I’m really excited to be sharing this episode today, It’s with Aasiyah Abdulsalam and she’s the founder of a company called The Renatural and the inventor of her first patented product - The Wig Fix.
It’s a product that’s used by anyone who wears wigs and it’s been a total game changer for so many women (and men!) around the world. 77,000 to be precise.
Aasiyah talks through her scrappy approach to marketing and finding her first thousand customers, the process to patenting a new product and her experience with raising capital.
If you haven’t heard me mention the new thing that’s coming!! I am shouting about this very single episode until we launch so make sure you go to femalestartupclub.com/waitlist to pop your name on there - I’ve been working on this for such a long time and it’s literally for anyone and everyone whether you’re in the 9-5, got a side hustle or full blown startup founder. I’m so so close to announcing what’s up!
Ok lets get into this episode, this is Aasiyah for Female Startup Club
Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!
Aasiyah, hi, welcome to the female startup club podcast. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be talking to you today about your business. We were just saying before we press record that I met this guy in London at a speech. I was giving her a talk I was giving and he was raving about you and raving about your company and said, I absolutely needed to have you on the show and now here we are. So, I'm very excited to get the low down. Do you want to give me a bit of an introduction to who you are and what your business is? Yeah, of course. So I'm happier. The founder of the re natural um London born that I was raised in Ireland as well. And that kind of ties into the business um was literally turned away from hair salons. I lived in a really rural part of Ireland at the time. So um as you can understand, it's quite like Mcginnis and then I got really into Youtube, E D D I Y and that kind of stand my passion for like, festival building things from scratch because they were just unobtainable to me at the time. And then beauty and hair. Um yeah, fall forward to university. I wrote my dissertation about the wig industry as you do and yeah, absolutely. Became obsessed with the white space in this industry. Yeah, I wanted to build like a product around what I found and I realized how expensive that was and how little money that I had after graduating. So I called what I had, I sold my previous business which is a sustainable clothing line to invest into the R. And D. For the product called the big fix, which is what I built the re natural around now. So that's like a oh my gosh, so many things to unpack here. Let's rewind. I want to go back to when you were kind of exploring the wig industry and you started to have light bulb moments around what your business could look like. How did you kind of land on the wig fix? And for those who might not know yet, do you want to explain what it is? Of course the wig fix is the world's first silicone with grip. So it's actually the only way to secure your wig that doesn't contribute to traction alopecia over time. Think of it as a wiggy replacement or it reduces the need for wig clips and that's so cool. And so when you were going through the research process and kind of like exploring this industry, how are you thinking about what the product was going to be? And like how did you land on this as an idea? Right, So I think it's uh kinda did the reductive method. So I had this big grand idea of a revolutionary new type of wig that um was comfortable and really seamless. Um and then I kind of like drew back and just keep drawing back to like what I could actually see also one thing that I landed on the security which was like an imminent issue and I was like, I can build something around this, it's like smaller, maintainable and then I can like build on this is business continues to grow. Um and then I feel there was a guy on Reddit who has this thread about how to build things when you have no resources. And then he has this method where you sit in a room and then you build whatever you're conceptualizing with the materials in the room. So I was like hot gluing all these random things together. And I guess that's like my first prototype of very early unusable prototype, but it actually worked in some capacity and then it gives you an idea of visual processing. Okay, I can look at this and then this to change this needs to be thinner. This seems to be a different color that helps you, it helps you have a starting point and I think that's like a I mean a random read it, but it was a great method for me and what I'm going to use going forward. Yeah, that's actually so interesting. That's never come up on the show before. I've never heard that method and it makes so much sense to just start at home and start by making something so that you have a point of reference as you were kind of, you obviously developed this first thing at home in your house. What happens then? Like how do you get started? How do you get from that thing in the house to you know this amazing product that's ready to sell? Right, so you have the product and then you have all of the different design changes and materials that you think would work for the product. And then I went to talk to a silicon expert because I knew it had to be based around silicone. Silicone is incredible medical properties if used for like burn victims and stimulate new hair growth. So I knew I wanted medical grade silicone to be a massive component of the wig fix. So speaking to him, I got like this is going to be like the texture of the density of the shore hardness, the thinness of the silicone and the type of silicone and the color. And then I sketched out like a piece. I taught myself how to make a cab online and then um actually my friend at the time to use his three D. Printing credits of this printing house in London. So we actually three D. Printed the first wig fix but it was like extremely hard. It was just like a solid model and then I had