The Art of Succession

Covid happened to be the worst thing that ever happened to me. Like, it totally derailed this

massive company I was building, but it also caused me to stop and be like, is this what I want to be

doing? It just was so much stress, and I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Meet

Emily McDonald, the founder of the stylist LA, an entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience

launching and scaling companies, she built a seven figure business, created a loyal customer base, and

opened retail stores. She mentors female founders to grow their revenue and build sustainable

businesses without the hustle culture, I truly believe that you are a more mature founder and

leader if you can figure out how to do it. Not being in hospital or living, dying and forgetting

that there are other things out there in the world like living and dying by your business.

That's the piece of hustle culture I think is super unhealthy. For a mature business. It's a lot

easier to say that kind of stuff, a scaling or a startup business, though I don't have the revenue,

I don't have the capital to hire other people to do these hours. The founders who are going to win

are the ones that go in there and they're like, I'm building something incredible. Like get in or

get out. I'm confident of myself that I'm gonna have boundaries with venture capital pressure. Do

they want to see you resting? Do they want to see you setting boundaries when their money is

invested? How to counter some of those? The first thing I'll say is like, welcome to the Art of

succession podcast with Barrett Young. Join us as we explore the strategies, stories and insights

that shape the journey of leadership, transitions and business success. No matter where you find

yourself along the journey, this is the podcast where you'll find the tools to make it happen. My

name is Barrett Young and this is the Art of succession podcast. My guest today is Emily

McDonald, a business strategist and mentor working with female entrepreneurs over the past 16 years.

Emily has scaled multiple businesses to include a period of time where she took venture capital

investment. Now we're going to talk through the pros and cons of those decisions today. Emily,

welcome to the Art of succession. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes.

Thank you. First question for you. What brings you to the artist succession? What do you really want

our listeners to gain from this episode? Today, what really on your heart to share today? Well,

first I could talk about business all day long. I like it's my favorite topic. So that's the first

thing. And the second thing is, I wish when I was running my first company, that more people told

the real stories of running businesses and what it actually looks like and the real pros and cons.

And so I just love sharing my story authentically and as transparently as possible, so that other

entrepreneurs feel less alone and, you know, know the real ups and downs. So let's talk about that

first business. 16 so 2009, you started your first company then. Yep, March of

2009. What was that business? What was your background going into that business? What was like

the impetus to get into that? Okay, so let me take you back a little bit and then I'll explain what

it is and how it came to be. So I was born wanting to be an entrepreneur. I was one of those people.

And keep in mind, when I started this company in 2009. Like being a founder, being an entrepreneur

wasn't as trendy as it is today. So I grew up reading. Entrepreneur magazine books on how to

open a clothing store. I knew I wanted to do something in fashion and I thought it would be a

clothing store. I grew up in Oklahoma and did up. My dream was to go to USC in LA, Southern

California because their entrepreneurship school is so good. So I went there and while I was in

college there I was in a sorority, and I thought I wanted to open a clothing store. I still thought

that was my dream, but I realized how saturated that market was, especially in LA, how expensive it

was to start like that market just looked really like old and how and it was just changing. And at

the same time, I was interning at a fashion PR firm and I was able to check out clothes. Okay, so

all of these things came together. I was able to check out clothes for the weekend. You would log

out, you would check out a dress. You would write in a little log that you were taking it, and then

you would bring it back on Monday. All of this came together and I was like, why can't the

everyday girl rent close. So I wrote a business plan while I was at USC. On it. I didn't start it

right out of college. I got a graduate degree at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing,

and I started working in the fashion industry. But then in 2008, the end of 2008, beginning of 2009,

the company I worked for went out of business and they said, hey, we can't pay you well, we need your

help closing up shop. We'll pay you in clothes. And I put this business plan on the back burner. But

in my head I always knew like. And the reason why the sorority piece is important in college is

because girls wanted new dresses all the time for their events, right? And that was kind of the

height of like Facebook, Instagram starting and all of that. And girls were like, I don't want to

be photographed in the same outfit twice. So all of this came together to converge and they said,

look, we'll pay you in clothes. And I was like, well, I can't pay my rent like that, but you're paying

me in dresses. Why don't I start this out of my living room? So I got three part time

jobs and I started renting dresses out of my living room. So the stylist L.A. LA is my first

company and it started as a dress rental company and ended up expanding and became like a

subscription rental company that rented a lot more than dresses. But that's how it began in

March 2009. Oh, wow. Okay. Just a little bit before we get into that, like the history you were born

wanted to be an entrepreneur. What was that? I mean, was that a parent? That was an entrepreneur or a

family member or. No. Where did that come from? I mean, look, my dad's a lawyer. Everyone in my family

is a lawyer but me. But my dad also has this, like, entrepreneur streak in him. So like, they start my

parents started a soccer club, okay? And like, it wasn't just like a chill soccer club. It was like

a soccer club with like, three teams per gender, per age group that were like sending kids to

college. Like it was like next level. And my dad is a huge dreamer and I think that was part of it.

But it wasn't like I grew up with like a dad running a small business. Right? So I don't really

know where it came from other than that I was born that way and I just everyone else, all my

siblings, lawyers and I was like, I want to create things like I wanted to start a magazine when I

was 11. Like, I just really wanted to make things out of nothing. And that's just something that's

always driven me. Okay, interesting. And why the storefront idea? You know, why retail rather than

getting into design or some other aspect of fashion? So funny. I thought I wanted to

do design for a minute, and then I realized, especially when I went to do the graduate degree

at the Fashion Institute, my design friends for every like one idea of design I had, they had like

65, and I just love the business side of it. So like it was, I did like the creativity and the

fashion piece, but like, I loved thinking about like how much inventory you would need. What are

the numbers like? How many people would you need in each day? Like, that was kind of the stuff that

really drives me like, how does it make how does this business model make sense? I also love

marketing and the reason why it was retail is because I have always, and I'll get into this in a

minute. With a stylist, a label like I've always loved the idea of the community you can build

with in person retail, a go to spot where all the the latest trends can be discovered and where

people can feel at home. They can have fun, they can enjoy themselves. I think one of the things I

did really well with the stylist is we built like a cult like following, like we would have these

sample sales, we would have lines out the door, down the block. And like a lot of that is because

we did have two retail stores. So retail to me is always just been. And also I loved fashion growing

up, I loved shopping. I grew up in Oklahoma, but we would like drive to Dallas and go shopping. I

would save all my money and my mom would take us there. I just think that I like the experience of

indoors in retail. Okay, gotcha. So when you launch this from your living room, I mean, obviously

expensive, I mean, you're coming up with a new model here. You see where social media is and you

see this need with your sorority sisters and everything like that. Did you have a tech

background? Did you have a co-founder or I mean, did you just post these on Instagram and say, send

me, you know, 100 bucks and it's yours for the weekend? So and this is why, like, it's going to

make sense that I was more an entrepreneur because some of this stuff was like, now looking

back you're like, duh. But no one was doing it at the time. So what I did is, first of all, I had a

