hey guys I'm Amira and welcome to open up this is your communication podcast and I am your host also known as the communication expert I'm your podcast host your life coach and also a speaker each and every single week I'm going to be bringing you conversations to help you level up the way that you communicate whether that's with yourself or in your relationships through each conversation you're going to leave with Food For Thought skills that you didn't know you needed and ways to develop your relationships so join me here as you learn the lessons that you didn't get to learn at school pull up a seat and join us as we open up Charlotte and Olivia launched Toco in 2017 after feeling frustrated about the lack of options on the UK market for beautiful high quality cheeky swimwear now they'd been spoiled in their team with vibrant colors and flattering styles from their mom's home country of Trinidad so they essentially set out to solve their own problem and started designing their first bikini set I truly believe this is how so many businesses are born now what they put down to a lucky feature in the daily mail actually led to them selling out their first collection in just 3 months today we look at the early stages of their business and actually what led and allowed them to leave their corporate careers as Auditors and actually go full-time within their business naturally we talk about navigating business and Parenthood with five children between them Olivia and Charlotte also give their expertise on why you need to learn how to finance and budget whether it's in your business or your personal finances Toco is now set to be the fastest grown independent swimwear brand in the UK this year whether you're a business owner or not I can guarantee you're walking out this episode with so many gems h Olivia and Charlotte welcome one to the openup podcast number two your first podcast recording yes very excited nervous at the same time well I promise you it's going to be a conversation you're going to flow into it I'm super excited okay cuz I'm going to do my pledge first of all I've been a customer since the beginning love it love to hear it I also love the way that I bumped into you guys when you're doing popup in eon's yard yeah yes last summer and then when I dm' you guys you were like yeah Amir we remember you and I was like yes let's do this that is actually the best thing though we rarely get people who are like we're customers but when we met you we were like oh my God it's an actual customer in the wild who knows who know it's Toco I love that you said that honestly it is and I know we're going to get into your story on why you guys created this but I'm just saying from my perspective when I found you guys my days where I was on adventurous holidays all the time and traveling but I really truly couldn't find good swimwear that's suited and fitted my body so to this day I want to say thank you I also wore it I was going to say on my wedding but I mean my wedding was abroad and our pool party afterwards so thank you team oh amazing well thank you for from us lovely to hear how did you find us I always I'm always curious to know where people found found us from who they who they found us from so I like to think I'm a really good detective and I'm very good at a Google search so I know that it wasn't a recommendation it was 2017 and I was about to go to Brazil so like end of the year so literally when we launched yeah yeah and I literally found my first ever one the other day and I've worn it so so much it so faded from the Sun and I was like Amir you need to stop for now you've overw warn that bikini um but I think I honestly think it was Google yeah I think I just searched and searched maybe great some PR in our first year yeah which we're actually going to get into right okay so let me start let me keep a structured convo to at least start us off right um you both I mean I'm in a lot of awe of both of you the fact that you I think no but honestly from the outside for me I think incredible business owners you're also sisters which we're going to get into a working relationship cuz I love knowing how do people work together what works what doesn't how did you find your flow like all of that did it come really naturally um but you're also parents and I know when we've spoken before there's elements where you both say yeah building a business is hard but also something that you're Keen to kind of get the message out there is that it is also doable so let's say somebody's listening they've got an idea and they are like this is not possible I just don't know where to start what made it doable for you guys honestly I feel like the fact that we had each other helped a lot but I know that a lot of people don't have a business partner yeah but we basically just were able to bounce ideas off of each other from the very beginning I feel like if we didn't have each other to be like come on let's just do it yeah we might not have done it yeah and I think it's also someone to kind of keep you accountable to working every evening to making sure you because at the time we both had full-time jobs to like get home both of us then switch on and start talking about the business and I think if you're doing it on your own it might be easy to just kind of think this is impossible I don't know where to begin I'm just going to watch Netflix you know yeah yeah so I think that that was really helpful when we first started but also I think the fact that we really didn't enjoy our jobs and we couldn't quit our jobs that was never an option so we really really wanted to make it work and I think if you're prepared to sacrifice every evening to work on something like a passion project or a new business that's when you know that you'll be able to make it successful I really like that for so many reasons and I know like so I don't have a business partner but it's really nice hearing it from you guys because also and maybe more so now but I guess up until this point my partner's probably been like the invisible business partner the role he didn't ask for okay and he knows way too much about the buiness business but it is important to have that sounding board so even as we if it's not that business partner I think just having somebody whether it's accountability or like brainstorming and I know I'm like way more creative when I'm brainstorming with somebody so I think that's helpful and also interesting to hear as well that you guys had like completely different roles at the time and actually what were those early days like when you still had full-time jobs and you came up with this idea and you're like right we're going to do this together it was pretty hard it was exciting but stressful yeah because it was very much like a secret at the beginning I mean we were in corporate jobs and obviously setting up a bikini brand is not something that was aligned with our job at all it couldn't be more polar opposite from at the time cuz when we launched we only launched with the Toco bottoms which was like virtually a thong bikini bottom so it really was not something that we felt like we could discuss with our colleagues even if we wanted to um so juggling that was quite interesting mhm um also the jobs that we were in were pretty just long working hours and both of us are very conscientious people and both of us always even if we didn't enjoy our job wanted to do the best at our job yeah I've just never been one of those people who's just like I hate my job so I'm just going to do the bare minimum even if I dislike it I'm still going to put in my absolute maximum and take it home with me and yeah and so that was that was quite a struggle I smile at that because I know that a lot of my clients listening but also my community I always say they get so fed up on me saying this but it's that high achiever and overc committing and even when you don't enjoy something it can be so difficult to strip back because for you you feel like you're giving less than and I usually say okay guys you're giving probably 200% so even if you did strip back a little bit you'd still be somebody else's 100 but it's so difficult to do when you care yeah so talk us through this transition of how you've both gone from Auditors corporate life to even first of all having the idea because I mean I'm also in awe added into the fact it's a product based business and I have a service base so I'm like completely different worlds okay where did the idea come from how what were those initial steps what did they actually look like so we basic I mean a bit about a bit of background about us um our mom is from Trinidad so we spent basically all of our childhood holidays in Trinidad Easter summer Christmas every year and we kind of grew up around gorgeous women gorgeous bikinis from South America and then we started our corporate jobs we couldn't holiday as much and we just thought there's really nothing in the UK that we wanted or we could compare to the Quality that we used to get in Trinidad so we just thought why don't we just give it a go probably busy time at work where we were like oh God or we been doing this for the rest of our lives and we just thought why not just try it yeah cuz at the time we were importing stuff from Australia which has an amazing really well established swear market like beautiful bikini Brands all the states and then you pay massive shipping massive