that two pictures of that founder um is actually a medical manufacturer in Germany. And they were like so they make units for hospitals and stuff. And then I came to them with this concept and they were just like what? But. Okay sure. Um Yeah and then they made the first sample of the wig fix and yeah it was like giving birth when I got it in the post. Yeah. And did you need to do any more iterations from that or the first one was like the one? Oh my God. Yeah there were there were like four different iterations needed to be thinner, shorter, a different lead more stretchy and then like four times back and forth with sampling. We've got the final product. Oh my gosh! And as you were going through that R. And D. Process, what were the people around you saying? Were you telling people already or were you kind of like keeping it under the radar? What was the communication at that point? So my previous business is actually going pretty well. Um And then kind of selling that to start this was not popular with my friends and family I guess. Um Because they were just like what is this random wig concept? The wig market is very fragmented and people greatly underestimate how big it is. Actually 23% of the world now where some kind of hair extension piece? The wig market is over 230 million. Now that we're full unit wigs frequently. So it's much bigger than people think it is and it's, it's one of the fastest growing segments in beauty. I knew that from my dissertation, but from the outside looking at, it just seems like a very random from studying geography, behavioral economics, having a sustainable clothing line and then I'm starting this wig business. Yeah, but it made sense in my head. That is so cool. I still want to kind of like stay around this early beginning phase and talk a bit about the money piece because obviously you've gone through a patent, you had probably imagined legal fees, set up, costs, your first inventory order. It sounds like it required a lot of capital to get started. So the question is, how much did you need to get started? And how were you thinking about funding in the beginning for the business overall? Were you thinking of bootstrapping or were you thinking of venture capital? What was your pathway? So, um, I had that big grand wig idea. I first spoke to some angel investors that I knew and just some mentors and honestly the feedback was like, is this a medical or elderly play? And I'd be like, both. Neither, they really didn't get it. So yeah, I set out to kind of build what I cook myself, build a community built traction around it and then I can like expand into other with concepts that I think would take off. So I knew I was gonna boot shaft from very early on. That's why I kind of like changed my focus from my previous brand to this company. Yeah and I really like planned out just, I gave myself seven months so I had money enough to sustain my life to focus on this idea and to invest, you could talk about like £5000 for all the printing, all of the design work, all of the material experts and the sampling, and then I had a great deal with the manufacturer. So they actually used um it was such a small product and it was such a unique product that we bought like the, they have to buy the samples and you have to make the mold for the product. So they had the mold and they were just like okay we can send the first batch of inventory to you and you can pay us in the next 90 days that really happened. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I I sent them like all of the design work and told them it was like a research based and like I kind of really hyped up the idea like if you take fall uh this would be great for you and we um and as for legal fees, legal fees are insane when it comes to patenting the product. So um I took a route where you can file a PCT. PCT is basically a legal document saying um you plan to file a pattern and it's giving you a window period I think 12 to 18 months so you can file a pattern in any territory you want at that time. Um so it just gives you a delay period but then when you do get your utility patent granted it back dates to that date so you will be protected in that time if um you go through with the pattern. So that's what I did initially and that was a few £1000 as well. But it's much cheaper than a pattern that can go up with 12 Like £20,000. Honestly if you go with like a reputable like yeah legal fun. So yeah those are like the starting costs around wow. What was the process to patent like was it difficult? Was it easy? Oh that is really confusing. It's something that I never I didn't have any experience with and now like I feel like I can give I. P advice and just like actionable advice and like legal advice honestly. Um Yeah so just like the Pc I went with Albright I would totally recommend them. I'm not sure if I can give names on this but they were so great and just like explaining things and I think um you know you're working with someone amazing when there are no stupid questions like I'd probably ask them basic and super questions and it's really patient. They send lots of documents on like reading materials and even videos sometimes. So with the father PCT. And then we went for the utility passing in the U. K. I think six months in because the Matrix is doing pretty well at the time in those six months. So yeah, that's what we want for the utility pattern and it does take like a year to actually be granted a utility pattern and then you can file in other territories. Um most popular being like the US and Hong kong for like a beauty product wow gosh. So it does take a really long time. It does, it does. Yeah. If you're an e commerce brand owner, you've probably thought about whether your product suits being subscription based. 