Wells Fargo credit card terminal because that's how you took credit cards. We started with

Facebook albums of the dresses. So that's like how long ago it was. Right? And I would take pictures

on a mannequin and it was a mannequin I got from the company that was going out of business. But

the way that I got clients was I went back to my school, I went back to USC and to sororities, and I

said, hey, if one girl will help me host a trunk show, she'll get a free dress rental. So the

the reason why sororities are important is because it's a genius marketing idea, because you

have 200 girls in one spot who all need dresses for an event on Friday. Like there's a dance on

Friday. You know, there's 200 girls in a sorority at USC and they all need a dress. So I would have

one girl host a trunk show. She would get first pick and she would get, you know, to pick the dress

first and she would get it for free. And then she would host the trunk show, and then girls would

rip through the event. We'd come back on Monday and pick all the dresses up. Wow. So that's that's

a lot of inventory. I mean, it is, it is. Which what's funny is when I first started buying

inventory, I would go to sample sales in LA with cash, and that's how I'd get inventory. So it was

super scrappy at first. But yeah, that's that's how we did it. And no tech background at all. You know,

I think now is a different era. Like one Shopify exists, like Shopify didn't exist. We were one of

the first people to use Shopify, by the way. But before Shopify, we had a guy build a custom

website, and I paid him thousands of dollars and like, it didn't work. Yeah, you know, all patched

together with WordPress on the back end kind of thing. Totally, exactly. And like, I had no

background on that. Co-founders, like, look like co-founders weren't a thing, right? Like, it was

just so much less trendy like now. Being an entrepreneur. Starting a business is easy. I mean, I

don't want to say easier because there are harder pieces. It's more saturated, but like, it's easier

from like a logistics perspective. Like you start a stripe or square account. You can use Shopify or

Squarespace, like you're not building as much from scratch. Wow. Okay, so talk me through those first

six months just how quickly it grew. Word of mouth lessons quickly learned different things like

that. Yeah. One thing that's funny because that's that's kind of a long time ago. But one thing I

remember very vividly is how, like, insecure I was about the idea, even though, like, I knew it was a

good idea because no one was doing it yet. Like Rent the Runway became our biggest competition

and they weren't live yet. So people would be like, do I want to wear a dress that someone else had

worn? But then, like the people who wanted it were super excited. So that was a little bit of like

the scary thing at the beginning, right? And somebody said this the other day, and I think it's

so important. They were like, if no one's hating it on your idea. You're too late. Like you want to

have. I have a client and a friend who's launching something super cool, and people are hating on his

idea. And I'm like, yeah, it's because you're at the right spot, right? Like, if you're to if it's

already been done, people are like, that's a great idea, right? So you want to have those people. But

for me, I do remember how scary it was for me to be like, is this the real thing? Um, I kept the part

time jobs for a while, so. Okay, so 2009, then we rented a teeny tiny office space in

downtown LA for $350 a month. It was on the 12th floor, didn't have air conditioning and really the

first four years. So until 2013, it was a lot like we were growing, but it was very much like, I very

much believe in building a business and customer base, brick by brick by brick. And that's what I

did. And I kept the part time jobs. And then in 2013 was when we moved into our first real

showroom, which was in Venice, and that was when we really started to like, really take off. But the

first four years, yeah, it was like me schlepping dresses around LA to different colleges, to

different sororities, and really like just pouring my heart and soul into it. Talk to me about just

identifying or or testing to find that value proposition here. I mean, how do you set pricing

for this, like repeatability of customers? Just talk to me through some of that stuff if you can

remember. Yeah. So the pricing was super tricky. It's funny thinking back like we would do like a

$30 rental, a $50 rental and a $70 rental plus like a $7 cleaning fee, which just doesn't even

make sense. I don't know why we did that at the beginning, but there was no one else doing it,

right? So like we it was trial and error and then like, how much does it cost to dry clean it? What

if someone what if there's a hole. How much does that cost to fix like that kind of thing. Um, and

so pricing was tricky. And I just really went on like gut and trial and error. Luckily, we could

change it quickly. Right? Like, I could raise it pretty easily. The other thing with repeatability

of customers is one of my secret weapons is like building a cult. Like following, right? Like

building this customer base that, like. Absolutely loves us. So our repeat customer base was off the

charts, like, people were obsessed once they came once, once they rented once they wanted to rent

all the time. So that's also what I mean about Brick by Brick. And how we became so big

pre-pandemic is because people we were like, building on, like it was like every time someone

rented, they always came back. So as we built the customer base, it really grew exponentially in

number of sales. Okay. So you've got a location now in Venice. What size did

you get this company to? How did you start to attract venture interest? Like talk to me just

about the growth. And and when it really started to make sense to outsiders, not just sororities

and people in design. An interesting thing that I don't talk about that much publicly and I don't

know why, but it's in 2013. I actually had an angel investor approached me and want to put it in 20 K,

So she put in 20 K which really helped us open the show. And that's what we did. Then I think then

we were still only doing probably like 125 K or so a year. 100. Like before the finished showroom

it was over 100 K, but like it was hard to build above that because it was like going it was kind

of mobile. Then when we had the showroom spring of 2013 and then, oh, we kept grinding away. Right. And

then it was like from like 2013 to like 20 the beginning of 2016, I would say we were probably

like 350 K ish in revenue. And then 2016 was a huge year for us. We ended up raising

in 2017, which I'll explain in a minute. 2016 I dressed the girls on The Bachelor and it was the

perfect form. It was the height of The Bachelor, I swear. It was like the season that everyone was

watching it the most. We dressed the winner. She didn't have a stylist. She didn't have clothes to

wear. She went on this media to where we dressed her for the whole thing. We were in Us Weekly, we

were in people magazine. We were all over the place and sales started to skyrocket. We did a

crowdfunding campaign in the summer, and we opened a San Francisco store as a pop up in the fall. We

ended up keeping it open, and that was when, you know. Then we hit over 500 K, and then we raised

money in 2017 because I was like, this is a rocket ship. Like there is just so much potential here.

