Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs. Hosted by Top 20 Female Founder, Stephanie Melodia, Strategy & Tragedy features candid interviews with entrepreneurs who have scaled - and failed - their businesses - sharing their lessons in entrepreneurship along the way. From Nick Telson-Sillett who achieved financial freedom after selling DesignMyNight (on The Wildest Exit Day in History™) to Emmie Faust, the founder of Female Founders Rise, who opened up about her breakdown on the road to discovering her mission in supporting female founders.
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In this episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Tanya Saha Gupta the founder of RESALE FUTURE, a peer-to-peer platform that enables fashion brands to access their own circular marketplace.
SM: You started this business pre-pandemic few years ago, and this was following a corporate career in finance - what was the leap like for you? It must have been pretty scary to go from the cushty corporate job to the wild west of startup land!
TSG: It was a definitely a big leap but I think I was so prepared for it. The time I spent in the corporate career, very early on I realised that I was in learning a lot, I enjoyed what I was doing and enjoyed working with the people I worked with, but I knew that there was something I needed to do about fixing the fashion space. I was always someone who got hand-me-downs from my cousins or shared clothes with my friends, and when I moved to this country I realised that that just never happened, so while I was in my finance career I was learning a lot but I realised that there was so much space for improvement. In the resale space, they really wasn't much changed since eBay was created - you still have to take photos, you have to put in the information, you have to then communicate with the buyers and sellers.... iI was still the same as how it was in the 90s - it just didn't make sense. I was working with all these tech companies who were innovating, it just didn't make sense.
So, when I made the leap it was a calculated one. It was less scary like now thinking about it it seems like "oh my god that's crazy" but when you're in it, you know it's right - it's only with that time and space where you're like "oh my god that was wild!"
SM: Was there a particular catalyst for you? Was there something that like you saw or an experience where you are like, this is really a problematic I need to set out to solve this problem?
TSG: I once had a vegan leather skirt and I learnt this is going to take around 200 to 500 years to decompose and I realised I just never thought about right? So imagine the year 2,523 and that vegan skirt is still floating around. It was the fast-fashion skirt, it was obviously not stitched well enough, it didn't it didn't last me a second - I realised like that's crazy obviously. We talk when we look at straws or we look at like single use plastic, but with clothing: do you know how many people buy clothes and only buy once? 1 in 3 young women in the UK. A piece of clothing is like disposable.
SM: That's pretty disgusting actually; 1 in 3 - I wouldn't have guessed that actually.
TSG: The reason is we've doubled the amount of clothes we produced in the last 10 years. That's insane.
SM: Do you know what? I'm kicking myself now for this - in my intro episode (you can listen here for the whole ethos of the podcast and what the show is about) but if anyone's actually watching the video I specifically wore one of my favourite blouses, which was my mum's and - this blouse - I should have worn it today in this fabulous interview with you - it's a gorgeous silk dogtooth blouse and it's literally older than me - it's literally been on this planet for longer than I have been alive! And it is in perfect condition, so well-made, there is not one single stitch that's loose, it's one of the best-made pieces that I own and my mum wore it when she was younger than I am now!
TSG: The quality has nosedived the quantity has absolutely skyrocketed!
SM: I just smiled before we move on too quickly because what you said about the vegan leather skirt being around for 500 years - it does take those specific problems to have an impact on people.
TSG: It's just very rare because the companies that are focusing on producing clothes are also competing with the clothes they already have - so it's really difficult for those businesses to survive, but at the same time if people are buying to repeat clothes, and for it to last and for you to take care of it and for you to pass it on if it doesn't fit to you because clothes won't fit you for the rest of your life so they exist is just really difficult and really sad that those companies are kind of fading away or they having to adopt unsustainable practices.
SM: Even besides the quality of the production of these gorgeous garments, you've also got the whole international piece to it as well - e.g. the UK manufacturing economy is dead - it's non-existent - so you've also got that added carbon impact. The damaging negative affects of things being produced in China shipped to the UK - actually Thomas Panton the founder of Canopey who is also on the podcast shared another specific stat about a particular item from H&M that had travelled so far around the world - this bloody T-shirt is more of a jet setter than I am!!
TSG: I'll tell you the story, they basically put a tracker on the take that program so all these huge conglomerates are starting these take back program circular businesses, but in fact when they put a tracker in it to see where it actually ends up it travels around the world and it ends up in Africa to be dumped in their landfill so that was just so crazy. That's exactly why we want to help the businesses that are focused on producing the answer, to be able to access that technology - and it shouldn't just be for the big companies that have massive tech budgets - that takes a lot to build it and that's why our focus has always been to the small and small to medium sized businesses, because they're the ones producing it.
