discuss in great detail all the advices, tips and strategies these founders have given here, without missing a single one. cover all the points from the transcript given here. also avoid using names or brand names.  --- 
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[Music] at South by Southwest where the world's
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[Music] headed good afternoon I'm <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>
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had the startups tech industry and game industry tracks at South by Southwest uh
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first we have a few notes we are running our audience Q&A in this room via slido
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uh you can find this by opening the South by Southwest Go app and clicking the engage button to ask
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questions also tonight we have our interactive opening party at 8:00 p.m. at the Palm Door on 6th Street now we at
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South by Southwest always want to create an environment that advances the spirit of Entrepreneurship and Kender Scott has
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done just that from building her aonomus Global brand to the opening of the
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Kendra Scott women's entrepreneurial Leadership Institute at the University of Texas she continues to support and
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Empower female entrepreneurs which is why it gives me immense pleasure to welcome senior
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reporter at cnbc's make it Jennifer leu in conversation with founder author
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philanthropist entrepreneur Kendra [Applause]
1:28
Scott all right so fun hi Austin those of you not from Austin
Welcome
1:34
Welcome to our city all right well welcome everyone to our panel about how to differentiate
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yourself as an entrepreneur about 55% of adults have started a business at some point in
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their lives and small businesses account for 99% of all businesses in the
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US being an entrepreneur is difficult enough so how can you differentiate
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yourself from the scores of other well-intentioned next grade ideas this
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session will reveal How to Succeed as an entrepreneur by learning from past
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failures finding what makes you unique and thinking like an entrepreneur at all
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times my name is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON> and I'm a senior reporter with CBC make it uh
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please join me in welcoming again our featured speaker Kendra Scott the founder executive chairwoman and chief
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creative officer of the Kendra Scott Jewelry and accessories brand thank thank you so much so happy to be
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[Applause] here right so we are going to start off
First Business
2:37
by taking a little trip in our time machine going back to the 90s you've built Kendra Scott over the
2:44
last 22 years to become a$1 billion brand but it wasn't your first foray
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into entrepreneurship so can you tell us about your first business and what you learned from running it yeah you know I
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think as even you know being young I always had this thing where I was wanting to create things or sell things
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or do things it was always like a part of me I had this little fire you know burning inside of me um and I I was
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trying to figure out what I wanted it to be and I was drawn to my aunt who was a
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fashion director at a little Department Store in Milwaukee Wisconsin called gimbals um many of you will not know
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what that is because it was probably way earlier than any of your time but she was fashion director and at that time
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there were very few women actually holding the role of a fashion director for a department store for women's
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clothing men were buying women's clothes they were the directors buying women's clothes but here was this little Dynamic
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woman who started as a sales associate on the floor and worked herself up to director and so she gave me this bug
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Jennifer of like the Fashion Bug and why she gave it to me is because when I would go into her closet and I'd put on
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her clothes and she'd share with me the slides from Milan and Paris I wasn't
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this little girl from Kenosha Wisconsin I could be anybody I wanted to be and
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fashion was magic to me and I was just like I want to give this feeling that I
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have when I'm with her around her to everyone and so I knew that was like
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that was my childhood dream literally and I don't know how many people in the world can like grow up and say they actually are living their childhood
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dream but I'm one of those people and when I was in high school my stepfather
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who is a two- tour Vietnam veteran amazing man he spoke five languages
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fluently was diagnosed with brain cancer and at that moment my entire world
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changed everything that I thought was important as a high schooler suddenly completely uh went in another Direction
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because all we cared about as a family was how are we going to try to save this person that we love so much but it also
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drove me to my passion of fashion I would be at MD Anderson with him you think how is fashion related to brain
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cancer well for me I would meet men and women undergoing chemotherapy and I would see that there was a need for
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comfortable headwear so I was creating headwear options sewing cotton Linings
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inside of hats that I had at home and I would bring them to MD Anderson and gift them to some of the men and women that I
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would meet and I thought why aren't there more hat stores out there like it doesn't make sense to me and so I
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thought here I am 19 years old I drop out of college and I'm going to start a business I'm going to start a hat
5:33
company and at that point I think you know there's maybe some 19 year-olds in this room but you're an idealist you
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know I wanted to do something bigger than myself and I wanted to use what I loved from a little girl which was
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fashion to do something good which was design these hats so I opened a hat store right here in Austin Texas and it
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was called the hat box which by the way there is still a hat box here it's not mine she took the name over which tells
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you something I mean that's good um but I started the hat box and I literally
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you know had these Big Dreams of it becoming a multi you know unit like
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hundred stores or more maybe a billion dollar brand I thought people would wear hats again like it's 1940 I was going to
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bring it back how many of you in this room today are wearing an actual hat a
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cap does not count an actual hat okay that is exciting there are
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three of you in this room um what you can see though in that is the majority
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of you did not raise your hand which leads you to why I had my first failure
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that business did not take off uh people did not start wearing hats again like it was 1940 and um but I had five years of
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running that little retail store and for me even though I had dropped out of college it became the best education I
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could have ever asked for it was a masters in the School of Hard
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Knocks and it truly showed me what I needed to learn to be able to start the
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next business that I didn't know was around the corner that I actually was
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afraid to start yeah so you mentioned you ended up closing the hatbox after 5 years how do
Closing the Hatbox
7:24
you know when it's time to let go of a business or an idea you know when you
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when you stop being able to afford Top Ramen as your meal of choice that's usually a good indication that maybe
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things are going south you know what I'm saying um and by the way I can't my kids
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still love ramen you know the square package ones are like 35 cents I can't I smell it and I almost break out into
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hives I'm like oh God this is too familiar um I think for me it was very much that it was like I was trying so
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hard every single day to make this work and I was doing doing it not just to try
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to have a business but I was doing it for my stepfather I really wanted I thought this is one thing I can do for
8:08
him and I was wanting to give money back to cancer research I was wanting to bring smiles to people's faces that were
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going through this terrible disease and when it was failing I just remember thinking I can't let this fail I have to
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I have to figure out how to make this work but no matter what I did I started in the mall I couldn't afford the mall
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so then I moved into a strip center next to a grocery store they tell you location matters I obviously didn't get
8:35
that memo back then um you know I made a lot of mistakes but at the same time I
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finally got to the point where I knew I just couldn't keep sustaining this I was working seven days a week I couldn't
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afford any help my mom would come in and help me from time to time and I had to finally take the look and be like you
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know what the courageous thing to do is is not to continue to keep it open the
9:02
courageous thing to do is to know when it's time to sometimes say goodbye to something and when I close that store
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Jennifer I'll never forget it as long as I live I had one of those really cheap signs you buy at like the Home Depot
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that said sorry we're closed on the other side it said yes we're open and I closed it you know turned it around the
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sorry we're closed for the last time and I had moved all the fixtures had been moved out that day everything the store
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was clear and I mean I was an emotional wreck and at that point I had lost my
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stepfather to cancer I was now a College Dropout with no degree all of my friends
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had graduated I was in debt beyond words could imagine and I remember walking
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outside crying I mean I know it's hard for you to imagine this but I'm a little
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dramatic and I and I walked out just crying and sobbing and looking at that
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you know thinking oh the sign drama of it and I look around and the stupid sign says yes we're open and I'm like wait no
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I turned it I went through the whole thing and then I'm sitting there on the curb next to the grocery stores people
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are Wheeling their carts by me and I start looking at it and it says yes
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we're open and I'm like wait yes we're open yes we're open this is an actual
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sign Jennifer okay this isn't just a sign it was a sign stay St open and I
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remember my stepfather all the conversations we had before he passed of
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honey you're going to come through things in your life that are so hard you're going to have failures in front
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of you you're going to take missteps that's part of life but what I want to tell you on the other side of that there
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is something great waiting for you and you have to push through the doors of