But it's a very rental is a very logistically heavy and expensive business to run. Still you as

the sole I mean 100% owner other than the angels and the cap table and everything like that. Okay.

Until I raised in 2017. Yep. Gotcha. Talk to me. Just if we can take a detour quickly into the

crowdfunding space in the mid 20 tens, because that was really popular. But I don't know how

quickly or if it had expanded into fashion at this point. Yeah, just talk to me just a little bit

about that. So it was not equity crowdfunding. So let's put it down. It was it was all just like

they would give money to Kickstarter or it was indie. No go. Yeah, it was a go go and I think we

raised like 25 K. I want to say it was crazy. It was a wild ride. We have like partners, like for

example, SoulCycle, which I don't know if you're familiar with. SoulCycle was one of my favorite

things. Still to this day, I love it. They gifted us classes and like we would have a free class.

People would pay ten bucks to come that would go towards the Indiegogo. We had like prizes people

could win. We would give them like different levels of things if they put in a certain amount

of money. So that was really interesting because it was very much like a storytelling exercise. And

one of the reasons we did it too, was to get people on board. So everyone knew we were opening

in San Francisco. So it was also a huge marketing marketing activity for us. How big is the company

at this point? Two stores, not anywhere near each other. Really? You mean how eyes are revenue wise?

Team wise, before we opened San Francisco, because I didn't hire someone for San Francisco in 2016

and opened in November and I worked it, I was like, I'm okay with this story. And then in the spring

of 2017, I hired someone to run that store. So 2016. I have three employees in LA and me full time

and that was it. So four full time people. And then we had part time people as we needed them. But it

was mostly that. And then in 2017, I hired my first full time in San Francisco, and then we had a few

part time people in San Francisco. Okay. So when you went to set up the San Francisco store, you

just went up in there and lived there for six months. Well, and ran the store entirely by

yourself? Yes. There was an impetus for me doing it, which it's funny how it made such perfect sense.

So first of all, when this all was happening, a lot of people were graduating college in LA and

moving to San Francisco. It was when LinkedIn had a huge office Facebook. They weren't metta yet.

Facebook, Google, like a lot of the LA people, were moving up here after college and the tech jobs were

like super, super hot. Okay, so that's one of the reasons I was like, San Francisco is the next

city because these people have already been renting from us in college, and now they're moving

there at the same time in 2015. My husband, he was not my husband at the time, moved up here for a

job, So I ended up splitting time between the two cities even after I opened San Francisco. Up until

the pandemic, I went back and forth all the time, and I kept a place there and then stayed at his

place up here. So it was a nice way to do it without having to, like, rent an extra

bedroom or something. You know what I mean? Like, it was, it was a very natural progression. I gotcha.

Okay. So what? I mean, did they approach you? Did you approach them? What was like the desire

behind wanting to scale at the level necessary for VC? Yeah, I decided it was time.

Like, I was just like, look, this is a rocket ship. We need to put fuel on the fire. It's going really

well. We're growing really quickly. Rent the runway's also growing really quickly. They had

raised a ton of money at that point and I was like, it's time. So one of the most interesting

things that happened, and one of the best things that happened to me is I ended up pitching to

Jason Calacanis. And I don't know if you know who he is, but he is the host of the All In Podcast. He

was one of the first investors in Uber, Robinhood, Dotcom and he is a really well known

angel investor. And I pitched to him kind of at this. Like I didn't even know I was really doing

this. It was more for practice. But like, he had this like Founders Day where he taught founders

like about growing and building a um, VC backed startup. And so I went and I got there early. So I

was the first one to pitch. And he like, loved me. And so he was like, come be in my incubator. And so

I had to apply and I still had to like interview. But he was like, you're you seem great. Like, I'd

love to have you in this. And in the incubator, they invest 100 K and then they also you go

through this eight week program. I think maybe that it was 12 weeks. I can't remember exactly, but

where you pitched to investors every single week and they help you raise. So that was awesome. It

was such an incredible experience. And that was like the summer ish of 2017. And that is really

how I got most of my investors. And he's an angel investor. But then Precursor Ventures, which is a

venture capital firm, came in and that's how we raised. Okay. I mean, was your intent to do a

website? Did you have a website at this point? Was it still that piecemeal kind of back in? No. So by

the way, it was on Shopify at this point with Shopify, and we had an idea that ended up

launching in the fall of 2019, which was to do a very scaled rental

subscription on more casual private label clothes. And I still believe that if Covid hadn't happened

to, that probably would have been like the next huge thing, because the profit margin was so good

and people loved the clothes because they weren't like anything else. It was our own private labels.

Um, and so that was what we raised a lot of money for, was to build that and like get the inventory

for that and, and, and scale that. That's what we saw as scalability like the retail. So it wasn't

open a third or fourth occasion. We thought we we were planning on eventually opening more

locations because we believed that that's how you built a cult like following, right? And we believe

like, that's how you really saturated great markets like we thought we'd eventually do New

York, Dallas cities like that. Um, but the first step was scaling this online rental

subscription model. And then we also had the idea of like having stylish vending machines, right?

Where you could, like, pick up your box, pop your box in, like, just ideas to make it easier. And I

think that the retail stores are important because I think they were, you know, Rent the

Runway ended up closing theirs. But I think a lot of it was the pandemic, but I think they were an

important piece of really getting into a market. They weren't in the short term plan. Let's put it

that way. But they were definitely something that was still on our radar as we were scaling. Okay,

cool. What did that raise look like? So a priced round is like, I'm gonna butcher this because I'm

not like a finance person, but you can raise on a safe or a convertible note, right? Which is like

once you raise a priced round, it converts and it's just a lot cheaper and a lot simpler. And we

raised over time. We raised a little over like 1.2 million, but it wasn't all in one round. And I just

a price rod is very expensive because it's very expensive legally, like taking all the documents.

