Maggie Sellers Is Simplifying Startups and Investing on TikTok

Transcript:

hey business besties welcome back to the FEMA founder World podcast I'm Jasmine the host of the show and the creator of

the FEMA founder World Universe today I'm chatting with Maggie sers she's the

creator of hotsmart Rich she is a VC and startup expert and we're chatting in

real life in La Maggie welcome to the show you are now entering female founder world with your host Jasmine gwor thank

you so much for having me for people who don't know you or your background they not follow you on Tik Tok yet how do you

introduce yourself to people that's actually a really funny question that people always start with I used to hate this question because I'm such a

generalist and so I was never like the founder of X um and so for me now I

always describe myself high level I'm a creative multi-hyphenate entrepreneur I've been that way since I was little

I've always been starting businesses it just so happens now it really kind of straddles the line between early stage

startups creative so content media um and then obviously investing um but I

really like to not put such a big label as like I'm just the founder of Hots smart Rich because I do so much more

than that but I think going in with creative multi- high entrepreneur always just ENC capules everything I'm doing

okay love that uh so you had what like a 10-year career in startups before you

started hotm Hot Smart Rich which we're going to get into in a little bit uh talk me through how you made that

transition from like corporate startup girl to investor and what you're doing now yeah so I always worked at super

high growth startups and I'm very happy that I started my career at Salesforce which was kind of like the best case

scenario from a corporate structure perspective um I always say this I felt like Mark bennof knew who I was even

though he didn't but that's how well the company was run at least when I was there um and then I made a transition

over to my first earlier stage started up but when I was there we actually went public and I reported to our CEO so

that's where I always say I kind of got addicted to this idea of liquidity events because when you go public with your first startup you're like oh my

gosh this is what this is like this is amazing so I kind of knew the path of where I was going I kept going earlier

and earlier and earlier and so the next startup that I joined you know we raised $120 million I was very attuned to when

there was a board meeting coming up when I could feel like you know we had a big marketing budget which I know we'll get into later at one point I was managing

$18 million um underneath our CMO then there would be times where you know

we're pulling back on spend because budgets are tightening and I knew that was when we were kind of going into we're going into a fund raise we also

happened to have a lot of really cool celebrity investors so some you know celebrities some really cool funds

that's where I just got really curious and then when I made the jump over I was living in LA and I saw this pattern of

like wow celebrities is six seven years ago celebrities are the future like having an audience built in distribution

I need to understand the Dynamics of a celebrity even just team and how they're

building I ended up meeting a celebrity talent manager who at the time managed

post Malone the black IPS and um you know a lot of brands that were coming inbound as the head of kind of brand

strategy I was Fielding a lot of opportunities for Equity Investments instead of traditional brand sponsorship

deals so it was really up to me to figure out like how am I even going to evaluate this and it was just this

really natural progression of being super curious understanding what it was

peripherally and then when it was you know Richard Sir Richard Branson and I just listened to his podcast the other

day he's like always say yes and then figure out what to do and that's truly what I was doing I was like getting

these opportunities and being like I have no clue what I'm doing but I'm going to call people that were in my network that could help me diligence

something figure out was this a good opportunity what am I looking for and I think that's really What's led me even

to Hots smart rich is trying to bestow some of that for the people that don't have the network don't have the connections that I was lucky enough to

have um really just kind of figuring it out on my own dime and my own time and um hopefully be able to empower somebody

with knowledge that I didn't have when I was first looking at it okay people who don't know what hotz my rich is what is

it so it's actually a media it it's happened so organically I was obviously

just posting on Tik Tok and I think a lot of people I always say this to influencers and to startups like you

have to have a why and I think for me the why is really being able to empower women to bring their authentic selves

into work so when I was you know thinking about building a personal brand that really wasn't my driving force I

really wanted to create a mission and a movement that had a bigger purpose Beyond Myself