SM: Yeah, that makes sense. Another quick thing that you just reminded me of as well is that image of the landfill from space.
TSG: Exactly, so earlier this year for the first time in it we could actually see a pile of clothes in the outer camera desert in Chile and it was so shocking everyone it's now been dubbed as "the floordrobe."
"To meet someone halfway can bring more change."
SM: It does it does kind of make my stomach turn. One of the things that I also wanted to get your opinion on - related to this whole subject, is the realities of what people can afford (or what they think they can afford) and most of the time people are thinking about themselves, they're looking after number one, we're going through a cost of living crisis, and Primark is never empty! This is still a big problem; fast fashion isn't going away, so there's just this kind of disconnect between what we talk about, what we know about sustainability, circular economy, what we should be doing, fashion is such a big polluter... - where's all that going?
TSG: When I started the company I did a lot of research to understand, is this something that's just in the media, or is this something that people actually putting their money behind? And it was really sad to see that actually yes, second hand economy is booming but a massive part of it is because it's cheaper and because we're going through a cost of living crisis, and the reality still is is that fast fashion is doing better than ever - it's not slowing down - so in my opinion, the situation is that of course it's going to be the great if everyone cared about sustainability, but I think to meet some like to meet someone halfway can bring more change and to understand like why why are you buying fast fashion and it's not just because everyone's thinking about themselves it's also because how society is conditioned you to think.
With the rise of social media you see influencers wearing clothes once, you see celebrities wearing clothes ones (obviously they were gifted it or borrowing it, but that's just how our mindset is; that we're not good enough if we're not wearing new clothes every time).
The reality also is is that no-one has time to think about sustainability when you're you know struggling to feed your kids or your you have I mean people have 101 problems so it's it's tough and I think everyone needs to think about it but we need to understand what are the priorities that the people this spending money and how you communicate them halfway I think eventually there.
I also read it an amazing stat today that £7 billion of the retail market is now second hand, so it is growing, people are now choosing to buy second-hand side of our fashion but it's going to be slow and the fact that it is a cheaper proposition is always going to be.
SM: As much as you've got such a great mission and love to hear more about exactly what Resale Future does - which obviously we will get stuck into - but you have got this fantastic mission but you're not under any false pretences that you're suddenly going to revolutionise the world tomorrow in fact actually if you take a huge mass of people and if they improve by 1% or a few percent it all adds up in it still has this fantastic impact.
I just wanted to comment as well on the you mentioned about the rise of influencers and how societies kind of conditioned us I would actually go like a few steps earlier than that - I am a girl of the 90s and I was 17 before that my favourite all-time film not even being funny like no joke is Clueless and that really impacted me and I don't know how old I must have been at the time and it came out but obviously you know I was like little girl seven or eight or something maybe and I was just like ah so amazed I mean all have had different outfits I think it actually might hold a record for the amount of for like the highest amount of different like outfit changes, so those kind of like 90s noughties like girly movies or the fashion stuff like you so I feel like social media influencers is like an easy one to cut it definitely exacerbated it but I think going back to the crux of it - especially for more of that business perspective - is you have to make it easier for people what and whatever easy means whether it's more accessible cheaper faster smoother, whatever it is.
We're in the middle of like Silicon Roundabout there's all this innovation, but these other places that don't even have those options so tell us more about that international expansion piece and how you're helping bring that circular economy to outside of London.
