Building a Retail Empire and Leveraging Viral Social Media Content | Brittney Saunders

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I've bootstrapped fate like we've never taken a loan we've never had any investors like when I started fate like obviously I had no idea how to be a boss I had no idea how to be a manager like I had never worked at anywhere more than a year one of the biggest takeaways that I've gotten out of this whole experience of building a brand is like those personal learnings on today's episode of agency I sat down with Britney Saunders she's the founder and CEO of Fate the host of two

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podcasts big business and high scrollers and a viral content creator Fate has almost 60 employees and is opening its fifth store here in Australia she's experienced tons of success in a short period of time from humble beginnings in Newcastle to OG YouTuber and now CEO of a retail Empire join us as we unpack how she founded fate her leadership style some of her business challenges how she overcame obstacles her social social media strategy and so much more Britney welcome to the Pod yes we're promoting they're actually not an

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official sponsor but we heard that this is your fave I don't know what it is about these have you ever tried one I've never tried a pink V A this going to be like a first impression unfortun I'm a Red Bull guy so but I'm I'm I'm happy to give it a crack looks delicious so let's have it go let we do ASMR wait this is actually just an ASMR pod we here to all the only reason we're here today for ASMR do this for my book as well you do your crack all right ready three

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two oh yours is better oh yeah he what do you think that's not bad it's not bad it's kind of sour M I see why you like it yeah like Fruity stuff yeah but this is like Fruity but a little bit sour like it's not too sweet that you get sick of ites worm yeah yeah it's really nice still waiting for the sponsor she cheers cheers to that yeah V get on it guys um Britney is taken off and I'm sure she'd love to I wish I could know how many of those I've sold cuz I've

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been flogging that on my social media for months there you go maybe you just need to start your own competitor Brands yeah that might get them talking yeah all right I'll write that down Britney welcome I've been pumped and I said to I said this to you before we jumped on which is I was excited to do this all week and it's Monday and it's Monday but then I'm like yeah but the weekends don't count as an entrepreneur it's just like one day every day is the same it's

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just mashes together I always say um I think not that it was ever one of my goals but I think if you are on an entrepreneurial journey I think a good goal to have is to I know this sounds so lame but it's true like create a life that you don't want to escape from I feel like like when I was working full-time it's like I was hanging out for Friday so that it could be the weekend or like hanging out for Christmas or whenever I was going to take annual leave um whereas now like I think one of the biggest accomplishments

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or achievements for me in my journey is I have created a life that I never feel like I need to go on a holiday away from so you get to feel like you're doing what you love every day yes it's a passion project something pursuit of it's lame like you know do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life but it's actually [ __ ] true if you can get there it's true man cuz people ask me all the time like how long do you want to run your agency before you sell out I'm like I want to run this until

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I'm dust like I feel the same I meet so many people like obviously I'm just from I just see myself as like a girl from Newcastle you know like I'm still just new and then I like come to Sydney or go to events or whatever and people like yeah so what's your exit strategy I'm like what the [ __ ] like what is that yeah like that's never been you know people start businesses and them because they want to exit them at their Peak whereas like that's never been a thought in my mind until people introduce me to

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that idea I agree because I think there's like maybe two types of entrepreneurs right there's that type that's like I want to start a business to make money and then there's someone like yourself who's just like this is rad this is interesting let me go all in yeah and then it turns into something yeah yeah but it is scary to think like one day every business is going to end like it's scary to think it is kind of scary so it's like where do you want to be when that happens do you want to see it out

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to the end which is that really really a failure if you've had a great run and then you see the end of it even if it like you know crashes down at the end like if you had an amazing time and like created so many memories in that time is it the worst thing ever I feel like in the business world people would see that as a failure you should have exited at the peak that's a good point because it's like you know a business has almost got its own lifespan in and of itself and then even if you let's just say fate

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outlives you and someone else takes over it's a different era of that company anyway so this era is kind of your era it's like Steve Jobs with apple now that Steve's gone it's like not seen as the same thing anymore I know and that's what I always think as well when people say like oh would you sell I'm like to who because I feel like fate is nothing without me yeah but then it obviously could be if someone else took it over because that's what happens with businesses but I think it is different

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and I know that we're going to talk about this but like having that personal brand mixed in with the brand is how could someone else overtake it well that's an interesting point right cuz you've been producing content since you were in your early teenage years and I think for you it sounded like your early Journey was like I want to do YouTube videos cuz they're fun cuz they're interesting and you got a kick out of your friends or you know kids at high school kind of seeing it and even a kick

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out of like just doing it yeah it was just for the fun and I think that's one of the most amazing things and I think I feel really lucky that I did start that whole YouTube thing before social media was the way that it is now whereas like obviously now we've got a lot of people that are aspiring to be content creators ticktockers like everything I don't know why I just said that ticktockers anyway just leave that in um whereas when I started it like there wasn't such thing as Instagram there

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wasn't such thing as Tik Tok Snapchat wasn't a thing um so it was just like oh what's this like this is really cool and fun I want to do this for fun so I feel like my journey on social media couldn't be any more organic than it has been and then my whole business Journey has just organically flowed from that and for you do feel okay like that's a good point right like a lot of people now feel the pressure I have to do social media cuz that's the box I need a tick yeah whereas for you you were doing it before

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that was a thing and for me I remember when I was a kid I was like 11 years old and you know how people do curbside pickup and they just like throw their furniture out and the curbside here in Australia and then a truck comes and picks everything up I saw a Windows 95 computer from my neighbor and I grabbed it and I like fixed it and I put Adobe on it and I started learning how to use uh Photoshop just for fun it was more of a hobby or a passion than anything else I got to kick out of just making cool

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stuff and designing versus trying to produce something and make money from it right yeah do you think that that's been um a bit of a superpower of yours like you were doing this before it was like quote unquote cool or like quote unquote the thing to do I definitely think it has made my entire Journey a little easier for me I guess and I genuinely I always say like I feel lucky in my friend Anita always says you're not lucky it's hard work um but I do feel lucky in a sense that I did

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start when I did because it was purely just for the passion and the fun like the fact that I then somehow built an Empire out of doing that is like amazing um and I think it would be a lot harder now if I were starting today and I could see everything that's out there now like obviously we go on Instagram we go on Tik Tok we see all these established creators and business bus and personal Brands there a blueprint out there to follow and I feel like people would feel the pressure and because everyone's

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obviously so good at content now um you're like [ __ ] like the pressure is on like I've got to this is what I'm going up against whereas because I was one of those first OG influences before that was even a word I feel like yeah I was in a really good position but you've got to remember as well like I posted a story the other day um cuz I realized On Our Fate Instagram account we' done 5,000 posts like now on your profile it's like got followers yeah that's a lot yeah posts in how many years it's

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been six years yeah six plus years um and I was like [ __ ] and then I jumped on my story and I shared that like on my podcast um Instagram account and I just said this just goes to show like you can look at me and what I'm doing now you can look at other brands and what they're doing now but like that's 5,000 posts worth of work and testing and triing and putting things out out there and seeing if it performs well and the crazy thing is as well is yeah we've done 5,000 posts and we're 6 years in

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and we're you know at this size we're still trying to figure it out yeah there's no perfect plan right no like we're still trying to go what's next and like what can we do next like how can we make this blow up even further so even after you've done six years and 5,000 posts and had a lot of had a lot of success there's still so much more to do that's a lot of work cuz that's probably two or three posts a day yeah every day for 5 years yeah yeah it's never ending

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and what's been your experience because like with fate I think it's interesting that you started as a content creator first then that word influencer got thrown around and I think we both have feelings about what that word means and what it really is um and then you started a business so like how did you go from the trajectory of okay I'm doing this because I love it I'm producing media because I get a kick out of it to okay YouTube's monetized maybe I'm gonna quit my job to I'm gonna start a company

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and like try to change an industry or shift the Paradigm of what women's fashion is yeah well um it's a bit of an interesting one so obviously I was making those YouTube videos ages ago started as passion and then somewhere through that that's when YouTube introduced monetization like all the ads on the videos you was at like 2011 oh who knows a lifetime ago remember signed up to it cuz you had to have like a minimum amount of subscribers or something and so then I was like oh this this is cool I can earn a dollar here

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and there kind of thing and so I started earning a little bit of money out of it and I was like I dropped out of school and then was working full-time like job hopping I had like over 20 jobs um up until the age of 21 and then when I got to 21 that's when I had 80,000 YouTube subscribers which was a lot back then this is 10 years ago um and I was working 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and this is when Brands had just started to clue onto the fact that they could pay YouTubers like me to promote their

