What I wish I knew before I started up

Descriptive transcript

Emma: Welcome everyone to our first ever UTS Startups Festival! So we're on day three of the Festival but day two of our talks. We're kicking off with a whole bunch of lightning talks and we are so grateful, really lucky to have Lana Hopkins join us. She doesn't need an introduction. You all know who she is because you're here to hear from her, but one thing that you might not have known, especially if you missed the first bit: she studied at UTS, a Bachelor of Business majoring in International Business and Marketing, graduating in 2004, and has had a stellar career both outside and inside the startup world. I think you were working as an advertising executive at News Limited before you launched Mon Purse in 2014, is that right?

Lana: That's exactly right, Emma. You do research really well.

Emma: And we've only got a good 20-ish minutes with Lana. We'll pop a quick poll up because I want to see exactly where you guys are all from and what brings you here. It will only take 20 seconds for that so if you could do it super quickly that'd be great and then we are going to go as quickly as possible into some questions that I've captured from our UTS Startups community. We reached out to our community of over 750 members in over 350 startups. You've really crammed in multiple startup lives into one startup life, if that makes sense. And she's now working on a new startup. She might be able to give us a little taster but you might have to stay tuned for the big launch details on that one. All right, so we've got lots of results coming through, do we Lourdes?

Lourdes: It's actually paused for two seconds. Let me just relaunch this.

Emma: Okay, perfect, thank you. And we'll keep it up just for 15 more seconds. That would be fantastic. That's okay if it doesn't stay too long because I will jump into some questions to maybe help some of those startup founders who are here.

If you follow the journey, and I think you would have struggled to miss the incredible growth of Mon Purse, and how you marketed and reached your audience and grew quite quickly. Can you share any tips and tricks of how you went about the growth and marketing, particularly of Mon Purse?

Lana: First of all, thank you for having me. It's such an honour to join you today and the rest of our UTS community. I'm honoured and humbled to have had the opportunity. It's a wonderful question that you ask. I think it's something that I hear quite frequently. For me, what's really interesting about this conversation is that it's always been less about thinking about the marketing and the growth and whatnot. It was always about creating a viable proposition that was genuinely going to resonate with the cohort, or our target audience. More specifically, it's really thinking about what is the consumer problem, how is the consumer thinking about things, what are some of the sociological dynamics that are relevant.

Specifically, if you think about the year 2014, what was obvious is that there was an opportunity to democratise e-commerce and also to democratise the way that we position brands in front of the HENRY cohort. Who is the HENRY cohort? That's the High Earners Not Rich Yet. It's a psychographic rather than a demographic. I'm a big believer in psychographics because I think we all change and mould and form and evolve throughout the journey of our lives.

But what was effectively missing is the ability to purchase something that was high quality, made in Europe, but also had an element that was personal to you and you only. More important than that though, was having to think about taking out all of the points of friction that are involved in terms of the actual purchasing process.

So for us, it was obvious that, aside from being a millennial founding team, it had to be digital first. That's sort of how we've grown up, that's how we position things.

The other thing that was also really interesting is that people often talk about the storytelling and the PR components and whatnot, and whilst that was extraordinarily important, what is also really incredibly important not to forget is that it was really about delivering on the consumer promise. Because if you think about consumer brands that launched before 2007, you would have never had a situation where you knew who the founder was or you knew who the CEO was or you were connected with their specific plight and pain points. This was about offering people the opportunity to see themselves in that brand.

How do you mirror your personality? How do you mirror what you believe in, your value chain in the startup and in the brands that you support? There was recently an article that I read and I sort of laughed out loud to myself, which spoke about the fact that religion was on the decline in many, many Western countries. However, brands were taking that position that typically came from the institutions or religious institutions that people would follow, because people were so closely aligned from a personal value perspective.

So I think for us, it was really about being true to ourselves in terms of what it was that we were building for the social mission, and also democratising access to such a product, which was typically confined to a much more, I guess, there was a lot more barriers to entry to receiving something like what we were building. So it was a matter of being at the right place at the right time and playing to the sociological factors which were very prevalent then also.

Emma: You make it sound so easy. I'm not quite sure that it is that easy, but what was the most difficult part of the business or just broadly your whole time within Mon Purse? What was the most difficult thing?

Lana: Look, they always say hindsight is sort of a perfect science, right? That's very, very helpful. I think the most difficult thing is always the unknown unknowns. The biggest challenge that any startup has early on is to get to the unknown unknowns as quickly as possible. Be that technology constraints, or your access to market, or really understanding and collecting enough data about your cohort to be able to do something meaningful with it. What problems are you constantly solving? There was a bunch of unknown unknowns, and for me, I think it was navigating those. That was then potentially further complicated by a decision that I made early on with regards to a partnership or an alliance per se, which probably in hindsight I would have reconsidered, but that was the decision that I made at the time.

