoting the content on a retainer where you just work with them on going like you find those kind of unicorn creators and then they're just like part of the business and part of your strategy. Yeah, exactly. It just works better because then you get that actual solid messaging and Yeah, 100% question number six. Last question, What is just a crazy story you can share in building this business good, bad or ugly on the topic of influencers. Actually, we had um, one influencer whose love, she's got like over a million followers she posted for us actually last january. So we had just raised money, but this was before the money actually made it into account. Um, so we were a bit sort of tight on funds, a bit stretched um, and she posted for us and we made so many sales in one night, which like you think would be amazing, but it was actually like one of the most stressful experiences I've ever had because we genuinely weren't sure if we'd be able to fulfill the orders.

I was like, it was like, we, yeah, I'll never forget that moment where I was like, is this gonna be what puts us out of business, like we sold so much product that we can't actually sell like we can actually fulfill them and we'll have to cancel. It was just this like crazy moment um like how many orders, what are we talking as in like the month? I'll tell you like I can remember exactly. So I think in december that year we were doing like 45 K and monthly sales and then that january because of how many times this one influencer posted, we went up To like £70,000 in sales. So like it was like almost double overnight which like we we just weren't set up. We just didn't, it wasn't like in any version of any model, was that something that was gonna happen? Oh my God, it's like everyone's dream but it becomes so stressful. It actually like it exposed a lot of weaknesses in our in our supply chain and our production in a way it was a blessing because we've we've come back from that a lot stronger and we were able to kind of fix a lot based on that.

But it was yeah it was and we actually had a new starter like that week and I feel like she came and it was just like everything was was madness and she's still with us so she obviously wasn't scared off. But yeah that was like one of these stories where you just don't think about it when you have a physical product, it costs you something to make it. So if you're not able to make it Yeah, and, and it's kind of a sense of like on paper that sounds amazing, you partner with an influencer, they blow your brand up overnight literally. But then the reality of the working capital needed to fund those orders is something you actually have to be. So you don't want just like crazy influences that work straight away from day one, you need to build that foundation and you need to build your supply chain so that you're kind of able to fulfill that so well I um yeah, crazy. I love that for you. But also, wow, honestly, it was like looking back at it, I love it for me, it was hilarious. Like we did it, we were there on like around the clock and we made it work and it's such a great like yeah, I have a startup story but it was one of the most like stressful weekends I think ever.

Just also just for what it exposed in the business in terms of what we weren't really equipped for. Um it was definitely kind of like learning the hard way, but it was a good thing in the end. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing that story and for all of the insights on this episode, I absolutely love chatting with you, I cannot wait to see you inside magic so we can go even deeper on the process and the document and all the other bits and bobs that haven't been on the show. Thank you so much. Sophie no thank you, it's been fun. Um and yeah I'm looking forward to joining the crew on Magic. Hey it's dune here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the female startup club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out female startup club dot com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter, we send it out weekly covering female founder business news insights and learnings in D. C. And interesting business resources. And if you're a founder building an e commerce brand you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called hype Club at female startup club dot com forward slash hype club.

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