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products um and what's interesting is back then it was the big Brands paying us YouTubers so like my first sponsorship ever was with Colgate wow 10 years ago it wasn't we didn't have these small businesses like that you see on social Med shipping ER yeah this was big Brands like I worked with Coca-Cola Sprite um Colgate like all these big ones um so I I threw in my job and thought [ __ ] it I can do this I can make this work I was making just enough money to like cover my went I was living in a

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share house at the time um and so over the years from ages like 21 to 24 that's when my YouTube channel really blew up and went from 880,000 subscribers to over a million and so then that's when all like the the bigger brand deals started rolling in because obviously my numbers were going up and throughout those three years of me like giving it my all like I was pumping out four or five YouTube videos a week mind you this is when we were doing like half an hour YouTube videos yeah this isn't like 10

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minut not not 30 second Tik toks like these were full freaking 30 minute Vlogs of My Life um and as that grew and I started to earn more money and then we saw the rise of Instagram so I was saying to all my YouTube subscribers you know come on over and follow me on this Instagram app and then Brands jumped onto Instagram then we were getting paid to you know hold products up against our face in a selfie because this is before like videos were a thing on Instagram it was just photos so then I was getting

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paid to hold up all these products next to my face and during all of that I started to feel like why am I doing this why am I doing this because it and I didn't like really realize it but now looking back I can see like it started off as something that was fun like those YouTube videos in high school then it blew up and it was all exciting I quit my job I got to do all these cool things but then it got to a point where I feel like I'm only doing this to do these sponsorships to make my money because

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that's how I was living so the the passion kind of seeped out it was like a it became means to an end kind of thing it became an absolute chore I got to a point where I I hated making the videos I hated setting up the tripod and get the ring light out and hey everyone like I got sick of it like you would I guess any job that you're not like loving was it because you were serving an ulterior purpose of like the brand that was paying you versus like I want to make this cuz it's cool yeah cuz it just

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started as that fun thing and then all of a sudden it was just all about the brands and the the sponsorships and everything so I always knew in all of those years of popularity that it was going to end one day like I don't know I just always would say um I do like Q&A videos back in the day on YouTube like get your followers sending questions and answer them in the next video and a lot of the questions would be like what would you what are you going to do like you know longterm and whatever and I

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would always say I know that this isn't forever for me um and I would always openly say that I knew that I wasn't going to be making YouTube videos forever and thank God cuz I couldn't like that's it's so much effort to make YouTube videos on your own and I never got to a point of like hiring a team that was helping me edit or whatever she was setting up the cameras filming coming up with the scripts the ideas uh and editing all by EDI yeah then flogging it on Instagram for everyone to

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go and watch like it was just a one person show um and so throughout those years um like in my late teens and into my early 20s like I always like I feel like my whole life actually like I always knew that I was meant to do something like I don't know if a hunch oh like it was and I don't know if that's a real thing but I feel like there are some people in the world that just grow up just knowing you're going to do something great I know that's [ __ ] lame to say what's the earliest

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memory you have of like I'm going to do some rad [ __ ] when I get I um used to do dancing when I was little um like all the time like for like 10 years and I just remember like being on the stage and just like feeling this kind of power like it's so weird but I remember just being on the stage and like having an audience staring at me and like yeah like even though I'm like eight years old like in a tutu or whatever like I just loved I guess I love like performing um so maybe that's where it

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came from did you catch a bug like was it in front of a real live audience or were you picturing this what do you mean so like when you were at and you were dancing were you actually performing to an audience also this is like you weren't doing a concert or whatever like I would like get this feeling you get a buzz out of it yeah like I just loved it like I love being on the stage so I think maybe that's where that feeling started um and then just back in high school like as soon as I turned 14 like

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I was like I'm going to get a job like I applied for macas as soon as I turned to 14 in nine months and I was there like straight after my 14th birthday um so I just had this like desperation to earn money and then like yeah I had over 20 jobs in my teens from fast food restaurants retail I tried it all sales and then I ended up in working in offices as my last kind of thing like fulltime did you find like going from job to job cuz 20 jobs by 21's a lot oh I would work places like for one month

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and then I'd go [ __ ] this I hate this on to the next was it like a frustration of like I could do it better or I don't like this or isn't a fit like how did you I just didn't like I didn't feel it and I couldn't pinpoint one thing it's not like oh the manager was rude at that one and then you know it was the environment at this one it was just like this isn't for me and like as soon as I would know I'd be out of there and applying for the next job um which was a

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terrible Habit to get into but I guess a good one as well cuz you don't want to get stuck in a job that you absolutely despised my resim was shocking but then I'd just lie like I would just leave them all off and then like extend that job for a year I was here for 5 years they going to freaking call references surely that's what I used to think um but yeah I guess just from an early age like I always felt like I knew that I wanted to do something I didn't know what it was and then that's when

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obviously I discovered YouTube so I was like yeah like here's this thing that I can do kind of thing I think I wanted to do something for myself um and throughout my late teens when I was working a billion jobs and um making those YouTube videos I didn't realize it at the time but I tried my hand at a couple of little businesses and I didn't even know that there bu I you did spray tanning in your house yes yeah for your friends like 15 bucks set up yeah set up spray tan business like I didn't set it up

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properly at all didn't have an AVN or anything just 15 bucks cash in hand you want me to come to your house I'll $5 extra and I'll be there like 20 bucks I was absolutely ripping myself off um I just did anything and everything like any that like a family friend would say do you want to do this yes like I'm there I'm doing that um um and then I also I don't know how old I would have been like maybe around 20 um I had a little uh skin care business called nkd um that I started with a friend just it

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was when we saw like Frank body like I don't know if you know Frank body coffee scrubs like that's when they started I was like oh I'm going to do that so I started this um coffee scrub thing with um my friends and I was like making the coffee scrub at home and like shipping it out from home this was when I was like in my early YouTube days still um so I guess when it came to starting fate it wasn't like I know people would look at fate now and be like oh wow like this is it's up and coming right you're about

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to open your fifth store in param and it's Talk of the Town and everyone around Australia is like watching right now yeah but like like I will openly say like when I started fate it wasn't this Grand idea like I know a lot of people think like oh you must have had a great business plan and you wanted to do women's fashion and like change the landscape of fash was like this miraculous defining moment it kind of just another one of those things like I tried the 20 something jobs I tried the

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YouTube I tried the spray tans I tried everything yeah okay let's give this other thing a go too like I didn't think beyond that moment of starting it then I didn't think one day it's going to be this like everything after that has just been a [ __ ] surprise so what was the Genesis of the idea of Fate like what was it at that time like where did it come from what was the hudge yeah well i' obviously cuz this was where my YouTube was really popular um so I had obviously worked with so many Brands by

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this point I was working with clothing brands I was doing hauls on YouTube like getting these clothes from other brands trying them on doing a try on Haul is what we called it um working with skincare Brands so so tryall is like when you try a bunch of stuff got these so and so yeah like so before Instagram reals and Tik Tok like we would do that [ __ ] on YouTube um so I guess it sprung off the back of that yeah um and just I guess I must have been thinking like if these other brands keep back to me and

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keep paying me like $5,000 to make a YouTube video then like why don't I do it myself um but again like I can't stress enough of like how much of a small idea fate was like I didn't even think like three months Beyond launching it it was just like something yep I'm going to do this right now in this moment in time and see what happens much like the coffee scrubs at home I think that's important though CU a lot of business owners that want to start something think they have to have this

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big grandiose master plan with everything figured out through to like the messaging and the content all the rest of it whereas most ideas from most entrepreneurs I talk to it's like they had a little tiny idea and it just rippled into the next into the next into the next the only thing that I knew how to do was content because I had had this YouTube channel since I was in high school the rest I had no idea it feels like just yesterday I remember sitting down on my laptop and Googling how to

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ship Parcels like how to set up a Australia Post my post business account um how to set up a Shopify store like quite literally everything that I know now I have just learned on the go and I think that's the only way that you can learn how to do business like you can be like a natural leader or whatever but all the other [ __ ] that comes along with owning a business you just have to try it do it wrong 99 times and then the 100 time you'll get it right but that's I mean that's me even now like the old

