at she can we lead with women's Stories We interview women from all over the world to understand how they got to where they are today to be role models and mentors for others because it's easier to be what you can see I'm really excited to talk to Amy Knight the CEO and founder of musthave ideas one of UK's fastest growing online retailers Amy your family run you started this in your living room you've come a really long way your fors 30 under 30 you've achieved an incredible amount and a sh really short amount of time tell us a bit more about your you your journey and where you are now yeah okay um well thank you for having me uh so I uh I'm Amy like you said one of the founders of must have ideas uh so we are an e-commerce business selling cleaning products home wear Solutions Storage Solutions uh garden products to people across the UK uh and we our products are Innovative and a little bit different they're not the sort of thing that you would find in big supermarkets um and we sell primarily through digital advertising we do um some more traditional advertising as well but uh the majority of our marketing is focused on paid ads across meta and Tik Tok um so we really kind of focus on products that are highly demonstrable we want to show you a problem that you didn't even know you had and we've already solved it for you all within a 30 second video um which yeah that's kind of what we're what we're all about so uh the three of us uh there's three founders and we worked together previously in a uh previous business selling eco-friendly cleaning products to home shopping TV yeah and that business had started to test uh running ads on Facebook as it was then and we saw some really good potential um so we left that business started must have ideas and felt that digital advertising was the future and that's what we should be doing so uh that's what we that's what we focused on um and given that we had experience in home Shopping TV our kind of expertise was in video Commerce um so it really kind of lended itself to creating social ads really and creating those videos okay on TV it might have been 9 Minute presentations and these are 30 second videos but really it's it's through through video yeah um so yeah we we started creating content and ordered our first um first order of our first product which was called the hygiene hero and I got onto YouTube and started you know watching videos on how to run ads on meta and kind of taught myself that side of things and then yeah we've grown incredibly quickly from there really we started uh six years ago now and now we've got 140 people in the business and a massive warehouse and 200 products in the range Amy I want you to show off a little you started in your living room six years ago and now you turn over something like 60 million pounds a year right you spent an enormous amount of advertising on meta and Tik Tok and you really base it on data so you really leverage your data so I would love for you to talk about that a little bit because it's a it's an incredibly Nifty thing that you're doing and you you're you and you've grown so fast and it's really a model that you've shown is unbelievably scalable in a short amount of time uh also because of course you're launching six new products every month and and you're launching products that people want obviously yeah yeah so we are um across the entire business incredibly data driven so there are something ridiculous like 70 screens around the business that are got various dashboards on and bits of data so that everybody can see what's going on but um yeah we we don't make a single decision that isn't backed up by data so everything we do we test um so we're constantly testing the website and our advertising and our emails and um whatever shows the best results in the data that's what we go with whether we like the result or not sometimes you get a result and you think oh I kind of wished it was the other one but um yeah every decision we made is is we make is is using the data and we're really kind of looking into um particularly with our advertising looking into it in great detail and looking at what's working and what's not and it's really important to us that we know exactly what's working and exactly what's not working so that we know what we should be scaling on what we shouldn't be um rather than just kind of looking at things on a kind of holistic you know overall level we're kind of really digging into particular products um and then we're also kind of using in other areas of the business as well so um you know the customer service team and the dispatch team and everything is is driven by that data and we're looking at um we're looking at that data to look at what's working and not what's not working and how we can make things more efficient so that um you know every every part of the business is is working as effectively as it can be um and Amy you've just talked about that customer service that to you is unbelievably important you promise a quick delivery money back guarantee and hassle-free returns talk to us a little bit about your customer service um attitude and how that trickles down and and why that's so successful for you yeah um so our kind of customer services is something I'm very passionate about I think without people can't exist and can't succeed you know you need you need customers and you need your team so I think it's very important that you look after both of those um so our our customer service team are fully empowered to do whatever they need to do um to ensure that the customer is happy so we have um we have our two working day delivery promise which means your order will be delivered within two working days or it's free um so if you order on a Monday morning it'll be with you by Wednesday or um you just get to keep it and we'll refund you um yeah we have a 100 day returns window because we've all been there where we've not quite returned something within the two week and it's just not quite long enough so um yeah it's very easy to return our our customer services are open from 8:00 a. till midnight seven days a week so it's really easy to get in touch with us it's not like you know you've got to call in your lunch break because we close at 5 um and we try to be everywhere that you might want to be in touch with us so um I find it incredibly frustrating if I maybe I'll send a business a message on Facebook and the response says yeah can you email us no I contacted you on Facebook because that's how I want to communicate with you so we try to be everywhere everywhere that you might need us to be so you can email us you can phone us on a free phone number you can message us on Facebook or Instagram or Tik Tok or Twitter or x x as it now is um you can send us a letter you can WhatsApp us um how however you want to get in touch there's a lovely team of people waiting to waiting to help Amy I love that because I feel that you know we are used to fast delivery we have uh the Amazon of the world around but it's just not that loving relationship with your customer and I love that you made that as a bottom line of your business because it must cost you more it must be more complicated but you're making it a Cornerstone of your business which I'm sure is why also you are so successful I'm wondering Amy what do you feel are your top qualities that you have that really serve you every you're such a young amazing founder you've done something beforehand already what do you feel really serves you um it's a good question I think uh being driven um being kind of you know the the usual kind of organized and effective and I think you've got to be um you've got to be able to juggle a hundred different things at once um but I think also knowing your weaknesses and knowing not being the smartest person in the room and knowing that um you've got a good team around you and that you know they're they're there to bring their expertise and um being able to go actually you're going to do a better job of that than I am so you do that and I'll focus on this I think is important I don't think you can do everything and I think being able to um allow others to to