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fear and be open to the next thing that's going to happen in your life and
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remembered those words and I looked at that sign and I said okay I'm going to stay open and a few years later I
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started Kendra Scott and all those lessons those nuggets of information
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that I learned in running that store were truly the foundation to set me up for a successful
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business yeah so along those lines um within a few years you were working on
Rebuilding Confidence
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your jewelry line were you ever worried that your previous failure of having to close the hat box was an indicator that
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you weren't ready or weren't prepared to launch a new business how did you
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rebuild that confidence that's a great question because I have to be really honest about it when I started Kendra
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Scott Jewelry one of the reasons I did was because customers from my hat store were calling me well not for the hats I
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was actually making jewelry in that little store and it would sell out the day I'd put it on the counter but I was
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so so like determined that the Hat Thing had to work that I wasn't paying attention to what was actually working
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and so I was making jewelry kind of on the side I had to go get a job folks I mean I'm not a Rockefeller okay I had to
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pay my rent I sold my car and I was working in a job and I was doing jewelry on the side and I thought you know I got
12:19
married and we got pregnant fairly quickly with our first son and I was like maybe there's a chance that I could
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try the jewelry thing but I was so scared my best friends a couple of them are here in this audience tonight and
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they remember this I had a card table in my extra bedroom of my house and a little bead board and I was making these
12:40
pieces and they were my first customers thank you guys appreciate it um and I
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remember not wanting to tell anybody like they were so proud of me and my friends my family were like you need to
12:53
sell these you need to do stuff with this I was like no no I'm going to just I had lost that confidence
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I had lost the confidence in myself and I didn't want anyone to know I was starting a new business because I
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thought I'd be laughed at I thought people would be like oh There She Goes Again that loser Kendra Scott you saw
13:13
what happened with the hatbox you know and so I literally was very quiet in the
13:18
beginning until I started seeing that other people had confidence in me and I
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say this in my book Born To Shine that being a light like we have this light in
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us and sometimes it dims sometimes things happen to us and we lose that
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confidence we lose that Brilliance but when you surround yourself with people that can see it and then you see it in
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their eyes that gives you the confidence to keep trying and it was my family it
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was my friends it was the people in my life that lifted me out of that that helped me have the confidence to try
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again and I think that's such an important lesson for everyone no matter what it is you're doing in your life
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whether it's a business or whatever surround yourself with people that see
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your light and if you surround yourself with that not the people that are looking for ways like H there's so many
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jewelry designers like why are you going to do it like what's going to make you special you know those people I had
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those people in my life not anymore I don't you got to surround
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yourself with people that see your light well on that note you know there's
Business Opportunity
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no shortage of places to buy jewelry and Retail is a very you're sounding kind of like that Jennifer no well retail is a
14:37
very competitive space but as you were starting your jewelry line how did you know that you had a viable business
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opportunity and that you were uniquely suited to take it on so I think there's
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a couple things with that one being a retailer I was buying hats from other
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designers and they would ship me their hats and they were like good luck sweetheart hope you sell them if you
15:00
don't I don't really care you're paying me regardless right I got no follow-ups nobody really cared and I thought if I'm
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going to be a designer and sell to other people I want to be everything that I didn't receive as a retailer because I
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felt how hard that was so I made sure if something wasn't selling for one of my retailers I was going to replace it with
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something if that's not working let me put something else and let's retry it let me come in and help you with your
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merchandising maybe we can help you know how we're doing it can I come in and do a trunk show I'd love to meet your
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customers firsthand I'd love to build a relationship with them it's hustle it doesn't happen by Magic it
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happens because you put the effort in you get the effort out and there wasn't other jewelry designers out there doing
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that the customer service I was providing to our stores was unparalleled
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and the designs that I was choosing to do were different I wanted to create semi-precious beautiful color gemst in
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unique shapes and designs and everyone else's jewelry they were just trying to look like everyone else if it was the
16:06
wood bead Trend we all remember that one they were all doing wood beads right I
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wanted to do things in my own unique way where I was disruptive in this category
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of jewelry but yet thinking about fashion and Fine Jewelry you had very inexpensive jewelry that would fall
16:24
apart that was made of plastic then you had Bridge Jewelry which was more expensive and I couldn't afford that
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jewelry as a single mom that's another story I I became single um as a single
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mom and so I thought you know I wanted to create something in that white space
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and so I think when you're thinking about your business if you're doing what your competitors are doing and which I've seen so many designers before me
16:50
fail is they just try to do because that guy did it oh I should do that that guy did it I got to do that you're done
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you're dead in the water you're not going to make it you have to use your own unique fingerprint you have to be
17:03
disruptive and you have to absolutely destroy them on customer service destroy
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them not oh I'm going to do wow customer service no I want to know what you're doing and I'm going to do it one million
17:17
times better and every single day you have to do it not just when you start your business you have to know your
17:23
competitive landscape you have to understand what they're doing you have to wake up every morning and never be
17:29
complacent you have to say how am I going to surprise and Delight my
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customer today I have to get out of my office and I go into the stores I get on
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customer service calls I want to interact with them and connect with them one on-one and that is how we learn and
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I think that's so important for every entrepreneur to hear right so you first started selling
Target Market
17:54
your jewelry uh by selling directly to local store owners owners then you went
18:00
from selling wholesale to direct a consumer in your stores throughout that period how did you figure out what your
18:07
target market was and did you ever miss the mark so that's funny because after
18:13
the hatbox I said I will never be in retail again never that was scary stuff
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you guys scary stuff I have 136 stores okay so Never Say Never is the lesson
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there right but I did I was so scared to be in
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retail so for the first eight years of running my business seven to eight years
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I was strictly wholesale I sell to other stores other big department stores like Nordstrom and you know and it was nice I
18:45
was building a nice business I was able to eat other food than Ramen um those were bonuses but I would go out and I
18:52
would try to get investment Capital nobody would invest in me I was a single mom it was very very diff ult um but at
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the same time you know I was so passionate about what we were doing I was so excited about what we were doing
19:06
but none of it was easy none of it was you know trying to you know to to do
19:13
something that was like Innovative or or really like I know my customer I was literally making pieces that I wanted
19:19
that I couldn't find and you think about like Sarah Blakeley and other people you hear this often usually the most SE
19:26
successful entrepreneurs are selfish she wanted to look good in a SK white
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skirt so she cut off her panty hose right and so she would be like slimed
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down it came that a lot of women wanted that same thing right and so many times
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it's when we need something that we can't find that the best ideas come about but when I started to build it I
19:50
realized after eight years of doing whale the recession hit and I had all my eggs in one basket and it was a really
19:57
scary time because buyers I had worked with were getting laid off boutiques that I had worked with for several years
20:03
were shuttering and I knew like I had no connection to the direct consumer I was
20:10
letting all these other people sell my jewelry for me and that was a huge
20:15
mistake that I needed to be the one to have a direct connection to my consumer
20:20
and in 2009 I came to our team and I said we're completely changing our business model we are focusing on Direct
20:27
a consumer we are going to create an e-commerce website that is unique that has a customization tool to it so the
20:34
customer can get involved in the design process it's called color bar this was before Nike ID I think they stole my
20:41
idea but anyway you know I I wanted to do all these fun things and we opened our first retail store when all over
20:48
Austin stores were shuttering on South Congress I mean literally it was like vacancy vacancy vacancy vacancy opening
20:55
soon Kendra Scott you know people are like this woman is out of her bloody mind right but that was the thing for me
21:03
is I wanted to hear from her directly and we did this and we were like if we're going to do this I want to design
21:09
a jewelry store that is everything I would dream of a jewelry store to be I
21:15
hated shopping for jewelry I would walk in to jewelry stores and I'm not talking
21:20
fine jewelry stores Bridge Jewelry stores I'm not going to name any names um but other ones and they were all
21:26
behind glass and there would be these very like snotty people in there and I'd walk in you know sweaty out you know
21:33
after a run or something and they'd look at me like all judgy like I'll be like hi can I see that
21:40
piece of jewelry and they be like H and there's like this whole process to get this one $300 necklace out and I'm like
21:46
okay and they're showing it to me and I just remember feeling small and I was embarrassed to try to act for something
21:52
else and it was a scary experience so when we opened ours it was like jewelry would be freely displayed no underglass
21:59
we do have diamonds underglass now you can understand why um but freely displayed we wanted people to be
22:05
interactive we created the color bar where you could come and like design your own and we had lines out the store
22:13
and we realized then exactly who our demographic was it was a customer type
22:19
not an age we had women and girls from 12 years old to 80 years old we had
22:26
multi-generation shopping together who all were able to find something but they shared a similar core value they loved
22:34
the color they were bold they loved fashion they loved design they had a heart that Beed for their Community we
22:40
were all about giving back from day one at Kender Scott and they cared very much about that and it resonated and
22:48
literally from that first store to the next store we created community and that
22:53
was a big difference marker for us and continues to be as a brand yeah well speaking of community