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Li bulb story like you know do a thousand things that doesn't work and then one thing does work but in this case it maybe had a little bit of success and then you just kept adding Fu going yeah and then I guess having trust in yourself and like making those next steps like if there's one thing that I've leared from my business journey is just say you've started something and you're getting some momentum with it like you then have to take that next scary step to keep it going kind of

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thing what was the earliest moment you had in Fate's I guess um Genesis where you went okay I've got this big audience from content creation and now I'm building this business because I've got a little bit of experience like through the brands I've worked with at what point were you're like w this thing's really starting to take off and I'm getting a little scared I guess the first scary thing was moving into my first Warehouse um that sounds like a big leap though yeah sounds like there's

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a lot between starting so it was in my shed we had this double garage underneath like luckily we lived in this townhouse rental and it had a big double like probably even like double and a half garage um and I said to my partner AJ because I've been with him since fate started I said you're losing your car spot like you have to park on the street cuz this is where I'm going to put my stock and my Ecom area taught myself how to do Ecom photography everything um and so we just had all the

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stock like um in Bunnings plastic tubs just lined up on the ground and a a desk and then I had my Ecom backdrop I would use girls that I know come I want to take some photos of you um and then it got to a point pretty quickly where I thought maybe I should get my own space for this and move out of the shed um so then I began looking at commercial real estate and found our first Warehouse which was like 90 square meters like it was Tiny yeah um but I remember that being so scary for me because the rent was like 35 Grand a

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year and like we're making more than 35 Grand a year year um and I had like one employee at this time who was working casually just like as a general Helper and I remember well first hiring her how scared I was to do that CU I was like What if I don't have enough things for her to do what if I don't have enough money to pay her like what if what if I don't make enough money to pay her the responsibility just amplifies cuz now you're responsible for others and now you have a commercial contract you can't

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back out on so those two things like hiring the first person and moving into that first Warehouse was really scary but I guess from that in those early on days I learned oh like if I do these scary things that feel like the right thing to do like that's when the magic starts to happen and I signed a 12mon lease at that first property um and I remember thinking [ __ ] like 12 months like that's really long you know you learn later on that 12 months in business is like 5 seconds and we like

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before the 12 months had hit we'd outgrown that space so then we moved into our second one which is then where we saw um our retail store like our first retail store in Newcastle come to life was kind of a fluke I don't know if you've heard that story no go ahead okay I'll share it with you this is one of my favorite stories my PO partner AJ's heard this 5,000 times um so we were in this 90 square meter shed and by this point I had one full-time employee and maybe like two casuals um and we were

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all just all rounders like no one had defined roles it was like we're packing orders doing customer service emails we're shooting content and uploading the images to the website the whole lot we're counting inventory we're all doing it together um and we'd outgrown that warehouse and I remember thinking I want to have a building that also has a little office in it um cuz we were literally just working in a cold shell Warehouse so I began looking and I stumbled across this big building in

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Newcastle was 500 square m so a lot bigger than 90 and it had like a stunning office up upstairs which is where we are now it's on a full circle but maybe I'll get to that later but it's a long story um had had this stunning office upstairs it had a warehouse attached so I was like perfect and then the only like the only thing was it had like a showroom downstairs and it was huge um and the rent was 120 Grand a year compared to the 30 that I was paying yeah and mind you I had like one and a

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half employees at the time like we didn't need a 500 square meter building remember saying to my partner AJ like I was just in love with the building because the office upstairs was amazing and he's like what the [ __ ] would you do with all that space like you do not need that much space and I said well we could open a shop downstairs like we could just take some of the stock that's sitting on the website and set up a shop down there and he was like come on like and then I just sat on that idea for

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ages and yeah long story short I ended up going and viewing the property and then I applied for it and signed a threeyear lease and then that was even more scary cuz I was like [ __ ] three years like that's really long um and that's the story of how our first store came to be it was only because that building that I found had a showroom downstairs and I think if I hadn't have found that building I never would have had the idea to open a store never like I think that was a bit of Fate pun intended and a bit of

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justification for AJ oh AJ like think about all the great stuff we could do with it oh yeah um so that's how the first store came to be and that was all it was ever going to be because we had it right there like we would work upstairs in the office and then we would all go downstairs to work when the shop was open like because everyone was just an allrounder um and then the only reason that we then went on to open three more stores after the one in Newcastle is because our community was asking us for

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it I remember after opening Newcastle we've been open for like let's say six months or whatever I was still figuring I didn't know anything I didn't know how to run a store like nothing uh and our Community would write on socials like when are you going to open in Sydney like when are you going to open in Melbourne and I remember I would get these comments and be like what do you mean when am I going to open somewhere else like that's not part of the plan like that was never a thought in my mind

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and it was just our community hounding us on socials like that got us to the point of like opening the second one um which is in Sydney in Westfield Miranda and then it's kind of been a bit of a snowball after then like 6 months later we open one in Brisbane and then like another 6 months later we've opened in Melbourne and now about to do the fifth one so yeah it was because of finding that building and then our community hounding me that's why we've opened the stores and it turns out it's actually really

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good idea I just love I love how like organic this has been because I think a lot of people don't realize that most businesses start this way they're very organic they're kind of like one idea leads into the next yeah that's all my journey has been it's just building on the the start of it and here we are and then regarding the showroom floor I imagine you were producing a lot of content at that time of like you in the store yes people's perception was like oh she has a store therefore maybe she's

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going to open another and then they pressure yeah so I guess I'd posted like behind the scenes videos of my life obviously like in the Years prior to opening that store but it was more like a vlog of my day and going to get my hair done and let's go get my nails done like the YouTube content or like do my makeup with me so I remember when I was opening that store I started to use my Instagram to show like I was showing us painting the change rooms and stuff and I remember being scared to post that

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content because that's not what I would usually post for all those years and it was around this time that we moved into that second big building that I was really done with YouTube like I just flogged the dead horse too much um so I think I did a couple of YouTube videos about it um but that's when I started the whole like behind the scenes showing my business thing and come to work with me today so that's when I started getting into that same kind of concept but just you were you were scared that

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it wasn't going to resonate or it was going to turn your audience off cuz my audience when I was I went from doing you know like four or five YouTube videos a week to two to one to one a month and like that's how it would happen I'd get back on the YouTube channel and be like hey everyone sorry I haven't made any videos lately and it was very much like my audience was a lot younger then cuz obviously I was younger um and it was like we miss your YouTube and like are you ever going to come back

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and because I'd done it for so long I definitely did feel guilty like I had this attachment to the YouTube channel and the subscribers cuz they' obviously essentially watch me grow up like from teens to early 20s I remember thinking like what if they don't want to see me going to work um but I just kind of Lent into it and like fully changed my content and now if you go on my Instagram the whole thing is just one massive promotion for my business like I don't promote other brands anymore just

00:30:24 - 00:31:23

organically I'll show the v's and whatever but now it's like done a full circle for me because you know I started those YouTube videos for the fun showing what I love then it turned into this cash cow thing to me getting over it and now it's back to kind of what I had originally started it for the only amazing thing in it for me is I get to promote my business at the same time but it's completely organic so like now I'm back to having fun with my social media and it's just a bonus that do you feel

00:30:54 - 00:31:49

like the pressure is relieved because you don't have this 30 minute like high production video you can just do Snippets and 30C reels and things are like quick and easy it it has gotten a lot easier in terms of that as well like with the short form content um but even then like I know Instagram now allows us to post reals up to 3 minutes so like even some of my Vlogs that I have been doing I've been going to the three minutes and I think people are starting to like that a little bit more I think

00:31:21 - 00:32:13

we went from that YouTube era of watching one hour Vlogs um so obviously then over the years Instagram and Tik Tok has made all of our attention spans really really short but now I think and especially like with the rise of podcasts as well people are kind of wanting to see that more longer is form content and I think on Tik Tok as well you can do like up to 15 minutes or something yeah they seem to be going back the other way where they make it longer again I know like I wouldn't be surprised if like in 6 to 12 months

00:31:47 - 00:32:41

it'll be back to like 15 minute make your mind out social media to be honest like I would actually prefer that because sometimes I'm like laying in bed at night on Tik Tok and like I'm so shook by like how fast I'm actually flicking through the videos like it's it can't be good for us probably not no like 2 seconds nah two seconds nah like yeah it's like you're validating whether it's good or not the algorithm just gets sharper and sharper one thing that made