That Could Live on without my face one day so hotsmart rich came in because I started realizing like I had grinded

like you said for 10 years in the startup world really taking away all of the feminine and authentic selves about

myself and really focused on being masculine and grinding it out and you know being able to manage this budget

and do this and I was like wait I'm so torn like I am 20 at the time I was like

in these startup roles 25 26 seeing success but I wasn't enjoying my personal feminine life and so hotsmart

rich was really a problem I faced my whole life which was I want to empower women to more than just learn the

education and the knowledge it's like be free to be who they are and so now it's really an investment holding company is

what we call it it's trly like a media platform where yes we focused on short form content we have a Weekly Newsletter

we're going to be evolving that into long form content um I don't know if I'll ever do live events but um I just

want to create a safe space for women to feel educated be themselves and just grow as a community something that um I

heard you talk about on another podcast was like this push back that you get about the name I think hotsart rich and

like even just I think generally just the vibe and what you're doing which just resonated so much with me because

you know v m found world we use the word business bestie for everything like our

Vibe is very feminine and um we get this push back of

like well why do you have to make it like that and what I say back to that is like well why is anything that's wrapped

in any kind of feminine packaging considered less valuable less important or less serious like why can't we speak

to people the way that they want to be spoken to without while you're not and like then you don't take the content

itself seriously um and so I like to put that back on people I would love to know

like what your response is to people who say that to you I think I've learned so much more from failure than I have from

success in my career and one of the biggest failures that we had at one of the startups that I worked at was we were trying to be for everybody and when

you do that you lose your entire cult community base and so I think for me

it's like I don't need to be for everybody and I've been dragged on VC Twitter and and yeah there's Reddit

threads about me and and it's it's it's hard but it also is like you're doing the right thing and I think for me my

answer is it doesn't have to be for you like if you don't relate keep scrolling you're good like and and honestly I I

think I'm a little bit of a psychopath I think every founder has to be in a way I kind of like it in this weird way

because I know what we made all of the mistakes doing when I was at a startup was we were for everybody and so if I

feel like I'm not pushing boundaries being contrarian those are two qualities that I look for when I'm even investing

in a Founder is like do you think differently do do you think critically are you afraid to go against the grain

and you know a story that I feel so Vindicated by is I two years ago during

B reals series B when it was everything so much VC hype every single Tech bro Finance bro was like this is the next

thing I looked at it from the feminine consumer lens of like us controlling 85%

of consumer spend and I'm like this is a feature not a company and I just

personally don't think that the valuation warrants where all this money is going again learning from failure

having been at a startup that raised $120 million in four years and burnt $120 million in four years and not a

great success story and I remember I posted the video I got so much hate from

that archetype of that Finance bro Tech bro like you don't know what you're talking about you didn't come from an A6

you don't know what you're talking about is just the go-to response when they don't have a lot more experience than

them for sure and different experience too and I think that's something that's really worked for me in this way where

it's like I don't think I didn't go to a a tier b or tier a school like I'm from Canada I didn't have the background that

a lot of these you know investment bankers VC Bros have and it was so rewarding last week to build a returns

illustration analysis to be like actually if you invested in the series B

only you lost money on your investment you made 80 cents for every dollar that you put in and the seed investors they

had a great investment 48x return incredible but nobody talks about that the headline

is you know they sell for $530 million or500 million and so for me it's like I didn't

have to be for everybody back then and I'm glad I wasn't and now two years later there's this delayed gratification

to be able to be like if you think differently it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong just don't be afraid to

like do something different I love that I think that's actually what you do so well is like you just make this whole

World feel more doable and more digestible for I think a lot of people who normally would just have just been

told and this is something that again like we hear it from found about a lot of people who just kind of like think oh it's not for me because Business Insider

and Forbes like don't sound don't like I don't feel like they're targeting me and I don't see my point of view like

reflected and so you don't think that it's what it's valuable and so I think what you do is like break this down so

well and like bring a lot of people who haven't been included in the conversation along with you I'd love to just keep talk talking about some of

these um these myths or misconceptions that you think maybe early stage

Founders or the entrepreneurial Community have about fundraising and VC because like you just said like you just

see that that headline of that big exit and so you just assume everyone got really rich and that's probably not what

happened no not at all I think venture capital is such a beautiful thing and where it started from was really to fuel

Innovation and I think that's the first thing you have to ask yourself if you're a Founder is like are you truly innovating in a space where you need