Working from Austin
23:00
your company is so deeply rooted in Austin and I know early on you got a lot
23:05
of feedback that to really Thrive you should really be based in New York or La
23:12
so what were the challenge challenges of working from Austin not being in those
23:18
markets and what can business owners in a similar situation learn from that today yeah I love telling this story
23:24
especially here in Austin Texas at South by Southwest but I started my company in
23:29
2002 and in 2004 or 5 I went to New York City to do the accessory circuit and
23:36
literally they're these Brands and they have huge production companies I mean they have all these thing people setting
23:42
things up like a trolley I don't even I can't explain to you it's me and like two of my girls and we were making a
23:49
wood floor like hammering it in I mean it was like very like we had no money and we built this thing and we you know
23:55
put our jewelry up we were exhausted we had Cuts all over hands from setting up all the stuff and these you know buyers
24:02
and editors would come through the accessory circuit and this big time editor of a very big-time magazine came
24:09
through and she was accessories editor she's like oh my God what who are you I love this and I said oh I'm <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>
24:16
um you know she's like you look so different I mean everyone else is you know really looking the same I was like thank you and she's like when did you
24:23
start where are you you know what's going where are you from LA are you from New York that was my option
24:29
said no I'm from Austin Texas and she was like Austin Texas oh you know you
24:35
really are going to need to move to one of the coast cities if you ever want to make it in fashion and I looked at her I
24:42
said but Austin's part of the DNA of my brand and she said that's cute but
24:48
that's not going to matter you got to be here to get the resources you need blah blah blah and I just didn't believe it
24:54
because I lived in this city and I knew the magic before the whole world the magic of this town but it's this
25:00
creative Hub of music and film it's a Vibrant Community of entrepreneurs that
25:06
lift each other up and support each other I was in the absolute best place on the planet to start a business and to
25:14
start a business and fashion and what's funny is that same accessories at her and she doesn't know this this is why
25:19
don't bring this up like tell who it is four years later she's calling me and
25:24
asking me Kendra can you do an article with me and tell me the fashion the jewelry trends for this
25:30
season 2008 she goes can you tell me what the trends are in jewelry she asked
25:35
the girl from Austin Texas who wasn't supposed to make it but that's a good sign of when you think about it the
25:41
things that make your brand true the things that make your company true are
25:46
your story and it doesn't belong to anybody else Austin is part of who I am
25:52
it's part of the influence of my design it's part of what makes this brand so beautiful and great
25:59
and so if I took that out of the equation I would not be sitting here with you today so people will tell you
26:05
all sorts of things that you can and cannot do that you should or shouldn't do you have to listen to yourself and
26:11
stay true to who you are because what's going to separate you and your company is one thing you unique individual that
26:20
there is no one else on this planet but you don't let anyone ever take that away from you or tell you that you should be
26:26
something you're not [Applause]
26:35
very well said now you mentioned investors earlier so let's Circle back
Raising Capital
26:41
to that topic raising capital is tricky for any entrepreneur but it's especially tough for women who only get roughly 2%
26:49
of venture funding what do you know about raising Capital today that you wish you knew on day one gosh I think
26:56
it's a different world today we're still vastly um you know underinvested as
27:02
women right one of the reasons why I founded the Kender Scott women's entrepreneural and Leadership Institute
27:07
is to really start changing that Dynamic around female Founders and female Founders getting the opportunities and
27:14
Investments that they so deserve um you know I'm excited because in the last four years I'm just going to toot my own
27:20
horn real quick or toot the University of Texas's horn is that we have already founded 66 female Founders in just four
27:27
years which is amazing amazing saying that though we have a lot
27:34
of work to do uh when I started there was this amazing you know 2002 if if any
27:39
of you some of you may be born in 2002 in this room but for those of you out
27:46
there it was really and I I I laugh when sometimes I say this but like the internet was really just getting going
27:52
okay I know right now we're talking about Ai and we're all not really even going to be here in a few years you know
27:57
and we're going to AI robots doing this but in 2002 folks uh we didn't have the
28:03
access to social groups to opportunities to meet and learn get people that we
28:08
would meet outside of our little Network I was in a women's networking group that would just meet here in Austin and that
28:14
was who I was able to network with I mean we didn't have access to the world we have access to the world now and
28:22
we're seeing so many women getting into Finance getting into private Equity women who are wanting to B back other
28:28
companies like myself so it's such an exciting time I think for female entrepreneurship and I think it's an
28:34
exciting time in general for entrepreneurship you know I look at the generation behind me you know that I'm
28:40
getting to teach at the University of Texas and I'm blown away every day the
28:47
inspiration the excitement the passion the drive to want to not just do good
28:52
for themselves but do good for the world is unbelievable and we have so much to
29:00
be excited for we've got some great folks behind us that are ready to take on the world and we just need to give
29:06
them the power and the fuel to do
29:13
it so as you've built your business you've made a concerted effort to help other women entrepreneurs but it can
Helping Other Women Entrepreneurs
29:20
oftentimes feel like helping women in business falls on other women in business and as we've mentioned there
29:26
already so few of them what would you like to see from the larger investing world to bridge that Gap well you know I
29:33
I agree and disagree with that in some regards because I think there's also amazing men in our lives that lift us up
29:41
I was raised by a father who I write about a lot in my book who I don't know if it was for him I would be here also I
29:48
mean he told me honey you can be anything you want to be there is nothing
29:54
in this world that is too big for you to go after he never told me that I wasn't
29:59
able to do this or I couldn't do that and I think having these men in our life that help lift us up is really important
30:07
I've had men in my life my first investor who I call my bonus dad was a mentor to me for many many years he had
30:15
many successful businesses took a few public and he was the first one to actually say those words Kendra I want
30:22
to invest in you and I I was like what I've not been familiar with this sentence before he believed in me and
30:29
his belief in me helped me then continue to raise and Rise my company so I think
30:35
this is a consorted effort between men and women right it's good for the entire
30:40
world for all of us to lift women up our daughters our sisters our wives our
30:47
friends the whole world will benefit from this we know that female Founders
30:52
and female leaders I hate to say it guys but they're just a little bit better at it they have a better success rate they
31:00
do I love you guys we're very empathetic we're very thoughtful leaders you guys can learn from this these female leaders
31:07
but I think it's so important that we make this more of a unified thing and I have to tell you there are so many men
31:13
even on Shark Tank you look at Mr Wonderful Mark Cuban all the Buddies I get to sit beside they adore and love to
31:21
invest in female Founders they love it and I think we're seeing that tide changing and shiting shif in and I think
31:28
we're seeing it even in the corporate you know workplace where our our male leaders there used to be such a glass
31:35
ceiling for women there's still a lot of work we got to do ladies I'm not saying we've broken through it completely I
31:41
wish I could but we're getting there and because we're getting there because men are helping us get there as well and we
31:48
need to recognize that that that's very
31:54
important a key part of your brand from the very beginning is that you do good
How to Communicate Your Mission
31:59
through philanthropic efforts now businesses have adopted values around giving back and it's become rather
32:06
trendy in more recent years so how do you communicate your mission to consumers in a way that feels genuine
32:13
and not a good marketing strategy so this is a really I'm gon to like hope I
32:18
can get everyone in here to get with me on this one this is the best question of the whole thing that you've asked me
32:24
today Kendra Scott my first business that failed I started because I wanted
32:30
to do something that would make people feel good my stepfather who died at age
32:35
47 told me honey use the gifts you were given to do something good to make an
32:43
impact in a positive way you have a very very short time on this Earth very short
32:50
so while we're here Make It Count make it count and so for me after the hatbox
32:56
failed I knew for me to think of success I wanted it to be purpose-- driven I wanted a fashion for philanthropy brand
33:04
this is again I didn't have any money y'all I was Baro okay Baroque but what
33:10
could I do in that moment I could make a pair of earrings for a silent auction for a nonprofit I could make a necklace
33:16
for a raffle I decided that any nonprofit that would call me I would never say no I could do that I could
33:23
give my time that was free so to speak right I could give my time but then as
33:29
the company grew I opened a store I could host Kendra gives back events and I could bring people from the community
33:35
in we could share things that we wanted to do together and support that organization and we shared in the event
33:42
sales and I was able to give that back then we were able to build more programs like Kendra haes and pediatric hospitals
33:50
where we brought our color bar to Pediatric patients so they could get a little bit of Joy we'd gift them a
33:56
necklace that they could help design they could make one for their mom or their favorite nurse we started at MD
34:01
Anderson ironically we built the program with them we're now in 42 hospitals so
34:07
my message there to all of you is you don't have to make this big thing oh we're not ready to be philanthropic yet
34:14
we don't have the extra money we're barely able to to figure it out do what you can when you can and let this be a
34:22
core pillar of your business because the people you attract that care care about
34:28
more than just themselves more than just you know the dollar right you're going
34:34
to have the most hardworking loving amazing humans on the planet working for you and so Kendra Scott this was just
34:41
What mattered to me it was a one-man show in the beginning and then I hired two and three and four and now we're up
34:47
to 3,000 something and we all share this core value the priority for us at Kendra
34:53
Scott and how we measure success is how we can make an impact and now we've been able since 2010 to give $65
35:01
million to women and children's causes you guys that started out of a
35:08
bedroom right I mean so I tell young entrepreneurs you
35:14
know all the time don't feel like you have to do it all today do what you can
35:20
grow with your organization bring your people in to allow them to be part of how this happens hire on your core
35:27
values and watch out what the world is going to happen if we all had that mindset it would be
35:34
amazing now speaking of the brand Kendra Scott there can be pressure an outsize
How to Differentiate Your Brand
35:40
pressure on women Founders to be the name and the face of their brand how do you figure out if that's the right move
35:45
for your company like does it make it difficult to differentiate Kendra Scott the brand from Kendra Scott the person
35:53
does it change how you make decisions in for the company or for your personal life um you know it's really funny cuz
35:59
people say how did you come up with this decision to name your company your name
36:04
and I laugh because again I told you I was scared to start another company so I didn't name it anything it wasn't like
36:11
oh I'm going to name my brand Jazzy Jewels or something you know I was like I made a business card from word perfect
36:18
I printed it out I cut it out and it said Kendra Scott because that's my name you guys jewelry designer that was it so
36:26
I was just a person selling jewelry and then as you know buyers started to hear
36:32
and I had a a it started because there was a a showroom in Dallas Texas who
36:38
they their stores were stopped buying the product that she was selling because they were buying from this girl Kendra
36:43
Scott out of Austin Texas and she called me her name was Julie and she's like are you Kendra Scott kind of aggressive I
36:50
was like yes can I sell you something and she's like you're selling to all my accounts in Austin what are
36:57
you doing that's so special and I said I don't know do you want to see she's like come on up to Dallas and show me what
37:03
you've got so she started selling she because what's so your company name's Kendra Scott I guess so sure yeah it's Kendra
37:12
Scott that's it so it became Kendra Scott design I added the design to it to
37:17
make it feel a little more I don't know legit um now we're just Kendra Scott LLC
37:23
I decided I could let go of the design that I could just be me and be good with that but um no it is you know some days
37:29
it's funny because a lot of people don't know that I'm there's a human behind the brand um in Texas in certain markets
37:37
people refer to the brand as she and her um in other places it's an it they don't
37:44
know it's just a brand I mean I could be like an Taylor do you know she doesn't exist that wasn't a real person um
37:50
there's a lot of Brands out there that are just a name so I I take it as a very big
37:56
responsibility because I think anytime that you have your name on the products