00:32:13 - 00:33:04

me realized that was um going off topic here but um Tik Tok and here's a life hack for everyone if you're going on a flight Tik Tok now allows you to download videos to watch offline oh no yeah so if you go into your Tik Tok settings you can download up to 100 20 minutes of free well not free but download them so you can watch them when you're on airplane mode so I did that when I was going to Melbourne the other day 120 Minutes I was like that's perfect like that's the flight time to

00:32:39 - 00:33:34

Melbourne essentially and it made me realize because you only get those 120 Minutes worth of um Tik Tok so you can't like load more you're burning through stuff you don't like yeah so then I was like intentionally watching the whole Tik Tok and it made me realize how much we don't watch the whole thing yeah so give that a go and you'll see have ATT at allz I went to skip I was like I go back and watch the whole thing it's chewing into my 120 Minutes it's kind of funny though watching people on

00:33:07 - 00:34:02

flights without social media cuz they're like what do I do take a photo of the sunrise you know like things like that yeah well there you go you can watch Tik toks on a flight now that's new I had not heard of that so okay regarding your personality on social media because I think this is an interesting topic for people which is you know do I act myself do I create an alter ego like what percentage of my life do I glow to people for you have you as a content creator had a dilemma around how much of

00:33:34 - 00:34:34

yourself that you show and how curated it is yeah um not so much now but definitely back in my YouTube Days that's when I was obviously sharing a whole lot more of my personal life because I didn't actually have anything to share other than my personal life like it was just me in my day-to-day life around my house um which was fine for me to do back then like I was in my early 20s like I didn't know any better um but I I wouldn't say at any point did I ever like overshare or like I don't

00:34:04 - 00:35:09

have any regrets about the things that I did share back then like I really heavily shared like a past relationship of mine on my Tik Tok and then when that all Came Crashing Down it was very public and then that's when I really felt like [ __ ] like I've really what happened oh yeah it was like news articles everything like it was crazy um so I guess it's been good in a sense that my content has shifted more towards business now even though it still feels very personal and fun when you actually take a look at my

00:34:36 - 00:35:43

content I'm not actually sharing that much about my personal life yeah it's just you kind of joking around dayto day at work I'm not actually talking about my feelings or like my private life like everyone knows my partner AJ and he like features every now and then in the T Tik toks and reals um but yeah it's been really good I guess to go from that like heavy YouTube Lifestyle to still doing content now fulltime but kind of taking a step back cuz I think you definitely do need to be careful of what you do

00:35:09 - 00:35:59

share online um I mean because you never know who's out there and like you're sharing information and once it's out there it's out there there's no turning back and I think you need to have an element of privacy in your life yeah um so I guess I'm definitely more mindful now of like what I'm actually talking about on socials when it comes to my personal life and then your persona like the way you portray yourself online you're kind of you know self-deprecating and making fun

00:35:35 - 00:36:37

of things and being really funny and making fun of stuff like that kind of energy sounds like that's naturally you yes right what what's your opinion on people who try to create a Persona or then don't feel like they naturally have that I think it would be hard um to try to portray yourself in a different way online I guess I can't speak from experience because I feel like all I've ever done is just being myself on social media um and again I think that all comes from starting when I did when

00:36:06 - 00:37:03

there wasn't all these influences to look up to like I didn't have any aspirations to show that I'm living a certain life but for me personally showing up as myself is the easiest way to show up on social media because you don't have to pretend um you know to be someone else or make your life look a certain way but I do know a lot of people do struggle when it comes to building a personal brand and like the number one thing that they'll say is oh I'm too boring or like I don't have

00:36:34 - 00:37:31

anything to talk about um and again I think that comes from them comparing themselves to people that are established online now but you've just got to think again like I mentioned those 5,000 posts on the fade account um if you go back to the start of anyone's personal brand I mean it's different now some people go on Tik Tok today and blow up and become an influencer overnight especially like over in America yeah but like for a lot of us like especially me I mean I've put a lot of my YouTube

00:37:03 - 00:38:00

videos on private because they're absolutely embarrassing um but if you were to go back to those first few YouTube videos of mine I was boring I had nothing to talk about I was sitting in my room at home like hey guys like you know like really shy I got this ey shadow palette from Kart like that's literally what I was like um I think it's just a matter of like obviously starting when it comes to content and finding what it is that you want to um talk about like what are your passions

00:37:32 - 00:38:25

like what do you want to post on social media like everyone has something that they're like really interested in um for me I think it was just generally entertaining people like I didn't have like a certain Niche I was starting out on YouTube doing Vlogs but then also makeup and then I was doing a bit of comedy and then I was doing skits like I I tried it all until I really found what it was number one that I enjoyed but number two what resonated with the audience is the best and then stuck with

00:37:58 - 00:38:51

that um and kept going and it sounds like your advice is like in that just be yourself someone will find it interesting perhaps there's a niche for everything especially now like it doesn't matter how Niche the thing is that you're into whatever the hobby is like there's an audience out there for that especially on platforms like Tik Tok like you can get stuck in every corner of Tik Tok there's like a corner for every single thing in the world on Tik Tok and then regarding fate and how

00:38:24 - 00:39:23

it interlocks with your personal Brands obviously a your content creation kind of fed the you know the beginning of fate and then that kind of growing its own legs and then people seeing what you were doing with the business yeah at what point where you're like okay Fate's really starting to become its own entity outside my personal brand ooh I do find that interesting because like I CU obviously fate is my life I feel like fate is me but then I know for a fact that there's probably people that

00:38:54 - 00:39:56

shop at fate that have no idea who that I am weird yes very weird or like especially for our Westfield stores people probably walk in buy stuff and walk out there what a nice store yeah they have no idea so that's definitely a weird thing to think but when do I feel like that happened I guess it would would have happened like when we started to experience more growth and maybe when we started you know um doing like uh Facebook ads and stuff where you are going out there and trying to find those

00:39:25 - 00:40:12

audiences that are at the top of the final and like just it's not just your audience anymore it's like how do we target a new market segment exactly and like you'd be discovered from everywhere like someone could follow me and follow fate and Shop with us but then they could recommend fate to a friend and that person recommends it to that person and then it's just this chain effect and then all of a sudden you've got all these customers that are shopping with you and have no idea who you are which I

00:39:48 - 00:40:53

think is really cool and I think it's hard because as much as fate continues to grow then obviously so do I but you also want it to grow away from you as well like you want it to be broader than just you eventually have you have you had like a like a discussion with your team around like how that continues to grow like have your team seen how much your personal brand contributes to the brands and then how much Fate's kind of yeah becoming its own entity if you will have you discussed like how that Dynamic is going

00:40:21 - 00:41:17

to I guess evolve or you just kind of like watching it just kind of watching it and winging it and I think like the girls at fate like know that fate is fate on its own but they also do know like the power that I have in fate and they will obviously use that to to their advantage like whenever we're creating a video or whatever like they like Britney you get in the start cuz people will want to see it cuz you're in it at the beginning kind of thing um and I'm all for that I'm like use me in all the

00:40:49 - 00:41:53

content that you want um but I guess we don't have a real strategy um of separating fate from me um but I guess we do in ways as well like when we're shooting photos for our website um which is like every week or every second week like for a long period there we would just use me because I'm right there and I'm free like I cost nothing to model um but now like we try and strip it back and like I'm on the website but not every single photo is me kind of thing so just trying to like remove me from

00:41:20 - 00:42:22

certain areas of it um I guess it's a strategy of ours then regarding your personal brand as you know a content creator and someone who's now a CEO of a team of 60 people yeah my goodness uh I've got 30 and I'm like man 60 so you have two podcasts you have multiple sub Brands underneath fate the way I understand it and yeah you're the CEO of this enormous company that's scaling very aggressively do you feel a lot of pressure around the content do you feel the the need to perform like

00:41:52 - 00:42:52

what's that like trying to juggle all of this all at the same time I don't feel pressure with the content at all I think that's the easiest part for me that's your goto that's easy yeah like I obviously done content for so long now that as organic as our content seems and a lot of the time it is really organic and off the cuff and like quick let's do this like it is also very clever um and very thought out so I don't feel any pressure when it comes to our content like we're always trying to stay ahead

00:42:22 - 00:43:37

of the trends like we always say like in our um marketing meetings like we don't want to be jumping on the Trend that happened last week like let's make a trend so people want to copy us um I think if anything the most amount of pressure that I feel is um trying to do it all like being in my position like I think where I feel more pressure or I put more pressure on myself is like being a really good boss and being a really good manager and being there for my staff and caring about their Fe feelings like that plus