It's a lot more complex. And I think we we were given advice that I don't think was that great by

an investor, which is I think we should have waited to do a price round until we were raising

more, just because I think it makes the most sense, like when you're raising like probably like over

1.5 or something in one round. Again, don't quote me on this. I'm not that is not Oscar lawyer. But,

um, personally, it just was very expensive to do a price round. So 1.2 million across how many

investors? I mean, what's the average that VCs are putting into this thing right now? Okay. So let me

think this through. So precursor put in 400 K Jason had 100 K. Then Jason's syndicate came

in which is a bunch of different investors. But I think they total like was like 150. And then there

were a lot of angel investors. Um, so I mean, I will tell you, I pitched to over 150 investors. And I

think and the cap table is different because obviously his syndicate is a number of investors,

but it's in his one CV. And so I would say there's probably like 40 investors total.

Yeah, about half of them or the small five figure amounts kind of thing. So okay. And luckily with

Jason's syndicate, like anyone under 25 K you, you'd send them to Jason's syndicate so you could

only be on the cap table with a 25 K investment or more. Okay. Gotcha. I mean, Covid is looming

in the distance, I know. But talk to me just about the the year, the two years between that. I

know that you had a turning point, your own personal journey. But was that pre-COVID, was that

instigated by Covid or just like, talk to me about the success? Oh, okay. In 2018, 2019? I mean, it was

just I hate I sometimes I hate saying this because like, it's it's sad a little bit. It was

really, really hard. We did not raise enough money. We should have raised like $5 million. There was

never enough money. We had an investor that was extremely late to wire and like. Kind of kept

promising, but pushing back so it would be like it's coming next week, it's coming by the end of

the month. And it wouldn't. And like there was just a lot of stress around the money of scaling this

type of business. And I just I was super stressed. So 2018 was great. Then we get into 2019 and we're

launching this thing in November of 2019, and my anxiety was through the roof. We were actually

doing really well, which was like we were growing pretty quickly. But the problem was, again, there

just was never enough cash. It was just and not only never have cash, but the logistics. So we

started actually doing the rental subscription on our own in March of 2019, and we were running the

logistics of it before we outsourced to a partner in November, and that was going to be a bigger one.

We wanted to test like test the concept. It was amazing, but it was mania. Like literally we

had we rented office space to be our warehouse down the street from our showroom. This part was

actually kind of fun, but it was crazy. Like, I had like staff members, like running to pick up stuff

to ship, running it to the dry cleaners. Like, it was just it was a crazy thing to try and find

yourself. And then in November, we launched it with, um, a partner. And they did all the heavy lifting.

They did the warehousing and the logistics. So prepping for that was hard, but it was still

really good. We were raising more money then and in the beginning of 2020. So we're raising more

money. We still have an investor who hasn't wired. We're running out of money. Oh, wow. Like a over a

year at this point? Yeah, it was actually it was supposed to be in two tranches. So it was nine

months late eventually when we got it. But so beginning of 2020, I am newly pregnant with my

first child. We have no money, literally no money. I'm waiting on an investor to send money. I'm

raising money like the looking back, I would have done things so differently, right? But like, I just

didn't know. Like now I would have never counted on that investor's money and I would have pulled

back if he was like, don't pull back. I keep going, like, I have the money for whatever now, I will not

do that. But, you know, Beginning of 2020, I was pregnant, right? We were running out of money. We

were scaling this thing. Like, it just was so much stress. And I felt like I was on a runaway train.

And this was before the pandemic happened. Like, it was just like I was waking up in the middle of

the night. I was having panic attacks, like I felt like. And I'm so different now. I've evolved a lot

since then, but I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. And looking back, the

problem was I was putting everyone ahead of myself. I was wasn't paying myself. Like if I could

do it again, I would have ten years in and you're still not really paying yourself. And I was when

we raised it first like I was for a while, but sure, there's cash there. We were waiting on the

money like, you know, and it just was one of those things where, like, I was super burnt out. And

what's interesting is when I started this, even when I was fundraising, I was like, I will never

quit this company. This is my heart and soul. I love it so much. But then, like, there's only so

long and this is why I told you I'm anti hustle culture because there's only so long you can keep

up that pace. And so really like February of 2020. Like it was just hitting me hard, like I wasn't

sleeping. I was like, this isn't good for my new unborn baby. Like, it was just one of those things

where I was like, this is catching up to me. Like, this does not feel good. And so then the pandemic

hit. And at first that was so much more stress, right? Because we had to figure out what to do

with the team. Um, I'll never forget we were at a trade show in Vegas. It's magic trade show. It's a

big fashion trade show at the beginning, at the end of February, beginning of March, when people

were talking about Covid. People were like there were a lot of Chinese manufacturers, right? And

Covid was already was already kind of a thing in China. And people would be like, yeah, there were

like echoes of it in November, December, January. It's like his stuff going to be canceled. Know how

to be fine. Just keep going. And it was weird because then when we came back from that, it was

like it was like just time, right? And so what was weird is our stores closed. We thought they would

only be closed for two weeks, and then it just kept snowballing. And it was crazy because we were

a special occasion company like you rented to go to events. There are no weddings, wine tasting,

vacation. Like it was wild. So I ended up. We kept hanging on as long as we could. The good news

is the writing was on the wall of San Francisco and our lease was up, so we just closed out of

that in May. Like, we were like, we're done. And that was a good decision because we had like a really

tricky landlord there and also like San Francisco, just like everyone left. And I live in the Bay

area. I live in like 45 minutes south. So like I know that area very well and LA was different. LA

was like some people were still doing things like it wasn't as strict, like it just was San

Francisco. It was like a ghost town. When we closed that store in May and we went heavily online, and

then we kept the LA store till June of 2021. But, you know, in California things just kept closing.

Like they would close, then open, back up, then close again. I furloughed the team and then when

we closed that store, we ended up just going fully online. It still exists today. The style of LA does

it is a much smaller glimpse of what it used to be. But it's interesting because, like, you'd think

that Covid happening would be the worst thing that ever happened to me, right? Like, it totally

derailed this massive company I was building, but it also caused me to stop and be like, is this

what I want to be doing? And I loved what I was building, but the way we were building it just

wasn't sustainable. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that, because I know I've worked with

venture capital and angel investors before. You're selling to two people, you're selling to the

investors. You're selling to your customers, um, which are two very different, very different

purposes and needs. It's like, yeah, $25,000 raise is great, but the amount of work that goes into

that versus 200 and $5,000 dresses. Talk to me just about I

probably some of it's California probably some of it's the founder mythos around startups and

everything like that. But how did you get into that wholesale culture. How did you find yourself?

