how I went from 500 pound to 10 million and built one of the fastest growing jewelry brands in the UK. My name's Olivia and this is my story. I was just a regular girl and now I've been named Forbes 30 under 30. My company Douise was on the Sunday Times fastest growing companies and I've sold over 650,000 pieces of jewelry. But more than that, this is a story about how I turned fear, grief, and uncertainty into something meaningful. I wasn't a born entrepreneur. And if you told me a few years ago that I would be running a multi-million pound brand, I honestly would not have believed you. I genuinely was just a regular girl with a normal job and I was just doing anything I could to pay my bills. In 2017, my whole world changed and I sadly lost my mom, Deborah Louise, to cancer. Your parents give you so much guidance in life and she was my best friend and my anchor and I went to her for everything. She would always point me in the right direction. When I lost her, I honestly felt so lost in life in general. So when she passed away, everything went quiet. I felt like the world was passing me by and I was standing still. I was at university at the time that my mom passed away and my coping mechanism was drinking and going out partying and I wouldn't allow myself to feel any of the grief that I was going through. I was I was 21 and no one teaches you how to grieve. No one teaches you what you should do next. And no one really teaches you how to feel the things that are happening to you. So the way that I did it was I was like, well, alcohol makes me feel numb and it makes feel good. So I would just go out every single night and get stupid drunk and just not deal with how I was actually feeling. It was a really difficult time for me and that's really where my self-worth started to decline. So, in 2018 when I graduated uni, I was trying to piece my life back together, but I couldn't even find a job, which to me was so crazy because I've just spent all that money on getting a degree and there's nothing in the world that I want to do or any career that I want to go down and I had no clear path or passion or direction. So, I actually just became a receptionist. And it was such a transformative job. I learned so much. But for me, getting people's lunches every day felt like I my sense of selfworth and my purpose just honestly just slipped and just went downhill because I was like, how can I have gone to uni, spent all this money on education, and still not know what I want to do or what path I want to go down? So in 2019, I actually left that job and then I got onto a graduate scheme, but still I didn't have enough money to even pay my rent. I remember I had to call my dad every month and ask him to send me extra money just to like pay my bills and live. Like London is such an expensive place and there's so much opportunity here. But the job, my graduate job still didn't pay for just a really simple life. This brought like a whole new wave of emotions which was fear. And that fear was I'm not living up to my true potential. It was fear that this is all that my life will ever be. It was fear that I've already had my my good years. And that was such a difficult time because you I was I was graduated uni. I've done everything that I was supposed to do, but I'm still not happy and I'm still not progressing in a career that I want to go down. So 2020 the world stopped and that is when lockdown happened which was such a lifealtering experience for everyone. The days honestly blurred together and every single day felt like the same and I was working and I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. I really lost myself during lockdown. But for me, this was the first time in probably five or six years that I had time to really think about what I wanted and where I wanted to go. And I really took the time and figured out the career I was currently in, I wasn't passionate about. And I didn't even want my manager's job. I didn't want my manager's manager's job. And I was like, for me to feel so lost in my current role, I need to do something drastic. I need to have like a big change in my life in order for me to be back on the right trajectory. So my fianceé Jack is a born entrepreneur, the kind of guy that was selling sweets on the playground at nursery. And he was pouring his life and soul into his business at the time. And I remember looking at him thinking like, "This guy is crazy. Like all he does is work. All he does is talk about work and he is loving what he's doing. And that was probably the first time that I really realized that work and your job could actually also be your purpose and your direction and building something meaningful and something that's yours could actually bring you happiness. Cuz I'd never really realized that before. I literally can remember we were sat on the sofa and I was complaining pretty much like every day like I hate my job. I don't know what I want to do. And he said to me, I think you should start a business. And I genuinely was like, you are absolutely nuts. Like, I don't know anything about a business. I don't know accounting. I don't know product. I don't know what I would sell. I literally don't know anything. I had almost like put myself in a box that like I wasn't someone that could run a business or own a business. I need like a knit 9 to5, um, a really normal job. But it was the first time I had a seed planted in my mind that I actually could be an entrepreneur. And I remember he said to me, "There's no difference between you and I. The only difference is is that I've done it before and you haven't." And from that moment on, genuinely, I feel like my life completely changed. So, I knew if I started a business, it couldn't just be a traditional business. It had to be something that lit me up and got me going and got me really excited about. And I'm a really honest person and I knew that I wouldn't be able to sell anything to anyone unless I truly believed in it and wanted it myself. Some of the best memories I had as a child were going shopping with my mom. And that's where my love for like fashion and jewelry