import and we just thought let's just let's just draw a picture okay of our ideal bikini um and we drew it and we took it to a seams dress in London okay uh with I can't remember where we ordered the fabric from we ordered from a really well-known um Li company in Italy so we drew a picture there was no like technical drawing or anything and I mean I did art for gcsc and that's the extent of my drawing abilities and I wanted to know as well like how good designing wise and drawing and artistically I mean I've got a lot better now like we we both come up with the designs now and I I sketched them but my sketches now I can make them digital and stuff I've come a long way um but at at the start it was literally just a pencil drawing we took it to um this seamstress and she made our first sample which was absolutely awful okay it was um it was just awful it was terrible like the act it was the Mio top and it actually sat so you completely on the other opposite side of your boobs so you might as well just have been topless so we started we started with that and then through lots of Googling Olivia actually came across our supplier who we work with now amazing um and it was literally just lock on Google we just took a punt with this Factory um and we still them now yeah we'd had a few back and forth with other factories in kind of Asia um which didn't work out there was a time difference a language barrier yeah and we found one in Europe and we just got really lucky and we still use him now yeah cuz there are lots of um companies now cuz everyone wants to set up their own bikini brand now it's it's like the hot thing to do um so there are lots of companies that are like send us your drawing and we'll manage the end to end process um but we didn't want to work with someone like that we wanted to have control over pretty much everything in the supply chain didn't we yeah yeah okay amazing so cuz there's so many things I want to get into with you guys what was the Tipping Point if there was one when you are in these early stages we've sacked off the original SE seamess we're finding a supplier it's starting to feel like this is doable and You' still got your full-time roles what happens next so it was it wasn't until we were so when we when we launched the first collection we were still very much full-time at at the company we were at um we launched it kind of friends and family bought a few it was it was slow but we always expected it to be slow we didn't have a big social media following we are not definitely not influencers we have no big influencer friends so it was definitely slow but then we I I wrote a very makeshift press release and just spent my life on the internet reading articles about other entrepreneurs and stuff and just finding the name of the journalist send finding their email through like Twitter or Instagram or I actually DMD this journalist that we finally got through to and I was like hey I've got this story I want to pitched you and the story was accountant sisters launch thong bikini line I thought this is great for the Daily Mail they're like yes please and luckily she picked it up and she she published it I think it was in July August time and it got to the front page of the daily mail and we just sold out the whole first collection so that's how we kind of got on the map B got on the map that's how we sold out the first collection we and we were then like great now we've got this money we can reinvest it back into the business we can develop a couple new Styles and make a slightly bigger second collection and that's basically how we've grown since then and it was only after we both could like categorically say that we could replace our salaries and that's when we left our so we did it alongside work well I think I did it alongside my corporate job for about three or four years before actually quitting and focusing on it full-time yeah and I left a bit earlier yeah I think it's lovely to hear because I know as well depending on like what entrepreneurs you listen to and what podcast I just think it's really important that everyone's journey is really different and that there isn't a right or a wrong wrong way to do it but I think it's really refreshing to know that like you can do both and I mean you're going to tell tell me what those early 3 years like in terms of juggling both but sometimes I think and I think it's all when I set up my business that was always like my plan and I was like when they match I'm going to swap them out Universe had a different plan so it didn't quite work like that for me but I really like that as well because you find your feet you learn those lessons and then actually when the shift does happen I always say like you're you're ready for it as much as you can be ready yeah she not going to be able to predict everything how hard were those first initial 3 years it was just like a constant juggle wasn't it yeah exactly cuz we we basically converted my third bedroom um into an office SL warehouse space uh and we had walls with ik care chest of drawers around and we had like buckets for every style and every every night we would just pick and pack orders and then we would take huge bags to the post office on Baker Street near where we were working and we'd individually process them but then we got big enough to have a Royal Mail collection and and so on but it it was just tiring really and also it was just one big secret yeah I think that was one of the most stressful things that it was such a secret yeah and almost not ashamed of it at all but we didn't really talk to that many people about it no other than family and close friends yeah exactly because much of our time was spent at work where we couldn't talk about it yeah and at this point so you know when you're like you're in their initial 3 years you're kind of juggling both not speaking about it at work is this pre The Daily Mail article or post and more because it's like actually you know the two don't match or the two don't align so I think the Daily Mail article was terrible I mean it was amazing for us it put on the map but it was terrible in for our jobs I mean it was probably the worst day in my corporate career ever but eventually that blew over and PR they were pretty supportive of it in the end I mean the day one it was very much like getting marched into people's offices this is really damaging for your reputation what do you think you're doing are you doing this during working hours um this is really shortsighted you haven't been transparent at all probably all quite true stuff to be honest but then as we had more discussions um the the sector that we were working we worked a lot with entrepr rurs and then I think people were like we actually think it's quite good that you've got an entrepreneurial side you can probably relate to our clients a lot more yeah and and they were supportive of it in the end they just asked us to not lie in future um and just keep them totally separate yeah just keep them separate and if it did start to kind of I guess infringe on our work then to have a conversation with them about that I really like when you both like reflect now and say yeah probably a lot of that was true and I think as well when you're learning and something is new for the first time it's just that full permission as well that all right we didn't handle it maybe in the best way possible and I think that's quite refreshing and especially as business owners or entrepreneurs or anybody listening doing something new for the first time it's really hard to not make a mistake and not get it wrong so I think that's refreshing to hear in terms of like you guys have grown I think extensionally in the last few years and gone from strength to strength what's been some of the hardest challenges in the last like couple of years that's a good question I think for us as we've grown because we haven't grown our team particularly we've had people kind of come come in and out a bit of freelance um but it has still just been the two of us basically the entire time despite being accountants we Outsource our accounting we Outsource our warehouse now we Outsource a lot of stuff so a lot of jobs that traditionally might be kept in the business or outside of the business I think the biggest challenge for us um as we've grown has been Supply Chain management we've had some really viral pieces especially like our Carib one piece which people absolutely love and we weren't able to keep up with that demand so we had huge chunks of time where we were out of stock um so that that's been a real challenge for us a frustrating challenge as well yeah because the lead times to get our fabric are very long we didn't order properly so we probably ordered more units in a less well selling style that we could really have allocated so that's been a big learning curve for us this year yeah literally the last six months is we've like sat down and been like we need to address this and manage the business oh manage the business differently this year going forwards exactly I love the honesty of that as well and also I always when I listen to business owners and entrepreneurs as well I think one of the most common things is like refining learning and refining really really quickly because otherwise you're going to keep making the mistakes or you're going to feel the impact on a longer term and I love when you're like no this is