TSG: Sure things don't exist everywhere at the moment but you'll be so surprised at how fast it's growing; I was an Africa earlier this year and the second hand economy in Africa is growing so fast - I mean just the second hand luxury market is booming in parts of Africa and it's really exciting to see because it's not just something the west is doing or the north is doing it is happening slowly it's like when e-commerce first started I can say like in India most businesses weren't online until the pandemic wow so it takes certain trigger points for things to change and when it does because it's accessible it will be very quick and because all the technology that's being built Now is very scalable it's not being built for specific countries yeah tech is for example it is stream is scalable because it's a plugin it operates as you would plug into the businesses normal functioning that the normal payment gateways everything that the business already operates amazing so for us it's very easy for to expand in other countries so it just it needs where a very small team a very small company so we're going after countries that have already been educated because it is very difficult like yes you know how is this to say like of course why wouldn't I do it yeah my wouldn't you yeah but sometimes you know the money of to spend to educate people can be too much and it maybe they're not ready I can say for example the biggest hurdle five years ago when I was doing my research was why would I wear some someone else's disgusting but today no one would say that yeah it's like you can dry clean your clothes this is what I was gonna ask you about as well because there is you've got the first move and second move or advantage and what I've to be seen is I'm more in that camp of the second movers because you need those first movers to prime and educate the market for you so I was going to ask you that is like how much of kind of how much of education and trying to Foster behaviour change how much of that is a hurdle for you with your business because sometimes you can't you know the cost or the risk of innovation you can be too soon to things right as a consumer I was like why wouldn't people do this this is crazy but then the more I talk to people I realized no one wants to be the first mover yeah no everyone thinks that and also bear in mind like a lot of the times when I was pitching the idea it was to men and Men generally keep that clothes for way longer they don't understand that the concept of you know not being able to wear the same outfit to weddings in a row so I got a lot of that you know a lot of questions trying to understand why would someone do this yeah so in my business but today it's very different so my business is a B2B product so it's more about educating the brands that their customers are already there they're living this lifestyle of being frugal of being fashionable and being you know sustainably minded so that's where people are already it's more about how are you now connecting to those consumers and keeping up it's very interesting because I thought that you know the business would only be for brands that focus on gen z and that's just not the case it's more about if you're making the process of reselling easy then it's not just virgins in millennials the reason the data suggests that it is is because
they're generally the ones were like the hustlers who are taking the tie oh have the time frankly to you know to sort of list items take photos into the data but when you take that entire piece out where you don't have to do all of that you just have to click about and say I want to sell then it's for everyone
SM: Wow, that sounds genuinely amazing. I also was under the same kind of misconception I was like "oh this is more like a gen Z thing" - that was something I was gonna ask you about with like is that particular segment like how do you go after others you mentioned you know Charlotte Morley, one of my other guests on the podcast with thelittleloop who targets parents a childrenswear, obviously - so explain how Resale Future actually works.
TSG: So we plug in to a fashion brand's website and then within the brand's website you'll have a marketplace so never have to leave the website. Create an account and it's just within that ecosystem. It remembers all your purchase history that you bought with them, so when you log in you have an online wardrobe where you can see everything you've bought and then you can just choose to sell because we have the size, the time you bought it, the price you bought it, professional images, we also have what the clothing composition is, do you have to dry clean it... Everything! So that entire hurdle of describing the item is completely gone. I don't know if you've ever shopped second-hand on say eBay it's not an aspirational experience for fashion lovers, so that's another hurdle that we focused on - getting rid of because it is new to as a shop but still need to you you want to feel like it's new so we have, so if I was someone who wanted to sell an item I would log on I would choose which item I want to sell send in a current photo and see what price I'd like to sell it up from your home and you get paid when the buyer receives it.
SM: Amazing! So who's the market - is it selling to the other brands customers or does it plug in to another kind of community?
TSG: Yeah so literally when I'm on the brand's website there'll be a tab that says Marketplace and then I can shop everything from that brand that's second hand so essentially you know you already had brands already have super fans of this so your attracting like you're attracting the whole segment of people that more like your parents or maybe can't afford it the aspirational buyers as you say
"Brands are leaving money on the table."
SM: So like anyone who is just like that natural traffic they would be getting already anyway? It's almost like I guess the sales section of the website but it's actually second hand.
TSG: It's not only that and whenever I talk to a brand we'll do research on how many of their clothes are on eBay and then you know we look at the monetary value of how much is being sold at their product and then not getting any of it - that's a very compelling selling point -that's just money they just leaving on the table. Products they put hard work I love this so much because as soon as you start talking finance and numbers like it gets these people sit up because you say it is easy to be like yeah we should be sustainable like think it's very important for businesses today that they're thinking of starting up to really understand what motivates your potential buyer definitely because it's not always going to be like not everyone cares about the planet exactly and the thing the number of businesses that are going under today is crazy so the focus is to survive for a lot of businesses and employ people and provide these jobs so you know it can't just everyone has a bottom line to think if you're helping yeah reached that while being circular yeah then it's a no-brainer that's just the reality.
SM: Was this the title of the TED Talk that you just gave about fashion circularity and a capitalist environment?
TSG: It was called Navigating Sustainability in a Capitalist World - the focus was on the power of imperfects sustainability and I think you know you touched upon it about being 1% better if you don't have to be the best you just need to like just do a bit better everyday.