00:43:00 - 00:43:53

then like everything I do for my personal brand and having my podcast and writing those every week and then being in content like all of that together I think is really hard to manage but I think that's just something that like we as creators and CEOs put the pressure on ourselves like I've got to be the best I don't want to upset anyone I want to make sure all my employees know that I'm here for them and I'll help them in their roles but then also trying to do my role like it can feel like a lot

00:43:26 - 00:44:18

sometimes lot of hats to wear yeah yeah and no matter how many people like I find that I hire like my hats just still keep growing like I'll I'll hire you there so you can look after that but then something else over this side pops up so it's really never ending but I think I do an okay job yeah you're crushing it like what do you think has been that maybe the biggest challenge out of all those things that you just mentioned about you know trying to become the CEO of this rapidly growing

00:43:52 - 00:44:42

company and wearing all these new hats that aren't just content creation I guess once a point a Time 60% of your day-to-day might have be making content and feeding you know I guess the Beast if you will and now it's like all these other channels are opening up now you having to conquer all this new territory what's been my biggest challenge yeah what's been your biggest challenge as a CEO as someone growing a company this quickly getting the right people in the business okay um like I've

00:44:17 - 00:45:13

always said that um I personally think and I think a lot of other business owners would agree that I think Staffing and people is the hardest part of the business I can do the scaling I can the content I can do the finances I can know when I need to slow down on spending money I know when I need to spend money to grow more but just like finding those right people to be in your company like your employees when you are trying to scale um is one of the hardest parts we've done it really well like we have

00:44:45 - 00:45:35

an amazing team of course we've made some absolute fuckups and we have been absolutely [ __ ] over like any business owner would be and people like really like people would do that to you I'm like yeah people are [ __ ] it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter if you're Britney Saunders and fade the label like people will still come and take the absolute piss out of your company it doesn't matter um but yeah I guess it's finding the right people to feel the roles and like knowing when to

00:45:10 - 00:46:04

create those roles because obviously the more we scale and the more stores we open like we're not just managing at the same old team like we're then continuously having to create new roles um to sustain the opening of more and more stores you know um so I think it's just like being on the ball with that which I think I am good at is like knowing all right we need someone more in this area we need another manager in this area we need someone else in retail um but yeah I just say the biggest

00:45:37 - 00:46:30

challenge is finding those right people and obviously doing all the hiring and everything um in order to keep scaling because our community is like open here open there open Adelaide I'm like who hang on like I can definitely do that but I'm going to need to hire a whole new team of people in our head office to facilitate that how have you gone about finding the right people cuz going from e-commerce Centric to retail Centric and then having multiple retail stores requires a lot of middle management have

00:46:03 - 00:46:59

you had other entities come in and help facilitate this or you purely done it through hiring the right people hiring the right people so we we do everything inh house at fate there's not a single thing that we Outsource from our have anyone coming to Mentor or different situations or what have you no so with everyone is internal um and yeah it's about like putting those right people in those right positions who know what they're doing and putting full trust in them and finding people that have the confidence

00:46:32 - 00:47:25

within themselves as well like a lot of especially like our management um staff that are working in I guess higher level roles like they have full autonomy with their roles like they it's like you own this go do it you know um so I guess it's been like a long process of building up our managers to know that they can like make their own decisions because when you're the CEO there will be a lot of people going is it all right if I do this and is it all right if I'm going to do that whereas now we're at a

00:46:58 - 00:47:48

really good spot where everyone in fate kind of knows what they need to do and they'll come to me if [ __ ] hits a fan or if they can't work it out um but yeah it's just been we've got a pretty in-depth um hiring process at fate now which we never had at the start which no business would I used to meet someone once and be like you've got the job I used to do that too and then you learn that's not how you do it no you're like oh my God that person was so nice I'm going to give them a job oh my God

00:47:24 - 00:48:23

we could be friends and then you sleep on it you're like maybe yeah maybe no so yeah just having like a really um in-depth and thorough hiring process asking the questions if you're not sure having that fourth interview if you bloody need to um and just knowing what questions to ask people when you are hiring for a certain role just finding those right people it's vital and do you find like with the culture right because if you have you know in that first Warehouse like one full-timer

00:47:53 - 00:49:03

and two casuals through to I'm imagining two years in you had 20 or 3 people have you noticed that the culture changes from 10 to 20 to 30 to 60 and how do you try to manage that it becomes I feel like the more you grow and the bigger that your team gets the more the culture hire becomes important yeah um so like yes when we're hiring we're looking for people that can obviously do the job obviously you're not going to hire someone that doesn't know what they're doing but even more so it it

00:48:28 - 00:49:15

begins the question are they going to fit in with the team like we look at who they're going to be working with is this person going to get along with this person they going how are they going to work together are they going to clash heads is the person we're interviewing a little bit too headstrong for the person that they'll be working under um so there definitely is a lot of that um so yeah when you're hiring like yes you're looking for someone that can do the job but you're also looking for someone

00:48:51 - 00:49:43

that's going to fit in that team and I think that's something like our workplace culture is really important to us us um we're also really good now at um being able to identify like if something is off and that's something that you have to be really mindful of like because if you've got a team of people and like one person is throwing it off like it can throw off the balance of the whole workplace and as soon as that person's gone you notice the change again um so I guess I think we do a

00:49:17 - 00:50:12

really good job of that as well yeah I saw um C and Ray once said that it takes about eight weeks to get a a company culture in a good place and about 3 days to ruin it yeah yeah like you just put one bad egg in there and like you mean no harm by saying that to anyone like everyone's different but if you just put one bad bad egg in there like you can undo all the work that you've done just by putting one wrong person in there and I think as like when you're a small business like that's really important is

00:49:45 - 00:50:35

the hiring decisions that you make and that's something that I didn't know when I started like all business owners I was like yeah this all seems fun come on come work for me and like I didn't think wait where's this person going to be in six months and is our company going to be in 6 months cuz all I could see was today um whereas now when we're hiring like we're thinking about the future and where this person will end up and do we see this person sticking around for a long time or are they just wanting a job

00:50:10 - 00:51:08

to fill in the time kind of thing especially when we're in this scaling phase like we're wanting to hire people that do want to kind of build um a career with us and they want career progression and we want people that are passionate um so yeah it's just really important to like think of all those angles it's quite complex oh when when you talk about it it's like [ __ ] but we do a pretty good job of it and we're so thorough with hiring and especially when it comes to opening these new stores

00:50:38 - 00:51:30

like I know our community just says oh open here open there but it's like you got to be so careful like when opening retail stores and then finding that amazing store manager because they're essentially going to run that thing for you and then we have like an amazing National Retail manager who they will work under um so yeah like you make one wrong hiring decision you can [ __ ] up the whole thing which is a lot of pressure it's so much pressure it's a lot of pressure and then with your

00:51:04 - 00:51:59

personal brand do you find that that can get in the way or hinder your ability to hire people cuz I imagine you've got people reaching out that are fans of you that are wanting to just work for you because it's you like do you find that having a personal brand in the midst of how big this company is is a challenge um outside the content creation regarding how people see you definitely um um and I think it would be interesting if someone like we obviously are a women's fashion brand and we're on

00:51:32 - 00:52:38

social media and have a huge following so it's going to be pretty rare for someone to apply that like doesn't know who we are or who I am or you you might like we have had a few that have just applied online and oh this is fate haven't heard of us but the chances of someone knowing me and knowing us are pretty high um I stepped out of hiring um maybe two years ago um up until that point I was doing everything the interviews everything um but I got to a point where I realized I can't be a part

00:52:05 - 00:53:04

of this process anymore um and it was better to put other people in there um and our team that do hiring at fate know the things to look out for if someone is coming in for an interview and they say oh I love fate I love everything that you do I've followed online for so long I've shopped online I follow Bri love everything that she's doing like I'd love to work at this company we love that like we want people that love us like that's only going to make their job easier because they already love the

00:52:34 - 00:53:33

brand and the product but in the interview if it's I love Britney I'm obsessed with Britney like you know and they talk a little bit stalker yeah not stalker but you know if they talk and sometimes they might be nervous or whatever but if they're talking too much about me or if they start talking about AJ or oh she does this and that like our team that do the hiring know to kind of look out for that um just because like I've always said obviously we love if people love fate and if they follow me like we love