I mean, you didn't have the boundaries because nobody told you to set the boundaries. But just

talk to me about what you how you would advise somebody different today. If you want to compete

on this level, you want to work with the Bachelor, you want to do all of this stuff. How do you do

that and not work 70, 80, 100 hours? So that's such a good question. I think the first thing I'll say

is like times were different in 2016. Everyone was on Twitter, which is what it was called then

talking about how hard they were working. Right. Like, it was like founders were only valuable if

you were, like, sleeping under your desk and like, whatever. Now, thank God there, because there's

been a swing the other way. There is a little bit more focus on founder mental health. What I will

say is, I truly believe that you are a more mature founder and leader if you

can figure out how to do it. Not being in hustle culture. Now let me caveat there will absolutely

be times in every business where you have to work more than is balanced, right? Right. Like, I just

actually came out of a sprinting phase, like I hosted a bunch of in-person events in April, and I

really march in April was in a very busy working every night after the kids went to bed like face.

But you have to come out of it and you have to have it takes discipline, it takes boundaries,

it takes maturity to be able to do it. And you still absolutely can hit those goals without

being in hustle culture. You do. You may have to work super hard sometimes. Right? Like, I am not

against hard work by any means. What I am against is tying your worth up in your revenue, tying your

worth up in what your business sales look like today or this month. Living, dying and forgetting

that there are other things out there in the world like living and dying by your business.

That's the piece of hustle culture I think is super unhealthy, because I do believe you are

better for your business when you're a balanced unit. I think you make much better decisions. Yeah,

I think for a mature business, it's a lot easier to say that kind of stuff. A scaling or a

startup business, though I don't have the revenue. I don't have the capital to hire other

people to do these hours with venture capital pressure. Do they want to see you resting? Do they

want to see you setting boundaries with their when their money is invested? Talk to me just a

little bit about how to counter some of those. Very easy. Somebody's got to do it. And I'm 100%

owner and my labor is free. Totally. I have a founder I'm working with right now who's doing

this? She's raising she's building the company all by herself and like, she's working a ton of hours.

So there's two different questions here. Let me talk really quick about how you think about it

when you're the only one. And then I want to talk about venture capital not wanting you to rest

because that's that's I've thoughts on that. So when you're the only one, there may be a period

where you do have to do it, but there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. There has to be.

You're like, okay, look. Like right now for the six month period, I'm working 80 hour weeks, but at six

months it's done. I'm not doing this forever. Like there's an end in sight. And the other thing I

would say is to really, really get clear on is every single thing you are doing important? Also,

are you being a perfectionist? SOP. Yeah, there are always things I can see that are making people

work more hours than they need to. Usually we put way more on our to do list that actually needs to

be done each day. You could probably cross off 70% of your to do list because, not because it doesn't

actually move the business forward and then not pushing it to somebody else. Just saying it's not

important at all right now. Not important like ruthless prioritization which also comes with

maturity as a founder. Then the piece about do VCs want to see you resting? You know what I want to

see the next generation of founders confidently telling a VC that they're going to rest.

I wish I had done that. I was much more like, oh, what do you want me to do? Oh gosh, please give me

your money. And I'm like, no, no, no no, no. The founders were going to win are the ones that go

in there and they're like, I'm building something incredible, like, get in or get out. And I am

confident enough in myself. Not that you're going to sleep all the time, like you'd never build a

business. But to be like, I'm confident enough for myself that I'm gonna have boundaries. But I will

say this is shifting, right? In 2016, it was like the investors had all the power and they were. It

was a little bit like, oh, please give me money. And now I think founders are having like, you know,

realizing like that they actually have a say. Although right now the funding environment is so

tricky that maybe that's not the case, but I think investors would respect you more if you were like,

no boundaries. Do you think it's a cyclical thing of like just every ten years it

waves back and forth. It goes back and forth between workaholism and then boundaries. Or do you

think it's just specifically the 20 tens were this way because of where technology was and now

in 2020, we're not. I honestly don't know. I mean, I think like I don't think I think it is cyclical

somewhat. Do I think it's going to come back every ten years? I don't know, but I do think right now

in general, the younger generation cares a lot more about mental health. Now. They're also called

lazy. So like what's the right balance. Right. But I

think that like, at least from my perspective, a better business is built when you're not in

hustle mode. I think you make better decisions looking back. And when you're working with female

entrepreneurs now, did you take VC too early? Did I mean when would you advise that they

start to look for that kind of outside pressure versus just you're the founder, make sure there's

this level? It's a good question because like, I think I probably took it too late. Okay. And should

I have taken it at all is a question. But the problem was, is we needed capital to grow. I just

think the business I was in rental clothing rental is very is a difficult business.

And like, look, if you're building some technology thing where you just need to put you on the spire

and scale it when you're ready to be $1 billion company, like, great. I just think you need to think

long and hard about the business you want to build. Is it something that's going to hopefully

have $1 billion exit and can scale quickly? I think it's interesting because, like, I definitely

had some people when I was pitching that were like, you've been around for too long. You're not

already $1 billion like worth $1 billion, like we don't want you. So sometimes, yeah, I think I took

it a little too late, but it definitely it took that. And I don't regret that because it took that

time for me to even learn how to even go raise. And like, I was building the business. I think what

I would say is sometimes I think VCs, values and what they want are misaligned with builds a

better business. If I'm being perfectly honest, I think sometimes the things they want to see

aren't actually what make a good business. Not to hate on DKS, but so I think that's tricky, right?

Like, are you building for? Are you building for your customers and a great business, or are you

building for VCs? I would only raise venture capital for a very, very specific type of business

going forward. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask is I was wondering if it was part of the

California, the tech culture that you were living in that made it look like we need VCs. We don't

need a line of credit kind of approach to this. Yeah, I think it was really hot then too. And yeah,

like I'm in LA in San Francisco, Silicon Valley. I was living in Silicon Valley. Like I'm sure that

played a part in it. But I'm also so grateful for the experience. Like I learned so much. And now

that really helps me guide female founders, because I also know how freaking hard raising is.