38:01
one you want to make sure that they're absolutely perfect I want everything the customer experience touches taste smells
38:10
that is around Kendra Scott to be absolutely amazing so I'm so engaged and
38:15
involved in it it adds this level of commitment right because it is my name
38:21
and I need to make sure it's perfect for them but in addition to that it's important for me to be able to inspire
38:28
and show other women and and young women that anything is possible and I share my
38:34
stories of failure I share my stories of of of starting out in a difficult situation and overcoming these things
38:42
probably more way more than I like to share successes because I want others to see that they can do it too and I say
38:49
this all the time if you can see her you can be her and I was able to see a few
38:55
women I look at like think about Oprah Wom Frey Dolly Parton women that went against the grain that did things that
39:01
were kind of like you know that they didn't think that they could do and they became these unbelievable Dynamic you
39:08
know figures right the more of us that can get out there and Inspire and show
39:14
that it's possible I think is important and I take that job very seriously on the
39:23
note on the note of recovering from misstep you know not every business
Recovering from Missteps
39:29
decision is a slam dunk even well-intentioned changes can become the subject of scrutiny so how do you handle
39:36
this as the person in charge and what have you learned from owning up to when customers maybe Express their
39:42
disappointment with the brand I actually love so much when customers tell us when
39:48
they're not happy I know that sounds like like you wouldn't like that I mean I don't love it but what I love about it
39:54
is that I can I know about it and I can then solve the problem for them what I love today is that on social media I can
40:01
go and I do read Instagram comments y'all so be kind cuz I am very sensitive and and but I do if I hear something if
40:09
somebody had a bad experience if something happened or they didn't get product shipped I mean I am calling our team I am on this I'm like how do how
40:16
did this happen how do we make sure this never happens again what do we do to make sure this customer becomes a
40:21
customer for life and we turn around this experience for her it's so important to me and I think you know you
40:28
have to be able to listen as Leaders you have to listen all the time and the
40:33
littlest thing if it blooms like fires up right and you hear something maybe one person has sent something but there
40:40
might be 50 people that had that same experience but this one is the one that it came to the surface so you've got to
40:46
get into it you can never be defensive you can never be you know it is 100% the
40:52
customer is right I know people always you but they are right they they that is
40:58
my boss she signs and he signs my paycheck so if my boss is not happy
41:05
we're going to get fired we're going to they're going to stop buying from us they're going to go to somewhere else so
41:11
the customer is my boss and what do you do if your boss is unhappy you're going to make sure they get happy real quick
41:17
and so that is our mentality at Kender Scott we all work for our customer and
41:23
everything he or she needs her expectation her experiences I'm saying her CU
41:29
there's just more hers and but you know he's hers they all the things they need to know that we care
41:37
and that we're there and we're listening and that we're proactive about it so it's critically important to
41:43
me you started kenas Scott more than 20 years ago and have grown your team to
41:49
roughly 200 employees in your home office and 2600 in stores across the country what have you learned about
41:55
hiring the right people during that time I learned that you hire on heart you guys are like what that's so
42:02
woo woo no I swear it's real you know I've had so many goldplated resumés that
42:09
I've looked at that it's like wow they are all the things the experience the this the that and then I've gotten in
42:15
front of them and there's just something like oh they don't share our core values that passion that love that kindness
42:22
that generosity that glass overfilling optimism of you know be they just don't
42:28
have that but boy this resume is sexy I mean maybe I mean maybe I could Overlook that I'm not having that good feeling
42:36
and every single time I have not listened to my gut that I have not hired on core values I have regretted it so I
42:43
think when we think about hiring there are skills that you can teach there are skills that you can teach people but you
42:50
cannot teach people on their heart you cannot teach people their core values
42:55
you cannot teach caring and kindness they either are that or they're not and
43:02
so what I recommend is not just you interview make sure you have several people within your organization
43:08
especially the people that mirror the core values the best in your organization interview them because they
43:14
can smell a rat and they'll be able to tell right away if they don't share it also make sure anyone you hire in a
43:21
leadership role that the people that they that are going to work for them interview them them because if they are
43:28
bought in if they are excited about the hire then that will be a much more successful hire hiring should not come
43:36
top down the big boss likes this person and we're going to hire it it should come bottom up it should be a funnel up
43:43
you should have those people that are going to be excited about the leadership in your company and make them go through
43:49
a very strenuous interview process it shouldn't just be you know here it
43:55
should be going to lunch getting them in other environments and then the biggest thing I think I can leave and I tell
44:00
this to my managers and stores they're the CEOs of their stores you know Kender
44:05
Scott stores I say when you're interviewing again I actually sometimes
44:11
don't want them to have experience in retail I know that's shocking because
44:16
how everybody else is doing in a retail quite frankly I think they're doing a lot of it wrong so I don't want them to
44:22
have those bad habits I don't want them to come with me well this is how we do it at this brand and this brand I'm like
44:27
no we are very different at Kender Scott so part of me is I want you to tell me
44:32
how did that person make you feel that's a really easy way to know
44:38
when you sat with them did you want to engage and continue in that conversation did you not want it to end did you want
44:44
this interview to keep going because that's how a customer is going to feel when they walk in the store and they
44:50
meet this person so think about how that person makes you feel and don't worry so much about that goldplated resume
44:59
wonderful so many Applause worthy moments here so we have about 15 minutes
Evolving Your Brand
45:04
left in our conversation today um remember that we are opening uh audience Q&A so if you have any questions
45:11
definitely throw them in the app um but we'll go ahead and dive into a few of them that are ready um so one of our
45:17
questions here how do you evolve and update your products to match current trends while preserving the identity of
45:23
your brand that's a great one yall I'm now have pce is that they're considered
45:28
vintage that hurts okay when your name's on the brand cuz that's saying I'm getting vintage you know what I mean
45:35
it's okay it's okay I got that but I love it because you could pull a piece out of your jewelry box from 2008 2009
45:44
and you could buy a piece of Kendra Scott Jewelry today and you'd be like oh I could wear that with that piece it becomes a collector's piece because we
45:51
utilize unique shape for our brand that was something that I thought was so important everyone was using the same
45:58
shapes and so I created unique shapes one of them I'm wearing today the first one the very first custom shape that we
46:05
ever did was our Danielle shape and we copyrighted this shape and we've shrunk her she's now the Alisa which you see
46:13
all over she's very popular um she's more popular than I am by the way Danielle's got a whole life of her own
46:19
um but it was important to me that shape and then materials we use amazing
46:26
techniques to create very Innovative materials like putting mother of pearl
46:31
behind a beautiful crystal glass so it's called illusion where you're looking through the glass and seeing the mother
46:37
Pearl behind it we're using all these Innovative materials that become part of
46:42
our brand that are identifiable to our brand so it's shape it's color it's filigree it's how we work our metal it's
46:49
the texturing and so there's these little bit of hints right that you can see in our brand to become identifiable
46:56
and that was important to me and as we continue to evolve we've created many new shapes every single shape you see is
47:04
a custom design shape that we design right here in our lab in Austin Texas we
47:09
actually hand carve them out of wax and we send them out to our Cutters to have them cut so that was super important to
47:16
me and I think that as you see it we we look at Trends but we also want to be able to think about how do we take the
47:23
trends but keep them Timeless right how can I give you a piece that you're going
47:28
to love today and it's going to look hot with what's happening in fashion but you could pull it out 10 years from now or
47:34
your daughter could pull it out 10 years from now be like this is so cool I want to wear this and that's what I think
47:41
about and I think about when I'm designing again you know I want PE
47:46
people to look good obviously but I want them to feel good like when they put this on do they feel strong do they feel
47:53
confident do they feel a little bit more powerful can they walk into that interview or that meeting and have a little bit more confidence and I hope
48:00
that our jewelry rubs that off on them in some magical way as well yeah so I've noticed a through line
Creating a Great Connection
48:06
in our conversation is how much you care about the customer so what are three things an entrepreneur should do to
48:13
create a great connection with their consumer okay this is so important so
48:18
connection before transaction if you write anything down if you remember anything that I've said today please
48:25
remember those three words connection before transaction the transaction will come I
48:33
promise you it will come it may not come in that moment but it will come if you
48:38
and your team focus on connecting in an authentic and real way with your consumer connecting with who they are
48:46
understanding their needs and their wants listening to them making them feel special and making them feel connected
48:53
to your brand they will leave that experience sharing it with everybody they know so now you might have just
48:58
gotten 10 or 50 more new customers right there and they may go on later and Shop
49:04
eom but I promise you they're going to come back when I shifted how we did things at Kender Scott and part of that
49:11
was that shift of typical retail what's your spbt what's your upt it was all these right like anyone that's worked in
49:17
retail you know yes we have goals yes we want to achieve things within Kendra Scott but I just tell my team connect
49:25
connect connect connect if you connect first and that person leaves happier
49:30
than when they came through our doors then you have made a successful transaction and that is why our brand is
49:38
doing things that other brands aren't able to do today because that is the focus and I think all companies
49:45
sometimes we get too granular in the data oh we're so data driven and I know
49:50
all a lot of tech things going on here but there's times for data right and
49:56
there's times for us to start to remember we're human beings and humans need Personal Touch humans need to feel
50:05
touched connected loved and you can't always do that through a screen or a
50:10
robot you know what I'm
50:19
saying all right another great uh question from the audience and now it's like how do you use AI in your business
Using AI in Business
50:26
oh I had don't back to the tech it sounds like most of your successes came from overcoming the fear of failure was
50:32
there a point in your career when you stopped having that fear no I'm scared today still you guys um I'm always
50:38
scared you know when you fail in life and and I'm not just failed in business
50:44
I mean I may or may not have been married a couple times you know sometimes life throws you
50:51
curveballs right it's not what you expect to happen it's not what you want to happen none of us go down the say I
50:57
do with the idea of like the divorce no it just things happen in life right so I
51:03
think you know when you go through these failures in your life every single time though I've come out on the other side
51:09
and gone Ah that's why that happened that's why I had to experience that because I needed
51:16
those tools that information that bridge to get me to the next place I was going
51:22
and if I hadn't had that failure or that mishap or that broken relationship I
51:29
wouldn't be with Thomas you know what I'm saying and so you know you you got to sometimes go through things it's not
51:35
ideal it's not what we always plan but that's always going to give you to a next brighter place if you just know and
51:42
it's okay hey in those moments cry get on the floor have your moment everybody I'm not the I'm an optimist I mean even
51:49
an optimist has to break down and cry sometimes but then pick yourself up and go okay now I'm going to learn from this
51:56
because this is going to tell me something cuz something awesome is waiting for me and I just went through
52:01
this hell this hardship because something truly great is behind that
52:06
door of
52:13
fear this is an interesting one what did you do to show the world that you are a
How to Show the World You Are a Jewelry Expert
52:19
jewelry expert how do you get that recognition everyone's going to start from somewhere how did I show the world
52:25
I didn't try to become a jewelry expert um I just wanted to make jewelry that
52:30
was beautiful that people were excited about that felt good about and I think
52:36
when I just focused on the cons the consumer I stopped trying to beat my
52:41
like everybody else on like oh I'm going to do this I just was focusing on what my customer wanted every day and made
52:47
sure I was delivering that every single day the reason we became an expert is because we cared so much about the
52:54
customer and at the end of the day the customer became the ones that made me a jewelry expert I didn't make myself the
53:02
jewelry expert they loved the design they loved the creativity they loved what we were doing and I continued to
53:09
listen and want to do more for them and more to excite them and more to make them thrilled about and so every
53:16
collection I just think about God I just want to make this where they're going to be like their jaws are going to drop they're going to be so thrilled and
53:22
excited and I think in any business that's how you become an exp expert when
53:27
you are able to to really have that connection with your customer and listen to what they want and they need they
53:34
will make you an expert in whatever field it is that you're trying to be
53:41
in now this question y' are real nice I like this group I feel like this
How to Evaluate and Find Manufacturers that Affirm Your Values
53:47
question definitely came from a fellow business owner how do you evaluate and find manufacturers that uphold the same
53:53
values uh and of quality so just just like when you're hiring okay this is a a
53:58
really important thing the question is you know how do you find manufacturers that uphold your same values this is huge any partner that you work with they
54:07
have to share your core values again the goldplated resume works the same way for
54:13
any vendors manufacturers anybody that you're doing business with anybody that
54:18
will ever represent you ever so if that's a publicist a lawyer a whoever
54:26
they have to represent you and your core values if they are not aligned with that
54:31
do not hire them do not put them on on board we've had manufacturers that I
54:37
would go and visit and they were not up to my standard of how they were treating their employees what they were doing and
54:43
I basically said you have 30 days to do all these things and if you don't do
54:50
those things then we're not going to continue to utilize you as a manufacturer it's as simple as that
54:56
and many times they push back well this is my Granddaddy's business and this is how we've done it for the last 50 years
55:04
and I'm like well it's time to grow up and get with the times buddy because how your granddaddy did it is not going to
55:11
work for Kender Scott in our company so you need to do these things and if you can't do them once again I'm going to
55:16
move my manufacturing and you have to be steadfast on those things you can never
55:23
ever allow someone to treat people the way you would you said I will never
55:28
allow this in my organization if somebody is doing it in theirs that you're partnering with you are just as guilty as they are so you have got to
55:35
continue to hold them to the highest standards and fight for that every single day and it doesn't always happen
55:41
overnight but all of our manufacturers we have standards with every single person and we ask them to exceed those
55:48
they have marks kpis that we ask we ask for employee feedback I want to hear
55:54
directly from the employees what their experiencing what they need more of and we're always striving to make sure that
56:00
we're negotiating contracts that give them the best work environments and that there is that they're as close to the
56:06
brand as possible even though they're not completely part of the brand
56:13
itself I feel like this question any boss any founder I'm sure contemplates
Discovering Your Strengths
56:19
this when was the moment you decided to start delegating tasks and stop doing it all on your own oh my gosh you know this
56:26
is a really important one there's a great book that I recommend it's called now discover your strengths by Marcus
56:32
Buckingham if any of you have uh ever heard Marcus speak he also has some great podcasts but I saw him speak and
56:40
one of the things that he really talks about is understanding what you're good at but more importantly knowing what
56:46
you're bad at and any entrepreneur I know we're all a little cocky we can be a little arrogant sometimes a little too
56:52
confident let's be honest we're not good at everything okay and the more that we
56:57
know what we suck at all right the more we know that and we can hire people that
57:03
are absolutely Dynamic and great at the things that we are not good at the
57:08
quicker you are going to see success and so I surround myself with the most talented team on the planet I am always
57:17
looking for people to fill those holes that I know that I lack every morning I
57:22
wake up and I'm running a company bigger than it was the night def night before can you imagine what that feels like so
57:29
I have to have people on my team that have been at companies that have far exceeded a billion and beyond that they
57:35
have walked that walk that they have traversed some of these pitfalls that I know are ahead of us that can help us
57:41
avoid those things in the future and I think it's so important for us as entrepreneurs to recognize those things
57:47
so thinking of it for me was really not just delegation it was I was doing so
57:53
many things and so many things I wasn't good at to this day my accounting team will not unlock an Excel spreadsheet
58:00
when they send it to me okay they know I'm not good at Excel I never will be good at Excel and I'm not going to try
58:06
to be good at Excel I'm going to let people that are great at Excel be great at Excel okay and they are amazing at it
58:14
and they love it and building spreadsheets is like they get excited about it I see it and I break out into
58:20
hives okay totally different so I think when we can start to think about our team and and bringing in people that
58:27
share your core values but have other strengths than you sh have and creating
58:32
this winning team and that is how you win and that you have an aligned Vision that all of these amazing people on your
58:39
team have an aligned Vision then watch out then you're going to just start knocking off and being so successful and
58:45
the minute you can start to realize that you doing it all is actually hurting your company not helping your company
58:52
will be the day you're going to start to see amazing magical things happen now we have just about one minute left
Most Overrated and Underrated Advice
58:59
one minute last down to the 60 seconds I'm going to close with a question of my own you've heard a lot of advice about
59:05
how to stand out as a business person over the years what is the most overrated piece of advice you've ever heard and then on the flip side the most
59:12
underrated piece of advice you want everyone to know most overrated and underrated advice oh God okay
59:20
overrated um you know there's a lot uh I think you know when I think about I've
59:25
Been Told so many things in my life that I was supposed to be or how I should do
59:30
things um or what typically was done or what was normal in business there is no
59:38
normal in business and I was trying to people were trying to force me kind of into this is how you do this this is how
59:45
it should be done these are the steps you should take and everyone's business in life is not the same so not one set
59:53
of rules is going to work for everyone there there's going to be nuggets of things that are going to work for you
59:58
that that may have worked for somebody else and a lot of things that may have worked for somebody else that doesn't work so remember this is your path it's
1:00:06
yours alone and to be a sponge learn listen look at other companies you
1:00:12
admire but don't let a person or people tell you how you should do your path do
1:00:18
it your own way but again taking that advice being able to learn from it is great but don't let anybody tell you how
1:00:25
you should do something because again if I had I wouldn't be here I was told not even to get into jewelry because it was
1:00:31
too you know too big of a market it was absolutely ridiculous the all the things I was told over the years you know were
1:00:38
absolutely not true I think underrated I think this one is
1:00:44
important is you and and a lot of times people say well it's not the it's not
1:00:49
necessarily the people you surround yourself with it's all you it's like you've got to be the one to make these
1:00:55
things happen and I completely disagree the people that surround you are your
1:01:00
reflection of you who you decide to put yourself around whether that is the
1:01:06
friends that you you have the people that you hire within your organization
1:01:12
they are a reflection and a part of who you are and it is not you singular as an
1:01:18
entrepreneur or I'm going to be able to fight the world on my own alone you have to have an army of love and support to
1:01:25
make it in this world you have to have a village of people that you know that we
1:01:30
will rely on with each other that you'll be there for one another so I think you know a lot of times as an entrepreneur
1:01:36
it's like you against the world and if you're going to put you up against the world it's going to be a really really
1:01:42
really hard life so start to build your Army start to build the people around
1:01:48
you that can help be there for you because then it's not just you it's this Army of Believers that love you believe
1:01:55
in you see you and now you're
1:02:01
unstoppable and that's our time thank you so much Kendra for this really energizing conversation thanks
1:02:08
everyone in the audience for your engagement have a great your Fest have a great South by
1:02:14
[Applause]
1:02:24
Southwest
 honestly is like a dream job something me yeah that's awesome and can
Challenges
26:04
you talk us through kind of the challenges any challenges in the early days and what did that look like yeah
26:09
you know there are always challenges and you don't get to make your mistakes in in private when you're in business with
26:15
Kim Kashi and so you know there was some uh there were some things that we did I
26:21
guess in the beginning the most famous one is that the company was originally going to be named kimono and again we
26:26
listened to the audience we heard that that was a accepted or respected and we made a quick pivot to rename the company to a
26:33
way better name actually now in hindsight um I'm happy to say but you know I think that if I'm honest you know
26:41
so much of my job is dealing with problems and with challenges right nobody comes to me and says well I we're
26:46
knocking it out of the park today you know SS are on fire we met our Target it's only 10:00 a.m. I mean I do get
26:53
those texes but more often than not it's a challenge it's a problem it's you know this year has been the great supply
26:59
chain issue you know it's like I am very lucky to be in a position with both
27:04
skims and good American where um you know the the love of the product and the
27:11
consumer appetite for the product really outweighs what I'm able to put out in the market and so there are all of those
27:18
issues of how are you going to get ahead and you know how do you predict businesses that have treble digit growth
27:25
like year-over-year that's that's very difficult because you don't know what next year looks like because the only
27:31
thing I can guarantee is that it will look nothing like this year and and so it's hard to predict um I just think
27:38
that you know my my job is to be able to constantly make decisions and so I'm you
27:45
know I like to stay really connected to the businesses that I'm involved with because I can only make those decisions
27:51
if I really understand what's going on and again you know like hire the best possible people to work in every
27:58
part of the company you talk about decisions um you know they I I once
Decisions
28:05
spoke to a really successful founder that said you know you have to get it you have to be right about 70% of the
28:12
time um so you know you've made some incredible decisions that have got you to where you are now uh do you have like
28:20
anything that you could share around like a decision-making framework how you go through this process of making the
28:26
moves you've made to get where you are today it's interesting right because I do have this philosophy I I think it I'm
28:32
pretty sure it was my husband who said it to me first like make a decision and move on I'm someone that can you know
28:39
definitely over procrastinate um and I think that when you're a CEO and you're
28:44
making so many decisions today you're G to you know you're going to make good ones you're going to make bad ones you have to make them and move on right
28:50
because to to to over procrastinate is to just freeze and and die and Miss
28:57
opportunities um I am definitely I think at the heart
29:03
if you if you have two different types of CEOs that are like a gut driven you know type person or a data driven you
29:11
know information gathering person I would say I'm I'm on the gut side of things that's just how I've always
29:17
operated um and I have a lot of experience that's kind of led me to to be that way because ultimately you know
29:23
I can live with a decision that I made from the gut that goes wrong better than one where I looked all the data and
29:30
processed it and still it up so I think that um I think that my decision
29:36
making process is evolving all the time and I definitely believe that having and
29:43
surrounding yourself with other brilliant people and creating the conditions for everybody to contribute
29:50
all the time right it's no good if you're kind of like an isolated CEO that
29:55
makes decisions kind of in a in a vacuum I don't do that I'm a person that brings
30:01
people around the table and will talk something out and you know listen to the benefit of like everybody else's
30:08
experience and I do that quite often I'm also someone that calls like I will call
30:13
people I have a bunch of people that I speak to uh and not just like you know
30:19
like competitors uh other CEOs that I'll be like hey are you seeing this like is
30:26
this happening to you too or am I in a isolated incident right now you know and
30:31
I I do that all the time nine times out of 10 people are really generous with their information and happy you foed up
30:37
you know it's like I I've done that so many times and and it's uh you know surprised me yeah that's cool
Safely
30:45
so let's talking about safely um how did that start you know that was honestly a
30:50
reaction to what was happening in the world because I'm a mom of four children now um and I recently kind of rid my
30:59
house of all plastic like just before the onset of covid I was like there's no plastic in this house we're going
31:05
completely as reusable sustainable and you know toxic free as we can in this
31:12
house and it was quite an undertaking you know you have to you to do a lot of research I work with this consultant I
31:17
really really thought about it because when you've got some kids you know you want the best for them and um then then
31:24
covid came and I was like pass me the Lysol give me give me everything back that I'd got rid
31:30
of um and then you know maybe three or four months in I was like there has to be like a better alternative it can't be
31:36
that or that I started looking around and I started doing a lot of research into like plant-based cleaning and it
31:43
just so happened that I knew somebody um that had been at a you know a very
31:48
well-known laundry detergent company and we started speaking and I was like what
31:53
are the Innovations in this space and where's the market going and you know are more people open to like a better
32:01
version of what they are currently using and I think it's just one of those decisions that I don't know even know if
32:07
I thought about before you know I buy the same things as maybe my mom bought I don't know you know it's like I buy the
32:13
things that just like jump off the aisles or whatever's on like Amazon on repeat you know it's just like not a
32:19
choice for me and so I just thought like more people if they given the choice for
32:24
something that is plantbased and without topsin and it's better for their whole
32:30
family like would you be willing to trade up and I think that's like any decision in product you know it's like
32:36
are you willing do most people are like want something better if they know something's better and so I just thought
32:43
it would be interesting to do something that was outside of my own comfort zone like being around Fashion um and you
32:50
know but apply the same sort process to it right I was like why can't marketing
32:56
for cleaning products be really beautiful why can't we make gorgeous packaging in lovely colors and keep it
33:02
simple and just tell people like what the deal is and you know it turned out
33:08
that you could you could make really gorgeous smelling plant-based products that don't have any craft in them and
33:15
you could get them into some of like you know the biggest retailers in the country so that's that was the story of
33:20
safely and it's been fantastic yeah wow there you go that's really cool and for
Best piece of advice
33:25
anybody watching this that is looking to differentiate into a crowded space
33:31
like you have what what's the best piece of advice you would give that I think the best piece of advice is really like
33:37
know what you're doing it for you know I had a very specific thing in mind which was really about my kids and then being
33:44
in that moment of you know it's hard to think about now but if you go back what
33:49
to April you know not last year the year before we were all in a complete Panic
33:55
you know I was leaving my groceries out outside for half an hour and then
34:00
spraying everything down and you know I was like this can't be good for me and I
34:05
often think that things that I've done really well it's like a personal problem that I'm addressing and going well if I
34:11
feel like this there must be so many others if I don't want to alter my jeans after I spent 150 bucks on them there
34:17
must be other girls that have a curvy body that are like don't want to do that either there must be a better way of you
34:25
know looking at skin colors in under it and so I do think it's so much of it starts with like addressing things that
34:33
bother you that you find you know you've got to create a solution for because you know at the end of the day you've got to
34:38
be passionate enough and sometimes crazy enough to go round and round around to
34:44
actually solve a problem so it helps if it comes from something that you feel really you know linked to like I'm not
34:51
sure that I can just start I don't know phones that don't ring during meeting because I don't
34:58
really care that much you know I'm just like put it out put it down it's like you know it has to kind of come from somewhere um and you know I I think that
35:07
we're in a kind of time right now especially postco where people want to
35:12
do you know we want our jobs and how we spend our time to not just like align
35:19
with our values and feel purposeful but we want to feel like really proud of what we're doing and we want to feel
35:26
that we're using our time well because we've all just had this huge reminder that time is really
35:32
precious right that's like all we have and so I think if you're able to put those things together and that you feel
35:39
really great every day about how you're using your time you're going to be a successful founder you may not make a
35:44
gazillion dollars but you're going to get up every morning and your life will be full of purpose and you're going to
35:49
do something you really enjoy and hopefully it make somebody else you know either a difference to their life or
35:54
something enjoyable for other people and that for me has to be the starting point of anything if it brings you money and
36:01
wealth and opportunity and you know all of that is really great too but at the end of the day we've all got to get up
36:07
and get through the day and I think that has to be what work is for yeah I agree 110% so um let's talk about Shark Tank
Shark Tank
36:17
uh how did you end up there uh how did all that come about what a good question
36:25
um you know it's really interesting because first of all you know I was at dinner the other night and somebody said
36:31
what your Peak what your PE was the most unexpected thing that happened to you this year I mean sharp tank has to be
36:36
the most unexpected and really because I never saw myself as like a TV person
36:42
like a girl that would go on TV you know that that's why I have the most brilliant business partners in the world because they do that stuff and I can be
36:49
you know like in the office um but I had I I think a huge realization when I come
37:00
I think when I moved to America right and I started thinking so much more about how much you know racial disparity
37:09
that there is in this country and what kind of um like what what the the role was for
37:16
Corporate America in that and I think about that in my own business every single day um but I also kind of look
37:24
and I know the statistics right it was only five years ago that I was trying to raise money for good American and I know
37:29
how hard it is for black and brown women especially to be part of a funding
37:35
conversation and even to be in those rooms where they could be considered and
37:41
I thought it was important to be a black woman that is you know uh a self-made
37:47
woman that could be on that show investing in other women and that for me
37:53
was the reason I was like I have to do this because it's like a Circle moment
37:58
and I think it's really important for other people to watch that and be like he if you make some money it's really
38:04
really a good idea to kind give that back and figure out ways that you can kind of you know help other people
38:11
because there are so many good ideas that because they aren't in the right context and in the right rooms just
38:17
never see the light day it's not that the best ideas are always the ones that get funded and so Shar tank was just a
38:23
moment to go you know what can I get like a bunch of black and brown women on
38:29
this show showing that they can be incredible entrepreneurs that they've got fantastic ideas and you can fund
38:34
them and they can be successful um and the answer was yes you can so that's why
38:39
I did it and I think it was a really um it was just a you know a really
38:45
fundamental moment in my life and something that I feel extremely proud of to be you know extremely proud to be
38:52
part of because I kind of had a thought going into it of what I was going to do
38:58
and I was able to do exactly that oh that's incredible and I'm curious like
Advice for Founders
39:04
what advice would you give to any Founders that are early stage looking to
39:10
pitch on the show or looking to raise capital in general from investors you know I think that often times people go
39:17
too early you know it's like at the end of the day most investors want to see an
39:24
ability for you to have bootstrapped something and be able to be you know in a situation that is not necessarily just
39:32
profitable but positive right that there is a business case that there is a path to profitability that there is you know
39:39
something there and I think if you can't you know ideas that need there's so few
39:44
ideas that need huge injections of cash right from the outset now of course there are a million exceptions to that
39:51
and we've seen them but for people that are coming on Shark Tank where the Investments are relatively you know
39:57
they're typically under a million dollars you really should be able to show some kind of business case and so
40:03
for me it's really about not going too early what can you do yourself how can you actually bootstrap a business and
40:09
get it to a place where an investor can see some kind of Hope in the future of
40:14
your business and so um I think that you know it's I've done it myself you know in the
40:22
past without raising capital and I've started businesses where I raised capital and at the end of the day
40:28
they're two really really different paths but I would definitely think that
40:33
the challenge of bootstrapping and doing something on your own you learn so much
40:39
more you absolutely approach it and SP allocate funds and do things in a
40:44
different way it doesn't matter what anyone says um and so I I definitely think for you know for people that are
40:52
just starting out like trying to see how far you can get with out having to call
40:58
in any additional funds is a really important thing it's a challenge for yourself and it's only going to mean that you can attract better uh better
41:06
investors in the long run I think I'm really curious you've seen both sides of the table which do you prefer that's
Raising Capital
41:12
such a good question really depends I mean let's be honest when you're trying to do something on a global scale um
41:22
where you believe that there is you know a huge opportunity it's fantas fantastic
41:27
to raise Capital um going back five years maybe i' have thought about that
41:33
totally differently if if I was in the same position I am now and I could have just you know put my own money into it I
41:40
wasn't it wasn't a choice that I had back then who knows we'll see in business number
41:47
five that's the truth of it right well so we look cous of your time
The 15 Pledge
41:52
we'll work towards wrapping up a few last questions um before we finish up I
41:58
wanted to talk about the 15% pledge um so can you explain to this
42:05
what this is and and why you got involved yeah absolutely so the 15% pledge is a nonprofit that was started
42:11
by an incredible woman called Aurora James and Aurora um after the tragic
42:18
murder of George Floyd actually started the nonprofit B putting out a really
42:24
simple Instagram post where she created a call to action for retailers to relook
42:31
at how they're buying product and the simple Genesis of the entire
42:37
organization is that if black people make up 15% of the population of this country then why shouldn't your buy
42:45
equate to 15% from blackowned businesses and really what we're talking about here
42:50
is you know the the state of economic disparity in this country um and you
42:56
know I think what's been so incredible is that so many big retailers have
43:02
jumped on this initiative and again going back to that conversation around
43:07
diversity why representation matters why diversity in organization matters
43:12
actually it you know for businesses to understand it makes you more successful when you are able to have a broader
43:18
addressable Market when you able to you know talk to more people through the
43:24
brands that you are acquiring you're actually serving the customer customer better you're able to service more customers and therefore that has you
43:31
know an effect on your bottom line and so what the 15% pledge does in the most
43:37
simple way possible is gets organizations to look at the way they are buying and procuring and to say
43:45
perhaps we should look at putting more of this into blackowned businesses and
43:50
we know that that has an incredible effect because if you are a blackowned business and you suddenly get
43:56
a Fant fantastic you know purchase order from Nordstrom you are able to employ
44:01
more people and we know that black Founders will employ black and brown people they will educate their children
44:07
they will have a positive impact in their Community I think what's the most interesting thing is how quickly that
44:14
organization has been able to be truly impactful we're talking about 10 billion
44:20
dollars of opportunities through the pledge takers in just a year and so you
44:25
really are changing the econom makeup of the country at large by being able to do
44:31
this and the most simple way to see it is to go into any of those retailers you know when you go into Sephora you're
44:36
going to see a much broader range of businesses because they're able to start looking at the brands that they're
44:42
bringing in through a different lens and sometimes it really is just about um
44:47
showing you know these Brands and these retailers the way you know they have a buying division they have a number of
44:54
people that procure products on their behalf and perhaps they only have a limited vision of the brands that they
45:00
know and what they see and what they think they should be buying so I think 15% players has been an amazing
45:06
organization just to help people wake up and understand what's out there and see what they might be leaving on the table
45:13
and I'm really really proud to be the chairwoman of this organization because they're making real tangible change and
45:19
I think for so many uh people in business so many organizations so many Brands everybody knows they have to do
45:26
something but not everybody understands what does that mean what should we do and so the
45:33
15% pledge gives you just a very very tangible way to shift your business to look at things differently and to start
45:40
you know broadening the horizons and I think that a lot of organizations again
45:46
and I talk about this so much you know it's like everybody made Charters everybody said you know we know that we
45:52
need to be better we see and we hear the problems you have to action all of that
45:57
you know and there's no point in creating a charter and it gets kind of filed away somewhere and then nobody thinks about it anymore and so the
46:04
pledge gives an amazing opportunity for businesses to do something that's tangible actionable that's measurable
46:11
and move forward and it has an amazing effect on the business overall yeah wow well thank you for sharing look we could
Hot Seat Round
46:19
talk to you all day you've got a wealth of knowledge and experience and you've had such an incredible journey in Career
46:25
Success uh couple ask questions we'll move to the hot seat round I love your
46:30
questions you have a very like relaxing voice that I can listen to so it's like great you're very calm oh thank you
46:37
maybe it's yeah maybe it's an Australian thing not sure it is I think it is an Australian thing that's definitely it
46:44
there you go um so the first one hot seat round if you could give advice to
46:51
Emma one piece of advice 10 years ago what would it be and why I would have
46:56
moved on um a little quicker from some of my early jobs I stuck around out of
47:02
loyalty and didn't always um make the best decisions for myself and I I
47:10
usually tell people that work for me all the time I'm like your time here is probably up you should move on you know
47:15
it's like two three years you know you actually going to need to go to another company to get the jump that you deserve
47:22
and you need and whatever um and I think that I would definitely advise myself to
47:28
be perhaps less loyal and a little a little more ruthless awesome um last
Celebrity Partner
47:34
question you've had incredible success with Talent back businesses if there was
47:41
one uh celebrity to partner up with that you could choose who would it be why
47:47
this is going to sound so ridiculous but I didn't have a second choice to Chloe
47:52
she was my first choice and I still think here and I go God that was such a
47:59
smart choice I still think that um the kadashian family just have it you know
48:06
it's like they are honest and they are unbelievably
48:12
hardworking and this is It's just is such a boring answer for you but I
48:17
actually wouldn't there is no one I would rather be in business with and that's the honest it's the honest truth
48:23
I don't sit here and you know I mean I could just like create a for Brad Pit but it would be more selfs serving than
48:30
actually like me wanting to create a brand for Brad Pit but maybe we should say that because it would be a more interesed answer oh it's all good well
48:36
as you well last question then that's for like 16y old Emma crushing on Brad
48:42
Pit that would be it okay if you could have dinner with one entrepreneur Dead or Alive who would
Dinner With One Entrepreneur
48:49
have been why oh you know what I I probably
48:57
I thought you were going to ask me one celebrity but maybe it is the same thing actually I might still go back to Oprah
49:04
and I tell you why because I think that one of the things that she's done so
49:09
beautifully is that fuse this like unbelievable commercial instincts that
49:16
she has with like the purpose of her life and like this idea of
49:22
spirituality and the podcast and the book club and bringing the whole world
49:27
with her and I think there's so few people that have like been able to touch
49:33
people's life in like such a big way as her you know and so I probably would
49:38
think about it would probably be Oprah yeah I I think so because it's
49:44
she's just she's unique in that sense of you know being able
49:50
to you know just be so positive and such a you know a a kind of Beacon for so
49:59
many people and make lots of money doing it yeah look Oprah's Oprah's a really
Women in Business
50:05
great one um yeah I think she would be it would have to be a woman you know because I think so much about the unique
50:13
challenges that women have and you know I'm so glad you didn't ask me but everybody always ask me about how do you
50:20
balance it you know how do you do everything no one ask my husband that you know it's like when I did my shark
50:26
press you know I did it with Mark cuan and I was like why does no one ask Mark how he balances it all you know it's
50:33
like such a ridiculous question um and you know I do think that women face a
50:39
unique challenge in in business right it's like we talked so much
50:45
about you know equality in the workplace and uh you know uh at all different
50:51
levels but especially you know at the higher level and on boards and in the see sweet and there's still um so much
51:00
other stuff that women have to take the lead on in their life like you know
51:06
Child Care like running a household um and there's just not enough emphasis on
51:11
the reality of women's like total lives and total responsibilities and I think that you
51:19
know I always take it upon myself to just be really honest about what it takes to do my job and have four
51:25
children well I've never a lot of help I don't take my kids to school every
51:30
single day and I don't make their pack lunches um and you know there's a lot of things that you sacrificed in order to
51:39
you know to do what I do every day and I never want it to feel like especially
51:44
for my children that I'm making some big sacrifice because I I'm often putting
51:51
myself first and I think the women there's a lot of stigma attached to you saying that to saying like my career is
51:58
really important to me and I'm putting it first right now you know and so and that's never something that men have to
52:05
think about and so I think that we ought to be speaking so much more about the unique challenges of women who actually
52:11
are doing it and how you have to be really really honest about what that
52:17
takes because I think for so long we've been feeding women this kind of Bill that's like you can have it all it's
52:23
like no you can't you absolutely cannot you aren't the mom was at the PTA meetings um while running you know like
52:31
companies and you know coming home and you know cooking the dinner that's just not a reality and so I think that as
52:38
women in business we owe it to all the other women that are coming beside us behind us to just be really honest about
52:45
what it takes because you're going to have to make sacrifices somewhere in your life and I think it's just um a
52:52
high time that we're just you know kind of lifting the lid off of some of that and and being open and honest about what
52:58
it takes yeah wow thank you for your openness honestly really appreciate it no worries fer awesome well look we will
53:04
wrap there thank you so much for your time this was an incredible interview and uh congratulations on all your
53:10
success look forward to seeing what you do next and uh yeah really excited to share this interview with our community
53:16
I appreciate it thank you so much na it's such a pleasure speaking to you hey guys if you love this episode make sure
53:22
to check out my interview with triny Woodall on how she built a die community of followers backing her every single
53:29
move with triny London the true beauty of our community is that there's a
53:34
passion and we inspire a passion for them to make the most themselves but that Community itself
53:42
Fosters you know lifting up women


5:00
So I had the benefit of growing up in Seattle
5:02
and of course in Seattle we had Microsoft, we have Amazon, we have Starbucks,
5:06
we have a lot of real big entrepreneurs that started from that particular area.
5:11
They all started small and scaled.
5:13
Now you don't have to have all those skills just like I did.
5:17
All you need to do is find people with skills and you need to
5:20
ask the right questions and see what you actually need to take the next step.
5:25
So at different stages, you need different things.
5:27
Obviously, in the beginning you just want customers in cash flow
5:30
to be able to cover your operating expenses.
5:33
But then from there to scale it, you actually need
5:36
better systems and you need a really good accounting system.
5:39
You need better i.t.
5:41
You need to understand debt and equity.
5:43
You understand how to onboard employees and keep them
5:46
and then attract them and paint a bigger picture together.
5:50
Maybe a piece of the company later through shares or through equity
5:54
or something like that.
5:55
Key to growth is always finding the right people and just getting them on the bus
5:59
and then send the bus down the road and then putting them
6:02
in the right seats later because you don't quite know
6:06
all of the things that you'll need until you actually need it.
6:09
You'll see that you don't have a good marketing department.
6:12
You'll see that you're having problems with your accounting.
6:14
You'll see that you don't have enough investors.
6:17
So how you pull this off is to reassess where you are each and every year.
6:21
You have to take a hard look at what you've done from the prior year
6:25
and then set really, really good goals for the next.
6:28
That is the right way and that actually sets you on direction.
6:31
And on course, there's lots of distractions
6:34
that can take you off a course from your original plan.
6:37
So the plan has to be agreed to written
6:40
just like personal goals or business goals are the same thing.
6:44
You need to know what direction you're heading.
6:46
Then you need to take a look at am I on track or am I not on track?
6:49
And why?
6:50
Each year, as we were growing our company from 1000 units, 2000 units
6:54
or 10,000 years.
6:55
You have very specific goals and very specific needs based on
6:59
that kind of growth.
7:00
It's no different than a Starbucks when you start from one
7:04
and you want to expand to ten stores, you're going to need ten locations.
7:09
You're going to need ten managers.
7:10
You're probably going to need investors to be able to pull all that off.
7:14
You don't particularly know all that.
7:16
But while you're raising money
7:18
for those things, you can always point to that one store
7:21
or you can always point to those thousand units and you can show them the track
7:25
record of everything that you've done.
7:26
So what everybody's betting on is you.
7:29
What they're betting on is your team.
7:31
What they're betting on is that you can replicate
7:34
what you've just done, and they're going to trust that
7:38
you hire the right people to pull all that off and hit your goals.
7:41
So once you have your direction, once you have
7:43
your goal, let's say to buy 1000 units, for example.
7:47
Now you got to figure out how you're going to get there.
7:49
So part of it is going to be debt and equity.
7:51
So that might be you or might be somebody else.
7:54
Part of it is going to be property management, asset management, finding
7:57
investors, looking at deals, acquisitions, underwriting, whatever it is.
8:01
And so you can't be a jack of all trades.
8:04
You have to actually find people either
8:06
in-house, you hire them or you use a third party.
8:10
But always you have to make people do what they said they're going to do.
8:14
For example, if you want to buy a thousand units,
8:17
you probably have to look at 5 to 10000 units
8:21
and make offers on at least two or 3000 units to be able to buy a thousand units.
8:25
So you can work backwards and so you can set your acquisitions person
8:30
and your analysts and all the people that you need
8:33
to be able to do the due diligence and everything to pull that off.
8:36
That all has to be set and everybody stays in their lane.
8:40
In other words, we have one person that's in charge of due diligence.
8:43
We have one person that does all the underwriting, and this is our analysts.
8:47
And then we have our acquisition person that goes out and finds real estate deals
8:51
and it all flows through my Tuesday meeting.
8:54
Now, this all happened over a long period of time.
8:57
And the beginning, of course, it was all me.
9:00
But as you start to maximize your own time and try to take a look
9:03
at how you can do that, you actually have to trust and delegate.
9:08
And then more importantly, make the people accountable
9:11
and have them stay in the lane and perform as to what they're doing.
9:15
For example, if I'm not getting enough deal flow, it's the acquisition problem.
9:20
And then, of course, if there's not enough deal flow, there's not enough business
9:24
for the analysts and of course there's not enough business for the due diligence.
9:28
So all of it has to do with the acquisition.
9:31
It might all start there.
9:33
So that might be where I put all my pressure is
9:35
how many deals are we looking at each week?
9:37
How many offers are we making each week?
9:39
And then that all just flows down to deal flow
9:42
because it's just a numbers game at the end of the day.
9:45
So you don't start with
9:46
$1,000,000,000 company in the beginning, you're just trying to survive.
9:49
You're just trying to have enough income to cover your expenses
9:53
and then scale as much as you can.
9:55
And then you start to realize
9:56
the wheels start coming off and then you have to figure all that out.
10:00
Scaling is really more of a mindset.
10:03
Like I know a lot of people
10:04
that just are very comfortable with just owning a thousand units
10:08
and not having a big company and not having a lot of people.
10:11
And then for me, I wanted to scale up to 10,000.
10:14
I wanted to push the envelope all that I could.
10:16
So some of it just depends on the individual and the team.
10:20
And when you have vision, then more people jump on that vision.
10:23
You're going be able to hire better people
10:25
because they all want to be part of a great success.
10:28
I never started with a 10,000 unit vision because it's kind of unrealistic
10:33
if I'm sitting across the table from somebody and our own anything yet,
10:37
and I say, I'm going to I want to start $1,000,000,000 business.
10:40
They're basically going to laugh at me
10:41
and say, Well, why don't you just buy one property?
10:44
Or you start with that.
10:45
They're going to expect that you gain the experience and the wisdom
10:48
that you're able to attract a team to be able to help you pull that off.
10:53
And trust me, once you start to gain momentum
10:56
and once you start to produce, more and more people will notice
11:00
and it'll be more and more easier to hire people
11:02
and bring the right people on board and get them on the bus.
11:05
Eventually you'll find that you'll soon get them in the right seat,
11:09
and then that bus will start speeding down the road
11:12
and most of it will just create its own momentum
11:14
and you won't even have to do anything other than be the visionary
11:19
and just keep it on the right road, on the right track.