00:53:04 - 00:53:59

that but I wouldn't want that to be like the only reason that they want to work at fate like we want them to be passionate about our community passionate about the company passionate about their own growth within the company because I think if their only motive was I want to work for Britney because I love her I feel like they'd be disappointed because I am the same person that I am online but I'm not online when I'm at work you know I'm working um so it's it's not people forget you're not just

00:53:32 - 00:54:30

making content all the time yeah like that I always say like those fun videos that we post every single day which can make it seem like that's all we do like that's a small small fraction of our day like the rest of our day is putting out fires pretty much and on that like regarding putting out the fires running the company how have you grown as uh you approach leadership right cuz you're you know starting with a small team now you have a big team like how many eras have you gone through of leadership styles so

00:54:00 - 00:54:59

many like when I started fade like obviously I had no idea how to be a boss I had no idea how to be a manager like I had never worked at anywhere more than a year so there's no way I had like a management job at all um so I went into it with absolutely no clue I didn't even know what management styles were like I was just Googling how to set up a shop in Australia you know um so I've gone through so many eras I would say the biggest era of management style that I went through was in the early days of

00:54:31 - 00:55:28

Fate when I did have those couple of employees and it was my way too nice era way too nice because I had that era yeah yeah I feel like every business owner does and it's like you become besties with the stuff that you hire friends oh we hang out after work our partners are friends we go to the pub don't get me wrong I love taking everyone out and going to the pub and whatever but it it was so personal um and I have no regrets about that because I feel like that's every entrepreneur's start of the

00:54:58 - 00:55:56

journey is you are way too nice at the beginning and then holy [ __ ] what if something goes wrong and then I've got to sit that person down and be like hey I don't really like the way that you did that and then it becomes so awkward um I'd say one of the biggest takeaways that I've gotten out of this whole experience of building a brand is like those personal learnings like you learn so much about yourself and you know how to like carry yourself around people and how to act and what to say and what you

00:55:27 - 00:56:22

shouldn't say and you know back in the day I would just sit there with my staff and we'd talk about our personal lives all day and if we're pissed off about something with our partner we'd rant about that but I've really learned to kind of take a step back now and obviously like I'm so friendly with all of our staff um and we do so many fun things like we just took um 20 of our staff from our office and Warehouse out for a dinner literally just last week and Cocktails on us and you know we have

00:55:55 - 00:57:09

fun but I've definitely learn over the years where you need to draw that line um just because it can become so tricky and blurry so yeah and what year are you in now H the era that I'm in now I think would be putting a lot of trust into our I don't even like I don't like to say that there's like a hierarchy of Fate but like our employees that kind of are at the top of the tree I'm in my era of like having them know that they can fully just have trust within themselves to do what they need to do and come to

00:56:31 - 00:57:30

me when you need and it's taken us a long time to get to that point because I obviously was there from the beginning of Fate like packing orders doing customer service emails and I had to let go of all of those tasks over the years but even just thinking back like a year ago like I was so caught up in the day-to-day operations of the business and oh this this casual at our Brisbane store has done this like I was so kept in the loop with everything and it got to the point where I was like I don't

00:57:01 - 00:57:54

need to know this information anymore because it's just overwhelming me when I'm trying to like run the business it might be really interesting but then you're like I'm irrelevant here like I just need to delegate yeah so yeah it's I'd say like over the last 12 months we've seen the most growth in like all of our staff knowing that I trust them and kind of taking a step back and like going you guys do your job and I'm here if you need so whatever that era is is the era that I'm back yourself era the

00:57:28 - 00:58:28

back yourself era but back them like you know back them ER and come to us if you need us but you guys have got this um and that's what we're trying to do more and more and we've just hired so many new people like our office went from like four people to like 11 or something um because we're just putting people in all those positions so I don't have to be involved with the roster in our Westfield Miranda store day today or you know worrying about oh someone needs to cover this person's shift um so yeah I'm

00:57:58 - 00:58:49

in my step back and Trust the process era but I'm still right here obviously and then with your personal brand it's kind of changing right because you were someone who was creating content about building a business now you're kind of a symbol of you know what women want to become one day right they want to become the CEO of a company or start their own e-commerce business or start their own retail business what's been your experience with so many people looking up to you as someone to kind of um not

00:58:24 - 00:59:20

idolize but look up to and and kind of follow in their footsteps again because this whole journey has been so organic and because I never set out to be that it still feels weird yeah I'm like okay if you want to look up to me that's fine but I understand why people would because they're like wow you've done all this on your own I guess that's something I'm really proud of like I'll always proudly say you know like I've bootstrapped fate like we've never taken aone we've never had any

00:58:52 - 00:59:51

investors um or anything like that so I guess when I think about it that is pretty inspiring it's incredible yeah yeah but I guess it's just like the neie girl in me like I just feel like me from newie like nothing's changed but obviously Everything's changed at the same time but I still feel the same as like when I was making those YouTube videos I just happen to like do all these cool things now um so to be someone that people look up to like I think is awesome um not that that was

00:59:21 - 01:00:10

ever part of my plan but then again like nothing was ever part of my plan but here we are so you don't feel like that hinders like the decision- making or like how you continue to make content you're conscious of it you're like cool but it doesn't really yeah not at all like I think since the beginning I've always never really cared about the kind of content that I'm posting I've always just posted what I felt like I wanted to post and I enjoyed making so I still very much feel that way obviously I'm

00:59:46 - 01:00:40

not going to go making content I could get canceled for I'm mindful with that um but yeah like everything that I post is still still feels really organic to me and like I said before the fact that I get to make content that is fun and engaging and entertaining but it's about my business as well is just like the cherry on top yeah and then within that like the fact that you're in this position now and people are kind of attaching this label to you do you find that there are any challenges in that

01:00:13 - 01:01:08

being a young female entrepreneur that runs such a large company like have there been any challenges that have C caught you off guard or something that you weren't expecting no no I'm being honest no that's good to know yeah that's very good and then your gut it sounds like you have like a really good natured gut like you just kind of do a lot of go with it right like I think in some people's minds the fact that you jumped in on the contract jumped in on the lease jumped in on these ideas for some

01:00:43 - 01:01:32

it might seem like a nightmare because it's like a lot of responsibility a lot all at once do you feel like there's this there's a part of you that's just you trust your gut and you have a good Cadence of like I'll figure it out as I go yeah I don't know where I got that from from but I'm very grateful that I do have that and I don't know if it stems from childhood or something I've never been to therapy but I I always say I reckon if I went to a therapy I'd find

01:01:06 - 01:02:02

out why I am the way that I am um I think it's just been a journey of making those steps one after the other like ever since those YouTube videos like I feel like that's where it started like I took a chance on that and it paid off so then I thought oh I'll take a chance on this I'll get this next warehouse and now it's almost like I don't have any fear when it comes to making any decision and like now we're going on to store number five and people like you're [ __ ] crazy like in this economy and

01:01:35 - 01:02:17

I'm like [ __ ] it like it's going to work um so yeah I think it's just making one decision after the other like I've learned that's when stuff happens like you don't just sit back and things happen and and I guess like some people might look at it like you before we saying that there's fires to put out and there's problems here and there and there's different challenges but like what's your outlook like what's like your Mantra how do you kind of yourself

01:01:56 - 01:02:54

and see the world I always say to my team like there's nothing that we can't handle it doesn't matter like how messed up it feels at the time or how stressed we feel like every single challenge that we've been faced in business we look back now we worked it out so I kind of always see everything is like not like it is a big deal but at the same time everything isn't that big of a deal like no matter what it is especially now when there's so many of us like we can work together and figure out any challenge

01:02:25 - 01:03:25

we'll always somehow try to turn like that negative into a positive like what's the worst that's going to happen yeah the business shuts down big whoop we'll just start another one start another one yeah maybe spray tanning business who knows oh I'll go back to that 15 bucks a pop come on down um I think they're like 60 bucks now or something so I was really ripping myself off but I just think like with all the years practice that I have under my belt now like we've had we've dealt

01:02:54 - 01:03:44

with so much um and what's crazy is I know that it's still like only the beginning of dealing with challenges but like you learn so much with every challenge that comes your way in business you learn how to do better for next time all right we should have handled that a bit differently this is how we'll do it next time so if anything I feel like the challenges become easier in a way because you've just [ __ ] up so many times yeah and I think it's in those fuckups that the beauty really