do what they're going to be great at is is important as well yeah Amy what do you feel are your biggest challenges and how do you sort of deal with them um I think uh H what are our biggest challenges at the moment I mean personally trying to juggle two young children and running a business is quite a challenge um have a almost 5-year-old and almost 18 month old so um trying to deal with um their social lives and everything that they've got going on as well as a business is um incredibly challenging um I think um there's always kind of logistic challenges I mean a lot of um a lot of our products come from overseas so there's been various issues since covid really with shipping and um the price of shipping and um that always presents the challenges when you're kind of shipping things from overseas um until recently storage issues we've never been in a premises that seems to be big enough for us so fitting everything in everyone in has been has been challenging but hopefully we're in a place big enough for us for at least a little while now so we can uh we can relax but um yeah I think I think at the moment we're in a we're in a really good place but we've obviously had a lot of a lot of challenges as the business has grown particularly when we were smaller in terms of um you know managing cash flow as a kind of small growing business can be can be challenging especially when we're funding products so far ahead of time that that was always challenging um Co presented massive challenges for us as a business that hadn't actually been going very long um but yeah we've got a kind of we've got a great team in place now we're in a premises that as big enough for us for a while so um touchwood we so great Amy you've talked about um you know cash flow how did you did you bootstrap did you take investment on board tell us a little bit how that journey in terms of investment and scaling went for you yeah so we um the three of us put,000 pounds in each at the beginning um so we started with started with £3,000 and then since then have taken no real kind of significant investment you know we've had leases on equipment and and things like that and and a few kind of smaller things but no real significant funding um so it has been a case of really carefully managing cash flow so that we can fund that fund that growth without um running out of money really but um yeah I think initially it was really challenging but um not having that security blanket of funding in place I think also helps us to well certainly initially helped us to be successful because you're so cautious around what you're spending but also so keen on making sure that you are making money from day one which we were um because we had no other choice there was there was no funding in the background that was going to save us so um yeah I think I think it contributed to the success yes ultimately Amy I think you should write a howto on how you made three grand into 60 million and 6 that would be a really interesting if we had more time we should drill into this because it is amazing Amy what would you describe your leadership style as you said you're a mom you're working with your husband and another partner how do you how do you feel you are uh as a leader and how does that trickle down um I think um I think it's important to lead with kindness and I hope that I do do that um that doesn't mean you can't you know put your foot down and um be more serious when you need to be but I think you know um having respect for your team and um and treating them with kindness ultimately um first it's the right thing to do but also you're going to get better workout of people if they're enjoying com to work um I think we like to look after the team I they they're part of the reason why we're here they're very important and we could do it without them so um we like to put great perks in place and we've got a really good perks package um things like free breakfast every morning and monthly car washing goes down very well um and we're also one of a few um employeers in the UK that pay the real living wage while than the kind of government minimum wage um just because it's the right thing to do so I think um we put a lot of emphasis on trying to look after the team and making sure they're happy at work um because you spend so much time at work and I want everybody to be happy and um I want them to stay and I want them to do a great job so um yeah it's um yeah I think with kindness I hope yeah yeah and we know happy employees have bigger output and you know you seem to be doing it so well because you really are always on the side of what's the right thing what would you say are you most proud of to date um aside from my children obviously uh and I think when we we were recently listed in the Sunday Times as one of the 100 fastest growing businesses yeah and I was also so just before that profiled in the Sunday Times I think that was quite a big like wo moment you know seeing seeing your name in in a paper like that was quite um quite a proud moment I think um I mean there's been various various times along the last six years but um yeah that was quite a like okay maybe maybe we've made it my definitely Amy so what top tips would you give to young or new entrepreneurs that just start out if you look back on your journey what would you tell them um I would tell them just go for it and don't doubt yourself and I think if you're lacking in confidence act like you want and eventually you won't be I think it just you've just got to throw yourself into as many comfortable situations and eventually the confidence comes um and I think I think yeah I think just going for it like you just don't try until don't know until you try I think um yeah get a good team around you um look after people and test all for us it's all about testing like just trying loads of different things and seeing what works testing data yeah yeah Amy what do you feel is the best advice you've ever received I've ever received um that's a really good one I don't know actually probably similar about just just going for it like not being I someone said to me to me once about like worrying about things and and being nervous and it was like the outcome's going to be the same you can spend the time leading up to it worrying about it or you can not worry about it and then it it's just going to happen either way and actually I've kind of since then been kind of like why why am I thinking about this like it's going to happen either way so um let's just enjoy my week leading up to it rather than than than worrying about it but um yeah Amy so tell us about your plans your goals your dreams what's where are you heading over the next couple of years what are your big plans um so obviously to continue to grow the business um we would like to expand out of the UK um so are keen on potentially um going into the US and um potentially some other European markets as well and that's kind of a a big next step for us I suppose um moving kind of out of the UK but um yeah just just keep going and keep growing the business keep adding more products um potentially other other revenue streams as well we're looking at different ways that we can get um get the brand in front of customers outside of um digital which we've been quite focused on initially but yeah I think I think um expanding outside of the UK is the next kind of big big project yeah Amazing Amy what do you want people that listen to this conversation what Would You Walk what what what would you like them to walk away with uh confidence to go for it I think and that can be done I mean I I'm nothing special and I've done it so other people can do it as well um yeah I I not long after coming out of uni started must have ideas so um yeah I think I think anybody willing to take some risks and put in the work can do it yeah I think that's a very powerful note to conclude this conversation Amy I'm so unbel believably impressed and inspired by you your team your bottom line the things that you care about your leadership and we can't wait to see what else you're going to do in the next years thanks thank you for thank you for having me