Capital where if this sells this is not going to look like a small exit like

this is going to truly be defensible IP something that needs the backing to grow

quickly and grow fast and keep off competitors and I think that Venture Capital has really been diluted down

where there's so many different even types of venture capital like the difference between a Syndicate investor and a venture capitalist is so different

and an angel investor is so different and So for anybody that is kind of trying to figure out even the landscape it's like Angel Investors are typically

investing their own money there's less of like a returns analysis that they're doing to figure out will this return my

fund if this exits at these return scenarios if you're investing other people's money you're immediately

categorized as a venture capitalist but like I said there's growth Equity there's um private Equity there is early

stage consumer VC there's early stage biotech VC investors like there's just so much known in it um but I think the

big difference and this is something I I talk about a lot with people is and and maybe this is actually super contrarian

because in the past if you wanted to raise money you could never talk about an exit you had to build a forever brand

and you wanted to do this for the rest of your life I would never invest in a consumer founder that doesn't have an

exit plan or a strategy like I always think about this p& don't quote me on

the exact number but I see let's say if if we see a thousand deals a year if I

look at a a pitch deck let's say 800 of them say they're going to sell to PNG

one day do you know how many Brands PNG owns they own less than a 100 brands so

800 people a year are saying they're going to sell to PNG well that's one of your uh potential acquirers there aren't

that many of them so right now a huge question in beauty is who's buying all of these Beauty Brands like I think

think that is where you have to be very clear from the GetGo on like where you're going and if you want to build a

brand that you are going to run forever I don't think you need Venture Capital money and I I know it's so hard to get

Venture Capital money right now but I think you really have to figure out like what is it that you need money for

because I will tell you whether it's Airbnb whether it's my friend byrony who started Pilates by byrony like the best

most successful beginning or the most successful companies come from humble beginnings and they come from things

that don't scale and I think especially if you're talking I would assume like female founder world is there's a lot of

consumer Tech but there's also a lot of cpg like it can come from one product

one success one hit and then you can grow and develop from there I don't know if you necessarily want to sign yourself

up to being held accountable to the growth that Venture capitalists are going to expect of you I think that's

such an interesting like switch in your brain to think about okay if you um if you want to build a business and what

are your chances actually of being Acquired and selling this thing then okay well what does the pace of growth

look like what does your life look like while you're building this company because I think a lot of people are like okay I'm on this like fiveyear all and

nothing Fast Track and it's like well maybe you've read about these Tech Founders doing that in certain spaces

but that's actually not the path that your product and your vision should deserve and entail and maybe it's

something really different and your approach would be really different I don't think a lot of people are talking about that yeah and I also don't think

it's like you know there's this huge misconception in the market that if you're not right for Venture Capital you don't deserve a place that's also not

true like I look at and I I'm we're reading in the HSR book club right now Tash Oakley's book on Monday swimwear

like o found yeah EXA like love and you know it's empowering that they didn't take Venture Capital money and I think

especially like my if I could just and there's never good advice for every single founder that's listening to this

because every business is so different like you look at nerum they I think they only had three or four years and they sold for like $300 million um that also

is a super rare case but I think it's like if there's a blanket statement I

can make it's just like focus on the community first and foremost that is the

growth hack I think for Consumer brands that will be the wildfire that you need to have something that's successful when

you try to manufacture too much and you're trying to manufacture like am I the Right fit for venture capital I keep getting turned down it's like you know

they say be delusional and self-fulfilling prophecies every single founder that I know is

turned down by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of funds if you feel like you're the type of founder that's going to be affected by that and it's

negatively going to impact what you can bring to the actual job every single day then try everything in your power to not

go the VC route because that's just the reality and I I say that as somebody that has raised money for a Syndicate

that's raising money for a fund like it's I get nose all the time all the

time I'm lucky I started my career at Salesforce where I made 100 cold calls day and I was hung up on and told to f

off every single day that such good practice such good practice of like it doesn't matter that's a you problem not a me problem um but if you're new to

getting rejected my biggest piece of advice is go to a retail store I do this all the time I actually told my

assistant to do this and ask for 15% off just ask for a discount and when they

look at you and say why would we give you a discount you say I don't know I would just want I just want a discount

most times they will say no ma'am we're not going to give you a discount you get a little rejected you learn how to deal

with that and then maybe best case scenario you get 15% off and you pay less money that you can save for something else like it's little things

like that in your daily life that's just opening you up to how can I take one step today to get better at rejection

because that's just naturally what you're going to face when you're raising VC so hotsmart rich Ventures is a Syndicate yeah what is that so A