I think what I learned the most out of that experience is the single most important thing that a lot of senior executives know but younger startup founders often rush in, is the single most important thing is judgment. You have to make wise decisions every single day, every single month and every single week about the short term decisions that you're making and also the longer term strategic ones. What you do on the daily has the ability to impact things further down the line in a very significant way. So I think it's important to be cognisant, to stop, to think, to evaluate and to look at all of the options in front of you before you jump into something that might appear on the surface to be the most convenient option.

Emma: It's actually a really interesting point about your judgment, and I'd love to hear from your perspective, how much do you make a decision versus follow your gut, which you've built up based on your years of experience and learnings? Where do you balance the two?

Lana: The truthful answer to that would be, I think it's a combination of the two. My gut at the time was telling me that I was making a couple of, I suppose, wrong decisions, but I still decided to ignore that and go along with what seemed as the easiest pathway or the easiest option at that point in time. It's really interesting because we were on a Zoom call the other day with one of my partners in California and one of our development team members, and we were discussing a potential partnership opportunity that we were considering entering. I flagged over the weekend a gut feeling that I had about one of the potential partners, and it turns out that my co-founder had the same feeling about that as well. So you can never underestimate your gut feeling. I think your gut knows what's right and what's wrong, but I don't think that can also be your sole decision maker. I think it's about balancing the two and trying to understand what other support networks you have around you. For example, right now we have a very highly experienced technical advisor to our business, but who also happens to be a very value-aligned individual that I have known for many years, who has watched my journey and who has seen what's transpired in that time. So it's important to also align on a value basis, I think, as well.

Emma: Great, so you alluded to California, but I don't know that many founders that have worked in so many different cities and ecosystems for their startup. So let me see if I've missed any. London, New York, LA, Sydney, Austin, six. Did I miss any?

Lana: San Francisco.

Emma: So what sort of guided your decision about which market or which startup ecosystem was right at which time?

Lana: So, Emma, you're asking very great questions today. I think there's a couple of separate and different things. For us, when we were building Mon Purse, in my mind, it was obvious that we were building a global brand, so we were going to be effectively selling to everybody from day one. Remember, we're digital first. What that ultimately meant for us is Australia is one of the best test markets in the world, particularly for the HENRY cohort. We started to see early validation that our methodology was working both from an online and a bricks and mortar partnership perspective very early on. What that allowed us to understand is that in order to establish a footprint and establish visibility in global markets, it was important to have that established in London and New York, which was where we were also seeing a lot of interest, based on the data that we were receiving, of potential new customers coming through as well.

So that's what led the decision for us to spend a lot of time between New York and London, which you alluded to previously. That was very much driven by the data that was coming to us on the basis of new enquiries and interested people wanting to have access to the products in those markets. But we also knew that for us, we were treating the physical footprint, certainly in my mind, as a marketing expense. It was all about creating a showroom that would allow people to be able to go in, touch, feel and actually realise that we are a living, breathing ecosystem. We're real. We exist. We're not just an online store. So effectively, that drove that initial decision.

A lot of the time that I later spent in San Francisco was more related to the technology development aspect for Mon Purse, because if you remember, the original proposition was around the WebGL PBR, which is physics-based rendering—in simple terms, a 3D bag builder—which we developed and which was proprietary at the time of launch. So a lot of our talent and initial research was done there as well.

Austin is much more recent, and that was a sort of a scoping trip that I went on this year for another ops space. You did ask me what that was and what that's effectively all about. What I say today is that it's a real-time immersive brand experience that we're building—a spatial brand experience. I think for me, if I could combine everything that I've learned over the years and what I've been most passionate about, it's how do you bring those brand experiences to life.

Emma: Fantastic. So we've heard that digital first, but then you did have a physical footprint that was perhaps less transactional from your typical retail mindset, and that was a way to establish a strong relationship with your customers in a real place, in real time. Did you—and I'm pointing to Monica's question, thank you for adding that in—did influencer marketing come into play, if at all?

Lana: Absolutely! And I think it's important to be cognisant of the timelines, right? So in 2014, when you were first starting out, the landscape was considerably different to what it is today. Influencers were quite a novel thing, but for us it was always about striking organic partnerships, be that with wholesalers or with influencers, obviously. One of the very first things that we did is we partnered with a young and up-and-coming influencer at the time called Margaret Zhang, as she was rising and gaining popularity for her very specific angle on brand building. We sort of married her up with more of a mainstream commercial talent, Jodi Gordon, who's famous for her role in Neighbours and then Home and Away. What we produced off the back of that was something that was quite unique. It was styled in a way that the world hadn't really seen Jodi in before—it was a very different angle.

Jodi was also the face or the ambassador of Myer, and we had partnered with Myer at the time, which was a really wonderful partnership for us. I'm incredibly grateful for it because they played such a big part in really championing this Australian story, particularly their CEO at the time was really wonderful.

So long story short, I think when you think about partnership, whether it is in 2014 or today, it's about what's organic and what's unique and what's going to get people talking, right? I think oftentimes you see a lot of influencer campaigns without a real underlying core proposition. So it all comes down to what are your brand values, what do you stand for, what's going to set you aside from everybody else? Because ultimately, in addition to democratising the e-com space and creating a voice and lowering the barrier to entry, we've always been quite conscious about the sustainability aspects as well. The original MP model centred around on-demand production. We didn't quite get to where we wanted to go, but we learnt a lot of really valuable lessons along the way in terms of what it would take to make that dream a reality. How do you really play an active part, a core part, in reducing the effects that manufacturing can quite often have on the environment?

Emma: So once you have a true understanding of your own values as a company and as a founder, and then you have found a partner—be it an influencer or some other business partnership—what tips would you give for how to reach out and to be able to reach out to that partner once you've identified someone that shares the values of your company?

Lana: I think this is such a wonderful question, and I think it really does come down to—it depends. Sometimes you can meet these people by luck. You do need to attend industry events because you will meet people at industry events. They say your network is your net worth, and I genuinely, to this day, really believe in that. You have to put yourself out there. But also, you have to show them what the value proposition is for them so that it's a two-way street. How do you position something in a way that makes sense for the other party too? Quite often people say, "Hey, let's partner, let's do this, that and the other," without considering what the benefit would be to the other side. So think about, A, how do you network more effectively and seek those people out organically in an organic setting, and two, how do you actually give them something and get them excited about wanting to build this with you together?

Emma: I've just seen the time. I could talk to you about this stuff for hours. I hope everyone is finding it really, really helpful. I've got a couple more questions from the community and one that I love, because I think quite often you learn by doing, you learn by things that didn't quite work out. Do you have any regrets or things that didn't go right or the way you had planned? I know you mentioned the partnership one, which you could go into more, or something else. What sort of didn't work that you really learned from?

Lana: I think this is probably one of the best questions. To answer your question, part one—do I have any regrets? Absolutely not. I think that you learn more from your failures than you do from your success. When things are going so well for us in the beginning, I think you become complacent and you take it for granted. I think what's important is not to lose your humility along the way. I think that needs to be your guiding star. Some of the best and most incredible people I've met throughout the course of their career and history have always been incredibly humble and helpful, so that's the single most important thing.

Absolutely, I think the single most important thing to do—and I alluded to that previously—is when you're building your core team around you, be that influencers, be that your team members, be that particularly your board or investors and what have you, make sure that you are incredibly selective in who you align yourself with. Ask yourself the question of, do we have the same moral values? Is our North Star the same? What I mean by North Star is, does the end game look the same for us? People often talk about all roads lead to Rome, but how do you get there? What are you prepared to do along the way?

For me, what was incredibly important all along was to build something that put the consumer first and really celebrated the consumer experience—was absolutely always digitally first, yes, with some physical footprints, but it was part of the marketing line rather than anything else—and constantly be innovating and iterating. Because I think the key, most important thing is to keep pushing the barriers further, and to consider the data points in front of you, but also take a sociological barometer. What's the current market attitude? What are people thinking about? What matters to people? A successful brand is one that speaks to people in the way that they wish to be spoken to and absolutely meets everything they set out to deliver.

So I think for me, things like making sure Trustpilot and all the other feedback mechanisms about your company are incredibly positive—those things matter, because modern brands more than ever rely on their consumers to drive their growth.

Emma: I'll see if I can squeeze in two more quick questions. We've only got a couple of minutes to go. The first is, what is the proudest moment from your startup career?

Lana: Gosh, it's definitely a tough one. I think the proudest moment would be—we had a really, really interesting... there was a number, there was a couple. I think you never celebrate your first million dollar day, but I just remember the entire team running into the office. They were so excited. There was just this unbelievable level of emotion that was coming through, which was really beautiful. They were super excited, and I think the lesson for me was instead of getting involved in that and getting excited about it as you should and celebrate every milestone, in my head I was already thinking, "Okay, what's next? On to the next, on to the next." So in hindsight, that was probably one of my most proud, proud moments.

The other has been in more recent history, which is the ability to bring together a really aligned, value-aligned and beautiful team together, who are building something with me, which is actually really beautiful. Because I think you are the product of the people around you and you need to enjoy and celebrate every single day, even though there will be tough moments.

Emma: I love it. So exciting. And the last little piece of advice I'd love to hear from you is either what is the best advice that you've been given or what's one piece of advice that everyone watching here can take with them on their startup journey?

Lana: Somebody who's become a really good friend of mine and who is a friend of the startup community—I actually did a panel with him last week, finding that he was a moderator—is a gentleman called David Shane, who is a partner at OneVentures. At the beginning—and I must say, he's one of the most humble and kind people that I've come across, not to mention very successful—but he cautioned me against some of the early decisions that I alluded to previously, and he asked me to read a book, which if everybody has a pen and paper or laptop, iPad or what have you, called The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz, which is one of the top venture capital firms in the US.

He talked to me specifically about surrounding yourself with the absolute best superstars who are going to help you build something, and that was incredible. He spoke about that because he said, "You will never be the best at everything, but you will be the product of the people around you." That was advice that I didn't necessarily take or pay close enough attention to early on, but I believe that's the thing that I'm trying to focus a lot more on now.

Emma: Thank you so much, Lana! We absolutely love you. We're so grateful to have you join us today.