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I'd love to talk about your launch into market and what you were doing in the lead up to launch and how that first six months went. You obviously just said that it was doing really well. It was really exciting. So I'd love to dig into your marketing approach and how you were getting the word out there. Sure. Um so I met up with a founder that I used to work with the coffee and then I told her about what I was building and she was like, she wanted to invest. So she's still my only angel investment. She's absolutely amazing and it came up. So that's the word. Yeah, so she invested £20,000 and that really accelerated like the launch in the marketing towards that. Um Yeah, she doesn't know much about wigs, but I guess I couldn't like shut off about it. She was like, so yeah, she's great. Yeah, so that really helps with the marketing cost but of course I still have to be like scrappy when you think about launching the products, of course you have the website. I mean I was, I've been on Shopify since like the years at the time so I could build a website pretty easily for that product imagery is pretty good at that. I was like the photographer for my previous brand models. I had the connections from my previous bands. I really do feel like my previous brand was like a boot camp for what I'm doing now. So I yeah so did all of that. And then um with marketing, honestly the first day two of my best friends and my mom were like the only people to buy the product because it was such a soft I guess launch. And then within a week I received an order from someone I didn't know I remember her name so well but I don't think I can say the G. D. P. R. But I was so excited. I was like, I don't know her. She's from new york. Oh my God, I'm so excited. And at the time people in the US are paying Um $30 shipping for a $33 product. And then yeah we started growing. I went to like drag shows in London and I would like to ask some of the performer friends that I knew. Yeah to kind of talk about the product and like do their performance with the product and give me some promo on stage. And then after they would do that I would like hand out little QR codes to the audience like oh yeah you can fight here, here's a 20% discount. So that got me I think like my 1st 100 orders. Um and then the next big bulk of orders came from an Orthodox jewish woman and I like I was from North London. So familiar with like how they used to wear wigs and shake our market and she ordered 100 and 50 for people like her and women in her community and like that was awesome because those are like my two big like initial jumps. Um But yeah within the first six months we hit 100 K. So I was like super excited that like because I had no expectations like none. This is like the most random thing I could have done. But yeah that's how that happened. Whoa whoa hold on a second. That's so cool. So you're going to the drag shows what else are you doing marketing wise? Like are you posting on social media or you just literally showing up at relevant events and handing out the Q. R. Codes, what else are you doing to kind of get in front of like for example the jewish woman like how did you get in front of her? How did she know about your product? So that was on a forum um It's called Seattle and like I think that's a great play on words because it's like the Chicago market but um yeah good plan. Um Yeah so I posted about it. They're posted. I don't know if you like alopecia or hair loss reddit forums and um so the natural hair movement was like a bit more popular then and people wearing blue wigs is like to leave their hair um uh like low maintenance hairstyle. So I was posting around like, this is a great way to secure your wigs that induces natural hair growth underneath and secures it without any clues and stuff. That really appealed to like a lot of different segments. I was kind of posting a lot on foreign and like Youtube videos and then I reached out to the kind of influences that I previously worked with on my other ground and they started to use the product. However, with influences, it's like, I mean gifting was more popular than it's not as a rigid as it is now, but yeah, I think it needs, it was too good to be true for a lot of people in the market. The wig fix is actually the first um related patented products in over 55 years. So that just shows how like archaic the industry is. So when something new pops up, people are just like really skeptical. So it took a lot of like easing into it and speaking to people about it. Uh definitely forums instagram, real life events and then I just want to tell in like facebook facebook ads that was doing really well, Pinterest ads were doing really well as well. We have like, it was just a pretty product and it's not something you often see in the wig industry, it can be really intimidating to look at huge bundles of hair or wig with all these and stuff like that. This is like a cute little pocket product. So yeah like how I started out with marketing, oh my gosh! In that early kind of time because this all sounds so exciting and there's so many good things happening to you. Did you hit any roadblocks or things that were unexpected challenges, things that weren't so great. Yeah so um very early on I realized the demand from the U. S. Was just like eclipsing everywhere else. So um to shift products of us, they have to kind of pay $30 shipping. I mean they would want it in like two days. Yeah so it's kind of difficult for me just to feel that. Um So I had to find a three pl quickly. Um Because I mean I obviously couldn't be in the U. S. Uh So at the time a lot of that party fulfillment incentives one um uh Multi like country they have like partners instead of the company being in two countries. So I eventually found one And uh I didn't hit the minimum order quantities I think they wanted like 500 orders a month. I think it was like 200 or something and then the company was barely like two months old. So we're just like you know come back in a year and see how well you've done. I was like no no I'm gonna lose out on all these American customers if I don't find um an optimal shipping pathway. So um yeah I think I just like tested them enough into, they started like a pre order system. Um So I was like okay can you give me two months and