01:03:19 - 01:04:11

appears oh you learned so much like personally as a business how to handle things [ __ ] maybe we should HDE someone in that area of business to help us if something in that area ever happens again um yeah like it's all just learning and growing yeah like we're talking about this before the Pod like di of CEO has a job title which is head of failure I don't know what that means but it sounds great but when a podcast flops I don't know it sounds amazing we better not do that again like imagine

01:03:46 - 01:04:43

that when you're dating someone like what do you do I'm ahead of failure you know what is that to look into that sounds serious um okay so then what's the most maybe helpful negative feedback you've ever gotten something that rattled you but then it's helped in some kind of way I would say the most amount of negative feedback that we've ever gotten has come through having retail stores because it's one thing to have an online store where people are buying online but to have retail stores like you're

01:04:14 - 01:05:05

opening up a whole other can of worms you're having people come into your business physically and you know it's just completely different to them ordering something online having it show up try it on like they might try it on at home and not like it send it it back or they might send us some feedback or leave us a review on our top and say like I didn't like the fit of this top so obviously we can learn from that um this is also why it's so scary opening more stores is because you are like

01:04:38 - 01:05:33

opening up that Human Experience and one of the challenges I guess we have is like I have this vision for our retail stores and I'll sing it to the top of my lungs on social media like this is our stores look how beautiful they are I'll preach everything that we do in stores like this is the experience that you're going to have so then you're opening up people to come in and experience that and if they don't experience that then that falls back on me like they come in one day someone's busy they don't get

01:05:06 - 01:06:04

talk to yeah someone or someone's having a [ __ ] day or you know like there's so many factors that come into it maybe they're just filling off that day and then it's like hey Britney you said in your Tik Tok that this will be my experience and it wasn't and I went in and it wasn't and I think that's feedback that is like hurt me the most um and like I'm not saying it happens all the time like compared to The Shining reviews that we get it's like one in a million but it definitely does

01:05:35 - 01:06:32

stick out um and I guess that's the type of scenario that does like force us to grow the most and change the way that we do things um because straight away we want to fix that for that person it's let's get on the phone to the customer let's hear them out let's hear their story then let's go and chat with the team that was working that day and we go the extra mile we invite that customer back in again we will put them with the right person and redo their experience completely and you'd be surprised at how

01:06:04 - 01:07:04

many people say yes to that you think people would go no I'm never coming back that was [ __ ] blah blah blah but people like okay and they give us another chance um and it always ends positively but I'd say yeah that's the biggest type of negative feedback we receive is through those retail stores and those real life experiences cuz it's one thing to order something online and be disappointed by it but like to go out of your way to go to a store and be disappointed like in person it's just

01:06:34 - 01:07:42

another level especially when they're a huge fan you talk it up there that's what's so hard I guess for me as well is I am not my employees like I am not my staff that are working on the floor every day we can do all the training in the world we can drill our brand messaging into their heads but [ __ ] at the end of the day like they're just people like I they're not puppets I can't make them be 10 out of 10 24/7 I wouldn't expect that of them because we're all human we have our off days our

01:07:07 - 01:07:59

off moments so I think that's one thing that I've really learned to cop on the chin when we do receive negative feedback like I used to get really upset by it and be like [ __ ] like you know but I've just come to learn like the more popular we get the more customers we're going to have and like the higher the chance of them not having that EXP experience is going to be and just learning to be okay with that I would say yeah it sounds like you're doing a wonderful job like really trying to

01:07:33 - 01:08:23

juggle all these hats backing your team allowing them to really take the wheel and take everything to another level for you regarding content creation because this is something I really want to take your perspective on if I could just download your brain for 10 minutes that' be amazing when it comes to like making content earlier you talked about okay we don't want to just follow Trends we want to create trends when you look at social media like how do you see it what lens do you treat it through because some

01:07:58 - 01:09:03

people look at social media and go okay this is a license to sell and there's an art form to doing that but then when you look at social media what do you see and how do you approach it I think especially for Brands and products social media has changed so much over the last 10 years and I think the fact that I have been on social media for all that time has been really valuable especially coming from an influencer background back in the day brands pay me or you could pay influencers to literally hold up a you

01:08:30 - 01:09:35

know toothpaste or the can of V next to their head and post a photo and say buy this it's great and businesses could do that as well Instagram used to just be like cool product photos and then that would convert to sales and that was the way that Instagram went I think a lot of business owners that have been around for a while are still stuck in that and they will post products of their photos and be like why am I not making any sales but that has changed so drastically now there's obviously so many more

01:09:03 - 01:10:11

businesses and Brands out there now than ever before and consumers are sick of it like they're sick of just seeing a photo of a product and thinking that they need like they won't buy it if that's all you're posting um so I think what I see social media as and I guess what I always have seen it as is it's an entertainment platform like people want to be entertained or inspired or they want to laugh or they want to learn something and you could post a funny video and even if it's got nothing to do

01:09:37 - 01:10:50

with your products like you don't understand how powerful creating that piece of content can actually be um and it can convert to sales we can post a stupid video in our warehouse dancing and it can convert sales um so I think the way that I view social media I guess is the way that I always have viewed it it's just a fun platform or an educational platform like educate your your consumers and followers about your product but in an entertaining way maybe um they always like what's the rule like

01:10:13 - 01:11:09

it takes people how many times to see a product before they actually buy it I think it's up to like 36 or 37 so I think back in the day used to be like three and now it's like 36 um which is crazy but yeah you can't just post a photo and sell things anymore like I'm sure you can and sales would trickle through but you've got to like create a more human experience on your social media these days so when you say a human experience like what are some things that people can be conscious

01:10:42 - 01:11:38

of right because I think it can be easy to get that wrong it's like oh I filmed myself doing something but then it still comes across salesy or it still comes across gimmicky like do you have a recipe or like a like a framework of thinking of like okay when we make a piece of content it needs to kind of you know strike these notes and it must not be these other things I think as much as our content is well executed and thought out it also isn't at the same time I don't know if that makes sense it feels

01:11:10 - 01:12:12

like off the- wall like filmed in that moment it feels off the cuff yeah um I would say one thing that we're always trying to do is grab someone's attention as quickly as we can not again like what social media used to be like we I would make my old YouTube videos and i' be like hey everyone welcome back to today's video so in today's video I'm going to be so now in social media cut that [ __ ] get straight to the point people have no attention spins as we've been like no intros straight into the

01:11:41 - 01:12:34

meat yeah yeah um get to the point straight away um say something that's going to grab someone's attention use like clever hooks you know like you're not going to believe that this happened or I can't believe I wasted my money on this um or anything along those lines I feel like we're always trying to grab people's attention because like they say like the first 2 to 3 seconds is all you've got to grab someone's attention if not they'll swipe to the next one so

01:12:08 - 01:13:05

I would say like as short as it is those first two to three seconds of your video everything um and it's becoming more and more that way so get to that punch line straight away and cut out all the other crap would be my piece of advice when it comes to content and then with fader you trying to diversify how you guys produce content so it's not just you yes yeah what's the plan with that well we obviously shoot with a lot of models um and even then like that in itself has changed because again Instagram just a

01:12:36 - 01:13:35

few years ago was all about like pretty videos and photos and campaign stunning pictures and videos but even now we're finding like with our models we are getting them to do like more trendy kinds of videos like we're whipping out the microphone and they're talking um which must be so interesting for models as well cuz they're always just known to be beautiful and look amazing in the clothes and they just show up and pose whereas now we're needing models that can do both and what's interesting is

01:13:05 - 01:14:05

not all of them can like they they don't have the Knack maybe for talking on the camera um so yeah we're working with models all the time to obviously not have me be the center of attention all the time and at the moment we are well everyone like in our workplace is kind of in the videos every now and then like you'll see in our warehouse and stuff but where um we've put like a bit of a strategy in place to have AJ my partner in more of the content because we've noticed anytime he's in it even though

01:13:35 - 01:14:33

he doesn't care for social media at all whenever he's in it like the comments go crazy like they're like AJ we love AJ we want to see more AJ like every video if you go and look at the comments like the top comment would be more AJ and so we kind of listen to our community and notice Trends and so now April who works with me um she is creating a content plan for AJ and has like content goals of we have to do like two videos a week minimum that are starring AJ um and we're working a little at the moment as

01:14:04 - 01:14:56

well you'll see like so many Brands now the people that work at the brand are almost becoming the face of the brand and we've had our social media team like dabble in that but we're working more towards that is like creating personal brands of our employees on our socials which is exciting and scary at the same time yeah that runs a risk of like what if they leave or what have and then people go where they go you know so that's again like you got to draw the line of like how much you actually share