I have a client that's raising right now, and I give her like, daily pep talks because I'm like,

look, raising is one of the hardest things in the world. You're literally kicked in the face day

after day, told your idea is horrible. Then you have to hold the vision that it's going to be the

next Starbucks, even when you also know there are problems with what you're building, right? So it's

just it's like a very like out of body experience to do it. But I think been such a great learning

experience and I think, you know, I'm super grateful I got to do. Okay. So Covid is this

massive reset. You have to close a store. You have to scale back. Let's furlough the team. All that

kind of stuff. How did you get out from under the VC with this company? Oh my gosh. I mean, honestly,

it's not an easy answer. It was not. We tried so hard. We tried everything to bring that company

back to life post-Covid. And we just couldn't like it. Just so, to be honest, like that

company is so much smaller today and like the VCs actually like I think, I hope I'm speaking this

correctly. Love me because I tried everything, you know and I think rent the runway still struggling

today. Like I think it just was one of those things like we weren't going to get more capital

and it was really, really hard to come back from, so it wasn't like I got out from under them. I

think it's that I literally gave the stylist LA everything I had and really tried to

bring it back to like pre-pandemic status, and it just wasn't meant to be.

Gotcha. Okay. Did you bring another owner in with you over the past five years? I think you

said you told me, at least pre-COVID, this is winding down. What's that looking like? Yeah, it's

winding down. There is a little bit of actually I talk about because our partner is majorly in the

news, which I won't say more of right now, but, um, we have a logistics partner. They have a bit of

equity in the company. They run the service for us, and they are going through some legal troubles of

their own, which is in the news. And so that's been a bit that's causing the wind down to take a lot

longer than expected. But I'm hoping to have it wound down by the end of the year. And to be

honest, like, I'll be fully frank here, like I lost my investors money, right? Like. But

especially Jason's team has said to me, look like we appreciate your heart and soul. Everything

you've done for this. And like we want to be the first. You tell when you build your next thing. And

so that's incredible. Not everyone is that way. But like I think you know that, like I'm one of those

people. I give everything to what I'm trying to do. And I really turned over every stone with the

style of selling. We tried different partnerships. We really tried to bring it back, and it just got

to a point where it was like, this isn't feasible. And I think at some point you have to cut your

losses. You can't keep a company going. That's not going to work forever just because you feel bad

telling your investors it's time to be done, but you've proven you are the investment and you are

worth the investment. Even if the idea that particular idea didn't work out this time, well, I

think some of them think that some of them maybe don't. Sure. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Talk

to me just about post-Covid, how your mindset is shifting and starting another company. Well, what's

interesting, you'll see, is the new business I run has no inventory. Very little. Completely different.

Very little overhead. Does not need any investment. And I was going to say easier to scale. That's the

wrong word. It's a simpler to scale. So basically after Covid, I hired my first coach. She was too

expensive. I was like, I can't afford it. But I was like, I literally can't afford not to, like, I'm

dying. So I hired her and she helped me so much, just really realized, like, I wasn't this it

was separate entity than me. And I started realizing I wanted to

help female founders a little less alone. And so that's when I started, like some of my friends who

were really good at what they do in business but weren't as good at business, came to me during

Covid and were like, help me. So I started like consulting for them. And then basically from there,

it just it just snowballed into now I mentor and do business strategy for female founders and I

help female founders truly from like some like I'm launching a digital product soon that's on.

Like when you're thinking about starting a company, right? All the way to like, my one on one

clients doing multi-million in revenue or getting acquired for multi, multi millions. So there are

ways I work with everyone in between. But what I realized from my experience is I didn't want

people to feel as alone as I did, and I wanted them to have the support from people who built

things and who could help them, like skip steps and not make the same mistakes. Okay. I mean, before

we get into what that looks like for you, you mentioned you didn't bring on your first coach

until after Covid or post Covid. So 12 years into running your own business is when you brought in

your first official coach. Talk to me just a little bit about VC money and the

strategy, the benefit that they bring besides just investing because they had to have been speaking

into your business. Jason would be in a close, you know, close investor and everything like that. So

just talk to me about that because my listeners aren't necessarily venture capital interested. But

there's a lot of private equity in service businesses. And that's attractive. Sometimes they

know how to run 100 million. I had so much value from a lot of my investors. There were a couple

that weren't as great. I'll just be totally honest, although a few that were super helpful. I mean,

they just have perspective. But I do think it's tricky because it's like a lot of times venture

investors have perspective on venture backed businesses. Right. And so like they were very

helpful. But I also think a coach is different. And that a coach is someone you are coach and mentor.

If it's someone that you pay one, they don't have equity. Like they're not like tied like they're in

your best. Their advice doesn't come with a or else or they have an agenda. Right. And like not am

I investors are wonderful. I'm not trying to like hate on any of them, but I think I wish so badly

I'd had a coach way earlier on. Okay, talk to me just about how this message resonates with your

founders and how you prevent some of the same issues other than just saying I'm here and

telling you, don't do this. Yeah. How you work with them when they do feel that pressure? Well, there's

a few different things, right? Which is like, I want women to build businesses, women and everyone. But

because I work with women, build businesses that truly support the life they want to live. Why have

them think about what the life they want to live is? Do you want to be the person running a VC back

company, or do you want to be someone who's staying home with your kids and working 20 hours

a week? Like, what does that look like? Then we talk about strategically building a business that fits

that, because I think that's a step that's missing a lot, right? Like the whole reason most of us

start businesses is to have freedom, and then we end up not having the freedom because we've

changed ourselves to our business. Like we need to be intentional about that. So that's the first

thing is figuring out what they want. And then there are other things that like that help. Right.

Like figuring out like really working on your self-worth so your self-worth is not tied up in

your revenue. Like, you know, having people that you're open and honest with so you don't feel

shame around things happening in your business, knowing that others are going through the same

thing as you. Helps a lot with just mental health also. And another thing like the ruthless

prioritization. I help clients with that all the time because they'll be like, oh, I'm working so

hard on X, Y, and Z and I'm like, okay, ah, do all these things need to be done? So it's some mindset,

some strategy and then intentionality around what they're building and really making sure that what

they're building is what they want to build. How do you, as a business strategist, hold them to what

they said they wanted six months ago versus. Well, no, I'm I'm changing it now and I'm going to shift

because I say I want something. Then I get into it, I'm like, okay. So for example podcasting I

launched this thing a year ago, two interviews a month. Now I have access to all these guests and

I'm like, do I want to become month? Do I want to become weekly? And it's like there's pros and cons

to both sides of it. And I had to stop myself and say, what's the point of podcasting? It's not to

have a weekly show. So But founders do that all the time. We're like, well, this is bright and shiny.