SM: It makes sense - I absolutely love the concept. Are you able to share any of the retail brand partners that have got resale future?
TSG: Yeah these trousers that I bought from Biscuit which is our client - so Biscuit is a multi-store retailer in based up in Scotland and they'll stock like Baash and Goya Haley Menzies so it's like the you know we focus on sort of the £100-300 pound clothing range so we sort of launched with them our program and one of the clients is called Kanye London they are the south Asian wear for ASOS so I did a few you know that's been doing really well because now south Asian wears accessible and then another one we just introduced is called Kara in the sky there are a British made knitwear brand so they actually producing Britain which is super amazing business and we have a few upcoming soon but yeah we launched with a few brands you know just building out the Tech making sure everything works there were three very different businesses in terms of like what they need to work and now we're at the stage where the fundraising to scale it's amazing salesperson to do that.
SM: So this is a obviously a P2P or B2B tech product so we're nearing towards one of your first tragedies with the business, so if we just do a quick recap first:
So you had your career in corporate in finance, you were quite strategic with making sure you had a buffer of some cash before launching out on your own - I know that you made sure that you had that runway on a very practical level and then I got grants and things to fund the business so just on that really quickly you're you're saving from the corporate career was just kind of sustain yourself was it and then so how what was just your just quickly your thought process on just why that was kind of for you and then the grants and crowdfunding was for the business - what was just the reasoning to keep those two separate?
TSG: I was working on so it was possible to you know find the business through grants the obviously I kept so when I decided to quit my job ahead a bunch of savings and I was like look this is how many years I can live without working and not earning an income so I will do what it takes to make sure this business then gets funded whether it's through grounds or go out and raise capital I will do what it takes it just it and the reality is is that the time I'm putting into the company is money because you gave up a lot of money to be working in the company and I think that was very clear to me that if I had if the company needed capital there was capital luckily we didn't need to d.
SM: Yeah I just think it is just important to share some of that because it is easy to flippantly give the advice of "take the leap, just go for it" and especially if people are in a day job and like "oh you know believing yourself" but you've got to be real with that you've got a you know test the waters it's great to hear that you did some competitions to see if there was demand and practically you made sure that like you had your own buffer before launching out.
So you had that career for a few years and made sure you kind of had that safety net in place before kind of launching Resale Future. I know that you kind of pivoted a little bit from the beginning but coming on to that that first strategy is I kind of hinted at, so on the Tech side of things it is a very recurring theme with tech who unfortunate who are not who are not coders or engineers themselves time and time again, so what happened with you on the product side of things?
TSG: So I did interviews for tech teams - that was something that I was like once I get that that's it I'm taking the leap and I was so excited and I was so when I first heard like this is within the budget that it out this this is something we can afford this team sounds great we're going to go with them you know obviously I did an interview with them and interviewed a couple of other teams but I was like you know this person really gets it they get why we're doing it unfortunately so quit my job start working with them on my initial idea so my initial idea was to build a b2c product it was a marketplace for customers where they could resell garments that will only in season so the idea was that the reason people want buying from eBay was that it was just old clothes from my mom's wardrobe or you know it was just stuff dumbed that nobody wanted but if you could make that process more aspirational fashionable people would use it and the fact that people are using clothes only ones they would then you know realize they could make up back most of them and if they just sold it immediately and then we build some tech around you know validating the product was in season but that process that the technical team I did hire just didn't get it right like I think it's very easy to have a great sales person that you talk to before you sign a contract but the mistake I made is I did an interview with the project manager was going to be I think it's the project managers for all is the most important in my opinion because they need to really get it and they need to really want to innovate because if they don't want to do that they won't it will just be you will just get something that's already been done before
so that was my mistake the project manager and you know working with different back end in front end teams I think I just didn't have the right questions to ask them but what that did do was that was just before covid we started building it took incredibly long to build that such a waste of my time such a waste of money but what covid did was obviously no one was going out so normally spying this you know clothes and recirculating it it gave me time to think about right people are selling clothes a lot more now so people are getting used to that like it's like such a Focus in the media now brands are picking up on it that this is the future and then I started talking to Brands being like what do you think about this
and then when I I had a few conversations with bigger companies and well I went to sustainability conference so every big company has a sustainability of the sent out
and they were saying oh my god like you know we've been trying to find someone to do it they just haven't managed to do for our business we hired some one person said we hired a team they just couldn't do it with shopify this happened that happened so we had it like and I thought like all of these people are been leaders in the fashion industry and everyone else is going to fall asleep so this is actually a need that I can fill if I were ready creating a platform so basically yes I worked at the with the team that didn't work out for me but that led me to be able to pivot but when I did find the next team I knew exactly what to do and it was so good like the team I have now touch wood they're incredible and I think the number one thing I would say why I like this team or the one thing I knew this was the right team was because in my contract when I said to them that you're not allowed to talk about what we're doing you're not allowed to talk about what we're doing and they pushed back on and they were like wait why if we're building something for you you know we want we want to be able to talk about it because that's something like that is literally why I do my job is because I like to create new things and about doing it to make money or like taking it off it's like I only take on interesting projects that I care about and I was like "oh I didn't think of that" - it's like I always know personally I'm the kind of person that if I'm doing a job and my name is attached to it I will do it as well as possible and I don't sleep like I will do it and it's very rare to find people like that and we're if their name is attached to it they want they wanted to be the best and I was like this is when I knew that they were good.
I also read that they were in a lot of articles and blogs and people writing about them so they cared about what they were doing.
SM: That's good that's really helpful you need that sense of pride with partners and I think especially with tech it's your product so unless you've got a CTO or you learn how to code yourself or there's a way that you can bring it in house which is so expensive this is where it's such a common recurring problem.
TSG: The mistake I made is I didn't ask the right questions, and the reason I made a mistake is because I didn't talk about my idea I was so focused on you know what everyone's watched social network and thinks everyone's gonna steal their idea if you talk to a developer it's it's ridiculous because no one has time to do that but I didn't speak to other people who've gone through the same process if had I talked to a project manager there would have told me exactly what I need to ask what the costs are going to be what the time it's like it's I'm real the kind of insight I now have that I could give someone else had you been more open about it and then the second time that's exactly what I did I went to like one of my friends also who quit his job during the same time and was building a tech product he had he went you know he got he went straight to get funding so he already had built the product team so speaking to them was so useful because they had done it and they'd pivoted and they had gone through that process and I can't explain how useful that information was, so if you do have an idea like please speak about people!
SM: Yeah, I love that and this resonates here because that's part of the purpose of exactly this podcast you're where it is like I I genuinely believe that enough people have made you know the same mistakes over and over - like yes we're all doing amazing different innovative things that everyone's forging their own path of course obviously but you know the stuff about the Tech teams the first pancake like all this stuff that goes wrong I found myself in a very privileged position hearing all these stories well these different people from like wow, if you spoke to each other how much time and money you could save.
Interesting you had an idea that wasn't quite hitting the nail on the head in terms of the product market fit a combined with you know tech team the product partners that weren't quite aligned either so you know neither of those things were were in a great situation so it was very much you know write that off it's the first pancake type of thing so the key learnings from that was to not be so kind of overly protected about your own idea like talk to other people like they're not going to steal it see what you can learn from others and then really practically when you're talking to you know the product team or development agencies the sales guy or woman is always going to say yes and speak to the project manager speak to other members of the team.
Any other key learnings from that particular experience?
TSG: Yeah, especially with the AI and ChatGPT you can literally copy UI you can copy so much now but if you want to create a solution that hasn't been done before they need to understand and want to do and this isn't just for the Tech team this is for anyone you hire you need to have the right mindset yeah because at such an early stage in the company you can't have someone who needs a lot of Direction it needs to come from themselves yeah you need and it's just a personality type some people don't everyone needs to bring that energy don't they especially in the early days three Steps ahead like right what can you do mmm obviously you know to get the paycheck you do XYZ and that's that's it but it's also thinking about like reach out to that person because they're doing that podcast or it's just like thinking about like getting educated in the field or who would even if you are like if your role is just to make sales calls it would be still interesting for reading about what tech is going on right you need yeah there's always ways that you can stay like proactive and ahead of the game.
SM: On the mindset thing as well something I wanted to ask you about is I know that you've talked about having that solution mindset and actually how you've almost re-trained your mind to look at these problems as opportunities to solve which is also like such an essential like entrepreneurial characteristic - is there anything kind of practically that you've done to help?
TSG: One minute I'm crushed and then 12 hours later I'll be the happiest person! You know you go to school you get good grades you get into university good job and it's not you if you're comfortable rejected or comfortable not doing better than other people because you're always been compared yourself against all you are the friends are doing so well and earning millions or thousands that you're not I think then you're good to push through the tough times that really resonates as well I mean there's so much wrong with the education system and we definitely do not have time to get into like schools and stuff but yeah the reason people find it difficult because you're comparing yourself to everyone else's so taught to you know you get the job in the house you save up for this you say so if you can get comfortable not like with people doing way better than you around you then you're gonna innovate and you're gonna try things and you're going to fail and you're gonna try and I think that's what entrepreneurship kind means is that you're gonna have days where you feel like crap and then you're like "oh but I did this" so it's all a matter of perspective.
SM: You're always gonna find people who are better and worse off than you and what I'm just reflecting on here which is really interesting is what resonates with me in particular is I always did well at school like I was always like very academic like top of the class like you name it like teachers pet and it's it's funny because it's like on the one hand it gave me a lot of confidence which you definitely need to go and forward your own path in this world but at the same time you know what actually happens more with I have a lot of friends who went to Oxbridge and I see that happen much more with them on like another level where they've gone from being top of their class like really good like the you know big fish in a small pond to then being thrown in to this ocean with a ton of other big fish and I think that that's much more exacerbated where they have had their whole upbringing like their childhood being told that they are prodigies their child geniuses getting a stars all this that and the other and then you know it's like this stuff at an early age already has such a huge impact it has that ripple effect from from early on but then it's like you know that's the first two decades basically of your life you know you're then 18 you're young adult and then you go into this other environment and it's like the defensiveness that comes from these sort of character was just completely understandable but it's like that's the default reaction because oh I'm no longer the brightest kid in the class.
TSG: I mean that's exactly where I went to Imperial where people were exactly right okay so not just Oxbridge everyone does so intelligent you get thrown in I found imperial quite difficult I wasn't someone who founded easy and I was okay to say that I think I was like that was a difficult degree to get but you know that's that's exactly what I saw I think it's very hard for people to accept that to have that growth mindset yeah when you've not had it so I know that we need to start wrapping up but I feel like I've blinked and the time has just gone I feel like about several questions to ask you I'm gonna selfishly ask you one before we finish on the final question I was end things on so the one question the penultimate one is there was a specific anecdote that you had to share which was around kind of networking and chancing counter I just feel like that's also important to share because you never know kind of what can come from these chants instances so what was the story on that quickly so I think for me I really fitted from from networking I think even the day I so I ended up working at Barclays in lesson banking and the reason I even got into that was because I attended an event after school after university to networking event where I met someone they introduced me to what banking was so for me that kind of that one chance meeting change the course of my life but then even in business I think me going out to events like the first client we ever got was through meeting meeting them at an event when I was like this is what I'm trying to build and they were like oh my god you know we were thinking about how we can extend the life of our garments because we see people wearing it once and it's quite sad how can we resell it and how can we make money from it so we would think of building it ourselves and I thought that's crazy that's that's insane for you to build it yourself so I think that one meeting LED
obviously my customer number one but also rethinking about my entire business being able to pivot and I think like even the latest customer I got was literally true sitting next to her at calf club and be like hey what are you doing and she was like that's what I'm doing I love what you're doing so it just it just incredible because if I may say I can think back at that networking event I went to I'd Imperial and the event where I met my latest client and I didn't want to go like I was so tired interesting
had like I was working late nights I really it was raining I still remember I was like I don't want to go to this event after after Imperial and that's just like you know what you just never know just go wow just go and I think like ever since then I just push myself to go to things that everyone I wouldn't say put it in front of like the work of building the product because the people I know who are networking all the time and have no product so I wouldn't say that there's an extreme to it too but there's a beauty of that serendipity yeah and you don't need to be you don't need to make a connection with everyone in the room but like one meaningful connection that line can change the course amazing that's so interesting so final question so the best lessons can often come from the biggest mistakes what is a tragedy so to speak that's happened to you that you will never forget that has really taught you a lesson that's stuck with you know wasting that time with a Development Team that didn't work out for me and I think that the biggest reason that that mistake was made was because I didn't feel comfortable speaking to people and asking for help I think everyone wants to do everything on their own and be like oh I didn't myself or
If you can talk to someone who's been at least like one or two or even five steps ahead of you, find those people because they all be incredibly invaluable - even if it's like something so small as you know spending two days finding an accountant whereas like if I just ask someone who was one step ahead of me it would have saved me so much time! That's something that I'm still working on is being able to to minimise time spent on things when I could just ask someone!
SM: Yeah, well done Tanya - that's amazing. I absolutely love the concept that you're building I have no doubt that it would be a massive success!
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