really began. So, it only felt right to do something in that world. What I wanted to do was take those incredible memories and put them into the business that I was building. With jewelry, you could buy something that was beautiful and you could only wear it on special occasions and it would cost you a fortune. Or you could buy something which was slightly less expensive, but you wore it once in the shower and it went green. So, not only did I want to solve a problem to have affordable, accessible jewelry that you could wear all the time, but I also wanted to create a legacy and a meaning for my mom. So, that is why I decided to call it Douise after her because I knew that if I named it after her that I would stick at it. I was the kind of kid at school that did a million different things. I have I did horse riding, I did hockey, I did trampolining. And I wanted to make sure that when I started this business, it wasn't just another hobby. I wanted to go all in and I wanted to create a life that I was truly proud of. It meant that I could leave a legacy in her name. I could create a tribute to her. And it meant that I would actually just do the thing rather than just doing it for a week and then forgetting about it. So 2021 I started the business with with £500 and I had no experience. I had no idea what I was going into. I had no plan. I had no strategy. I was just like I need to do the thing. I need to create the business and I need to get myself out of the situation and where I currently was in life wasn't serving me anymore. So I knew I had to make that change. And for the first few years, it was totally crazy. Like I honestly have learned so much. I have gone from packing orders every night after work. So I for a long time I worked alongside my other job. So I could only work on deries in the evenings and I would literally run to the post office. So say I finished at 5. I would run to the post office with all my parcels just to make it in time for uh closing. And I would be the person at the front of the queue and there would be like 10 people behind me and they would get so frustrated cuz I'd have like these parcels like this. Everyone would be huffing and puffing and I would just be like, "Sorry, I'm trying to start a business." Um, and I just think I learned so much in such a short space of time. And I think my naivity in the beginning is what led me to keep going. And the every challenge I had and faced, I was like, how can I overcome this? I have to make it work. And I also had nothing to lose. So I think where I was just totally fearless. Totally fearless. I would do everything to get our name out there to create the business that I was really proud of. And I genuinely believe that it was my mom guiding me through the whole thing. And that is what almost she was like my guardian angel in the first few years where it was that real startup. It was so messy. It was it was it was a very incredible time of my life and I learned so much. So just as I felt like I was getting myself back on my feet and I was starting to get a hold on this whole like business thing, my brother sadly took his own life. For a while, I genuinely didn't know how I could keep going and how I could go through the whole grief journey again because they say sometimes I read this quote once that grief is almost like a prison that you live in. And I had technically been living in it for 4 years when since I lost my mom. And the idea of doing that all over again just felt so scary. And it felt like it could have genuinely broken me. So at that point I realized that I had a choice to make. I could let all of the things, all the negative things that have happened to me control me and control my future. Or I could turn them into fuel and take all that pain and pour it into my business and just try and create something to inspire people that if they've ever gone through something difficult or they're going through hard times that there is light in the darkest of situations. and you have a choice that you can't control what happens to you in life, but you can control what you do next. And I decided in that moment that I'm going to take all of this and I'm going to go and make the best biggest business and I'm going to pour my heart and soul and all my grief and uncertainty and fear into it and figure out what happens next. One of the biggest reasons that kept me going was I knew that with all the sad and difficult things that have happened to me, I could be a source of inspiration and hope to other people who were going through difficult periods because what I had to do was push through and feel all the feelings of the negativity, but make sure that I kept going. And honestly, I wasn't the reason why I wanted to keep going. I wanted to keep going to prove to people that you can find light in the darkest of situations. So, fast forward to today and Douise has sold over 650,000 pieces of jewelry. We've got over 150,000 customers. We've done pop-ups in New York and London. I've raised over £40,000 for Mary Cury, which is um the hospice that looked after my mom. The former CEO of Gym Shark has invested in the business. We were on the Sunday Times fastest growing companies. I was named Forbes 30 under 30. And it all feels so surreal. But none of it happened because I had the perfect plan. It happened because I refused to quit when things felt impossible. I've learned that grief and fear never really go away. You just learn to live and grow around them. So, if you're watching this and you're feeling behind or stuck or scared, I want you to know something. You're not behind. You're not broken. You're just at the beginning of your story. So, Douise was built from heartbreak, but it's become a story of strength, a reminder that something beautiful can grow from something painful. And this is proof that even when life falls apart, you can rebuild it into something that means more. So, I'm starting this YouTube channel to take you along on the journey from 10 million and beyond because I wish I had so much more footage from the beginning. So, I'm practicing what I preach and starting now.