recent this is like just happen in the last six months and obviously I follow you guys on Instagram as your customer also as my podcast guests um and so like I'm constantly like I can't wait for the for the next season coming out and I'm always looking for those new pieces so it's really lovely to hear as well the lessons that going on behind that business now if we take it back to actually when you guys launched and announcing it to friends and family what was the initial like reception or response I should say what was the initial response like were there anything negative or doubt or just dismissing actually what you guys were about to do dismissive is is it quite a good word actually I mean even even now I think when we first started um I think our mom was a bit terrified of us leaving our corporate jobs even though she actually works in a creative job she a writer she's always worked for herself I think because we were good at our jobs and we were like progressing we had like a real career ahead of us in the corporate world I think that she was a bit worried that we were going to just give it all up on something I guess like swimwear can seem quite frivolous you know yeah it's it's not like we were I don't know developing some cure for a disease we we were making bikinis so I think I think the product in itself was a bit worrying yeah um that's all changed now she's like the biggest Coco fan but at the start she was she was a bit nervous I think yeah bit like you know how's that project going yeah you know as though it was like a a side thing rather than this could grow and has potential yeah like that's cute you've got that's such a good description but I we have I I have friends friends people I meet even now who I I think that they are quite impressed with what we've done but I think because we do work flexibly we can take school holidays off we I can do drop off and pickup at school I feel like they think oh well you don't work yeah you're so lucky you don't have a job anymore yeah um another one another one was are you going to do that again next year like it was like it was a young Enterprise project that we just yeah so what I find so interesting about it we'll come back to actually mom's initi IAL kind of reaction versus where she's at now and that support and just more around how much you guys took that on or didn't take it on in the beginning so I think that's quite important as well and especially when you might believe in something and maybe the people around you don't and actually how you make sure you don't let too much of that noise in regardless of who it's coming from but so interesting in terms of I want to say like society's view or how we've grown up in terms of like what's successful and what's a career and when you both talk about being able to do school drop off and I listen to you and I'm like amazing ladies please teach me I don't even have kids yet because for me what I see is wow your business is operating without you having to be in it constantly which for me is not a good sign of a business operating well but also giving you flexibility where you have choice to decide right where am I dedicating my time and I guess that was going to go back to the things that you outsourced and I giggled when you said okay we're accountants but we've actually outsourced it couple questions I'm diverting here what made you Outsource accountancy as an example knowing that is both your like previous expertise because I've got my take on it but I thought actually let's not it just doesn't add any value to the business it's it's a necessity that needs to be done but us spending time on it takes away from the time that we could be spending doing much more valuable things basically yeah like it I would say it doesn't drive growth yeah in the business but there's a difference between accounting like book keeping fat returns and cash flow management which is something we very much look after ourselves so forecasting and things like that is our spreadsheets are our babies our next set of children are our spreadsheet which I think has massively helped with it has grow of the business because we are so on top of our finances and our forecasting and every month I mean every week really we're sitting down like what targets do we have to meet and how are we going to get there rather than just being like okay well obviously we want to sell more bikinis this month like we have like actual tangible targets that we set ourselves and we have to meet basically listen to I think is absolute gold probably because it's not my area of expertise right but also I Do Love A Dragon's Den and I know that when they do rip people to shreds it's usually because they don't know their numbers and it's usually because they don't know their finances so I think one it's a great distinction actually between accountancy bookkeeping taxes and actually your cash flow and yes important in any business but espec especially when you're talking about actually buying your product up front or your Fabric and who you need to pay how you're actually going to launch the next season so it's beautiful to hear that insight and actually where you guys were so clear on actually where do we need to spend our time what's going to add the most value to the business because essentially that's what's going to help you grow I love that exactly how do you deal with some of those dismissive comments I just completely ignore it yeah I ignore it as well yeah I still think some friends and and people kind of think you know you don't work that's a cute job and I just I just say yeah it's hard work but I just I just pretty much ignore it and I think some people like it doesn't come I think from Mom the initial nervousness came from a place of like concern for her girls you know make sure that we are making like good choices um it wasn't because she thought oh that's stupid you know it was more I want to make sure that you're not making a mistake by leaving a job that you're very good at you know um but other people I just completely ignore it yeah yeah because they say stuff they're like oh how's Toco do you still do it and I'm like yep it's going good thanks and should I show you after that and I just kind of mov the conversation on I don't know may maybe that's just me being a non-confrontational person perhaps I think when you know that your business is doing really well then what does it matter what other people think yeah I and I know I joke because if I'm talking for example to like my coaching clients and they're avoiding confrontation it'll be a different conversation but I like in terms of where you're both approaching that from because actually is it energy that you need to give to that conversation and I think sometimes I think some people it's easy to misconstrue what I say when I'm like no have the conversation and but actually is that a conversation that needs to be had and you guys know how running your business and where it's thriving and what you're both doing well and actually you can let those comments slide and that and I think that's important as well and even making the distinction between mom's initial concern and where that was coming from and actually it was from a place of care and like I love you and I want you both to do well not dismissive of the idea and I think that's quite different as well yeah question for both of you at that time when Mom had concern and you both are like we're doing this okay we've got a vision for this were there any doubts for you like did it make you second guess yourselves at all I don't think so no I don't really remember ever thinking should we be doing this no and I think also this I think we didn't we didn't take risk really at the start we but we we didn't leave our jobs we didn't like remortgage our homes we applied for a government grant which is like available to anyone once you put together a business plan so and obviously it was against Olivia I didn't I didn't take that Olivia took the hit but you know there wasn't really a great deal of risk even even if we lost if we didn't sell anything and we scrapped the idea we wouldn't have lost tons of money we wouldn't have lost our jobs you know so I feel like there was no reason really to second guess it because there wasn't much on the line yeah and I like we can try this we're doing this in a controlled way actually if it doesn't work then at least we know yeah yeah exactly exactly I like this really like calculated logical can you tell that we're Auditors at heart yes so sensible so risk averse but I also really like it because it's nice hearing like a different version of how somebody's created their company and their brand from a space that felt good and it doesn't mean that there haven't been a million lessons for you both or you've had to learn in different areas where you didn't have expertise but hearing it created from a really grounded Space is really refreshing that's good to know yeah this why I always say please give me your calm grounded edit I need it um I like as well the fact that actually for both of you there wasn't that much second guessing because you kind of had the the backup of like we know how to do this or we know like the risk around it doesn't really feel that risk adverse and so leaning into that felt good you're both sisters can you please tell me this working relationship and how from the outside it looks so