Can You Turn What You Love Into a Real Business? (Krissy Cela, founder of Oner Active)

Emma sits down with Krissy Cela, founder and creative director of Oner Active, for an honest conversation about building a bootstrapped business on track to generate close to $300 million this year. Before Oner, Krissy spent a decade building a fitness audience and business from a student laptop, long before either was considered a conventional career path. Today, she owns 50 percent of one of the fastest-growing brands in the category. But what happens when your life asks you to become someone you don’t yet feel qualified to be, and people still look for reasons not to credit your success to you? This episode is about starting before you feel ready, letting go of the need to prove yourself, and growing into the leader your business requires. In this episode, Krissy shares: Why feeling underqualified should not stop you from building something bigHow she turned an online audience into a loyal customer communityThe early legal and partnership mistakes that shapes how she operates todayHow people-pleasing weakened her leadership, and what changed since she stoppedWhy the ones who doubt you are rarely the ones who end up matteringFor more, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at emmagrede.com http://emmagrede.com.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Today, I'm having a conversation with Chrissie Chella, the founder of Honour Active. Chrissie started as a fitness creator, but what she has built is a serious global business. Profitable, bootstrapped, growing fast with more than 100 employees, stores in New York and LA, and a clear ambition to become the first female-founded billion-dollar women's active brand. What I find so interesting about Chrissie is that she is at a real turning point. The influence is there, the community is there, the product is there. But the question is how you take a brand built so personally and scale it into something global, operationally strong, and bigger than any one person. We talk about the difference between ambition in the UK and in America,

• 0:53Emma Grede?

  what it takes to turn influence into real commercial power, and why she's no longer interested in proving herself to people who will never understand what it took for her to get there. We also talk about business partners, people pleasing, leadership criticism, bringing in a CEO, building a C-suite, and learning where she can be most brilliant inside the business. What I kept thinking throughout this conversation is that Chrissie is not at the beginning of her story. She is at the moment where the business, the stakes, and the vision are all getting much bigger, and how she's choosing to rise with them. Here is Chrissie Chella.

• 1:37Emma Grede?

  Chrissie, welcome to Aspire.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:41Emma Grede?

  I am so happy to have you. When did I meet you for the first time? Do you remember?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  You invited me to your London founder entrepreneurial dinner.

• 1:51Emma Grede?

  Yes, you were at a seat at the table. Do you know how long ago that was? I remember like when it was, but like, I don't know, was it over, is it two years ago?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Nearly two years.

• 2:00Emma Grede?

  It was probably two years ago. So I've known you for two years. And it has been a crazy, busy two years for you because when I think about you, it's like I almost didn't know where to start this podcast. I was like, wait a minute, there's so much to talk about. There's so much happening. Your business has been on an absolute tear. And for anyone who doesn't know you, you're the founder of Honour Active, which is, you did over $200 million in revenue, which is absolutely crazy. But you have said that if it wasn't for fitness, that you wouldn't be alive today. And it all started because a young teenage girl in the UK felt completely lost and walked into a gym. And I think it's just kind of amazing. Your story is incredible.

• 2:42Emma Grede?

  But I really wonder what fitness has actually taught you about what's possible for yourself and specifically what's possible for you as an entrepreneur.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  At the time when I stepped foot into the gym, I think I was around 17 years old. And I was going through a lot of problems, personal problems. I love my family so much, but unfortunately you don't get to pick them, you're handed them. And through thick and thin, they have taught me life lessons that I don't think any 17-year-old should have experienced at the time. And so I didn't have an escape, especially being from a Balkan household. You, as a woman, don't really have a voice. You know, you're either told to get married, to cook, to clean, and your ambitions are a bit too high, too big. So when I stepped foot into the gym,

• 3:32Speaker 01

  I realized that I had control for the first time ever, and I had control over my body and my mind. Had I not gone to the gym, I don't think I would have created my two businesses, and I don't think I would have been sat here today. No way.

• 3:46Emma Grede?

  I mean, it's a crazy thing to think about. It's the big standout of you because when I met you, you introduced yourself to me in such a way that I will never forget. You came to the UK from Albania when you were about four years old. And when I met you, you came with a gift. And you said to me, "I bought you this gift because in my culture, you don't turn up to somebody's house or to somebody's moment, their event, their dinner, without coming with a gift and giving them something." You were so sweet, and you were so humble, and you were so amazing. And I looked at somebody who was next to me, I was like, "Write her name down, like make sure, you know, we remember who she is." And in my head, because you were so humble and sweet, I asked you a couple of questions about your business and you kind of played it down.

• 4:30Emma Grede?

  I assumed that you were one of the younger, smaller founders that were sat around the table, one of the girls that had come to learn, not one of the girls who had built a $200 million business. And I think that kind of says everything about who you are and how you hold yourself. And I wonder if where you come from, that immigrant hustle, that feeling that you've always kind of had to prove yourself, does that actually ever leave you? Because the way that you turn up in a room, like just, you feel that intrinsically about you.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It hasn't been, which is so mad to say, but it hasn't been until this very moment, probably like a month ago, where I was like, "I'm not proving myself anymore." And to think that before that moment, I had a business that made close to $200 million last year with a positive EBITDA, with a store signing in New York City Bond Street, which we all know how difficult and how expensive that is, with another store in LA with 130 employees. That's just one of the businesses. And it took me till now to be like, "Wait, why am I trying to prove myself to people who would never even understand what I've had to go through and grind to get here?"

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I read a comment the other day, and one of the comments was like, "You wouldn't be where you are today without your co-founders." And I was like, "Interesting, interesting," because you only know about my co-founders because of me. And I love my co-founders. I think having a business partner in life and in business who believe in you so much is such a powerful tool. But Honour is bigger than any business they've ever built.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  That didn't happen by accident. And you only know I have co-founders because you know me, and you know Honour, and you only know Honour because of me. So that's the moment where I was like, "You no longer have to prove yourself. You've done more than enough, and now you have to re-like stand ten toes down." And everything you say you're gonna do, you're gonna do it without an explanation. Because I had to explain every fucking thing that I was doing constantly, not only because I'm an immigrant, not only because I'm a woman, not only because I'm early 30s, but also I post bikini pictures. So it's like, "No, no, I have a bit of a brain in here," you know?

• 6:50Emma Grede?

  But it's interesting to me because I think as a woman, and I really have just gotten so used to it at this point, that it genuinely doesn't even touch me. Whatever you do, and whenever you're successful, people are looking for every other reason but you, behind you, beside you, in your past, in whatever way they can find for it not to be attributed to you. They will try to find it.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  But why?

• 7:13Emma Grede?

  Well, what do you think?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Is it jealousy? Is it like you're annoyed that you didn't get to where I got to? Does that sound arrogant? Does that sound ignorant? Like, can you even say that out loud nowadays? But what else is it if it's not jealousy? Because I don't feel like that about you. I don't feel like that about other women. I'm like, "What can I do to work with you? What can I do to connect with you? What do I have that you need and you have that I need?" That's the way I see it.

• 7:41Emma Grede?

  I really think that we inherit so much of the language and the things that we think. It's almost passed to us by other women, like, "What did she do? She couldn't have got there on her own. Surely something went wrong there. I must find out about it." And actually, one of the main reasons that I do this podcast is to shine a light, not only on the founder and their story, but what they did to get there. Because if the narrative is gonna change, like, we have to change it, one conversation at a time. Not only do people begin to go, "Oh, like, I understand how she did it." They start to understand that they can do it too. And so there's so much to learn from your journey, the way that you've done things, where you started.

• 8:21Emma Grede?

  And, you know, to think that you started, you know, doing these workout PDFs on a student laptop, which to me is mind-blowing. At one point, I think you were making between £50,000 and £70,000 a month, which is mind-blowing to think that you were making millions and millions of dollars or pounds, because the money's the money, whatever it was, it was millions, when you were a teenager. Walk me through how that started and how that got to your first business, the fitness app.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Everyone always talks about kind of Honour and like that being the golden child. I call Honour the golden child. But what they don't realize is I built a 10-year business. I had a decade of being an entrepreneur before Honour. And being an influencer and being able to convert your followers is a business in itself. And my business wouldn't be able to be what it is today without the influencer economy. You know, when we talk about partnerships and when we talk about working with influencers and collaborators, last year alone, they generated nearly £55 million in sales.

• 9:23Emma Grede?

  Within your business?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Within my business.

• 9:24Emma Grede?

  Which is crazy.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Which is crazy because these are, quote-unquote, "just girls posting workout videos." Well, they're not just girls posting workout videos. Trying to convert someone and convince them to buy into you is the hardest trait that anyone could learn to do, and not many people can do it. So when I started posting workout videos, no one was making money at the time. We're talking about 15 years ago.

• 9:46Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  You didn't post to make cash. I was waitressing at the time, 30 hours. I was working at this little Italian diner situation, little family-owned place, which I love. And I was a university student. I was studying to become a lawyer. So I started posting workout videos to actually gain the attention of my ex, because he cheated on me at the time. So I was like, "It must be me. I must be the ugly duckling. So I'm gonna make myself super pretty, super hot, so he gets really, really jealous. I'm gonna post it." Don't ask questions.

• 10:22Emma Grede?

  I'm, I'm.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  So weird.

• 10:23Emma Grede?

  My lips are pursed.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  So weird.

• 10:25Emma Grede?

  We've all been there, babe.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  We've all been there.

• 10:26Emma Grede?

  Let's just be honest.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  We've all been there. So I was posting workout videos because I thought I looked cute. I was like, I look good, like.

• 10:33Emma Grede?

  Did you, looking back in the videos, did you look cute?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  I did not look good. I did not look good. I was like, my active work didn't look good. I didn't look good. I was like, oh my God. But I had delusion, which is great. So then I was posting every single day. I kind of became hooked because I was growing a community.

• 10:49Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  So I didn't stop waitressing until I had three hundred thousand followers. And I still finished university because I was like, again, this is a very immigrant mentality. I kept thinking, if you don't have a safety net, you're gonna be like left with nothing.

• 11:07Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  So get your qualification because you never know, you never know. It wasn't until I had about six hundred thousand followers that I made my first brand deal and I made my first paycheck, really, give or take. Then I started realising that people had such a demand for my workouts. So I took my university laptop and I made my first PDF and I was finding these little GIFs online because I didn't have a camera, like a proper camera.

• 11:30Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  To do the proper imagery. And so I made it all pretty and my co-founder at the time, who was my fiance, very messy story, built the website. And he built the website, I built the PDF, I had my personal training qualification. And we went live and I said, do you know what? If one person buys, I'm gonna be so proud of us.

• 11:52Emma Grede?

  What were you, how were you selling it at that time?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Just on Instagram.

• 11:55Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  I just had Instagram.

• 11:57Emma Grede?

  You can buy my PDF for how much?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  I think it was twenty five dollars at the time.

• 12:02Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And we put it live, it was a countdown and then I, then seven thousand pounds, eight thousand pounds in ten minutes, nine thousand. I was like, oh my God, I'm rich. I was like, oh my God. But I didn't stop, I still didn't stop. I still was like, I need a stable income, I need a stable income. And I ring my mum and I go, mum, mum, like, I cannot believe I've made nine thousand pound in one hour, don't know what to do. She goes, Chrissie, keep your feet on the ground, this is just the start.

• 12:35Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  And if it wasn't for my mum saying that to me at that time, I don't know what I would have done.

• 12:41Emma Grede?

  Fair.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  You know, so I would have maybe gone, got too excited or maybe stopped and thought nine thousand was enough. Because nine thousand is life-changing money for a lot of people, you know?

• 12:51Emma Grede?

  Totally. So you have this like, it turns out to be, you know, you make a lot more than nine thousand, right? You get into this period where you're making tens of thousands a month and you decide to actually transition and start an app. So that's almost like the second phase of this first business of yours. What did you learn and what were the early mistakes that you made? Because as a first time founder, we all make them and you were so young at that point. And I'm interested to understand, like, what happened in this kind of initial entrepreneurial venture? That informed and ultimately went on for you to be so successful with Honour.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  I just want to remind women, if they're listening to this, that your frontal lobe doesn't develop till you're twenty seven.

• 13:30Emma Grede?

  It's a good, it's a good reminder for the dumb shit you're about to tell us.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Reminder, alright? I'm not trying to prime myself, but just let that be a reminder in case you want to be like a multimillionaire founder at the age of twenty two. Okay? Because you're not gonna know what to do with it unless you've got an army of people around you. Who are gonna advise you financially, when you're gonna pay loads of taxes anyway. You're not gonna know what to do with that money and you're not gonna know where to invest it properly. So when I signed the contract to build an app, I, I didn't even sign a contract. So the contract was so vague and in the contract, it said, basically, you own the content, but you don't own the infrastructure, you don't own the coding, you don't own the database. And that contract came five months after the app had launched.

• 14:17Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Rule number one, never start anything without your name on the dotted lines. So I made that first mistake at twenty two.

• 14:26Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  And then the app did exceptionally well. We had like twenty thousand subscribers a month. It was generating millions of dollars at the time and it was just me on the app.

• 14:38Emma Grede?

  I was gonna say, and are you still in partnership with that fiance at this point?

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm still, he's still my co-founder.

• 14:43Emma Grede?

  Even today?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Even till this day.

• 14:45Emma Grede?

  Even today, but at that point, like you two are doing this together.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  We were doing it together and then we had a sub-party.

• 14:50Emma Grede?

  Got it.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Who had the infrastructure of an app.

• 14:52Emma Grede?

  Got it.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  So we incubated it.

• 14:54Emma Grede?

  But you're learning a lot and you're making mistakes along the way.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:58Emma Grede?

  But at the end of the day, you are cultivating an incredible audience and an incredible community.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:04Emma Grede?

  But when did you decide to actually turn that into something else? Because you were doing really well. And so I'm interested what it was within you that decided, do you know what? That's not enough. Because by any stretch of the imagination, you're in your early twenties, you're making a ton of money.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I was making so much money from other brands.

• 15:20Emma Grede?

  So what, what, why did you decide, actually, I need something else now?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Well, it was their brand, it wasn't mine. I would look at my commission at the end of how much money I would make other brands. And at the time, I think I had like six streams of revenue. So YouTube was paying me.

• 15:36Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  My app, which was very messy at the start and then it was officially ours, which was a relief. But it was also, we had legal fees and lawyers and problems and we lost so many people. Because we had to convert the app to a new server.

• 15:51Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  So then the app was down for like a month. So imagine, people are paying for nothing.

• 15:56Emma Grede?

  And so you ended up losing like ten thousand subscribers or something now.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Subscribers gone.

• 16:00Emma Grede?

  And you're dying.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Boom. And I'm dying and I'm like stressed and my hair's falling out and I'm like, what have I done?

• 16:05Emma Grede?

  How did you find your footing? When everything's falling apart, what does that even look like for you? And what do you turn to? What do you do?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I, that, my, I, I feel like I have a cycle where I have a cycle of panic.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  And then I have a moment of acceptance. I, I give myself about twenty four hours to have a shit show. And then I'm like, okay, this is where we're at. This is where, this is, this is the situation. You've dealt with worse. And then it's, how do we solve it?

• 16:34Emma Grede?

  And because for you, you've always dealt with worse.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Oh, this is nothing. Like, I can deal with anything now. The calls I've had in the middle of the night and the calls I've had on vacation when I'm with my family trying to like calm down. I'm like, okay, give it to me now. Because I've got this bulletproof vest that nothing is a big problem anymore.

• 16:54Emma Grede?

  And your childhood.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  And my childhood. I mean, my childhood was a shit show. It was awful. Like, I love my mum and dad and I find it tough because I know they'll be listening.

• 17:05Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  You know, and I, I never want to disrespect them because the things that they had to give up and the things that they had to do. Imagine moving your children, your whole family, your culture at the age of thirty in the back of a lorry. Can you imagine doing that now with your kids?

• 17:19Emma Grede?

  You go cold.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  No way. So for that, I am so beyond grateful. And I never want them to ever worry financially ever again and they never have to, right? That's my duty to them as a daughter. But do I think that my dad being physically abusing was right? No. Do I think that what my mum had to endure and like half of my family being in prison? Do I think that that was normal? No, but it was normal for me, you know? To me, there, there is no option but to win. There is no o- other option but to survive. So most of the time, I'm just like, tell me the problem today and I'll figure out the solution for you.

• 18:04Emma Grede?

  First of all, I'm so grateful that you would even share that story because I think for so many people that are listening, who grew up in a similar situation with so much fear and so much trauma. The idea that you've been able to take that and not just the physical trauma and the emotional trauma, but even the idea of what was meant for you as a woman and turn that completely on its head, it's mesmerising. And I think that when I think about Honour and your brand, not just the name, by the way, which is so beautiful. But you have managed to weave in this kind of undescribable way of seeing and representing and thinking about women in every single thing that you do.

• 18:47Emma Grede?

  And to me, that would probably never happen if you hadn't been raised in the way that you were.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  No way.

• 18:52Emma Grede?

  And so I think all credit to you for turning something that was seemingly so restrictive in your early life into your entire blueprint and the entire reason that you're able to be so successful now.

• 19:13Emma Grede?

  I want to go back to the business partnership because I think it's something that people do get really scrambled about, like even beginning to think about why they would need a business partnership, to the idea of sharing something with a partner. Will you just talk a little bit about your experience of business partnerships? Because seemingly when you're the influencer, you're the talent, you're making all the money, it's your ideas. What made you go out and take a business partner? And by the way, I will tell you, I'm a hundred percent on board because I think partnerships are the amazing and being able to come together with people is an incredible thing. But it's still something people get really scrambled in their mind and I'd love you to talk about it a little bit.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always say to people, your team, whether that's your employees or whether anyone that you work with, if there's a money transaction, it's not your family. It is your team. I hate the term family. Family, you accept things that you shouldn't because they're family. You know, you turn a blind eye because they're family. Team, no, we have a duty to each other. It's a financial transaction. I will care for you to an extent. But if you start slipping and you start making massive excuses or you're not providing me what I need and I'm not then paying you because that's the thing that we've agreed on, that's a transaction, then you're not going to call me family, are you?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  So I think that's really important and that's what I look for in business partners. I'm like, who is going to be my team? Who would I want on my team to win? So when I created Honour, I already knew my business partners for eight years because I was working for their business at the time as an influencer. So I was a part of their athlete roster.

• 20:58Emma Grede?

  More importantly, they knew you.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  They knew I could convert. Exactly. So they knew I could convert, they knew I'd had the platform. So I pitched to them and I said, okay, I have an idea. I want to create an activewear brand that genuinely speaks to women. Because in the market at that time, it was hyper saturated by men and women in the same market. No one was really talking to the woman who lifted or strength trained. It was still very much like, don't lift too much, you'll get muscly. And also there had never been product that I had genuinely put on and I felt so confident in. And I think that poetic feeling of something making you feel unstoppable can only come

• 21:42Speaker 01

  from someone who genuinely is in the industry, understands women, understands the market, understands movement.

• 21:48Emma Grede?

  And is a woman.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  And is a woman. Okay, say it for what it is. Thing is, they were blokes. They were all a bunch of blokes. And I've had my indifferences with them and I've had major, major pain points with them. Fundamentally, I still love them because they believed in my visions. I sat them down and I said, I'm going to own 50% of this business. I'm going to be the sole majority owner. The rest of you can figure out your stakes between the rest of you. I want to use your infrastructure. I want to use your incubation to incubate this business.

• 22:23Emma Grede?

  I do think it's really interesting, even, you know, I'm so big on mindset and I think the way that you set things up is the way that they are sort of ingested by people, right? So you were almost like, I'm going to do this thing with or without you guys and you can come on board. Like, do you know, it's very different to like, hey, I'm pitching this thing that I don't yet have and I don't understand how it's going to work and could you sort it out for me?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  If I ever pitched like that, if you pitched like that to me, if I'm investing in your business and you pitched to me like, hi, I have this idea and I'm buying into you.

• 22:58Emma Grede?

  I'm doing this thing.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  I'm buying into you and if you're already uncertain, what do you want me to believe in the future you? You know, like I believe in the future thing you're going to build, but I need to believe in you now. So if anyone is pitching to anyone, you've got to, you've got to make people have FOMO.

• 23:17Emma Grede?

  And to an extent, you were proven, you were transacting, you were converting, you were able to pinpoint your customer, you knew exactly who your girl was and there was some proof in the pudding because they'd already seen how successful you could be. One of the things that I honestly didn't even understand about your brand, which I can't believe I missed, you spoke about understanding the female cycle as being one of the biggest major unlocks for the brand and for the conception of the brand. So for those people that aren't familiar, will you just walk me through that? Because there's one thing, a woman owning, designing and creating a brand, there's another thing when you take an only female problem and put it at the very, very centre of your brand and create from that viewpoint.

• 24:00Emma Grede?

  And I think that that is one of the biggest reasons that you've been so successful and I'd love you to talk us through it.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it started firstly as a lifting brand. So I only had one product. It was a seamless legging for lifters by lifters. And then when I got pregnant, I was like, I don't really want to wear that. It's really tight, it's really uncomfortable and I don't really necessarily want to lift right now because my belly's getting in the way. I was trying to, but it was difficult. And I had, I had this lightbulb moment where I was like, stop trying to put yourself in a box. Because people try so hard to put brands in a box so they can understand it. So they go, if you are a sneaker brand, you must be a running brand. And I'm like, no, you can have a lifestyle shoe, you can, you know, your audience is more complex than that.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  They don't just want a lifting legging. So then I had this lightbulb moment to create a cycle. So we call it the Honour cycle and I'm really big on my O's. O for Honour, O for cycle, O for life, whatever. And it starts off with lifting. So at the core of any movement should be strength. Strength is really, really important. And if you think about your menstrual cycle, when you're feeling like you're most strongest and you're most powerful, that's what you should be doing. You should be lifting. Longevity, we are so much more prone to ACL tears because of our hips as women. So that's really important. Then we go on to hybrid. So hybrid is all about high energy.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  This is where you're feeling your sexiest, you know? And then you're going to stretch. This is where things start to slow down. And this is where I needed that stretch product. So that's why I created Soft Motion. Ultra stretchy, so comfortable, PFA free, I was like, perfect. This is for me, this season of my life.

• 25:51Emma Grede?

  And just to contextualize that Soft Motion piece, I mean, this is like the heartbeat of your brand. This is your killer winner core product that you literally cannot find anywhere because it's just always sold out and it is just the most amazing thing that you have.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  And for the price point, because I think price is really important.

• 26:10Emma Grede?

  You do? I love pricing.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  I love pricing.

• 26:13Emma Grede?

  It's my favourite thing to do, babe. I love pricing.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Do you check every price?

• 26:15Emma Grede?

  Are you crazy? I set every price, every price. I'm obsessed with pricing. Because it's the game changer. People just like forget about prices.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  So I'm not, I'm not charging people a hundred dollars for a pair of leggings.

• 26:26Emma Grede?

  Absolutely not, but I engineer into pricing. I'm like, the price is first and then I'm thinking about the rest of it.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Then you go back, that's right. And then finally we go into living. And living is really important because it's your rest and recovery. And so that's the moment where I think in your cycle, you slow down and you really just give yourself a chance. And I don't think that would have ever been curated by a man in a boardroom, all my business partners. And this is where that duality between us as partners, where I go, how is it going with logistics? Are we like, do we have our US distribution ready to go? Do we, which is happening? Do you have another European distribution ready to go? How is the freight cost? What is like, why are we, why are we doing everything by air? Let's ship, it's cheaper, like, you know? That's them.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  This is me. This is where I come in. This is where I have to conceptualize, think about every product, every marketing piece, every ambassador that comes in. That's where you need me.

• 27:26Emma Grede?

  And that's where the partnership and the beauty in the partnership is.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, now Honour is massive compared to any of our other businesses, Evolve You or any of their businesses. And that's because you had partners that came together, the why and the how.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  And they built something exceptional.

• 27:46Emma Grede?

  There's something that you said that kind of killed me. It says, you don't check your bank account first thing in the morning, you check your DMs. And I always think that's another reason like people would have so much to say about you as a female founder. When you're running a $200 million business, soon to be $300 million business, it's also quite an extraordinary thing to admit and to say. And so what is it that you're actually looking for when you go into your DMs? And when you are putting that as such a high priority in the list of things as a founder for you to do, what is it that you're actually searching for?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  You can't call yourself a community based business and you don't put your community first. And that's what I was saying with that. I check my DMs every single day. I go on TikTok and I write on or active. And I check every single new post that comes in. I have all my alerts on. I don't start the day or end the day without checking. And that to me is because I want my finger on the pulse of my community. Yes, you have to have your finger on the pulse of culture and what's going on in the world, but I can hire people to do that. What I can't hire people to do is be as obsessed as I am with the people that I'm selling to. So to me, if I don't understand what my community feels or their anger or their disappointment or their happiness with our product, no one else will.

• 29:03Emma Grede?

  What do you think are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned from your community? And also I'm interested what it's taught you about yourself as a leader and somebody that is running this company.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  When you're the face of a business or when you are accessible, there's a high parasocial relationship. So any mistake that you make, any faulty product, it goes straight to you. You know, I get DMs from people sending me pictures of something's gone wrong. And I appreciate that so much, but at the same time, I have a whole entire incredible customer service team that can really help you. But it's that, it's that relationship that you build. So it's a double ended sword. At one end, like allow me to make mistakes. Fuck, like let me make mistakes, you know? And at the other side, but they're buying into you. They're using their hard earned money to buy into your vision. Every purchase is a commitment to your vision. That's the way I see it.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  You can't fail people on that. But at the same time, human error happens, production fails. It like, it is, there's so many things that I can mess up on that I cannot actually control. And I can't give you a response or an apology when you want it, because I need about two days to figure out what the hell has gone wrong. So I think people are not as lenient and as I would appreciate that they would be. I used to get very defensive. Now I'm like more chilled about it because I've realised I'm always going to have a problem.

• 30:26Emma Grede?

  But it's interesting because you have such an unbelievably loyal customer. You've got extremely high retention rates. I'm wondering what's had the biggest impact on that customer loyalty.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  I've been open. You won't find a dirty secret. You won't find someone saying something. People have called me a bitch online and a bad boss, probably true. But then they've called me the best boss they've ever had, probably true too.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  It is what, this is what it is. And I'm going to bring you along the journey, high and low. But I think if in this economy, if you want to be someone who sells something, not necessarily a service, but a physical object, you have to be online. You have to share the process.

• 31:10Emma Grede?

  And I mean, listen, there are, like you say, it's absolutely a double edged sword. What has that looked like to you as a young woman starting out? You said you had 130 staff. Of course, you're always going to have problems, but not everybody's problems come, especially like when it comes to staff and resourcing issues are posted about. And for you, that's very, very different. So from, from a leadership point of view, like what have you learned? And actually, have you changed your style in terms of level of openness, level of authenticity? The fact that you're sharing everything. Has anything actually cautioned you and gone like, fuck, I know, I'm not going to do that anymore?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Well, put it this way, right? It's not normal for you to know everything about me and me to not know a lot about you. And before anyone says, but you should get to know your staff, of course I do. But I don't know what they get up to on the weekend.

• 31:58Emma Grede?

  You're not following all your staff, surely?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  No, of course not. But also it's a level of privacy that they don't want me to follow them to. I shouldn't know that they're getting fucked up on the weekend, you know? But damn, a video of me during the splits at my own party could go live. And now you know what I did on the weekend.

• 32:15Emma Grede?

  I know.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  You know, you know, you saw the video. But my point being, it's not the norm for people to know this much about their boss. I don't think that's normal, but it's also my job. So I don't know, I didn't know the boundary before.

• 32:30Emma Grede?

  So where is, I mean, and where is the boundary? Where's the line for you?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I didn't have a boundary, boundary before. When I started with my team of 20, I, they would be at my house. They would meet my mom. They would, you know, be around my boyfriend and they knew everything. They knew where my underwear drawer was, you know? I didn't know where their underwear drawer was. So, and I thought, again, family is all of our success. If I'm flying business, then I'll upgrade you or I'll buy you an expensive watch because you've, you've been successful with me. Now I'm like, hold on a minute.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Because when you fire these people, okay? Or when something doesn't go right and they get really disgruntled,

• 33:16Speaker 01

  they will say things about you that are not necessarily true, or maybe they are true but inflated. And then you can't defend yourself because it looks like you have something to hide. So now I have a very strong boundary.

• 33:29Emma Grede?

  Do you think that, you know, you're still able to, like to do both well? Like, can you be an incredibly authentic and, you know, amazing influencer on one side? And be taken seriously as a leader on the other side?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  You can't. Sorry, you can't. I've, I've literally had investors say the wildest things to me. I, I had once a publicist tell me to stop posting bikini pictures because no investor is going to take you seriously. My question to her is, do you have a business that's making 300 million a year? No, you don't. So, you know, like I've had shit say, people say that stuff to me. I've had investors say to me, you know, are you, are you going to continue to share what you share online? I've had investors ask me if I'm going to have children, another child. So I don't think that you can be as free and as like bubbly as you think you can be.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  And then people take you seriously because perception is everything. So I have had to scale it back a lot, but at the same time, I'm still a firm believer that the right investor and the right partner will not want you to change. It's like a relationship. You don't go into a relationship and then change completely who you are to make them fall in love with you.

• 34:51Emma Grede?

  And nor do you attract the right partner if you're changing who you are to find them, right?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:56Emma Grede?

  It's like, perhaps they're just not your people.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  I like a drink. I like to have a bit of fun. I like at the end of a big work trip to have let loose with my team. I love that, you know?

• 35:07Emma Grede?

  No doubt.

• 35:17Emma Grede?

  I want to talk to you so much about like how you think about the business today and how you've done things so untraditionally. Because on my way home from work last night, it's like going down Sunset, I see this like amazing billboard and I'm like, oh my God. And it was Lori Harvey in your new campaign, Lori looking sick and delicious. I'm touching my stomach now because I'm like, oh my God, if I could find an.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  She's even better in real life.

• 35:43Emma Grede?

  Let me tell you, I've shot with her before. I've seen it. It's all, it doesn't even need retouching. The whole thing is insane. But I looked at that and I was like, wow, you know, like to have a billboard on Sunset, you must be so proud and so happy. But with that and coming into this territory, there's so much more competition. It's so different from when you were, you know, in the UK. And I understand your audience has always been predominantly US, but, but it's different now. It's like you're here and I wonder what and if you're thinking about what needs to change. Because up until Lori, I don't think you've ever had like that type of face in the brand. It's been so much about your community. You don't spend on traditional marketing.

• 36:23Emma Grede?

  And so I wonder what this kind of new phase of the brand looks like and how you're thinking about how you need to shift and change and, and what the growth trajectory is going to look like.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  I actually made the decision to pivot my brand when I made the cycle. And it moved away from just being social media lifting brand to now becoming more global. And in order for you to scale to becoming a billion dollar brand, this is the first stages of it. It's very much, this is for me, I'm here to stay. It's a statement. Signing two leases, one in LA and one in New York for stores, that's a 10 year commitment. That is me saying I am here to stay. Doing something with someone as incredible as Lori Harvey, you know? That is us showing that, hey, we, we can do something like that. Because it's one thing to put a slap a face on anything, but the execution of it is everything.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  That is all team effort and you have to have the right team to do it. So that was also us showing that we can move away from being a social first brand. And that to me is a statement to becoming more global.

• 37:32Emma Grede?

  Yep. And I guess the evolution of that isn't just about product and what you stand for. That also has to encompass the decisions that you make around your team. So what does that look like for you?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  We've definitely had to elevate who we bring in. And we often ask ourselves now if, if a director or a chief hasn't worked for a business that is making 500 million plus, we don't even entertain it.

• 37:56Emma Grede?

  I'm, I'm just trying to understand that what that's actually meant for like the realities of the way that you run the business because you live here now.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Huge. We're actually going for a massive, like, we call it a professionalization of the business. So even the, even the way, so granular, how meetings are set.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  We are not to have a meeting as directors if there's no agenda and someone has to lead it. There is no more, oh, but I assumed you were doing it. There's no assumption in this business. It's clarity. You can never assume that people also know where you're heading. You have to remind them. So we're taking so much bigger steps to ensure that everything has clarity, no assumption, and professionalization. So, okay, so what does that mean? Because they're all big words, right? So what does that actually mean? Their project can't be placed if it doesn't hit our two agendas. What are your two agendas? Scalability and consistency. Those are our two key words for, let's say, twenty twenty seven. So if nothing allows us to scale or be consistent with our product, our quality, our customer service,

• 39:00Speaker 01

  everything that we do, we don't even entertain it anymore. So it's a process of elimination. And I think in order for you to get to the next stage, you've got to do less, but do it so much better. I mean, the other day I was looking at how many SKUs we have. Two thousand two hundred SKUs.

• 39:16Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's my favorite thing to do. SKU rationalization. Bring me in. I wanna do it. I just like, no, no, no.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  And I was looking at it and I went, we need to bring that down to one thousand five hundred. And the team was like, what? And I was like, yes, you'll do less, you're gonna do better, you're gonna go deeper, and you're gonna talk about it.

• 39:33Emma Grede?

  And it's hard. It's hard to kill your darlings in a business. It's hard to, you know, from a business that's been so much based on your gut and building this incredible community to suddenly move it into this kind of like, you know, as you say, professionalization, like that type of era is really difficult to do. And it's why so many brands actually struggle to get above two hundred and fifty million dollars. And, you know, I, I, I think about you all the time because I'm so rooting for you. I so want you to be the first female who gets to the billion dollar valuation.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  We're gonna do it.

• 40:06Emma Grede?

  In this category. I have no doubt that you'll do it. But I, I think it's really amazing to think about how you're doing it right now. You know, one of the things that I always talk about is that you can't be a people pleaser and a leader at the same time. And for you to go through this professionalization, you have to evolve so much as a leader. And I read somewhere that you'd said that people pleasing costs you so much in business. And I think it is something that specifically in, you know, like female entrepreneurialism, we talk about people pleasing so much. But I actually don't think that women are fully grasped how much it stops you from doing. Like how much of a plague that actually is. Can you just talk me through a time when you feel like people pleasing

• 40:49Emma Grede?

  has actually held you back or held the business back in some type of way?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. One time I got told that I don't listen to people's creativity enough. And I was like, ah, damn, it's maybe something I've missed on myself. So I was like, you're right. I apologize. You guys go build a campaign. So I let the team build a campaign. And my title was creative director, so I oversee every single campaign. It was, it was one of the, the most questionable campaigns we've done and our community did not connect with it at all. And so I was happy that happened because I was like, right, now let's work more together. I'm not gonna just give you free rein, but I'm also not gonna be a freak and be so controlling. Let's find a way to work better together because I think that's what you're looking for.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  And when that unlock happened, our campaigns just became way more better. And I would arguably say my relationship now with my team is so much more transparent, honest and comfortable than ever before. Because I was being fake, they were being fake, didn't feel real.

• 41:52Emma Grede?

  Totally.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  So you can't, you cannot people please. To be a leader, you cannot people please because you're gonna damage your, your brand trying to make everyone else happy, that you're not even focusing on your brand.

• 42:02Emma Grede?

  Yeah. You know, I feel like I had this so much, you know, like early in my career that, you know, I was so bothered that you thought that I was a nice girl, that the way I was treating you was so much more important than the reality of the result of the thing that we're doing. And what I've learned is that when you have great results, everyone's happy, like everyone's happy. And sometimes what it takes to get there isn't that pleasing. It doesn't suit everybody's agenda. And, you know, to your point earlier, it's like you have these two big goals in your company, consistency and scale. Like that's what you're going after. And anything that doesn't fit with that is an absolute distraction.

• 42:44Emma Grede?

  So you running around and running yourself in circles trying to please everybody actually isn't getting you closer to where you wanna be. And I do think that we can really hold ourselves back focusing on the wrong things. And people pleasing is just such a fucking waste of energy.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  We're online now as well.

• 42:59Emma Grede?

  That is a huge part of it because we see ourselves reflected back. And as you say, sometimes it's hard to hear that stuff about yourself. Sometimes it's hard to hear that you were tough, that everybody didn't have a perfectly enjoyable time working around you.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't want anyone feeling like that.

• 43:14Emma Grede?

  No, you don't. But by the same token, sometimes that's just what it is. Like sometimes that's what it is.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Also, what are we telling women by backing down? So what are we telling women by me saying that I have to like be very like timid and this and that? Like, there's a difference between being rude and firm. And there's a big difference between being assertive and just being an absolute like that bitch, you know, and whatever that word wants to be interpreted by someone. Because you can be both. You can be really assertive and still really kind, you know? You, you can have both of those things, but fundamentally, what are we telling women by me backing down the minute I got a bad comment about me?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  So that's it. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quit everything because someone didn't like my approach. You can't give up when someone goes, your product isn't as good as I thought. You should go, okay, how can I make the product better for you? Cool. Leave that with me. Okay, you think I'm a bitch. Why? You tell me. As soon as you're bold enough to say it, you let me know.

• 44:22Emma Grede?

  I just think about all of these things as never being a signal to stop. Like, I actually think that oftentimes the worst things that have been said about me have been amazing moments for me to go, yeah, like absolutely, like your commentary is right. And still I'm going.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm still gonna go.

• 44:41Emma Grede?

  I've still gotta go. But it doesn't mean that it's not valid and it doesn't mean that it's untrue. And sometimes it's really so much more about you going, that's a truth I can live with.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Maybe you lean into it more, actually.

• 44:53Emma Grede?

  Perhaps you're a bitch. Like, it's, is it the worst thing in the world? I don't know. We just need a total rebranding of bitch.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Sounds great to me.

• 45:01Emma Grede?

  I'm feeling more and more comfortable with it the older I get, funnily enough. There was something I read just about the timing when you decided to bring in a CEO. And that is about you being able to be super self-reflective about what it is that you uniquely bring to the business versus what you need to get to where you want. So what was that decision like for you?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  So my CEO, Zach, it was my mentor at the time, actually. And he walked into business, he was recommended by my first ever employee who still works for me. She is incredible. I love her so much. And she was like, I really want you to meet this person. And I was like, okay, bring, bring them in. In comes this like big dude. And I, uh, he was like, okay, well, this is a shit show. You've got to do this, you've got to do that. He was really calm.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  And I worked with him for two years as a mentor before I asked him to be my CEO.

• 45:59Emma Grede?

  Can I ask you, what level was the business when you brought him in?

• 46:02Speaker 01

  I brought him in when the business was making fifty.

• 46:04Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  About fifty, eighty, eighty mil.

• 46:07Emma Grede?

  So you got, like, you, it was a real business at that point. You were selling a lot, you were global. And you'd got to fifty million dollars without that person in the role.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  And I didn't wanna be CEO. I don't think CEO is a sexy role. I think I just, I love being in product.

• 46:24Emma Grede?

  Can I tell you, I actually love that you say that because sometimes I think the fascination to have that top job is what sends people down the shitter. Because actually being the CEO is a very, very specific job. And if you don't want it and you don't understand every facet of the business, then you've got to bring somebody else in who does understand that. It doesn't mean, by the way, that as the owner, as the founder, that you're not making the decisions.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  People make that, that, people really confuse that. They still call me CEO.

• 46:55Emma Grede?

  Yes, because at the end of the day, you are, you can have a CEO and still be the one driving the strategy of the business, making the biggest decisions and having a CEO who is under you, taking that direction.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  And that's what we do, right? And I don't make any decisions without him.

• 47:10Emma Grede?

  So nice.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And I have so much respect for him because he is the one that fundamentally is grounding us. I needed someone who was really grounded, who was really calm, someone who had done it before, had years of experience before me. And I wanted to be where I knew I was brilliant at, product. That's where you need me. And the thing I always ask myself as a business is, where do you need me? And so bringing in a CEO, I needed someone who, to your point, was strategical, was like thinking about the business from a three sixty angle. People, really brilliant at people. That's a huge thing that you've got to do.

• 47:48Emma Grede?

  Because you can't grow unless you get the right people on board.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, I play three roles. Founder, so at the board, I'm making top line decisions and no decision gets done without me. Creative director, so strategy, brand, product, vision, and talent.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  And so that's really important.

• 48:09Emma Grede?

  A lot of hats, babe.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  A lot of hats. So I'm like the jazz hands over here and then I make the the big girl decisions over here. But it's funny because it took me a while to understand the roles that I have and how to also be paid for those roles. Because for such a long time, I wasn't obviously being paid.

• 48:25Emma Grede?

  Because you, it took you three years to pay yourself, is that right?

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'd be lying if I said I I didn't have income from other places. I still was promoting other brands.

• 48:35Emma Grede?

  And perhaps that stopped you from paying yourself.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Emma Grede?

  Because you were like, I'm all right over here, but you weren't looking at the value that you were bringing to your own.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  I didn't look at the value once about on what I was bringing to my own brand. But now I'm like, here's my value and let's discuss the price.

• 48:51Emma Grede?

  Do you regret tha- that time?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  No, because I'm glad I kept every single penny in the business and generated it. You know, we're still a hundred percent bootstrapped, very profitable, using our money to generate future goal.

• 49:06Emma Grede?

  And you still own fifty percent of the business? I mean, it's kind of extraordinary to think that you've grown the business to this scale without raising a penny of capital while remaining the fifty percent lead shareholder. And it's no surprise to me that you didn't take any money for the first three years. It's like, but you did that for the thing that you own the most of.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:24Emma Grede?

  So it makes the most sense.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was like, how much will my shares compile? It's, I'm investing. You're investing in your own horse, right? So I'm like, keep the money in there, self-generate, self-generate, right? Because my fifty percent is going to be worth potentially one day five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred million, right? You you never know. My situation is different because I had built my personal brand first. So I could do one-off paid collabs or stuff like that.

• 49:57Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  For people who don't have a platform, I do think you have to pay yourself slightly. You've got to live.

• 50:03Emma Grede?

  Listen, a hundred, a hundred percent. And also, you you've got to, it's it's so much more a question of value, right? Because even if a business is not generating the cash that it can pay the founder, you can accrue the the money. It's not about the the cash and tipping the, you know, the actual balance sheet of the business. It's about valuing your services. It's about when you have business partners, them valuing your services and what you're bringing. So it's actually something that you have to think about early in the brand. And again, I I think so many female founders make the decision

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Sacrifice.

• 50:37Emma Grede?

  Sacrifice themselves. Now, for you, it made sense because you own fifty percent of the thing. But you really have to think about that and be able to see, like, what is my clear path to, like, what is the outcome?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:48Emma Grede?

  Right? It's like, is there an exit and is there an outcome here? And if not, then I'm just devaluing myself and I'll have no one to blame at the end of it.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Which I did in my first brand with the full view.

• 50:57Emma Grede?

  There you go. So you're learning, you're progressing.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  I learned and I was like, ah, I didn't really pay myself, yeah.

• 51:12Emma Grede?

  You obviously moved from the UK, first to LA and now you're in Miami. And but you moved to America. You did the big old switcheroo a couple of years ago. And I wanted to talk to you about how that transition's actually shaped the way that you think about ambition. Is it different? And can you just talk a little bit about what you see as the differences?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  First of all, I always say I'm very grateful for the UK as it opened me with, it welcomed me with open arms when I was a little refugee asylum seeker, you know. But I cannot believe the difference of America to the UK.

• 51:51Emma Grede?

  Let's talk about it.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  The UK does not want entrepreneurs to win. I said what I said and I mean it and I'm putting both my feet down on it. America wants you to win. America wants entrepreneurs to win, to thrive, to win big money. And they push you. The press push you more, your peers push you more, the government pushes pushes you more. In the UK, it is like, settle down, come back down. You need to shine light on people employing people. You need to shine light on the fact that Honour is generating so much cash into the economy. And there are even bigger businesses than ours providing so much fuel to your economy.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  And instead, you're not offering much, if anything, to entrepreneurs. And it's just false, false dreams after false dreams after false hope. I mean, I even was invited to Number Ten Downing Street and, oh, this is all the things we're gonna do for you. No, you're not, because you would have done it by now. So that's why I left.

• 52:54Emma Grede?

  And when you come here, what sense have you got? And what's the reality of doing business here as an English, you know, Albanian Englishwoman?

• 53:04Speaker 01

  So much more open. People want to give. I feel like people want to give. I'm a giver, like, where my, any playbook that you need from me, I'll give it to you. Because this, the universe is abundant. There's so much for everyone, you know? But I never experienced that in the UK. And I don't know if it's because it's less people. I don't know if it's just like poppy syndrome. I don't know what it is. But being in America has made me want to be ballsier.

• 53:32Emma Grede?

  I've been obsessed with the fact that you've constantly said out loud that you absolutely want to become a billion dollar brand. And for somebody that's been raised in England, like, even articulating that is a thing. But it's also putting yourself very much out there, right? You're like saying that here is my goal. What has motivated you to A, say that out loud and B, for that to be the goal?

• 53:54Speaker 01

  I think it's a point. It's like, I'm not even thinking about cash. It's it's a statement of why not Honour? Why other businesses and why not my business? And so to me, it's, it is an ego thing, one hundred percent. I'd be lying if if I said it was just, oh, we're gonna become a billion dollar, you know? But I think for me, it's a case of how exciting would it be to only have created female clothes? Never have done men's? To have an immigrant, you know, who comes in and goes, we're gonna be a billion dollar brand? And why fucking not?

• 54:37Emma Grede?

  Chrissie, what is this actually looking like? Like, when you are at the point that you're at now, the growth is crazy, the company is doing brilliant numbers, but you do have this very audacious goal. You know that you need to change and work on the professionalization of the the kind of the business. What does it look like for you to get there?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Chiefs. That's the next level. I mean, we spoke about it.

• 55:00Emma Grede?

  Building a C-suite?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, building a C-suite is important, very important. But building a C-suite that is hyper-focused on what they do great at. Because sometimes you bring people into something that's bootstrapped and they're like, I want to be the next CEO. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we have a CEO. Yeah, he's gonna be here for

• 55:18Emma Grede?

  Divisional expertise.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  There we go, divisional. So CPO, you are a CPO. I want you to be the best CPO I've ever seen in the world. Come in, tear it apart, rebuild it for me. That's what it looks like. So C-suite is a is a big one we're working on right now, really excited about. More management skills and courses for our directors. Like, let's educate them better. How do we grow them better? Because I think I have some incredible directors. So I want them to win. I want them to be part of the journey. So how can we further make their skills better? EBITDA. Profit is everything.

• 55:55Emma Grede?

  Profit.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Profit is absolutely everything. If you don't have profit, you've got a hobby. Sorry, like, that's what it is, like.

• 56:03Emma Grede?

  We're gonna find an argument here, babe.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  You're not gonna find an argument, right? So how do we become more profitable? Look at every single cost. Shipping bags? Why are they that that cost? Get me option one, get me option two at cheaper options, right? But the number one thing you cannot touch, product. Don't fuck around with product. I always say product and customer service should be the two things you don't mess around with. You put more investment in that. So that's what it looks like. It's auditing, C-suite, bettering people and giving them more skills and growing them and empowering them. And really just like looking at every single cost.

• 56:43Emma Grede?

  Being six years in, how up for this are you?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, I'm ready. I'm so excited, you know, like, give it to me. I'm ready for this. I plan to not go anywhere with Honour. I'm here. I want to be part of this journey. I want to be part of this story for as long as I possibly can, until I get fired.

• 57:01Emma Grede?

  Is there anything that you feel underqualified, uncertain, scared about?

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Am I unqualified? Yeah.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Of course I am, like, I'm, I'm thirty one years old and I'm learning for the first time. So, of course, I need more experience, more time. Am I scared? I think if you weren't scared, you'd be stupid. You've got to be scared and excited. That's when you know you're doing something incredible. And here's the thing, Emma, I unfortunately was introduced to power before my identity, when I built Honour with my co-founders. And I had hundreds of employees before I even knew who I was. So that is petrifying. But it's so exciting to learn. And I'm, I'm just ready. I feel like I'm on like, some sort of high, ready to go. So.

• 58:00Emma Grede?

  I feel like that was the single best answer that I could have hoped for. Because the idea that you are in absolute acceptance, that you might be underqualified, and that you are absolutely scared, and you do it anyway. That's it.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 58:16Emma Grede?

  That's it. That's, that's, that is just like to me. And if I could take one thing from this conversation and ask every single person that's listening to like, rewind and rewind and listen and listen and listen again, it's that. Because you just do it anyway. Can I ask you, like, what do you still aspire to?

• 58:33Speaker 01

  I aspire to never give up, no matter how many times I get pulled down by people, by situations. I just aspire to keep on going. Because at the end of the day, you have one life. You are a collective of all these atoms and all these feelings. And you cannot give up. You cannot. You are put in this world for a reason, and you have to keep on going. And I aspire to never want to give up. That's number, that's number one. And I aspire to honestly show anyone listening, that if a little immigrant Albanian girl can do it and

• 59:16Speaker 01

  be sat here with Emma Grede, why can't you? So that's what I aspire to do and hope and have.

• 59:25Emma Grede?

  I love it. It's a per- perfect, perfect answer. Right, I'm gonna move it to some rapid fire. What is one Honour active piece that every woman needs to own right now?

• 59:35Speaker 01

  The straight leg pants.

• 59:37Emma Grede?

  I absolutely concur with that one. What is the one thing that you do every single day, no matter what?

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Talk to my son.

• 59:44Emma Grede?

  Oh.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  And kiss my partner.

• 59:47Emma Grede?

  Oh, they're two good ones. I love that. I love a little kiss. What's one thing that everyone should do, no matter where they are in their fitness journey?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Show up every day. Doesn't matter. Just show up.

• 1:00:00Emma Grede?

  Ev- every day?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Well, even if it's for a walk. I think mo- I think movement, you have to move every day.

• 1:00:06Emma Grede?

  All right.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Doesn't need, doesn't need, doesn't need to go be crazy.

• 1:00:10Emma Grede?

  But something every day.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Just something.

• 1:00:12Emma Grede?

  Something every day. You do something every day?

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  I do, like even a walk. Ten, ten fifteen minute walk on a treadmill. It's, it goes to, it goes beyond like, physical. I just need to like, yeah, my head, yeah.

• 1:00:24Emma Grede?

  What's the one thing you've stopped apologising for?

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Being assertive and knowing what I want, and I'm gonna do it.

• 1:00:30Emma Grede?

  Hundred percent. Um, is there a book that changed your life?

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Your book, Aspire with Emma Grede. No, I love your book.

• 1:00:38Emma Grede?

  Did you read it?

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yes, I love your book.

• 1:00:40Emma Grede?

  I love you.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Everyone should have your book. It's also aesthetic, so it looks nice.

• 1:00:44Emma Grede?

  We knew that that would need to be the case as well. It's gotta look cute.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  So yes, Aspire with Emma Grede. Get it, get it on, is on Amazon?

• 1:00:52Emma Grede?

  Yes, but start with yourself. You can do it again. Just say it.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yes, Start With Yourself by Emma Grede. Get it on Amazon.

• 1:00:59Emma Grede?

  That's it. We'll just take it as like the, the perfect voiceover. You are amazing, darling. Thank you so much.

• 1:01:08Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favourite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Ashley McShan, Derek Brown, and me. Executive producers from Odyssey are Asha Saluja and Leah Reese Dennis. Producer, KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Phil Sweetech and Carla Stelgardo. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale. Special

• 1:01:50Emma Grede?

  thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company, and WME. Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Mikell, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Greed is spelt G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.