then I'm gonna like hike up all these pre orders and then you can mash it from the U. S. Within like two months time. And they never had like a preorder process before but they've done it for multiple companies since and it's like worked really well. So it's like yes. Um so yeah within two months they actually shipped out 4000 orders in a day. Their capacity is just like next level. But yeah that was pretty insane. Um when we could launch they had a warehouse in Ohio. So it was like one day shipping within the us which was great And it was the 4000 orders for the Wig Fix. What? Wait. Whoa that's crazy. Oh my gosh! So obviously you've kind of realized at that point that you're seriously onto something that you've really tapped into a need in the market and a gap in the market. What what are you doing after that? Like how do you kind of take that momentum and keep on adding fuel to the fire? Um So I had like I can't afford pr because of course I have to be really like uh resourceful. Um So I have a google alert set up for like wig wig making wig stylist and anyone from like major fashion or beauty magazines like alert, Cosmopolitan vogue event that wrote about wigs, I would send them like a pr kit, it's really easy to find like templates on online um the way fix on what we were building and like really hit on the angles that they like, or female founded, its black female founded its uh the I. P. Part of the fact that it's helping the hell of community and black women. So I would email them and then we started getting a lot of just free press um from like pretty high level magazine by causing quality. Like the um Style Castor was one of the main ones as well. They were there was like a surge in sales when they posted, which I'm like super grateful for. Um Yeah, so that led to a lot of like great opportunities and like pr with how are you managing your kind of working capital at that point? Because it sounds like the brand was exploding. You would have been needing to place bigger orders, but I guess you had the relationship with your manufacturer where you could pay after the fact did you need to think about working capital? Were you needing to think about doing a raise or kind of like anything to scale the brand. I know you started to launch into retail and things like that, or what was the kind of money piece at that point? And what year are we talking about at this point? Where are we in the timeline? So this was 2020? 2020? Okay, cool. Yeah. Um so at the time, um yeah, we had the really good like inventory already unique as I come to find like with other businesses um relationship with the manufacturer. Uh So that was great and that we could like sell the inventory before we have to pay them almost. And then I woke up like lines of credit with just my bank just to have like a good overdraft system. Uh that was favorable towards me and then Shopify capital's great. As soon as they see that you're growing, they start to like literally offer you every day. Um So I knew I had like uh like, you know, if we have cash flow problems and this is like worst case scenario problems and um that will feel like great working capital. Uh they're called like lindo and swoop, I haven't personally used, but I have them on like my notes is like, you know, these are the people I would go to if I needed working capital at that time, but we were growing like just really effectively. I it was pretty much myself freelancers, one marketing person and then the three pl which is like running it. Um So pretty lean. Um Wow, that is so amazing and like, so we're at 2020, if you had to distill the kind of key pivotal moments that take you from 2022 today, I know you've sold something crazy like 75,000 of the wig fix. How do you go from 2022 here? What are your kind of key moments? Good or bad? I think some pivotal moments where the influences started to actually believe and post about it um in people. So they were really, really big influences that we couldn't afford to like have a collaboration with But they would like to be doing get ready with me and like um wearing the wig fix and then their wig in the videos and then people would be like, oh what's that thing on your head? What are you wearing? What is that? And I would I would I would stay up until like five a.m. responding to all of the comments in the week six account, this is a wig fix, It does all of this very natural dot com. Here's the term cent discount on like hundreds of comments to me and the other marketing. We probably answered over 1000 comments on Youtube through that. And then we had a collaboration with Patricia Bright and I think that was like our first big collaboration and that was like a huge surge in sales. That was amazing and she was so great to work with And after that, I think other influences saw, okay, a huge like influences kind of co sign this and a lot of people started reaching out to us to work with us and that was great. And then we have, we built like our affiliate system as well, which I really feel like we should have done earlier. And honestly with the affiliates, I feel like the weak market is really unique and that it really depends on what the mouth because it's just so hard to navigate. You don't know what's good. You don't know what, I really don't know where anything is coming from. And that's just how it's always been. It's not going to be like that if I have any uh, ways like if uh, with the affiliate one that I remember which was so nice to see was, it was a facebook group. I'm not going to be like super specific but it was like christian women in Wichita texas or something like that with hair loss. It was like a facebook group with like religion and some state water town in the US. And um, she became an affiliate. She has 300 instagram followers and she requested to become an affiliate. She's in this group and she really likes the product and she made like the 16 minute video and I was just like, this is so cool. Like she had like a deep southern accent and I was like, oh, it feels like, yeah, Um, naturally like the