Syndicate is essentially similar like it I'm investing other people's money the

difference is that I'm also a venture partner and adviser for V vanta Ventures so we have committed capital in a fund

at vanta so when we look at a deal we internally with an investment committee

make a decision whether this is a good investment or not and the capital has already been called by LPS limited

partners in the fund when you're doing a Syndicate investment same exact process

of doing diligence well deal sourcing doing diligence but then when you actually want to make an investment it's

a little bit of like the chicken before the egg I think that's the saying I'm really bad at those things um you may

want to invest you've done all this work you want to get an allocation in the round but you actually have to go out to

your LPS these are mostly High net worth individuals these are mostly people that are an accredited investor and then you

have to pitch them on why it's a good investment or not so the the tricky part is that you may want $100,000 of an

allocation in a round but you don't have $100,000 that you can 100% with

certainty say I want in so on super fast moving deals it's actually happened to

me I had a $100,000 allocation I couldn't move as quickly as the deal was moving good deals move fast bad deals

most often take a long time or you just don't have the right connections whatever so the problem it's a beautiful

way to get into investing the problem with it is that you don't have that committed Capital so you can get burned

and you can also burn Founders really easily because if you say I'm going to take 100,000 it's not up to you you you

have to be a really good salesperson to go and get $100,000 if you can't then

you've told a Founder you're going to give them $100,000 you don't have $100,000 to give them interesting okay I

have a couple of questions from the community and the first one breaks my heart but speaks to I think what so many

people are feeling right now why does it feel like it's impossible to get investors at the moment you know what's

something about me that I'll just admit I am not the smartest person in the room but overall the macro environment is

really concerning for a lot of investors and the big people that are giving

Venture this is something that you have to realize like LPS when I say LPS limited partners people usually don't know what that is those are like

especially if you're over a $30 million fund you can start to get interest from like institutions endowment funds um you

know not like the high net worth family offices that usually are the people you target for LPS if you're under $30

million those people are investing in their own portfolio of things they haven't seen the returns that they've

wanted to from Venture Capital so there isn't as much Capital that's being dumped into Venture Capital funds so

either they've blown through their fund and they are having trouble raising which a lot of Founders don't know so a

good question to ask VCS is are you currently investing how much what what fund are you investing out of and how

much of your fund have you deployed how much do you actually save for follow on those are really good questions to

understand is this a fund that even has the capital and what's follow on follow on is when if you take a position like I

was saying around B that's a great example you invest in the seed let's say maybe you put half a million dollars into it most good investors will secure

something called pra rights which means that you can just make sure you have your exact ownership amount in the next

round of funding so that you don't get diluted but some investors will take on bigger positions so it's a really good

question to understand how a VC is thinking about portfolio construction and there's no right way some funds

especially if they're super early stage knowing how hard it is to be a venture capitalist they will do like 30 initial

checks in and then anything that's a follow on they'll do via a syndicate with their same LP Network this Probably

sounds really complicated it's trying to break it down as easy as I can um we appreciate that but uh is it making

sense is making sense I'm following okay so I think um it's just good to

understand is this fund even able to make an investment right now because there's a lot of funds that don't even

have the capital and they're actually running syndicates to their LP base as a way to drum up more interest to see deal

flow into even investing into their next fund so you could think it's a you problem and it's actually a them problem

so that's really important to know so those are definitely questions I would go back save this episode and literally write down to ask

funds so that's one reason I think another thing is there's just so much uncertainty in the market with really

big macro trends like inflation obviously the political environment that we're coming into in in this year

there's a lot going on that is causing uncertainty for investors and I think there's just been a proliferation of so

many businesses are being started so many funds are out there and it is a numbers game like everything a true

sales funnel is like you might be getting rejected but how many funds are you actually talking to because it is a

matter of time before you get a yes like that is the reality and so it's just

kind of figuring out like I said before do you need to go the Venture Capital route because maybe it will take you 200

300 calls to find that yes you will find that yes but it might take you a really long time um but you're right like VCS

are not investing in consumer Brands like they once were there are some really strong VC funds that are but like

I said at vanta we see a thousand deals a year I think that they're and and

don't quote me on this number but it's like they're saying yes to and I'm not on the investment committee but they're saying yes to eight deal a year maybe

not even so think about the math right um and consumer is just a hard space

like we've seen like I was saying before when you track back the exit like

they've gotten completely demolished in the public market so it's really trying to find those success stories of the AC

Acquisitions in the spaces that you're in and then looking at that and making sure your valuation is reflective of

what success would look like for almost this hybrid between a private equity and a a venture capital fund I want to kind

of like switch tracks a little bit and talk about marketing because you obviously you're embedded in the space

you're advising different startups um but you've also yourself managed like you said 18 an $18 million marketing

budget what do you think a first of all like from that really higher level like how should Brands be allocating their

spend um at the big budget at the small budget and what are you seeing that's just like working driving traction now

today yeah so um at a super high level I was very lucky the startup that I worked at that we raised 120 million for um it

was actually illegal to do paid digital ads so I'm trained as a brand marketer

through truly like Community oriented approaches which is I think why I've been able to like really advise so well

because I actually don't know anything about digital marketing like if you were to ask me like how do I Target I'm like

I have no idea um I know there's really great tools out there but I think it's really around like I said Community

drien initiatives and letting the community be your biggest spokespeople

so that's like identifying who is like the key hero customer that you have

figuring out where they are where they spend time and how can you get in front of them and I think it's also around

identifying like where are the problems that they are facing that you can be a

painkiller for not a vitamin pill for so it's like if you're a water company at

the summer is the best time to have most of your marketing budget be spent versus the winter especially if you're on the East Coast because people aren't as like

wanting to quench their thirst in the winter they're doing that in the summer so it's like you want to allocate most

of your spend to field marketing sampling you know even um point of sale marketing when you're in the east coast

in the summer like it's little things like that um I think in general allocating a budget is a really tricky

thing because it's specific to the company and the category that you play in Beauty as an example it's like I

don't think POS marketing works as well as some other initiatives but that's totally different for food and beverage

so I think it's just about understanding your customer that's if like there's one big takeaway it's like who is the

customer when is the pain point because every business that's successful is solving a real problem they're not

making up problems it's not a nice to have that's why B like I never thought was a good investment like what problem

are you solving um so it's like really understanding your customer and then being able to serve them marketing when

they're going to feel that exact pain point that you are offering the solution for does that make sense that makes sense who do you think does that really

well H who does that really well I have a great answer okay

great summer Fridays like I just saw this brand come out of nowhere and they

did so many things right they did starting with one product people forget that they think it's this like huge

brand brand it is now but like they started with a jet leg mask they just did this amazing campaign in the airport

where they were um doing out of home when you're doing your bucket so there's like so much viral marketing you're

letting your customer market for you like that is the key they also do something that I love to do which is

super unexpected Partnerships and where you don't expect to see them because there's so much going on in the culture

is like guys right now attention is it's we're in the attention economy it's like how do you create attention and I think

think summer Fridays like doing a collab where you're popping up at a cafe it's like what makeup brand I mean glossy

actually did that back in the day but I think they do things that is they know exactly who they're speaking to they

know exactly what they're doing and they do things that yes you expect but you also don't expect so they're keeping the

customer excited about what's happening next whereas when you've trained your customer to expect this is our roll out

this is our map like people get bored easily it's human nature think about the vices that we have in the world it's

because humans like a little bit of drama and so it's like you have to kind of create that drama for them to feel

like they're excited to find a little scavenger hunt of what you're going to do next yeah I really like the idea of

just okay well understanding everything your where your customer hanging out what they're doing what other brands they're using and then not being afraid

to go out of your category totally like you're a beauty brand you don't have to just show up on the shelves of a beauty

retailer you don't have to just partner with other Beauty Brands like totally yeah that's really clever yeah okay so I

want to also talk about celebrities we've like kind of covered this this is something that I think you um have a lot

of expertise in I know that you've uh you broked a deal between safia Richie

and nude sticks like back in 2021 for her to be was it the chief Beauty officer I don't think it was even

2021 it was uh 2024 it was like 202 when did she get married oh recently really

recently it was right before then okay yeah okay so super recently how do you get a celebrity involved in

your brand like what does the structure of those kind of Partnerships and like what are your options to do that because

I don't know we're seeing so many like celebrity founded Brands and I love it when I see a celeb just like throw their

weight behind an independent woman Le company that already exists in the world I think that's really powerful how do we

get more celebrities to do that for existing Brands I think Haley Bieber is truly the road map

like what she did with Barbara Sturm was develop serious and I call it leaving Easter egg credibility where she as a

celebrity was training her customer and her audience to trust her in that space

and Barbara Sturm there is nobody I will say the difference between Beauty and skincare little tip is like skincare

people trust like the credentials more than they care about like The Branding and um kind of like the non-technical

founder in a way they really want a Derm an aesthetician somebody that has that credential so Barbara STM nobody better

right so Haley did this amazing work with them for I think it was like four or five years she was doing you know

webinars she was doing events she was the face of the brand so she really like to your point got behind a a a female

founded brand and really helped bring it to the mainstream not to say it was all Haley it definitely wasn't but there was

elements that she was able to leverage to take them to the next level once she had built that credibility and studied

the market and been in it and was able to probably hold her own you can tell how genuinely integrated and across the

business that Haley is and I think that is why I have so much respect for what road has done and truly it's her number

one priority it's what she's talking about 247 another really big thing I've learned and I think what makes it my

experience so unique and different is on the brand side running a startup I was in charge of um you know our celebrity

Talent Partnerships I worked for arguably some of the biggest celebrities in the world not only launching and

incubating their brands but helping them be the face of other brands and then I

have like you said like this background in venture capital and Equity so it's like I kind of bring all of that to

these experiences and I think what I I don't invest in 99% of celebrity brands

that come to me and I ask very specific questions like is the founder on a texting basis with the celebrity if

they're not never would I touch that deal because that is somebody slapping their face onto a company and they are

not integrated they actually don't have as much involvement as you think they would and longterm it will just never be

successful and if there like similarly if a founder and there's a few that can do it well Ryan Reynolds the rock or a

few that come to mind where they're involved in multiple businesses and they do an incredible job at multiple

businesses but when I start to see a celebrity like I just saw Carrie Washington maybe this is a little bit

contrarian like she's the face of a jewelry brand you know I I've seen her name pop around a few times like now

she's the new face of sticks which just rebranded to Wing's Health it's like how many Brands can you be a part of and I

think I also study where is the celebrity at in terms of the longevity of their career so if there's an artist

this is also pretty contrarian but most people would want to work with celebrities that are at the height of

their career they're on tour they're filming movies they're super busy that's actually something I probably would

steer away from you look at a Ryan Reynolds how much more time does he have to actually commit to his Brands a lot

more because he's not the heartthrob that we know we knew of him 10 years ago so I actually go after either not early

stage uh celebrities but celebrities that have relevancy but their focus isn't music or isn't film and that's why

I tend to prefer Creator founded Brands versus celebrity founded Brands because of just the dedication and the focus

that they'll have like I would evaluate any other founder how much time are you spending on this if I get a deal where

the founder is doing five businesses really concerning unless you're Catherine power and you've been able to

do them all really well like it's those are the unicorns yeah um what you were

saying about road before I was just on slack with the team and someone sent through that you know she just she's got

her popup in New York at the moment 5 hours people were lined up like to go in and experience that popup Haley's not in

there they're just going in to look at like the stuff that they can buy online and building that hype is so incredible

and so powerful so like yeah hats off to as they should like honestly I would I mean I don't I don't want like to wait

in lines I like have an adversion to them but if I was in New York just to even see the experience and I think

that's what people forget they're so focused on the outcome it's like focus on the experience both for you and for

your customer yeah okay I want to talk about um Hot Smart Rich M and how you've been growing

that because I think you know I'm in this world so I feel like I've watched you kind of like growing on Tik Tok and

then adding the newsletter and then kind of like building this business that is now a fully-fledged media

business for people who are kind of like oh my God where did Maggie sers come from like I just like looked up one day

and she's everywhere what do you think has been driving the growth or what have you actively been doing to kind of like

build that Community build that audience and build your media company yeah I'll I'll give you something that I've never

really admitted like I for a long time had a huge stigma around being

known as like a Creator or an influencer because that's really where my Hot Smart Rich Mission comes from my whole life I

was put in this box of like you talk a certain way you look a certain way you can't be smart are you kidding like and