01:14:30 - 01:15:32

about your staff but that's the way that we are seeing Brands shift is like their staff are becoming content creators of their own brand so for those that are listening to this right now and they have a business whether it's e-commerce or retail or or what have you what's your advice around okay they've never really dabbled with content creation before and a twofold question do you think it's crucial that they need to have some kind of content where they do show a human experience of some kind and then second

01:15:00 - 01:16:04

to that like how should they approach it I asked this to my friend um who's in business and I said do you think people like can have businesses these days without being on social media and she was like no like cuz I can't imagine a a world where we weren't on social media because it's everything but then we think back to 30 years ago or whatever and it wasn't a thing so how did they make their businesses grow back then Word of Mouth TV radio I think I think businesses need to

01:15:32 - 01:16:20

be on social media in 2024 and I'm loving seeing like all the different kinds of businesses that are showing up on my socials and the different ways that they're advertising I saw this real estate agent in America I don't know if you've seen him and he does these things um I think they're called speed tours I don't know if you've seen the video like a speedrun in a video game but so he is out the front of the house house and it's just so funny cuz like real estate

01:15:57 - 01:16:39

it's kind of boring right but he's at the front he's like welcome to this house here let's take a tour and then he runs and then someone follows him and he like runs in one room goes here's the bathroom and then he runs and he goes up the stairs fast he's actually doing no like he runs through the whole house and like you see the whole house in like 2 minutes and then he does like really funny things when he gets into each room like he'll run ahead of the camera guy and then he'll be like sitting on the

01:16:17 - 01:17:12

toilet with his legs wide open um so like I'm loving that and then I saw another um account po pop up on Tik Tok the other day of this car yard in Sydney like just this random account like showed up and it's you know the guys that work at the carard are getting on there and like making videos in the carard and interviewing people like what are you looking for today and I've seen fruit shops do the same I don't know if you've seen but like there's these viral fruit shops they must be in Sydney as

01:16:46 - 01:17:36

well and they get on and like show all their specials and like it doesn't matter what industry you're in like you can create content for your business it doesn't matter if you're selling fruit if you're selling cars if you're making something at home like there is content that you can create um and it's just a matter like I said before of just giving it a go putting the videos out there don't worry about them being perfect especially if you're getting started

01:17:11 - 01:18:06

it's all about just trying until you find that thing that works and not just like selling but like trying to personality in it make fun yeah have you seen our public transport here in Sydney they have their own social media it's pretty funny oh yeah and I'm Lov see like all the government accounts and like whoever who would have thought our government would be like yo we have to have a Savvy useful social media I even see like New South Wales police force like have a Tik Tok and like they go and

01:17:38 - 01:18:26

comment things like on other businesses profiles and it's obviously like a gen Z person running the socials because they're leaving all these hilarious comments like it doesn't matter what you're doing for your business like you can make content out of it it's just about thinking about it and thinking how can I make this fun like that real estate agent instead of going here we are at 21 Smith Street let's take a look he's like [ __ ] it I'm going to run really fast and be stupid and like

01:18:02 - 01:18:53

that's hilarious yeah there was another guy here in Sydney who like shows you the worst property at the highest price he's like this is what 2.7 million will get you in Sydney and it's like a rundown decrepit falling apart house and he's like see this is all you're going to get here it's just funny and I think when you make content from a place of personality and Intrigue and something that's different people people pay attention right y people also really love cont y so if you can include

01:18:27 - 01:19:29

anything controversial in your content um that always performs really well I've also noticed in our content if I speak in a smart ass Tone um that performs really well really yeah okay I got to if you're a bit of a smart ass or yeah I find that works s yeah interesting anything just anything that's going to grab someone's attention really well here's the great thing about fate like if you look at it like how much would you attribute the success of Fate purely to your personal

01:18:58 - 01:19:53

Brands like where do you think fate would be right now if you didn't have a personality and a social media account like I want to say that I don't think it would exist but I hate to say that but if let's just imagine you didn't have like this knack for creating content and you started the same idea how how far down the road do you think it would be potentially what and I wasn't allowed to get in any of the content you were allowed to but let's just say you didn't have like the experience since you were

01:19:25 - 01:20:10

14 let's imagine you just didn't have the like the experience behind experience and the personal brand and the energy and you weren't you weren't that was still me you were just still you but you weren't doing it the way you had I guess in the last six years it's a tricky question I think I could still do it the way that I'm doing it I'd obviously just be starting from the very beginning and I think the good thing as well is now I would obviously have a lot of other brands to look at like if you

01:19:48 - 01:20:40

don't know what to create for your business like go and search 10 other businesses that are similar to yours see what they're posting online like there's no harm and seeing what everyone else is doing like writing down ideas going well this brand does this and it performs really well this brand which is also similar to us does this but this performs really well for them and like do your market research that way if you have no real clue and kind of use that as your inspiration um to then like come

01:20:14 - 01:21:10

up with something that's a bit of your own but also like everything is really similar on social media nowadays like nothing's really original um so yeah I think I would do that so try to find things that like are s Industries or if not the same industry as yourself and then go what are they doing and who's crushing it and then how or even like look at other businesses that are like not like yours at all and see what they're doing and think how can I put a spin on it to make that more caded to my

01:20:41 - 01:21:31

Niche you know yeah and I like how much you've T just touched on like just getting out there having a crack experimenting having fun with it don't have to have a perfect plan or the perfect criteria I think it's just letting go of some of the perfect planning part of ourselves and just having a good hard like a good high bash at just having to crack at it that's still how I run my business to this day to be honest like we've got a lot of procedures and policies in place but I'm

01:21:06 - 01:22:09

still winging it every day and I think that's the way to do it to be honest for someone who's early in their Journey if you could download a mantra out of your minds and implant it in them and they could carry it with them every day what might that be like a saying yeah like a catchphrase or like a a thought process or a reframe I have one um saying that I say to everyone all the time but it's not so much about building a business but I guess it is um but one thing that I always like to say and remind myself of

01:21:38 - 01:22:42

and I feel like it's so helpful is hard conversations easy life easy conversations hard life oo I love that and I always say it um cuz in business you're going to have to have tough conversations you're going to have to have trick conversations you might have to negotiate with someone and it makes you feel uncomfortable you might have to sit down a staff member and say hey I noticed you did this which was a bit of a stuff up and like no one likes doing that um but I've found by having those

01:22:10 - 01:23:03

hard conversations in life your life will be easier whereas if you always push things under the rug or don't step outside your comfort zone and have those easy conversations your life's going to be harder so really Embrace that I love that it's a great Mar I'm stealing that one myself please anytime you have to have a tough conversation just think of that like as soon as you're done with it whatever it is like your life is going to be so much conversations easy life easy conversations hard life hard life

01:22:36 - 01:23:43

yeah now last question is what's next for you um that's a good question because I didn't think I would be where I am now that's a tough one right cuz you're like I've already done everything what's next I know but also at the same time there is no end to it um what next I think more retail stores but scaling at a rate that we can sustain um we're also going to be dabbling in a bit of beauty um so we've been working on some lip oil products for honestly two years now um we're about to launch those

01:23:11 - 01:24:08

this year so I'm excited to see how that goes maybe try and get into Mecca or something I don't know it's like a like a separate business like a sub yeah sub brand of Fate um and yeah just continuing to scale fate I guess and getting the word out there more get some new customers Here There and Everywhere yeah I don't I don't really have like a massive end goal cuz like I said like I never thought I would be here 5 years ago and here we are so Heck if I stayed this way for the next however long I'd

01:23:40 - 01:24:32

be so happy with that but obviously I want to keep scaling and see I think I like the challenge of seeing how far I can push this thing I think that's what the whole thing is just see how far I can take it I just love your perspective I love your energy how you see the whole idea of growing a company of like it's exciting to me let's give it a crack let's see what happens with it and then take the feedback on the chin and then try to do something good with it and trying to look after your team and not

01:24:05 - 01:24:48

stay in your too nice era and grow and evolve yourself in saying that I'm not an absolute [ __ ] but you know you got to have balance oh great thank you so much I've enjoyed this conversation I've learned a lot I we could see for hours and we could continue to jam out for sure yeah but I know you're busy but thank you so much and we'll have to have you back again absolutely thanks so much for having me