product is being used by someone but like I have probably pretty little in common with them that the fact that we wear wigs and um in two months she's sold over 460 through her link. Yeah through the facebook group, through her church through her instagram, which is insane. And I just think with like micro influences like, I mean everyone knows now how incredible they can be in promoting brands in a really authentic way. And that is just, I will never forget that because that was just like so incredible and like her reach, you know, but when people really trust you and believe in what you're selling and it can also benefit and it can be like incredible. Yeah. She obviously came to you but did that impact the way that you go out and look for affiliates? Like did that mean that you kind of started to look for other people like her that you could invite to be an affiliate. Um Yes, I think like through her we um, like a blog post about her the more people and just like the general head of community, we're reaching out um a lot of like influences uh in that space and like the black hair space in the drive space for like um reaching out as well and they will have like varied results. But I think that in the head of community especially um, there's not a lot of products and businesses that cater for them in a really authentic way. So they rely on themselves, especially online you can like, there are lots of like deep online communities and like it's great to see that they're like supporting each other, but when someone really recommend the product to them, it's like really trusted. And I think that's the next level, especially in like hell off community. Um yeah, as you gear up for fall, you need to find the right people on your team to help your small business fire on all cylinders. Linkedin jobs is here to make it easier to find the right people you want to talk to faster and for free if you follow me on linkedin or you're a subscriber to our newsletter, you already know how often we're sharing jobs that are coming directly through linkedin. It is so powerful. You can create a free job post in minutes on linkedin jobs to tap into the world's largest professional network with over 30 million people in the UK alone. It's why small businesses rate linkedin jobs number one for delivering quality hires versus their leading competitors. Then add your job and the purple hiring frame to your linkedin profile. So your network can help you find the right people to hire simple tools, like screening questions, make it easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience. So you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire linkedin jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to faster and you can post a job for free just visit linkedin dot com slash F. S. C. Again that's linkedin dot com slash F. S. C. To post your job for free today. T and CS apply. I read that you expanded into retail in the US into hundreds of stores. What was that like? He's all about cash flow. So um yeah it was um I think going into retail is um something I've never experienced that before in my previous brand we were like in a couple of top shop store but that was literally like two or three. Um With this it was launching into 600 J. C. Penney stores. Um And it was like a couple of pos like with quantities that I haven't dealt with before and um it's a learning process like that just being distributed to like the last few schools right now and I'm like I can finally breathe again but it is it can be like super stressful like Hamas and retail. It's just so vastly different um in the way that they like operating just like with margins and stuff like that. But I have an incredible um like buyer partner um They're really incredible ones I think added landing international um that can like help your brand and like help you navigate the space and they've been like an incredible quanta um There's also one that's like 13 Boone as well. That's a pretty new one and they first helped to like just getting me in the door which was amazing. Um So yeah, they can really help with just ask questions. There's no such thing as a dumb question. And even if you feel like you come across like, oh you're being silly or done, like I literally don't care at this point. You have to be shameless in order to like grow. So when you kind of Got that account that you would land into 600 stores, what since then? What are the things that you're kind of your key learnings that you could pass on to other founders who are earlier on in that journey, but looking for that kind of key distribution, partner. I would say make the timeline and like the payment terms always work for you. Like nothing is ever set in stone. Like I don't think anything has a set price um can be like problematic to savor like um just always like negotiate in any way that you can, that benefits you in the brand. Um Make sure like you have enough cash work. Sometimes retailers like take ages to pay. Like this is like 60 days or uh non situation that I'm in but like I've just like been cautious with that. Um And if you have really like short windows uh that can like literally destroy your brand if you have thousands of units on the line or something, especially if you're self funding it. Um Yeah, make sure your margins like makes sense. Um Some people don't want to get into retail because like slashing their margins, but you know, uh just really uh assess assess your customer acquisition costs and see like if it makes sense in that way because you can go to facebook or retail, you know, in some, in some instances. So um yeah, definitely cash will negotiate. Um Yeah, earlier you were saying like when you were just getting started, it was pretty much just you and some freelancers and your marketing person, What does your team look like now? I mean going into 600 retail stores booming DDC business, it seems like there's a lot going on. Um Yeah, it's still a pretty early and it's still like less than three full time people and then we still have three launches that we work with and then we still have the fulfillment partners and still the same partners have really grown with them. Um Yeah, so the team is still pretty lean um as we're actually developing like a product right back right now with new products, new inventions coming, it's just like where I thrive. So it's been like a great time for me and that's going to be like an interesting journey moving forward in the next few months, is there anything you can share? That was my next question around product expansion and the future. Um Just that I'm actually like, I have an actionable plan now, It always started off with that big grand wig idea and it's like full circle like going back to that, but as much as I can, I am so excited, that sounds amazing. What is your key piece of advice for founders who are just getting started? I would say, don't uh, just make sure you have like your budget, cash flow forecasts um in place. Um, I wish I discovered like thin markets like this uh, forecasting platform, I wish I discovered it sooner because it's just, I don't know, it's colorful and really easy to like visualize. Um they have like the saying that cash flows like a story just in numbers, it's like, oh, you're gonna work with this influences like increases this month. But yeah, I don't know why that just really helped me with like forecasting and management. Um one key piece of advice is that any expert that you're working with? Legal accounting, um bias, there's like no stupid questions and if you're ever made to feel like you're asking a stupid question and I've been not a good person to work with. Um yeah, I wish, I, I wish, I like heard that earlier on and then yeah, just if you have an idea and you have actual plans behind it, don't let anyone tell you that it's like, it's not gonna work like I think I internalized a lot at the start and I was like almost made me defensive in a way, um, and you don't want to do that. I mean because you're potentially building something great and yeah, if you have an actionable plan, I have to like embolden that because if there's no plan business, so yeah, gosh that is so many great pieces of advice there, I'm going to check out Finnmark was it? Yeah Finnmark a stout that sounds really, really cool and yeah, powerful advice around, you know, if someone makes you feel stupid for asking a question, they're not the right person for you because I think you can get in that trap of feeling shy or like your question isn't valid and very question is valid. I'm so on board with that piece of advice. Thank you so much for sharing.
So question number one is, what's your, why? Why are you doing this every day? I feel like in beauty, there's so much research and development that happens with new products is always new products, new formula new kind of packaging and the wig industry gets none of that and it's super archaic, were literally wearing wigs that were invented for louis the 16th to hide his syphilis induced tail off the same way, same exact words, they don't want to see the customer today. I just feel like this incredible white space in the market that I can build great products for. Oh my gosh, so cool! So exciting. Question number two is what has been your favorite marketing moment so far? Seeing when kimmy kimball, which is like Beyonce's stylist, We wrote a blog post about her and she put it on my story and was like, send me a really long message, I'm like, you're doing so well, I'm so proud of you and I was like, oh my God, Yeah, well she's like, incredible. Yeah, that Is so cool. Gosh, I love that for you. Question # three is what's your go to business resource when it comes to like a podcast or a newsletter or a book? I'm currently reading a book uh for the second time called Burglary By Andy Dunn and I think it's like such a great book um favorite podcast uh this week in startups have like really golden nuggets of advice sometimes. Um I'm currently reading how to build a goddamn vampire by Ali Craig, She's bulletin. Yeah currently it's great. I love it when people are super vulnerable and transparent with their journeys. Ali's amazing. We've had her on the show love her journey so happy to see her business be acquired recently. Very cool. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your am or PM habits and rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Um I like slow mornings so I get up earlier and I've been like so happy and like more productive ever since. Um I don't like intense like morning like like an hour just to come and do nothing basically. Um And yeah this is a common one but like the gratitude just riding through three things down the day that you're grateful for and at the end of the day three wins no matter how simple they are. That's been helpful as well. I'm not consistent but I'm trying. I love that. That's really cool. Question # five is what is the worst money mistake you've made in business and how much did it cost you? Oh probably um with accounting so we sold so much the U. S. That I was paying like V. A. T. On those orders and I really shouldn't have been um like because you don't need to pay V. A. T. On your us orders so technically over paying um And that cost like a few tens of £1000 that I got refunded but that was a chokehold to say the least. Yeah, glad you got it refunded though. Thank God. And last question question number six is what is just a crazy story? Good or bad from this journey of building a business? Obviously like two weeks ago I was like um at a club in new york for the first uh the first time, like as a legal adult anyway and um a girl was like in the bathroom and she was like adjusting her wig and then I saw the wig back and I was like, oh my God, and then we had like a whole conversation and then the entire like bathroom got in the conversation that we should do this and invent this and we need these, these changes in my head. I was like on my notes up on my son, like doing a little focus group in the bathroom, but that is so cool, you get the information anyway, you can, so that was, wow, gosh, I love that.