11:22
Or once you get to $1,000,000,000 company, your problems never stop.
11:26
You just now have more issues of trying to scale from 1 billion to 10 billion.
11:30
Let's say if you want to see how I'm going from 2 billion to 8 billion,
11:35
which is our current next plan, check out this video.

5:52
person how important was it for you
5:53
learning how to master delegation
5:54
bringing other people and building teams
5:55
how important is delegation let's put it
5:57
this way how important is it my company
5:58
will do 300 million milon this year in
6:00
Revenue right if I were still doing it
6:02
all myself we might do three right one
6:05
guy can only or gal can only do so much
6:06
I don't care how talented you are care
6:08
how hard you work you can only do so
6:09
much and you got to be honest with
6:10
yourself you have weaknesses right
6:12
that's the truth you have strengths and
6:14
that's great you've got to build a team
6:16
around you that are going to cover all
6:18
those weaknesses that you've got help
6:19
you accentuate and exaggerate your
6:21
strengths that you have but at the end
6:23
of the day if you don't have a team
6:24
that's executing with you and and on
6:26
your behalf number one you're going to
6:27
work for the rest of your life so I
6:29
wouldn't call you're an entrepreneur I
6:30
would say you're self-employed you're
6:31
not building a company that's going to
6:33
grow and scale and and and live beyond
6:35
you you're not building anything lasting
6:37
all you did was create a job for and by
6:38
the way that's great I know some some
6:39
people that do a very very good job and
6:41
they have a very nice living doing just
6:42
that but if you're going to be an
6:43
entrepreneur if you're really going to
6:44
build a business which I think is create
6:46
something that lives beyond any one
6:48
person you got to know how to motivate
6:49
and Inspire team around you in other
6:50
words you got to stop being an employee
6:51
entrepreneur a lot of people they work
6:52
in the business yeah yeah no you need to
6:54
be working on the business as a multiple
6:56
9figure entrepreneur what's been the
6:58
best financial advice that you've ever
6:59
received throughout your career don't be
7:01
fooled by all the Ferraris and the
7:02
paddocks and all that BS don't be fooled
7:04
by that know something every dollar that
7:06
a company spends must have an Roi
7:09
attached to it if you're doing that then
7:10
you can take and spoil yourself a little
7:12
bit of that money but as far as the
7:14
business runs financially no dollar
7:16
should ever be in spent inside of a
7:18
business that does not you cannot
7:20
directly calculate the ROI to that
7:21
business and have you ever been broke
7:23
before I think every entrepreneur has
7:25
been broke before 100% by the way
7:28
there's there was a point in time I'll
7:29
never forget this I'd actually made
7:31
about $3 million a year I think I was 28
7:33
years old every dollar that I made had
7:35
to stay in the company but yet I had to
7:36
pay income taxes on that money so I owed
7:38
like $950,000 income taxes on that money
7:41
and I had like $10,000 in the bank in my
7:43
personal account so yeah I I was
7:45
definitely broke growing up for sure and
7:47
I'm proud of that because I think had I
7:48
not gone through that path and and
7:50
growing up that way I don't think I
7:51
would have understood people the way I
7:52
do I don't think I would have had the
7:53
grit desire and perseverance that I have
7:55
today so that's easy to talk about what
7:57
people don't really understand is that
7:59
you can make a lot of money as an
8:00
entrepreneur on paper and be broke
8:02
financially personally because every
8:03
dollar that you're making if you're
8:05
doing the right thing it's got to stay
8:06
in that company to be able to grow it
8:07
takes money to make money like I said
8:09
how did you get the money to start your
8:10
business like did you have a lot of
8:11
money when you started this no no we had
8:13
no money so you have to beg borrow and
8:15
steal when you're starting it out right
8:16
especially when you have no money so I
8:17
mean you're literally winging it robbing
8:19
from Paul to pay Peter trying to grow it
8:21
uh trying to find just enough money to
8:22
cover your expenses to get through each
8:24
month and and and then build up those
8:25
retained earnings so I mean we we had to
8:27
take out High interest loans uh I loone
8:29
shark money back then but it was like
8:31
like you you're factoring your invoices
8:33
it's like 21% interest rate it's
8:34
horrible it's absolutely horrible but
8:36
I'm actually really glad I did it that
8:37
way I started out that way and I had to
8:39
pay those absurd interest rates because
8:41
it forced me to have the discipline to
8:42
not take the money out of the business
8:43
so every week that the company made
8:45
profit I'd leave that profit in that
8:46
means next week that's a little bit less
8:48
I had to borrow and a little bit less
8:49
and a little bit less and then you look
8:50
up you know 18 months two years later
8:52
now you're borrowing very very little on
8:54
what I call the lone shark money right
8:56
but the best part is you've built up
8:57
your retains retained earnings you've
8:59
built up your balance sheet now you can
9:00
go to a bank get a traditional line of
9:02
credit at 6 or 8% whatever's going on
9:04
and now you go from 21% interest on your
9:06
Capital needs to six or eight you've
9:08
probably got an extra 20 $25,000 a month
9:10
right back to your bottom line yeah
9:12
that's amazing you know they don't teach
9:13
that in school right no they don't teach
9:14
any of this in school that's the problem
9:16
that is the big problem that's I think
9:17
it's one of the biggest problems in this
9:18
country is that we're not teaching the
9:20
things that are really going to change
9:22
people's lives and and Empower them to
9:24
listen everybody's got goals and
9:25
aspirations everybody does very very few
9:27
people have the discipline and persever
9:29
it takes to achieve them but when you
9:31
when you get past even those things
9:32
listen I had learned these things the
9:33
hard way I wish this would have been
9:35
taught in school basic business finance
9:37
right had this been taught I probably
9:39
would have been a millionaire probably
9:40
closer to 24 25 years old listen I got
9:43
there 28 I'm happy about that but I
9:45
think I yeah I I think it could have
9:46
happened I know I know it would have
9:48
happened much sooner had I understood
9:50
those principles of business last week
9:51
before you 45 today for young
9:53
20-year-old kid watching this right now
9:54
they want to own a Ferrari in today's
9:55
world this is a lot of people's dream
9:56
car you're sitting in right now sure how
9:58
can somebody own a Ferrari 24 two simple
10:00
things number one find something you're
10:01
truly passionate about everything else
10:03
after that is secondary You' got to be
10:05
passionate about it that's number one
10:06
number two you just don't ever quit I
10:08
tell people all the time I wasn't always
10:10
the smartest person in the room I was
10:11
just the SOB that refused to quit I love
10:14
it thank you so much for your pleasure
10:15
brother absolutely have a great day hard
10:17
KN family we're on the way to go get our
10:18
next interview right now but I've got a
10:20
very special announcement to make last
10:22
week we just launched our official
10:23
entrepreneur Community otherwise known
10:25
as the school of mentors inside of this
10:27
community I'm hosting a live call every
10:28
single week with the multi-millionaires
10:30
and billionaires that you see us
10:31
interview every week on the channel
10:33
you'll be able to ask them questions
10:34
about your career your life and your
10:36
business you're also going to get access
10:37
to exclusive master classes I've been
10:39
filming with the most successful
10:40
business owners in the entire world you
10:42
do not want to miss out on any of this
10:44
so click the link down in the
10:45
description of this video to join the
10:46
school of mentors today we'll see you on
10:48
the inside but with that being said
10:49
let's go get this next
10:52
interview excuse me sir question for you
10:54
is this your G wagon yes it is and what
10:56
do you do for living out here in Houston
10:57
Texas to be able to afford a G wagon I
10:59
I'm a doctor how long have you been a
11:00
doctor for 30 years what type of
11:02
medicine do you practice in I'm a lung
11:03
specialist and ICU specialist do you own
11:06
your own practice or yes I do over these
11:07
30 years you know especially as a
11:09
business owner what's been the most
11:10
amount of money that you've ever made in
11:11
a single year well the business is
11:12
different than the medicine so medicine
11:14
is probably 6 700,000 how about for the
11:17
business the business is a big business
11:19
so that's $6 million a year $6 million
11:22
was it all worth it going through all
11:23
that school absolutely worth it I'll
11:25
steal my kids if I go back I wouldn't
11:26
change a thing what did you have to
11:27
sacrifice on the way though time and
11:29
time with my wife so and the kids but
11:32
it's it's worth it the kids are good how
11:34
old are you today I'm 54 years of age
11:36
for people that are pursuing medicine
11:37
what's the most common mistake that you
11:38
see new doctors I think the doctor's
11:40
biggest mistake they don't learn the
11:42
business of medicine I don't mean it as
11:44
a money but meaning when you are taking
11:46
care of patients you want to do it the
11:48
most efficient way and if you're in
11:49
private practice you want to do it so
11:51
you could stay afloat because if you
11:52
don't do the right job money is not
11:54
important to doctors but money is what
11:56
syncs a lot of practices so you're going
11:58
to have to balance that out you're not
11:59
you're never after the money but you
12:01
also if you have a practice Private
12:03
Practice you need to be in and you need
12:04
to have that Niche and and to stay
12:07
afloat because unfortunately you guys
12:09
don't know this as a Young Generation
12:11
medicine pays less and less for doctors
12:13
which we accommodate that but then you
12:15
have to stay afloat I have like 300
12:17
employees that I I have to pay him
12:18
payroll at the end of every month so yes
12:21
doctors think I could be employed and
12:23
that's the end of it but if you go into
12:24
private practice you really have to work
12:26
harder and and have that business mind
12:28
so my one advice is learn business early
12:30
on not because you after money or you
12:32
want more money or how to squeeze the
12:33
system no to the contrary how to give
12:35
good service to your patients but stay
12:37
afloat and not worry about that CU why
12:38
doctors in general get paid higher than
12:40
average is because you don't want your
12:41
doctor to be worried about money you
12:43
want to worry about you and how to get
12:44
you better so there's a balance right
12:46
there you don't want to make so much
12:47
money and people think they're they're
12:48
doing something not right or or too
12:50
little money that they worry about
12:51
making money to live survive thank you
12:53
sir I appreciate you that's a wrap on
12:55
today's video you guys Houston Texas
12:57
just went crazy but I want you to like
12:59
like And subscribe for amazing content
13:00
we've got coming very soon at the School
13:02
of Hard Knocks and as I mentioned
13:03
earlier we just launched our official
13:06
entrepreneur Community to connect you
13:08
guys directly with the Millionaires and
13:10
the billionaires that we interview every
13:11
single week so that way you guys can
13:13
also learn directly from these people
13:15
and start growing in your career and
13:17
your businesses