It's okay to shift. But going back to asking a question like, what's the goal here? I actually

have founders often do an exercise for me, which is where do you what is your dream state in a

year from now? Within reason. You can't like ride a flying car to work, but within reason. What is your

dream life look like in a year? And let's work backwards. So what you did there actually is

perfect. You said, what's the point of the show? And does that align with weekly guests? It's okay

to change. It's totally okay to shift and change as long as you go back to asking, like, what's the

real reason I'm doing this? What's the real reason I'm doing the podcast? What is it supporting? Do I

need to do weekly shows? When you started the show in 2009, though, venture capital and all, you know,

second location, all that kind of stuff that was that couldn't even I mean, maybe it was in your

wildest dream, but but so a lot of this is just like you get into something for 2 to 3 years and

then they have what's available to you just completely changes. So do you have them revisit

this? Like, what does this business mean? Revisiting it all the time. And because the other thing is

like, especially for women, whether you have kids or not or whether you're single or like, whatever

that is, changes, shifts what you want. So maybe when your kids are little, you don't want to be

working as much or you don't want to be gone. And like a perfect example. My kids are four and a

half and two and a half. I was not doing in-person things for a while now. This year I'm ramping up

in person and as they get a little older, I'll go to more conferences. I'll do more things like that.

I'll do more in-person networking. Now, that's not shifting my big goal, but it's always changing. But

usually it's not changing in six months to a year. And if it changes right where you want to be in a

year, we don't have to have the whole vision planned out right now. And that's also why, like, I

just I have a membership and I just posted about what are your 90 day goals? A lot of times it's

like, what are we doing in the next 90 days? If you don't have a goal, you're not making progress

towards anything, and then that's when you end up with a to do list with a bunch of things you

don't need to do. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. At least if it's two years out, it can change. But it

should inform the next 90 days. And that should inform what I'm doing this week. Everyone asks if

you don't have that, you're just doing whatever needs to be done this week. I get asked that all

the time, like how do you prioritize? How do you have so much energy? How do you get so much done?

And I'm like, it's because I know where I'm going and I'm ruthlessly prioritizing and I don't do

busywork granting. I've saved some backend things to do this summer when I'm less busy. So like,

that's not busy work though, right? Like, I don't do anything just to do it. Everything has an

intentionality. Does it support my big 90 day goals? Does it support my big goals for this year?

Yeah. That's good. I like it. Um, Emily, how much work do you do with partners? How much work do you

do with co-founders, or is it all single founders? I mean, who do you work best? So I know it's a lot

easier with without co-founders. It's funny, I become known. This is actually hilarious. This was

an accidental thing I fell into. I've also become known as the go to for repairing co-founder

relationships in VC backed world. So I work with co-founders when they want to strengthen their

relationship. I've become really good at that, so I'm happy to work with co-founders or single

founders. It doesn't matter anyone. I work with women primarily, although I do have a new client

who's a guy. So I say female founders, but he's an old friend of mine and he's building something I

think is really cool. So I'm open to men. I'm actually just talk to co-founder men too, but

typically I work with women who the psychographics are the same. It's not necessarily

a niche in that, like they're building X type of company, usually gravitate towards B2C and B2C

could also be like towards solopreneurs. It's. But B2B enterprise B2B is not my strong suit. So

anyone who is building something that sells to a consumer or a solo founder or something like that,

that really wants to have an impact on the world. I like for the founders I work with to be driven,

you know, super motivated. They get out of their own way. They're excited. They want to be on this

like personal growth journey. So for me, it's that type of founder who, like, has a burning in their

soul for what they want to build. They take initiative. They're ready to do scary things. Those

are my dream clients. Did you not know that those existed in 2009 or. I think a lot part

of this. You know, I didn't have a coach for a couple of years there either. Not a one that I was

paying a lot of money to. Do you think that part of it is our own arrogance, being a founder of

Nobody Knows My Business, nobody knows what I'm going through. I also think coaching, for better or

worse, is trendy now. I don't even know what a coach was in 2009. I really didn't. I don't think

it's that no one knows my business. I think also I used to like Pooh Pooh having to pay for that.

Like I thought that should be an advisor. And I think that was just the narrative. And now I think

thankfully, people are realizing, like, I do need to pay for help or that's a good strategy. I mean, I

spend so much on coaching, it's very important because I'm constantly trying to get better at my

own business and for my client. Yeah, I definitely noticed that pattern. Once you've gotten a coach

yourself or, you know, once you're a coach, how can I say my clients need a coach if I don't have a

coach kind of thing to or strategist? Yeah, I went through a phase this year where I was like, I'm

going to take a break. I finished a mastermind. It was a year long, and I was like, I'm gonna take a

break. And literally within two weeks, I was signed up for a new mastermind because I like it. Like I

want to always be getting more. I want to be pushed a little bit. I want to be like learning,

moving quicker, that kind of thing. I mean, that was a quick episode. Emily, is there anything I haven't

covered yet that you wanted to add before we get into Lightning Round? I think if you just want to

say, like, how do you work with female founders? Just so I can say, like the broad spectrum? Yeah,

I'm interested because you said you, you start with them from like the idea and no revenue at

all. You have that class. So yeah. Tell me just the range. And when like one on one coaching might

make sense. Yeah. So what I've found that I'm most passionate about is helping female founders at

every step of the journey. So I'm actually building out a few more products, but it'll be

like digital products for what to think through when you're starting your business. I have a group

program for female founders trying to hit five months. Then I have a mastermind for those that

are scaling a membership. For those that are in between. And my one on one clients are usually

doing over $1 million in yearly revenue. So my goal is to have something for everyone so that I

can really help them along the journey. And then as they grow, they can move along through my

different containers that work for that. Okay. Is are there any obviously female founders? Is your

focus and everything? Is there anybody who's not a good fit that you would in pre work and

everything like that? You'd say, I don't think this is what two things. One is enterprise B2B. I just

the sales process one it's like too long for me. I'm not good at it. I've never done it. And then

the second piece is a founder that's really going to stand in their own way. It just won't work. You

won't get the results you want. So I want someone who takes initiative and who's ready to do the

scary thing and who, like, doesn't overthink too much. If you ever think a little bit, we can work

through it, right? But I need someone who's ready to take leaps? What's that look like? I mean, when

you're talking to him, you can just tell. Usually, like, it's okay if you're in your own way a little

bit. Right. Like we all are. But if you're someone who's, like, way too scared to do the scary thing.