I've worked so hard to overcome that and so even to this day like I have a huge

uh issue even with posting on Instagram like honestly I I have so much fear over

being taken the wrong way so that does not come across I I know and it's so funny because if you to ask my team like

they know how insecure I am around that which is so funny it's recently it's gotten a lot better but that's

definitely how it started and so I think for me whenever I get into those headspaces like I'm a huge journaler I

write every single morning I don't create for my critics my haters don't pay my bills I'm not one-dimensional I

am a multifunctional creative entrepreneur I have a value in my voice my opinion matters those are things I

say every single day to myself I'm going to write that down and like put it on my yeah it it honestly makes a huge

difference because whenever I feel fearful over like what are people going to think about this or that I just remember the why and I think that's

where Hot Smart Rich has come out of every and it's come out of nowhere and it's now everywhere because it's not for

me it's not to serve a purpose to feel like oh you know I'm an influencer now

it really C came from the girl that lost herself to build startups thinking that

people would do right by me mostly men leaders and that was never my case there was actually a story where there was a

period when I was living in the US and you'll relate to this as a immigrant as well where your Visa is tied to your

employer yeah and you know we were going back and forth over equity and compensation and I was taking on

responsibility and I always like cuz I killed myself like you know to do the right thing and work really hard and um

thought it was going to go one way and ultimately when there was an ultimatum over like you I deserve ve this this is

what I'm worth He said you're not so leave and I never thought that would happen to me I

had 60 days to get deported during covid with the Border closed or figure it out and get another visa and I think it was

through those experiences and losing myself for what like that that's where

every single day Hots smart rich is so much bigger than me it's like for this community and I think that's where if

you're building something it has to be bigger than you otherwise you know yes we're all

egotistical but that wears off at a certain point and it's like what's the difference between what you want and

what you yearn for you have to lean more towards like what do you really yearn for and those are typically things like

love and community and passion and not what car you drive or what house you live in yeah absolutely um what you were

saying just like resonates so much with me I mean I my background I was a fashion and Beauty editor for years I

built digital properties and audiences for literally some some of the biggest media companies in the world I launched companies in vertical in Australia for

the first time like did all of these things that now with hindsight and experience and having seen more about

how the world works I value that so much more yeah but I remember wanting to

start female founder World multiple times through my career and having like so many false starts like I would

publish a little bit and then stop and take it down and wait another year and da because I was just so mortified at

the idea of having this thing out in the world that didn't have the stamp of like

pop sugar or you know like another publisher or a title just having it fully out in the world as my brand my

business my content my voice um and that honestly I think it took me like six

years to get over that MH and don't you think now if like you know if a 25-year-old came to you and was like

what's a piece of advice that you have for a 25-year-old my piece of advice is always the fear of like it's like that Tik Tok voice the fear of looking stupid

is holding you back truly that is like I don't regret anything and I actually am very happy I

have 10 years like you were saying the experience that you value is like in that corporate environment in that startup world because how can you be and

we see this time and time again of these Tik Tok influencers that get super famous right out of college that's what

their job is and then they're now a lot of them are like going and getting a corporate job but like I'm actually like

really not sure if I want to be creating content around myself all the time and I think for me it's like there's a way to

do both but I my biggest not regret but just push for people that are that 25y

old or that 35y old or that 55y old wherever you are in your kind of like self-reflective journey of being

authentically yourself it's truly that it's like you feeling fearful of looking

stupid is only because it's new when you get traction when you are everywhere the

amount of people that reach out to me to promote something that once made fun of me and sent my videos around it's like

like wow it's shocking and you just have to keep going and anybody that tells you

like even Sir Richard Branson back to the podcast he was on yesterday they had a massive failure going up against

Coca-Cola and Pepsi trying to create virgin soda do you think that that is what he's focusing on no he's focusing

on getting to space like he is not even thinking about the point like Roger Federer he says that he's like

once the point's over it's over it's in the past we're focused on the future failures and natural part of business so

you just have to kind of get over it and keep going amazing Maggie this has been incredible thank you so much I'm going to end the show on that point and we're

going to have a follow-up episode where we talk all about your resource recommendations later this week thank

you so much for coming on female found thank you for having me one of my favorite conversations I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick

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