effortlessly like how do you guys work effectively together I'm going to assume your lives but please correct this are quite intertwined yes very I think we actually see each other every day of our most days we turn up in the same outfit Yeah we actually had to pre-plan to not be in the same outfit today because it that would have just been embarrassing yeah we are morphing into each other but our lives are very intertwined we have kids together we raise our kids together we work together and I I mean we're just very close but we do have different roles with the bus whereby we compliment each other and I think that helps and I also think being sisters you have that closeness whereby if you disagree with something then you just say it's not confrontational to say that you just say it because we don't like we don't I guess you don't have that professional barrier yeah you know if if you said it to a friend maybe oh I actually hate that design I think it's really ugly your friend might take offense to that and you might not be friends anymore but if you take offense to it she has no choice but to still be my sister so so you are my what I mean is you're much more open to um like honest conversation without feeling like oh I need to phrase my words more carefully yeah so actually in this situation it serves you both better because you've got that sibling relationship growing up were you both always close yeah yeah we've always been close we always been close yeah there's three years between us so we growing up I'd say kind of LED our own lives but we're very close separate friendship groups but we've always been close we've got a younger sister as well and we're just quite a tight tightly knit family I love that I love like a family Dynamic and when especially probably unbiased because I'm close to my brother and my sister and like my closest sibling relationships um was there any like transition for you guys starting the business and working together that was a little bit tricky maybe like the more challenging times have been where either of us has had to take time out of the business yeah to have children um so obviously the load does fall more heavily on the other person I suppose maybe that's more challenging times and then we've had ups and downs with the business where we've been stressed about growth or cash flow cash flow management um so I suppose that would be like our most stressful times I think so but I think stress ful in the sense of running the business but not stressful with each other with each other you know it's just sometimes it feels like if I was on maternity leave or you were on maternity leave I say mat maternity leave because I mean Loosely it doesn't doesn't really work like that running your own business but I feel like you one of us would just take that stress burden on themselves CU you don't if someone's got a newborn you don't want to say oh my God I think we've got a cash hole in February you know cuz that's not going to make them feel good yeah yeah okay we're going to talk about maternity and business owner also because my business manager is also a co-founder of a maternity platform oh really so this is like so timely but also because I feel that a lot of entrepreneurs will like have questions around that I feel like are going to be so useful what I wanted to know is what do you feel makes your relationship work other than the fact that you're both sisters so when let's say for example let's paint the picture of we're going through one of those stressful times and it happens to be a cash flow problem or issue or on the horizon we can kind of feel this coming up what do you think works about your relationship that allows you both to kind of navigate those tough times and get through it together other than the fact that you're related and have a good relationship like where do your strengths lie I think I think our strengths actually really lie in lying like laying out the situation in front of us picking out what we've done wrong to get to this point okay and then figuring out an action plan to get through it like I think as soon as you it's it's very easy to kind of close your eyes and think oh my God I just know something bad is coming up I know we're going into winter sales are going down but until you actually quantify it and for like actually forecast looking at what your ingoing and outgoings are you don't really know how you can address it so I think I think with anyone I mean even even with personal finances you you have to just know everything know what your expenditure is and then you can find ways to be like okay this is what we need to do to make sure that doesn't happen but I think it's just like if you were on maternity leave or I was on maternity leave we just lay out exactly what's happening in the next few months say this this is going to happen what do we do about it yeah I think we're both quite practical yeah practical yeah instead of just kind of the yeah I think hoping for the best is probably like one of the worst things you can can I just say I can hear through and through like your practical and logical approach and I value it so much I am so it's not I'm not going to put myself in the bracket that I'm not but okay one thing I wanted to ask because I feel that like finances and money is sometimes things that like everyone isn't clued up about business or not or not and I feel that given your background and your expertise is also why you are on it but correct it if that's wrong right but you're also looking through this lens of it's practical why would we want to shut out eyes like let's lay it down let's actually look at this together what about if somebody one isn't very good at it and two's got like this fear around money or their finances even if we're looking at personal finances what would be your tips so let's say they don't have your skill set oh I think you just I think you just have to start you have to you have to be good at cash flow I don't think you have to be particularly smart or no it's I don't think it's anything to do with academic ability I think it's like anyone can open open Google Sheets yeah and and you just have this is a list of everything that I'm spending money on you can even just look at your bank statement your company bank statement and say these are all the things I've spent money on or your personal bank statement and this is how much money's come in and if it's a negative number at the bottom you got to do something about that negative number yeah guys that's your sign negative is not good but I think it's about it's a really important thing to learn I'd say um mom wants us to teach her how to use Google Sheets yeah you know so that she can do her own taxes instead of her accountant doing it yeah I think it's just a LIF skill that one has to learn especially if you're trying to run a business and grow a business definitely I feel like business is like non-negotiable but also personally right and I also feel that these are some of the things like we we weren't learn we wer W learn we weren't taught at school and I know you can say that for a lot of things right but actually really understanding like what needs to be in my toolbox for life and I listen to you guys and because you make it sound effortlessly and I guess I know that with some of my clients at the moment we're working on that and it's exactly where we started like okay and there was so much fear because actually burying their head in the sand came from a space of like oh my God this feels so confronting to look at and because not just because you guys have got the skill set but I just really loved the Practical like logical like no it's fine like we're going to work through this we're going to find a solution and being really solution focused and I guess I've seen it play out with my clients at the moment where like the fear is taken over and we literally just did an exercise like right let's pull everything out and let's literally do income and expenses and then we can see the bottom figure and then we can start to talk about actually how we're going to manage it what tools and also work on the mindset around it as well yeah cuz I think once you know that's it you're not scared because you know exactly what problem you've got to deal with or on on the other side you might find that oh we're actually in a way better position than I thought we were yeah yeah you know which has happened this year yay and we can like our first year where we're not like oh we can't order all the stock we want to order because you know otherwise we can't pay ourselves this month type thing I want to say congratulations cuz I don't know if you remember this but when I saw you both in uh eckl's yard and I was like so excited I was like what oh my gosh and it's because you popped down and it was just the most impromptu conversation and I remember I was with my friend and she was like oh I've not heard of this brand I was like no let me tell you about this brand I was like I am a loyal customer um but I remember I think I caught you guys at the point where I'm sure you had like I'm I think we'd gone you guys will know the event like as in the date of it but I think you'd like we'd gone through summer so it's like you at your peak season and then I think you're about to to buy stock and it was you you guys are going to correct the timeline on this I think we might have been about to um launch our loungewear collection okay I think that might no that was the year before was it yeah cuz eckleson was last summer was it last summer it was yeah maybe we were about to think about we were about to start thinking about ordering for the new season the new season I think so maybe that was it yeah does that make sense in the timeline your business I was like I actually don't know your your business so you guys are going to correct me but because I remember you said and I was like oh my God I'm so in awe and and we were talking and you're like yeah we're about to do our order and you're like this is where our cash flow goes down yeah yeah yeah and having those es and flows how have you learned and I know as well like even listening to you in terms of the lessons from the last six months how have you learn to lean into those es and flows of the business I suppose we're so familiar with it now I mean our business is very seasonal and that's like one thing we've worked on massively this year trying to not correct but trying to help by expanding internationally and just releasing more product throughout the year yeah but I suppose we also lean on it through kind of short-term financing yeah um if we feel like we're coming into a really busy period and we want to spend loads of money on ads then we have the ability to draw down on short-term Finance to kind of help us through those periods and make a bigger return yeah than the cost of the finance that we're getting out yeah so there's like we we our website is on Shopify which is for anyone starting a business an e-commerce business Shopify is I would would not recommend it more but when when you're a retailer that sells a certain amount you can get Shopify capital okay so it's very short-term capital and they'll give it to you based on I guess how much you're selling through their platform and it's just short-term financing that can cover the cost of marketing or something but it's great because it's just like you obviously pay for it but it's a a cash resource that you can kind of draw down on if you don't want to take that core cash out of your business as I'm listening to you I'm like oh my gosh you've learned so many things like about running a business naturally because you're in it what's one thing that you both wish that you learned sooner about running a business oh my Lord something I wish I'd learned sooner and the reason I'm asking cuz listening to you both it feels like naturally the business has evolved and there's been so many baby steps as in to look at like what the looks like now but there's so many components where I feel like you've just built on what you've known and then you've had to learn something new and then figure it out yeah so I just wonder what maybe came a little bit later and like could have done with that lesson last year I think like we touched on earlier just stock and Supply Chain management I suppose I wish we knew more about it sooner and because that you know that has resulted in Lost sales because we've been out of stock or Surplus product that we've had to sell at discount I think stock stock and Supply Chain management is something that has been a massive massive learning curve for us I mean running a product based business stock is everything and thinking about how much to order when to order I mean we sell our swimwear in so many different colors it's difficult to know what's going to be the color of the Season yeah should we order the same of everything we've also had to learn a lot about sizing and how much we order per size so we've kind of learned more each year but I'd say in the last year we've learned a lot on how we'll kind of grow the business by managing supply chain better yeah and that's something I don't think we could have learned any other way was trial and error and making mistakes exactly yeah yeah so instead of doing like I I feel like a good way to put it is for for entire existence up until this year we would do one big order at the start of the season and we would just kind of hedge our bets on a couple of colors yeah we think those are going to sell pretty well historically maybe we sell more in this style in a size large or this in an extra small and then we just place a massive order okay and hope that we were right but and then get so stressed on launch day we're like please but that just is very I would not advise that to anyone ever because what happens is you're not right yeah 99% of time and then and then you just you just have this oh well we need to sell more of this and more of that and we've got way too much stock in this so we've changed it this year so we're basically buying based on demand which is a much more sustainable way to do it much less waste yeah um yeah just m much more thoughtful and that is something that you can't really be you can't really know unless you've run a product based business yeah yeah and I know as well I'm not even going to open this as a whole new topic because I know it will take us off somewhere else but I know there's a lot in terms around sustainable fashion and one of my previous guesses well was sustainable Bridal Wear I listened to that one I thought you both both might like that episode and um so I know that like we kind of took a deep dive there and I know it's a really like complex area of fashion as well because the whole production in itself goes against the whole notion of sustainability and I'm not an expert in it so I'm okay I'm not trying to claim to be but I think it's important where you even say like your approach has shifted and changed and now it's a lot more thoughtful and actually there's those small tweaks but also really importantly there's so much that you couldn't have preempted unless you did it and now you've learned and it's I giggled when you said how you used to do it because up until this point you were both very like specific calculated risk of verse and then I was like what you're heding bets yeah yeah yeah it's not very like us actually I don't know how it happened for such a long time I know I know yeah I think that's something actually that well we we we still don't have but we've never had a mentor uh it's something we've always talked about but the the people who you find like inspiring it's like what do you just DM them and say hey will you be my mentor I I just would not even know how to approach that but I feel like having a mentor who is in the space of a product based business e-commerce brand would would be or would have been incredibly useful for us um cuz I think they would have said what doing yeah um that's not how you manage stock okay I'm going to put a pledge out there okay I'm going to say guys yes go DM your Mentor whoever you want to be your mentor and even though you're at a different stage of the business and there's probably different things you'd want now versus what you needed in the early days guys if anyone wants to be a mentor yeah let I was say don't let me know let them know yeah definitely but if you've got people in mind please go and DM them I remember as well like yeah my ment I I knew as well this is really really specific but I really knew that I wanted a male Mentor but I've got really masculine energy and I just knew that I wanted my mentor that wasn't necessarily like in my industry I didn't need them to be a coach and I just work well with male energy so I was like that's who and I had a couple of people in mind and I wasn't sure and I'm really big into manifesting and a lot of my things even when you guys talk about your supplier and you said oh it's just we got lucky I always say that it's probably a lot of work that you guys did and why it's a mind even sometimes when we don't realize it um and anyway the point is he's become my mentor but I knew when I met him he didn't know this and I was like yeah he's going to be my mentor really oh so you said it in in your mind yeah in my mind I was and it was a real off chance that we met it was like I couldn't have predicted it he couldn't have and I think it was something like we were out and he was like oh excuse me can I borrow that chair and I was like oh by the way and we started chatting cuz I knew he knew mutual people and I was like you don't know me but I'm a mirror and I went for it how did you this is me asking you the question yeah go for it how did you ask him to be your Mentor so cuz I feel like it's like asking someone to be your boyfriend or your girlfriend please to be my mental you you know what that's actually really good an energy because it is a really personal relationship and it's you've got to have that Rapport and sometimes I think you can have like I had an idea of somebody else that I wanted it to be and then after a little while I was like oh no that energy is not going to work um so initially that's kind of the initial me and then we were talking and we were talking about work and business and I just knew he had the business Minds that I really needed um and then he naturally as we were talking by the end of the conversation was like oh we should go gra grab a coffee and I was like most definitely we should grab a coffee so then I went into that meeting most definitely being like I'm not going to walk out of it without asking him and actually the tables turned and he offered it oh amazing but I would say that my intention was really there so I know that's kind of a it doesn't answer the question cuz I didn't naturally ask but I would have this is how I would have said it because it was in my mind and it was my intention I would have said by the end of it okay this is where I'm at in the business these are the pieces that I think I'm lacking I do admire I admire him and he's got a skill set that I don't have probably the same way I big you guys up and I'm like I'm in a of you cuz XYZ but I'm really open about it and I love cheerleading other people especially when you've got a skill set that I don't have cuz I'm like teach me how did you learn that if I've got it I'm like oh yeah I'll teach you that it's no problem um but I would have said to him yeah I really value you because of XY Z and I want to grow and this is my vision but I know I've got blind spots and there's things I'm definitely missing so how do you feel about being my mentor yeah and he if he said no I was in the same position yeah yeah so maybe this is your sign cuz I never know if you if you have to offer them something in return you know so I it's like the unspoken thing yeah definitely so I always say generally speaking and I know this is my industry in terms of like I coach I would always say coach versus mentoring typically speaking mentoring tends to be like a free exchange typically speaking not saying everybody works to that role but I think I was like let me ask first and then we'll approach that conversation um and we've kind of just worked it in a way where it works with both our schedules it's not an everyday thing it's not even like a monthly but I know I've got checkpoints within the year and it tends to be like way bigger strategic and I think that's probably what you need your Mentor for but everyone's different and people could charge yeah Food For Thought yeah I like when this goes the other way not happy we've learned something today now that makes me so happy okay there's one thing that we touched on and I didn't come back to and I have to I have to have to do this right can we please talk about maternity leave as business owners oh yeah yes we can okay first how many maternity leaves have we had between us while running Toco four well yeah I suppose four because Jacob was just to four okay okay so for everybody that doesn't know how many kids each do you both have I have two and I've got three okay so you've had four maternity leaves whilst running a business yes let's define first of all what did the maternity leave look like so my I I have the youngest I have a one-year-old um you just don't I mean you never really switch off but we work for ourselves so our work is flexible but when you run a business you you can't ever switch off right but it's not like I was having to do stuff every single day at all but I just would have to bring my baby with me where there were things that I did have to do like yeah photo shoots or or meetings um and I think it's more about when we were on maternity leave it it was more about making sure we were there for each other as a sounding board as opposed to like doing the doing um just making sure we touch base what's going on with the business and we would touch base every day so how's you know we just kind of and if there was anything we needed to do we just do it in the evenings I mean two days after I had Ruby who's my youngest I redid you remember I redid the entire website because I think I was like running on adrenaline and it was Co so we were like we need to sell because how are we going to get through it no one's going on holiday um so there was a lot of adrenaline flowing so I just did it then yeah yeah so you just kind of when you when you have like energetic moments during maternity leave I would always work on Toco but can be boring at times I mean you're off yeah you're off with a small baby the whole time so it's it's quite nice to have a different creative Outlet I mean babies sleep a lot at the beginning so it's quite nice to spend your time doing something other than just like tidying or cooking around the baby sleeping and actually doing something interesting just to switch on like I feel I feel like it was it was nice to have something to feel like myself you know because you do you do lose a lot of sense of self when you've had a baby because your whole life is looking after this small thing that is totally dependent on you so sometimes it's nice to just oh how's Toco going like what do we need to do how sales yeah I wanted to say how refreshing to hear because I was also going to ask you and I feel like you probably answered this already but like was there anything in terms of looking back that you would have liked maternity to look differently and the only thing cuz I haven't had kids yet I'm like oh we're putting it off um conversation for a very different day um so I probably ask out of like interest but also because from a business owner point of view I really get and it's very nice to hear yeah your brain doesn't switch off like since I've had a business and I love it and I just wouldn't trade it for the world no matter how many loads we go through no matter how stressful things get and I always say my clients are not stressed it's like the business side of running a business um so I really get that when you're like you just never switch off but it's also part of having a business right but how refreshing when you talk about as well and I haven't had this from experience it's from different conversations around yeah lots of females feel like lost myself or my body shapes changed and I feel differently in the way that I look at my body my sense of self how I value myself and actually to have as you said this creative Outlook or something else to focus on that fuels that creativity as well so thank you for giving me so much reassurance that I need um on a serious note looking back is there anything you would have liked to be done differently in your maternity leave whether it's like more timeout whether it's yeah anything I actually don't want to give you suggestions I actually don't think so to be honest no I don't think so either I think I had a very balanced I had very balanced maternity leaves yeah I mean I don't think there was anything where I was like I mean obviously when you're not working for a big company the maternity pay that we got maybe that's what we never change yeah um but aside from that I don't think that there's anything I would do differently I suppose where it's a product based business we are to an extent stuff just keeps happening in the background like we have a warehouse who do all our fulfillment so yeah a lot of that stressful side of it just happens in the background anyway nice um so yeah I don't think I would have changed anything yeah I also feel as well I'm just adding my opinion here so you can tell me differently but I also feel because of the supportive way that you both work collaboratively together as Founders it really works and it just feels that you EB and flow so well between each other yeah that does help a lot on top of the sibling Dynamic so it feels so supportive and you give each other that space but you're also there for each other in a way that's capacity and you know the other person you probably can read each other pretty well yeah definitely and like during maternity leaves it it was never a case of you're hounding this other person with questions because we've both been through it so we both know how it works and we've just never really seemed to have an issue with it I think that's something that both of us like independently having our kids have always wanted is that the kids have fit really nicely like into our into our lives like every a lot of my a lot of my friends um that I've spoken to in the past who haven't maybe haven't had kids yet or whatever or have had kids say you know it really does change your life completely and it does for sure but I think with Toco we've we've kind of done it in a way that means that it hasn't stopped what we've wanted to do you know and I mean I think being at stay at hope mom is the hardest job on the face of the planet and having Toco is like my savior cuz I think I would be really bad at it oh I wouldn't want to be a I didn't think I'd want to be a full-time stay-at-home mom it's a really hard it's a hard hard job so people say oh it's so hard juggling your your job and and being a mom but I think being a stay-at home mom's harder personally yeah so I'm smiling and I know it might feel like it's something that I can't speak on and I've got my two nephews and I think I was like 20 when they were born um and they're almost like teenagers now but I am like their second mom and everyone's like they're not yours it's very different but in the early days my sister still worked and she had events and she'd be abroad so I'd always look after them and I'd have two together and I was very very very involved in their lives in like the first 5 years so I'm like okay guys I have a good idea okay my sister always jokes cuz she's like I think this is why you put it off for so long she's like cuz you yeah she's like you know what you're walking into I was like yes I do but I remember as well I used to take time off and B mine they were like good kids like so amazing love it but I remember as well going back to work being like this is so easy throw it at me and that was just small Pockets so I really hear you without it being my own children that taste of it for like that significant period of my life and being young my friends always say I don't know how you did it but you just get on with things but um yeah I remember walking back into the office being like well I actually get to sleep and I don't have to worry and I'm not thinking about I'm just like having a coffee on my own yeah and it's not cold yeah it's not cold that's why I always order my coffee extra hot now because I know by the time I go to drink it it will have cooled down significantly so I have to start extra hot I'm taking that tip all these that's the only reason I do it it's not cuz I like it scolding my mouth okay so I feel that there is so much inspiration in terms of Heritage where you guys have grown up how do you keep that inspiration fresh when we're coming up to a new season not that I'm asking for any secrets of 2024 well there's no real huge thought process to it other than we sit down and we think what do we like basically yeah like we've never really been a particularly like Trend Le um company we've always kind of prioritized really Timeless well-fitting Styles um in bold colors that we like and I've you know there's there's stuff that comes on to TV shows like love Island things like that where it's like the under boot bikini do you remember that that where you could see and and things like that that just have never we would never make it just because we think that we'd be able to sell it everything we make we make because we think it's flattering it's good quality the colors are really nice um and of course we take inspiration from stuff that we see out and about like we might see a top and think oh the fastening on that it's really nice how do we how could we kind of work that into the back of bikini top for example you know so we do draw on inspiration from places but and from customers we have like a very very loyal customer base and a lot of our iterations are LED from what people want basically I think as well listening to a lot of other people that have created businesses and nothing to do with swimwear I think one of the biggest pieces I've heard that's a consistent theme is listening to your community or your customers and actually your brand evolves and grows because you're listening to them and that feedback and those iterations come from your community and that's so important the other thing I think that you guys do so well and this is more in terms of like your models and your shoes there feels like there's so much diversity and inclusion whether it's size whether it's what you look like and for me I feel like that's so refreshing when I'm looking at a brand has that always been intentional from the beginning uh it's definitely been intentional for the past couple of years basically where we've had budget to do these bigger campaigns and get more people involved it's it's something that we kind of pride ourselves on and we just want to keep doing more and more of as we go forwards yeah like it kind of came naturally at the beginning because we rely heavily on customer generated content um and as we saw like more people tagging us that that's how you grow organically as a business if is if people tell their friends about you you know you can pay spend as much ad spend as you want but unless you're getting that real like referral from a friend um no nothing is as good as that so as we saw more customers coming through and with with a small budget we wanted we really wanted to do this thing on the website where you could see your size um so we have like a a feature where you can see each style modeled on extra small 3 to extra large and we really wanted customers to be involved in that because we've always like kind of we pride ourselves on being a swimwear brand for like a normal person yes know because lots of the brands are like super sexy beautiful like beautiful campaign imagery um but for for me I feel like I feel it's quite unapproachable so we've always wanted to be unapproachable brand and including our customers in that is just the best way for us to get feedback to get them involved and for someone else who might be new to too to feel like oh they look like me you know and I can feel I could see myself wearing that I think you do it to an absolute tea as in from a customer from a customer perspective honestly and it is really refreshing thinking about a comment that you said earlier that now you know everyone wants to start a swimwear line and when you guys started there was a lot less I want to say competition but not in a negative way just there was a lot less people trying to create a brand what's that market space like now for you guys having I say quite involved business it's a very saturated space yeah um there's always room for more than one swimwear brand like there's there's a swimwear brand for everyone um so we never see it as as like competition pay but we do roll our eyes sometimes like oh there there's another person setting up a swimwear BR often a big influencer yeah and and they they come and go and that's actually one thing that we were talking about before we came here is we have had to make a conscious effort to not kind of focus on other other brand social media followings or like who it is that launches them because we we don't have a fast growing Instagram following you know we have a very steady sustained growth but we're not like hundreds of thousands of followers and sometimes that can make you feel oh am I as successful as that other brand um but then next year that other brand has disappeared so you have to kind of hold on to that it's not all about how many followers you have like oh that brand look at that campaign they must have so much money they've also raised investment yeah gone in two years you know I think we have to constantly think you know we've stood the test of time yeah we have a very Contin to grow at a really good Pace um and we have a great community so despite their be it being very saturated we have a very very loyal customer base yeah it's so beautiful to hear like the groundedness in your answer and not because I was looking for something specifically but I know I hear it from my clients as well and forget like business or not that comparison can creep in so easily definitely and I know that like and this is from somebody who's built her business off of social media like I love my Instagram I love my Instagram Community I'm literally like guys are my favorite yeah um but that downside and I was having a conversation actually with a client recently who wants to use Instagram as their as their marketing tool but is equating likes to like their validation or it being and so I think it's so beautiful to hear from you both that yeah we can see that and we can hear it creep in and actually you said no actually we have to ground ourself and we' we stood the test of time and that one I really like the abundance mindset so like you know there's always space for more welcome people into that but also having faith in what you guys are doing yeah and I really like especially as well when the comparison Creeps in for you guys around oh my god well they raised investment or they spent x amount on this campaign and it's also because we got way too much access to Too Much Information who has this much visibility over somebody else's business and how we' never had that before so it's so easy and I think it's just so refreshing that if somebody is listening right now and business related or not is finding themselves constantly comparing and they aren't doing a good enough job or that this isn't working it's okay that isn't your sign that you're doing something wrong or doing something badly but also say put some people on mute guys yeah yeah yeah yeah it's helpful yeah okay before we wrap up the episode is there any secret hints or tips you can let us in for season 24 and what we can expect oh wow it's launching at the end of March okay I think we we'll be live as you guys are launching okay perfect timing what are secrets we've got pretty much all new colors oh this is exciting we've got the long awaited black and white yes which people have been asking for for ages um which is very exciting we have loads of new Styles loads of new Styles loads of new colors yeah I mean it's like a a brand new collection we have our core Staples still coming but yeah it's very exciting so this is new new new in every respect in every respect oh I love new I'm ready yes it's very ex I'm ready team okay guys before I even say thank you and just giving us an insight into your world and also trusting trusting me for being your first podcast I ask every guest three questions yes to wrap up our episode so feel free if you guys want to take it one by one or if you both want to answer every question it's your episode you get to do it however you want okay okay who has the best answer we'll see it can also be something that you've said already in the episode or something new okay so first question what's your favorite quote that you want to share our listeners today or even I like to call it like food for thought something you want to leave us with that's going to marinate in our I think mine would be cuz I was thinking about this because I I knew the questions were coming up so I did think about this transparency um full transparency um but there was one by the founder of Y combinator which was like the first huge incubator in Silicon Valley and he said the best Founders are relentlessly resourceful and I think that's something that has really applied to us like don't just grow a team to like hit a vanity metric like learn every single job in the business where every hat because that's how you grow a business yeah I mean that was a great answer that was mik drop amazing Amir does want to add live I think I think I don't remember the exact quote Yeah but it was something along the lines of um overnight successes often are many many years in the making so it's kind of touching on the the comparison point that we were talking about you see these businesses like blow up and you're like oh my God how did they do it they're massive but really that might be 5 or 10 years of hustling in the background to make it massive so yeah it's just not comparing yourself to the other businesses out there and kind of seeing that competition as like motivation to make yourself bigger and better yeah I we needed to hear that message I love that but also as well I just love Amir should not be ad living on episode at this point but anyway here we are and when you said as well use it for motivation and I always say like turn that into inspiration if you can because you need to see somebody else it for you to realize like I can do this too if that's what is sparked in you then great y I'm totally inspired by some other swimwear Brands I think like some have done amazing jobs and I don't see it as like oh they're taking market share from us I just see it as like wow good job yeah hope to be there soon yeah yeah or get closer to it you know I have no doubt guys okay no doubt um okay question number two a practical takeaway that you actually want our listeners to walk away with do you want to start do you have something in your mind already no okay a practical takeaway um learn to use Google Sheets yeah I mean I suppose like keep on top of your cash flow learn to use Google Sheets learn to do your financing learn to do forecasting set yourself targets every month figure out how you're going to make those targets track them um I mean that's how we grow isn't it we we just keep on top of it all and set ourselves these big targets and we're like well how are we going to get there if we're not getting there by the middle of the month we're like well what are we going to do to to change that yeah and we we pretty much rely on that to drive our growth and that's how we then think of the strategies to make more sales I suppose yeah I think I think mine would be it it sounds a bit negative though mine it is very practical though go for is if you're setting up a business and and you have a job already don't quit your job until you've like proven to yourself that you're prepared to commit every evening to this to this side project do that first because there's nothing worse than feeling stressed financially when you're trying to set up a business okay I'm going to add to both of these points okay amir's just gone she's broken her own rules today okay um the Google Sheets and actually getting on top of your finances and understanding it I feel that you guys say it so effortlessly because it's something you've either done for a very long time or was in age or you learned from a very young but knowing who I work with and like my clients and what we cover in sessions It Isn't So I feel like it's gold because actually if anybody's listening and you are ignoring your finances maybe this is the little nudge that you needed to be like okay if there's one thing I do today out this episode it is to like let me pull out my income and let me look at my expenses so I feel when you guys talk it's so effortlessly because you're in it and it's it's your thing you don't think about there's so many people past version of me included and Mir needs to hold her hands up we're doing some deep work on it this year um so I wanted to say thank you for that because I feel like it is so needed we needed to hear that one okay coming back to you felt it sounded negative but there's nothing like being stressed financially so my plan was always you know to launch my business in a similar way to you guys and leave my corporate career when I swapped out my salary and it didn't work that way and if anyone knew is listening very quickly otherwise it won't make sense I launched the business I was so excited it was 12:00 p.m. 8 for Feb by 400 p.m. I Was Made redundant but I had no warning or anything and I was under two years because everyone I forget to say that because then everyone's like amazing you got a redundancy package I was like no I got nothing and I just had like just got a mortgage so stressful yeah that's so stressful so I wanted to reiterate it and just to share from my own personal experience I don't think it landed negatively but if you can avoid it and I always say like for me on my my journey looking back I think it needed to happen that way for me and I know it did because my business wouldn't have grown in a way that it has but also I think I would have talked myself out of it and I'd prepped a year before we launched right and so I think the universe was like right you're not going to physically do it so I'm doing it for you and you're going to have to be stressed and deal with it and is it the first six months I ever want to relive hell no but I feel that if you can take a planned and prepared approach then please do it yeah oh guys you just dropped the wisdom okay um the last and final question what's a resource that you want to share so I always say it can be a book it can be a TV show it can be a podcast anything that's either helped you or that you enjoy watching or reading that you think someone else might h i mean I'm very time poor having two young children I do not have a huge amount of time to read lots of books or listen to lots of podcasts and um I suppose like my main thing is getting out of the house every day exercising doing stuff like that and that kind of gives me time to reflect and think about work but think about other things and kind of get me in the right mindset yeah I think that's important because also I've just run a self-love Challenge and part of it there was like seven different days where we looked at seven different parts but one part of it was like learning how to be alone and I think it's really important as well cuz I had somebody in the challenge has just become a parent and they're like I struggle so much to find that time for myself and I was like don't make it an hour like make it the absolute bare minimum and I think that's quite refreshing to hear that say right it's not even my time to reflect on work it's just can I just sit with my thoughts and like have that checkin with myself so I feel like that's really powerful and something that we can just Implement as well straight away so find that time even if you're time poor yeah even if it's like 5 minutes out the house with nobody no responsibility no answering email no Mom yeah like take it because we need it we need to sit with our thoughts yeah I think I I don't really have like a particular resource that I go to but there are definitely events and stuff that you can go to where you see kind of inspiring people so one I went to years ago it was a sheer luux event and Connie Nam who's the founder of Asen mu she was speaking and she came from this kind of financy background and then she's made astronom which is like a huge success incredible and um she recently started or or maybe it's a continuation of an old thing but it's a podcast series called unbox Founders and she kind of interviews I guess like her group of founder friends but she interviewed like Nicola Elliot who started neom um and some others and I just found it like super inspiring to hear their stories and I think I think it's more like reading about other people's stories not from a particular resource but I always find it really motivating yeah to hear how other people have done it like neon for example is like over 15 years old but you think it's like only in in recent times that it's got super super successful but it's it's it's a long it's been a long time coming you know yeah and I find that incredibly inspiring yeah I think it's such a beautiful result and I'm smiling because I literally listen to an episode Rec so as you were talking I was like oh yeah but I didn't realize it was part of the series and I think I landed on it by yeah I think I kind of like came across it because I'd followed Connie and then I just kind of you know you like go on Instagram and then you stalk all the videos yeah and I think is what I hadn't seen her speak before and I am no wonder you guys are sitting in front of me but I'm obsessed with like business owners and understanding their journey and I love like the psychological side of like what's made people work where's been those sticking points so it was really lovely to hear us speak so just validating there yeah ladies I want to say the biggest thank you from the Bott of my heart it's been an absolute pleasure thank you for having us great first podcast enjoyed it that's a w thank you ladies thank you guys thanks for joining us for another conversation this week you know the deal by now so please hit subscribe leave a review don't forget to share this with a friend and if you want to come and hang out with me then click Instagram you'll find me at theore communication expert