You're not going to get the results you need. Right. Like, I can advise you on what to do all day

long, but if you don't take the steps. You're not going to get the results that you want. So it's

like, I've had this idea for ten years and never really putting research on it for I'm researching

for ten years, or like I'm scared to put this out in the world because it's not perfect, which it's

okay to be scared, but are you willing to put it out in the world? Yeah, I'd say this because I've

seen it. You're my third coach and I still haven't launched anything yet. Just trying to wait for all

the pieces to fall into place, and it'd be perfect. So. Yeah, exactly like you've got to be ready to

jump. Like, fail fast, fail often, fail forward. How do you talk to your clients about failure? I mean,

I think failure is incredible. I just said to someone, I think I did a social media post on this.

Like your launches where you make $0 are just as important as your launch is where you make 10-K

if you'll let it be, which means you learn from it. I think failures are so valuable. I think we

should celebrate them all the time. There's so much feedback, there's so much information from

the deals that don't go through from the, you know, launch sales and everything. Like I advised a

co-founder duo I worked with who I loved dearly, I was with them for like two years. They made up

something called a whoopsie cocktail because at first they were super scared because of two of

them. They were like scared about being wrong. And it was like, well, if you do something wrong, that's

great. Let's go have a cocktail, a whoopsie cocktail and celebrate and cheers. Doing something

wrong? Does it make you. You're trying new things, so. Whoopsie cocktail. Try that. I like it. That's a

great tip. All right, anything else? Emily, before we get in the lightning round. No. I'm just so

grateful to be here and tell the story. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your experience. All right. Uh,

coffee or tea? And how do you like it prepared? Coffee. Cold brew on ice with a little bit of

stevia. Okay. Um, pie or cake? And do you have a favorite kind? Celebration cupcake. Okay. Uh, do you

have a favorite holiday and why? 4th of July. Okay. And why? Just because. Summer. Summer. Hot

dogs. Cool. Okay. All right. Um, are you a morning person or a night person? Definitely. Morning. What

about favorite routine? Honestly, I have two teeny kids, so I would say I sit on the couch and watch

the today show with my coffee, and they sit next to me, and we just hang for a little bit. What's a

common belief among entrepreneurs that you would want to challenge? Maybe that we haven't already

challenged or feel free? Well, that's one we've talked about, but my real one is you don't have to

work. Well, okay. There's two. One is growing. A business is not easy. It can feel aligned, but that

doesn't mean it's easy. I think there's a narrative right now that, like, if it's aligned, it

should feel easy. No, that's not true. Okay. And the second one I was going to say is you don't have

to work all the time to be a successful founder. You just don't. There's a little bit of tension

between those two. And I know, I know, you're probably aware of that. Well, I think the hard is

not necessarily. People always think the hardest working all the time. That's not what I mean. Hard.

Is it like you're going to get told, no, you're going to have days where you're like, what am I

even doing? Does anybody want this? Yeah. You can get kicked in the teeth working 40 hours a week,

too. Exactly. Exactly. You will get kicked in the teeth, but you don't need to be working 100 hours

a week while getting kicked in the teeth. What is one thing that you would want your successor to

remember you for? Giving it my all. Every day I want to leave it all on the field. Whether and by

the way, that doesn't mean working 12 hours. That means I gave up my heart and soul. That means

whatever I have that day, I gave it all I had. I was kind to people, led with a giving heart. That's

what I mean by that. Not like left all of my work on the field. I'm gonna break my own rule here. But

it's my rule so I can do it. I want to talk just a little bit about that. How do you get to the end

of your to do list, or the end of your day and still have things on the to do list and just

train yourself to say tomorrow? I mean, obviously, yeah. The prioritization like you talked about. But

even when you've taken away 80% of your tasks, you're still going to have more stuff to do at

the end of the day. So is it just it's x, you know, 7:06 p.m. 5 p.m. whatever. Turn it off.

So I'm blessed by having two little boys. So like at 5 p.m. they're home. So I don't work when

they're home. And then they go to bed. And at eight, if I need to, I will get back on the computer from

like 8 to 9, which it's okay. I don't mind doing that, but I don't want to get the habit of doing

it every single night, or 8 to 10 depending. You just have to become okay, like practice letting

things go till tomorrow. What has to be done today? It's usually just a small portion of your list

and what is actually going to make you money. That's what I look at. I look at my to do list and

I'm like, what are the actual moneymakers or serving client pieces? Because those are the

things I really have to do. What's the other like nice to have, right? And wait, let me say one caveat

really quick. I'm going on Instagram is really important to me. Not numbers, not followers. But

that's I only have 3000 followers, but that's actually where I get a lot of my clients. But what

I was really focused on growing it. It was the first hour of my day. That was my marketing

activity. So I would say for the first hour of the day, I'm focused on posting engaging, answering DMs.

Now, like it's pretty, it's like more of like a feels a little easier now because I've been doing

it for a while, so I don't do that the same way. But that's what I was doing when it was my number

one priority. Yeah, get one of those long term things that's not an immediate payoff, but get

that done first thing in the morning and it's got to get done every single day. Yeah. So yeah, I like

it. Uh, where do you find creativity right now? Reading. Walks outside, meditating, playing with my

kids. I think white space gives me more creativity. So, for example, I told you I had. The last two

months were crazy. They were very busy. So now I'm trying to build in more white space for the next

few months, because that's where a lot of my creativity of like, what I'm going to build, what

I'm going to work on next comes from free time to be bored and think, yeah, love it. Uh, what do you

have coming up that's got you really excited in the next year or so. I am hosting my first ever

retreat in the fall in Manhattan Beach. Super pumped about that. And yeah, in-person events,

hosting my first retreat and just really excited to bring female founders together. How many people

in that retreat? In that retreat, it will be ten. That's awesome. Yeah. Very nice. Uh, okay. Emily, where

can people go to find out more about you? Find me on Instagram at Founder Emily. And there's a link

in my bio which takes you to all of the biggest, most important things I'm doing right now. I have

a free community for female founders where I do like every once in a while I do free Q&A calls. I

drop resources in there. There's some good conversations that that will be linked in my

Instagram as well. Okay, great. Yeah, we'll put those links down in the description too. So. Well, thank

you so much for sharing your experience and and fighting back against all of the culture. I really

appreciate your voice out there. So anytime. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun.