Do It Scared! Starting and Growing a Business. Uncut with Brittney Saunders
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This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura. And I'm very excited to introduce today's guest in the flesh. It's definitely not the first time we have spoken to her, but the last time we spoke to her, unfortunately, wasn't in the same room. It was over the interwebs, which...

It's always better when you can vibe. Still good. Don't poo-poo that episode. Go back and listen to it. Well, it's Brittany Saunders, and she is one of the most impressive young female entrepreneurs, I would say, in Aussie business. You might know her from one of our episodes, but also from YouTube, her huge social media following, or her brand, Fate the Label, which is

absolutely going gangbusters. She's had cafes, she's got podcasts, she's one of those people that just puts her finger in every single pie and I'm very, very jealous. But we're here today to talk about her brand new book, Just Getting Started, which is an unfiltered look at the wild ride of building businesses from the ground up, making big mistakes and staying true to your vision. Already having so many fingers in so many pies and then you just decide to become an author as well. Yeah, I just thought I didn't have enough

on. I'm not busy enough. But you know what? Okay. So we have covered so much with you and also Britt, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me back. Thanks for coming back. It's good to be here in the flesh this time though. Yeah. So we can hug you and touch you in real life. Yeah. No, but we've covered so much on that. We did that episode in May, 2023. If anyone wants to go back and listen to it, that was really a deep dive into like how you started Fate, the reasons behind it, the things that makes Fate

stand out in comparison to other brands in the Australian fashion industry. Also, we talked about fat phobia in the fashion industry. There was so much in that. And you also joined us at our live show as well. So I feel like we've had a lot of Brittany over the last couple of years, but this is something and what you've put out into the world around business and being a female entrepreneur in the industry and growing that from scratch.

And I think that the thing that's so interesting about your journey to this is that it's not like you went to business school and took a traditional route. You know, there's a lot of like life lessons that come along the way. Yes. Before we get unpacking on all of what you have been creating over the last couple of years, do you have an Axelion filter for us? I got stuck on this.

I was stuck on this last time and I'm stuck on it again. You can tell the Brisbane show won. There was only 2,000 people there, so there's going to be a lot. I feel like I had two on that live show night. I can't remember what the other one was, but one of them was I jumped in a pool with a pad on. I would have been like 15, so it was not recent. And you didn't know the aftermath of what was going to happen? Oh, like I just forgot I had a pad on and then I could feel it filling up and then I'm like, oh, shit, I had to get out of there. Is this like in front of?

Like, were you at a party? No, it was at, like, our family home when we were younger and there was, like – I think we had friends over. So I jumped out quickly. You know what's worse? You just reminded me. I just remember – I reckon everyone's done this at some point. I remember being at a friend's house or might have even been my boyfriend when I was, like, 14. Yeah.

I remember taking my tampon out to change it, wrapping it in the toilet paper, putting the other one in, but not putting it in the bin. You know when you've walked away later and you realise you've like left it on the sink or the top of the – Oh, yeah, no. And it's that thought of being like, oh, my God. Like his mum's going to find that because he's never cleaned a bathroom in his life. His mum's had to have put it in the bin. Like, fuck. We've all done that. Every single person has a period story. I'll never forget when I was at the beach and my 18-year-old boyfriend or 17, however old he was, he was like, you've got a string hanging out. Oh, no.

pulled my, what he thought was my bikini string and pulled my tampon out. No, no, no. If we ever want to have a moment where someone wants to die on the spot, that was me. Britt, I mean, firstly, congratulations on the book. It's such a huge effort to go from, I mean, you can know all the things that there are to know about the industry that you work in, but then to put pen to paper and actually write about it is a whole separate kettle of fish. What was the reasoning for wanting to write the book in the first place? Funnily enough, my partner, AJ, has been saying to me for years,

a lot of years, like you should write a book. And I would always go, oh, like, what would I write about? And he's like, everything that you've done. Yeah. So it was something that he had always spoke to me about. And then it was just over two years ago now that I got an email in my inbox from the Booktopia team. And they're like, hey, like we're looking for new talent to kind of write books with us. Would you like to do it? And I was like, you know what? Yes.

I will do it. That's a really fast turnaround on a book. Two years? Yeah. Oh, it took two years. Yeah. No, it's a bit slower. You could have got a regular one. I was being super slow with it. And so I had the first couple of calls with them and like, I've never written a book, so I have no idea how to do anything. I don't know how this works.

And I remember I had the first few like Zoom calls with the team and we decided it would be kind of like a memoir and a bit of a business book all in one and like a diary. And after those first few calls, the guys that I'd been chatting with were like, all right, well, we'll wait for the first draft to come through. And then I was like, what? Like, oh, like you just want me to write it? And they're like, yeah.

That's what happens. Because I'd never done it, I thought maybe I would like come down to Sydney and I'd sit down with someone and do a big five-hour interview so they could get to know me, then they would help me, which I'm sure if I asked, they would have offered like to have someone help write it. But they're like, just kick me in the deep end. We'll see the first draft when you send it over. Then they get it and they're like, holy shit. Okay, we'll get you in Sydney. We'll do the sit down. We'll go through the chapter structures. That's why I was worried.

So I started writing the chapters and I made like a Google doc or whatever and shared it with them so they could see what I was doing. So then as I was writing, they were like making little comments and notes to me or like fixing up my punctuation or whatever. Well, before we get into that, because obviously that's what we're here to talk about. For anyone that hasn't heard our episode with you or might not have heard your own podcast, give us the little elevator pitch on how you got into business after dropping out of school,

moving out of home, like how did you find yourself there? Because you were like a vlogger. You were a YouTube vlogger. Yeah. Looking back now, there was so many things that I did throughout my teens or even earlier that were signs that I was always destined to be an entrepreneur. I didn't grow up with like the greatest parents. I never had anyone tell me like I should have goals or like I should try hard in school or anything. So from a young age, I was just kind of forced to figure stuff out on my own. And I think that's one of my biggest strengths is

in where I'm at now is because I didn't have any guidance or anyone saying, try hard or go to uni or you should do this. I guess I've kind of used that as a positive thing and it's allowed me to be able to think freely. But just from when I was a little kid, I was always trying to do something of my own and I just thought it was hobbies, like setting up a little stall out the front of my house to try and sell like my toys or whatever. I don't think kids do that anymore, by the way. I think now there's a lot of like stranger danger. It's a bit dangerous, yeah. But I was

I did lemonade. I did lemonade and cookies. Lemonade, we did that. I just bought them from the store and upsold them. Nice. I think what I did after Easter one time, selling all my leftover chocolate. Yeah, brilliant. Waste not, want not. Yeah. And so there was lots of little things like that that I did. And then obviously I discovered YouTube when I was in high school, which I feel like ever

Everyone knows by now, maybe some people who have discovered me more recently, but I discovered YouTube in high school and I thought, that looks great. I want to give that a go. And so I started making YouTube videos in high school, just sitting in my room at home by myself, talking to myself and

And to cut a long story short, I dropped out of school because I just wanted to work. I just wanted to earn money. And I worked in over 20 jobs from the ages of 14 to 21, all the while trying all these little business ventures, mobile spray tanning, makeup. I tried to decorate phone cases and sell them on Facebook. Like I tried everything and anything. I had coffee scrubs at one point, just trying

to sell stuff and make stuff. And then by the time I was 21 and I'd worked in every industry possible because I just hated every job that I got and nothing made me happy. I grew that YouTube channel to 80,000 subscribers, which was a big deal back then. It was huge. You were like an early adapter. Yeah. It was before the word influencer was a thing. It was when Instagram was just starting. So then I was organically building this Instagram following. And then I threw in my full-time job at the age of 21 and thought, I'm going to make this YouTube thing my job. And I haven't looked

back. It's interesting because I think the thing about what sets you apart in business is that there's people who run small businesses, right? Like that's like a thing that a lot of women are getting into creating small businesses. There's a very big difference between being someone who works in small business or works in medium-sized business on one specific thing versus someone who has an entrepreneurial spirit, who can like apply the same methods of business, but roll it out on a

or roll it out on Fate the Label or roll it out on their social media. And that's the thing about, it's interesting to sort of say, oh, like you started off as an influencer, but doing it well, that's already a business. Like that has to be approached with the same sort of mechanics of consistency and how you're going to structure your content, how you're going to like put a schedule together, like all of those things that kind of just seem like, oh, someone just gets a

Phone and does it. I don't think you could, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think we can call you a small business owner anymore, can we? No, not at all. Because you're far beyond a small business owner. Yeah, it was small once upon a time and I talk about that a lot on my podcast because I was there at one stage but yeah, now it's... A big business. Yeah, it's big. Yeah.

It really is. But really, I think that the rules apply in terms of like how you've managed to replicate this over so many different types of businesses. Yes. And I learned it all. Well, I learned a lot of it from starting that YouTube channel, like the discipline and the consistency of posting. Like then, yeah, I've applied that in my businesses. And yeah.

I think that has been one of my biggest strengths in building Fate to where it is today is just those skills that I learned from building that YouTube channel. Because the YouTube channel eventually got to a million subscribers when I was 24. And then it was around then that I launched Fate. And I obviously had just learned, you know, how to build an audience online. So then I could like take that and then build out our Fate social media using those same skills that YouTube taught me.

How do you figure out, because I think the big thing when people make that transition, how do you figure out the things that you want to keep that are your jobs to do? Like the hats that you're going to wear and the things that you're going to give away to other people so that you can work on your business rather than working in your business? Oh, it's one of the hardest things to do. And I think all business owners will go through that period if their business is growing and they don't know anything.

what to hold on to and what to let go. And also like you can become quite controlling in business as well and not want to let go. And I remember maybe four years ago, I was finding myself in that sort of situation where fate was going from this little thing where I was very hands-on to me recognizing that I needed to hire more people and then teach them how to do all these things.

that I once loved doing because when I started Fate, I was doing everything myself. Totally. Packing the orders, doing the emails, doing the returns. I taught myself how to do e-com photography. I'd...

message friends of friends say, can your sister come model for me? And then I'd shoot, like you do everything. And when you're young and it's your kind of first proper business, it is hard to get to that stage where, okay, maybe I don't need to be doing the customer service emails anymore, even though you like hold on to it for some reason. And I really did struggle like a few years back, like delegating and letting go just because you

you get into the mindset of it's all right, I'll do it. It took me two seconds. Totally. And I'm sure you could relate with your business. Totally. But you also have to get to a point where like you've got to, the only way to scale is to get people and you can do the job better than you can do it. And I think it's just coming to terms with that and acknowledging that your business isn't always going to be the same. And you can very well stay doing the same things and like just being involved in every part of the operation of every single bit of the business, but then the business will stay the same. It just depends. Like if you want to grow it, you've got to like

hand shit away and trust people, which is difficult. Some of the early chapters in your book, I mean, one is titled Hat Wehrer for anybody that is interested in going to read a little bit more about the delegating, but there's another one called Google It, which seems pretty self-explanatory. And do you want to know something funny too? As I wrote the book and was doing all the chapters and I did them

like all out of order as well. Like I would just go, I want to do a chapter about this. And so I'd write it and then I'd decide later where in the book it was going to go. Like I didn't write the book in order. So if it seems out of order, that's why. And so as I had the Google doc happening and I was writing all of these chapters, I

all the titles. I just put them in there as like a draft, like Google it, hat wearer. Like I just, and I thought, oh, down the track, we'll give them a better title. No, they're all still the original. Like they didn't change it at all. They're like, no, we love them. Yeah. And I'm like, oh,

Like, oh, I just put that there like because that's what – I don't know. Anyway, the book's fucking hilarious. But it seems like such a – I mean, Google, it seems like such a really basic, obvious thing. But when Laura and I even started this podcast, like six years ago, we talked often about the fact that we literally Googled how to start a podcast. And then you Google every – I was Googling how to do a contract. Yeah. Like every single thing that we did –

We didn't know anyone in the industry and we had to learn it ourselves. I've Googled everything that I know. Like I've never done a course. I never went to uni. I didn't finish school. It's Google. Yeah, I've Googled everything. So there's a whole chapter in there because it's one of the questions that I'll get asked. Like, how did you learn how to do all this stuff that you do? I literally just Googled it. Totally. Today in 2025, I'm still Googling shit every day. Do you use any consultancy? Like do you have now with the size of the business of where it is, do you have any sort of consultancy programs that you use for your staff or is everything kind of run by top down?

Yeah, everything's run top down. And like we have a lot of programs now that we use and like internal HR programs and everything. But we're still like just figuring this shit out as we go, if I'm being honest. We're making shit up every day. And I always go, we're just girls. Like we're just figuring this out. We're just girls. One thing I think is interesting that you do speak about is like not putting your own name in your business name. And that is interesting because you –

you have a name that people know. You have a huge following that people can associate a name with. Why do you think it's so important not to have your name in your business name? I think obviously there's some super successful businesses and brands out there that have the founder's name in it when you think, you know, all the Charlotte Tilbury's and like all those big brands. But when I was starting Fate, I was like. Lorna Jane. Yeah, like I was 23 or something when this idea came about. And I just straight away thought, I don't want it to be called Brittany Saunders the Label.

First of all, I don't think that sounds very good. Saunders, not when you say it like that. And again, like I had no idea about business. I just dabbled in things over the years. But I just thought, I don't want this to be completely tied to me. Yeah.

And I'm glad that I did that. And, you know, now that I'm so much further into my business journey, like I speak with other founders and they talk about what's your exit strategy? Like, how are you going to get out of this? How are you going to sell it? Yeah. What are you going to sell it for? And not that I have any intention of selling it, but I don't know. Back then I must have thought one day this might be so big that I sell it. And then it's really hard to sell a business if your name is in it. There's two types of businesses though, from my observation. Like there's your businesses like Zimmerman, for example, which is the family name of the

sisters who designed Zimmerman, but people don't see Zimmerman as synonymous with the designers. Well, because they weren't uber famous first. Well, it's not that. It's more so the fact that they didn't build the brand around their person. Whereas like what we have been and discovered now in terms of social media is content creator led. So creator led content is like the absolute hero of how to get people to engage with the brand.

Samantha Wills is a really good example of sort of an early adopter of this. She was a content creator also, creator-led content with the brand name. But then it came to a place of selling it or she wanted to fold the brand. But she was like, well, I can't sell it because my name is attached to it. So it really depends on how you run your business. But if you're going to be the face of it as well as the name of it, you put yourself in a position where you can actually never sell it.

And that's a problem. The hard thing is, and I think when people are starting businesses is they, and I was the same, you don't think that far ahead. No, of course not. Like when I was starting Fate, like for some reason I didn't want my name in it, which I'm glad, but I never had massive dreams for Fate. Like people would look at Fate now and think, oh, holy shit, she must have had some massive goals. No, I was just a girl. I thought, yeah, I'm going to start this business. I didn't have any dreams to have retail stores and 70 staff and the size range that we have now. Like that's all just happened naturally because when you start a small business, you have a small mindset. Right.

I didn't think beyond just getting it started in my shed. When you – because, I mean, you've approached retail in kind of a unique way. A lot of people are pushing everything online now and people are closing their retail stores, whereas you're opening bricks and mortar stores at a rate that's rapid, more rapid than what I've ever seen anyone do it. How have you found that bricks and mortar has facilitated and helped your online presence? I think it has, like –

It's been amazing for us. And it's funny that you say that. Like so many people have said to me over the last couple of years, like retail's dying, retail's dead. And we are seeing all of these retail giants collapsing. Like so many, every day I get on Facebook and it's like, Gaines West is going under, like.

It's crazy and it is scary. But I also at the same time have seen a lot of conversation around like with the rise of AI and everything being so electronic and digital these days that I don't know, people are maybe going to have a bit of a shift and want more of a human interaction.

just because you get so frustrated sometimes like with how everything is so robotic. I also think it's a bit of a changing of the guards because traditionally, like traditional retail as in like bricks and mortar stores was like your Myers, your David Jones. You know, you were really limited unless you were like a big cotton on body or a Supra or something. You couldn't afford to have a store in a Westfields firstly. And some of the like the startup brands or Australian brands just didn't have the size or scalability to be able to have those types of stores. Mm-hmm.

And so like we were in Westfield at a really interesting time where loads of stuff were closing. And the reason for that was because they hadn't jumped on online fast enough. Yeah. They didn't have robust online presence. They had really robust bricks and mortar presence, but then people weren't shopping in the same way. And what's happened over like the last 10 years is like now you have your brands like Zulu and Zephyr, obviously Fate. They've all got their bricks and mortar stores, but their online presence is so robust that they both support.

yeah like the social media will bring people in the store and then you have people saying I saw your TikTok and here I am like in person totally if you can create a great product and then have beautiful staff and lovely welcoming service and no pressure to make a sale like you've created like a really enjoyable experience so absolutely how many stores do you have now five five and you have plans to continue taking over the world I have

I mean, again, I had no plans with fate when I started it. So the fact that we even have five stores is just mind blowing to me. Right now, like this year, this is the first time in three years that I haven't been working on our next store. I kind of put the brakes on a little bit at the end of last year and said, I just want to make sure that

The foundations are strong across the whole company before we go and like do any more because I think it's so easy for founders to get caught up in the growth and like rat race of – and it's such a thrill like to just be like opening store, five, six, seven, eight. And you see all these brands like we've got 20 stores. Just to be able to say we've got 20 stores. Yeah, and it's like thrilling honestly. It's like –

Like you just get addicted to it. Not that I'm addicted to drugs. Just putting that out there. I'm addicted to stores. Yeah. But I'm also just really mindful that like fate has already grown so much bigger than I ever could have imagined. But I'm still very much like got my fingers in every pie across the whole business and I never want it to get worse.

beyond my control. So we've kind of like slowed down intentionally this year. Well, there also comes a tipping point, right? Where you're like, you're making profit, but you're spending all the profit to continue to grow. And so you never have this rebalancing because you're like, it's coming in, it's going out, open store, we're upstaffing, we're doing this. And like the foundations are there and the growth is incredible. But also like that's not a sustainable model unless you have time to like get on top of it again. Yeah. And I think a lot of

founders can get addicted to just continuing to grow and not like just being happy with like where you're at. So that's what I've been doing a lot of this year is just like slowing down a bit, making sure like everything is like just everything from like our internal staffing warehouse. Like we've looked at everything in a way that we haven't really had a chance to over the last few years because it's just been go, go, go.

And just like being happy with where we're at and not always thinking about the next thing that we're doing and instead just being like, we're doing fucking great.

Well, I think it's important from the outset, a lot of people, if they don't know like the intricacies of your story, it's very easy to look at you and be like far out. Like she's so successful. She's killing it. She's got, you know, everything going for her, which you absolutely do, but it wasn't always the case. And I think it's really important to highlight some of the failures or the mistakes that you've made along the way to really push the fact that like these overnight successes are not overnight successes. It's not overnight. It's so

long. Yeah. But you had quite a few like early issues financially and some expensive lessons to be learned with like importing goods and getting things through customs. Talk us through some of those earlier mistakes and lessons that you learned. Oh, there's so many. Where do I start? I'm still making mistakes every day. One of the first financial fuck ups that I made was actually when I was full-time influencing. And again, like I didn't have like any parents around to tell me

what to do. So I had no idea how to do tax. And then obviously I'd dropped out of school and I'd been working all different kinds of jobs. And so I would get my pay slip and the tax was done for me. And so then I started earning all this money on YouTube and started doing brand deals and everything. And I'd moved to Sydney. I was just living by myself. I had no one to tell me, now that you're self-employed, you should put money aside for tax and you need to get an accountant. I had no one

ever tell me that. It's a rude shock, although, when you figure out how much you owe the first time. Well, because you don't learn it at school either. No. Like, like badger theory. I had no idea. And so I think I went two years there when I started earning a shit ton of money, like on Instagram and YouTube, when I didn't do my tax for two years. And then I got a call off the ATO and I owed like $100,000 or like just over. And then I was like, I'm going to jail. Like, I thought I was going to get locked. I thought I was going to get locked.

to get locked up. But then it was then that I got an accountant and paid the money off. And luckily, like I'd saved a lot of money too. Like, because back in the 2016, like everyone was getting all the designer things and it was like, I don't know, the influencer era. Yeah, for sure. But I'd luckily like put most of the money, like I'd had most of the money in my bank. So I was able to pay that off quickly. And then...

Another one, which I think we spoke about on the podcast that we did back in 2023, was just like when we started making swimwear and then we were importing it and we had to fill out some like customs declaration thing. And again, I'm just a girl. I'm just figuring this out. You have to like declare the value of the goods. And so I put the retail value. Oh.

Oh, the import taxes. Yeah. Whereas most businesses put like way less. Yeah. I was like, oh, I'll be honest. If I sell all this, I'm going to make $80,000. So here I am. I put $80,000. So then I think I got taxed.

eight grand or something and then because I was none the wiser I was like jeez that's expensive just kept doing it I paid it anyway but then I eventually worked out you just meant to put like the cost of goods like what it cost me to buy not if I was to sell it all fucking idiot not your profit yeah I know but I just paid I was like oh wow that's expensive but this is

the thing do you know what though what I love about your social media and I said this to you we had you on the show last time is how you manage to turn even like the current fuck-ups into like success stories or you turn them into brand building moments so like I remember watching one where you receive stock and something was wrong with it I can't remember we made like these corset tops out of this like kind of silky material

And the straps were like too long for some people or maybe they would fit other people perfectly. And it was my fault. Like we didn't put an adjustable slider on the strap because we just wanted it to be like a seamless kind of corset.

And so I was like, well, let's just give them away for free. And so we just made a video like we do in the warehouse. I just said, look, we've got these corsets in four different colors and we're just placing them in orders randomly this week. And I just made a little, I guess, educational video to be like, sometimes you fuck stuff up in business. Yeah.

And then to my surprise, like we didn't say, you know, place an order and hope that you'll get one. Like I just shared these corsets. Then the orders just came flooding in on the website. We had people emailing, DMing, please, I need this size and this color. And it just turned into this whole massive thing. And the video like went...

kind of viral. And I was like, oh. But it's because it's so humbling because you don't see brands do that. That's the thing, right? Like brands don't want to talk about when they make mistakes. Brands want to like cover that shit up and be like, we're perfect. Yeah. And seamless. And there's something really humanizing about taking on that kind of

That like, oh, well, not everything goes to plan. Honestly, in business, like nothing is ever perfect. And I think if you go into business thinking that it's always going to be perfect, you're going to be in for a rude shock because there's something going wrong every single day. And that's just part of it. You've mentioned a couple of times in this chat that you didn't have necessarily parental support around you or people who you were able to go and speak to to get advice or guidance. But your English teacher had such a lasting impact on you. Yes. So as I mentioned earlier, I started my YouTube channel

when I was in high school and I was the only kid in the whole school with a YouTube channel because this was so new like YouTubers were barely a thing and obviously naturally all the kids in my school found out about it and then it's a bit weird yeah and look my videos were weird so I kind of got to give them that what was your angle early on like I was doing like we dancing videos like Kesha music videos like really embarrassing quite niche yeah well Kesha

Well, Kesha was really popular back then. It was cool to make like a music video and all little jump cuts. And so obviously all the kids in my school knew about it and then it became like a talk of the school and then the teachers got involved and the principal got involved and then there was – I had to go to the principal's office and it was like, you need to take these videos down because everyone's talking about them. Which is so extreme. I know. But it was like –

I think it's because I was the only one doing it and the teachers were like, what are you doing? You're an outlier. Yeah. And they probably didn't want you to get bullied as well. That as well. They were also like, I don't know what you're doing, but it's not advised. I was quite upset. And I remember crying to my English teacher.

Who was always so nice. Like, I just loved her. And she would say, like, fuck those little bitches. Like, you know, she would just in quiet, like, say that to me. It's so... I don't know if she used that word because I don't want to get her in trouble. No. But she would say, like, screw them. Like, you know. You do you. And then so...

I always remembered her saying that to me and I didn't stop with the videos. I just, I kept going with them. And then earlier this year, like maybe in February, like I dropped out of school. I don't know what year, 2009. I was sitting at the pub having dinner with AJ and I had like a tap on my shoulder and it was my English teacher. And she was like, oh my God. She's like, do you remember me? I was like, of course I do. And we just had this really special moment. And she's like, let's get a photo.

get a photo? And she was like hugging me and cuddling me. And she's like followed, you know, what I've been doing online. She's like, I'm so proud of you. I remember those kids in school and look at everything you've done. And so we got this special little photo together and I was like, oh my God, I love her. Can you be my mom? That's so sweet. Can you be my mom? Yes.

And so then, yeah, when I launched the book, like I made this cute little carousel of like photos and then I shared the photo of her and I and then she commented on it like the nicest thing. And then that was really nice because I must have like a lot of teachers following me and then I had them all reaching out saying, you've just validated me that like I'm going to leave a positive impact on at least one kid. Yeah. It's funny because we don't realise the impact that just you're

as one person can have on somebody else. Like that teacher would have never thought that that one conversation with a young student would change the direction of your entire life. And she remembered it too. Like she was the one that brought it up to me at the pub and I was like, oh, you remember that? She's like, yes. Yes.

So yeah, you can just, anyone can leave such an impact on one person in one conversation. It is hard to overcome. Maybe it's easier now because we're seeing a lot more of it and every second person is starting their own businesses, but it wasn't always the case. Back in the day, even when we started this podcast, which was only six years ago, I

I remember I was just working in a hospital and I remember being mortified that my co-workers knew I was doing it. Like I tried to hide it from them because I thought how embarrassing that I'm trying. Good job because you posted all over Instagram. But I didn't. I remember the internal struggle of wanting to,

chase a dream that was something unique and different and an outlier, but also managing that with my normal nine to five, like going to work in scrubs, but then having a podcast where I'm talking about sex that those same people in the scrubs can listen to was really mortifying. And I remember being like, when someone said, oh, are you doing a podcast?

I was like, oh, it's just this little thing. Don't listen to it. Like, whatever. Yeah, it's in my friend. Yeah, but it's really hard to go against the grain sometimes. Yes. And, like, when all of your, like, hats off to you when all of you are being bullied at school for trying to do something and you didn't stop doing it. Like, I think that that is the important lesson there. Yeah, exactly right. What's it like working with your husband, AJ? Well, he's not.

Husband. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I swear you might have said this last time too. I didn't. You didn't. It's such a throwaway to me to any long-term relationship. You just say husband. What's it like working with and living with and doing literally everything and having such an intricate life with your partner? Yeah, I've had a lot of people ask me this over the years. I've had a lot of people say I could never do that. We would rip each other's heads off, which is so fair. And I honestly think it just comes down to us being

Like it just works for us and it doesn't work for everyone. And we're really lucky. And-

AJ and I, when we first met and started dating, that's when I was about to launch Fate. So I'd already gotten it to the point of about to launch. And so he came to the launch party. We did a launch party in Sydney with influencers and everything eight years ago now. And he was there and I just always laugh at the thought of him being there. And he must have just thought, what the fuck is this? What am I actually doing? I'm like, come to this launch party. I'm starting this business, you know? So he was there for the launch party and-

from day dot like he's obviously been on the journey with me but he was an electrician when we first started dating but he was always super helpful and he would finish work at like two and like he moved into my house pretty quick because he was like he'd been working away and then he was back at his parents so like he just kept bringing clothes over and then all of a sudden he never went yeah and I'm like it's too late now like I can't tell him to leave you know you still can't tell him yeah it's so awkward now and

And so he would come home every afternoon and I hired my first employee like in my house to like help me like pack the orders and stuff, which is so fucking random as well. Can you imagine? Hey, mum, I got a new job. Oh, what is it doing? Congrats. Oh, just working with this girl in her shed. Like she's just started this little thing. So random. But he would come home and he would help us like in the shed. And so it was like that for the first few years of fate. Like AJ was just like the unofficial employee. He would always come and help us. Did you ever pay him? No. No.

No. Make trades fail. And so then like we moved out of the shed into our first little commercial warehouse. And again, like he'd finished work and come and help the girls and I. He was just the unofficial employee for so many years. And he just got to a point where he really took a liking to, like when we kind of had a proper little warehouse set up, like he loved setting it all up and being amongst it. So he started to just, like he went four days electrical one day with us.

and then two days with us. And then it got to the point where he like just threw in his job, which was so big of him because that's all he's ever done. Like he'd left school, did his apprenticeship and then just worked as an electrician. And also going from that to working in women's fashion is just a total pivot. Absolutely. And it was a big thing for him to do because he was very much in the mindset of like, no, I'm an electrician and that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life because it was his family's business. Yeah.

And we've never looked back and like he absolutely loves it. He started like in our warehouse and now he's the CFO and like does all of our finances and the books and the pays and all that stuff. And it just works for us. It also works for us because yes, we work together, but like we don't work side by side. Like we're not sitting at a desk together all day. Like we're

We have our days completely separate and then we are home in the afternoon. I'm like, what did you do today? Because like we're just working in different areas of the business. I think if we were working side by side five days a week, eight hours a day, then yeah, sure, that would test us. And I think that that's probably the thing that's like the big difference is people when they look in, they're like, oh, you guys like together doing everything. It's like, no, we have very individual. We're not like lifting boxes together and like going up ladders together. Like kissing over the head.

the box. Yeah, no, we don't. We do work together. And if there's a task that needs to be done where it's like teamwork, we work really well together, but we're not working like without hands in each other's pockets. Yeah. And there's also like a sense of like, I know you can do your job and so I don't have to micromanage you to do it. So therefore you go do that. Yeah. I'll do this and then we can come together. And it's crazy. We always say this, like AJ is just

he does all of our finances, but he also does the warehouse and he does all the maintenance. Like he does everything. And it's so funny that this business that I started so long ago, really selfishly for myself.

is now so beyond that and, like, we couldn't do it without AJ now. Like, I've always said, God forbid, if something was to happen to AJ and I, he's got to stay in fate somehow because, like, we literally couldn't do it without AJ. Like, if he was to walk out of my life, which he never will because I'm so good. Because I pay his bills. Yeah. Like, I don't know what the fuck I'd do. Yeah. Yeah.

How do you manage like the culture of your company? When you're like growing so rapidly, you're hiring new people, how do you approach culture internally to keep it something that's like, you know, star-facing and building that from the ground up? We've just had to put like some really –

back to foundations, like solid foundations and strong management. Because yeah, like not that long ago it was just me and then the girls, you know, but now like everyone has a boss that is not me. And like, I'm at the point now where like, I'm not really everyone's boss anymore. Like I just work with our kind of, I don't like to like call it a hierarchy or anything, but like I work with, I guess, upper management and then they've got teams underneath them. So it's just us

making strategical hires or growing people within the company into management positions so that there's just like a nice structure and flow there. It's taken a long time to get to that point because the business has grown so quickly that we've had to kind of keep up with it internally as well, like making sure that we've got that solid structure in place. What have you learned about hiring along the way in terms of friends, family, how, who you hire? Um,

I could do a whole episode about that. But to put it in a nutshell, thinking back to when I started Fate or when anyone first starts a business, you don't take it seriously yourself because it's so new. And again, like when I started Fate, it was just this fun little idea. Like I'd tried a million other things by that point, like selling my Easter eggs. So it's all just like fun and games. And in those early days, I just was so excited that I just hired like friends. I was like, yeah, this will be so fun. We'll be able to work together.

It's really hard to manage that. Yeah. I mean, in my early 20s, I'd never had a job for more than six months. Like I'd never been a manager. Like I'd never gotten a promotion. So I had zero management experience. And so in those early days, I did hire like friends of friends and family friends and whatever. And it's not to say like it wasn't great at the time. Like that was good at the time for me. But I...

I, again, didn't think beyond that moment and I didn't think, hang on a second, if I want to turn this into something big, is hiring my friends and my family the best decision for me and the business? And it's not. It's never the best answer for anyone. It also can be really hard to manage because when there's personal relationship, like it's harder to say, hey, I'm not happy with how this has been done. Oh, it's impossible. It's impossible because those boundaries are not there. The lines are so blurred. Totally.

So like, yeah, the first like two to three years of Fade, I did make a lot of wrong hires, but it's not to say that it was wrong at the time. I just had to do that to learn for the future. Hang on a second. Like it's probably not the best that you hire friends and family friends or your friend's cousin or whatever, because if you want this to turn into a bigger business, you're going to need to hire people that are actually serious about your business. And one day you're going to have to fire your friends and that sucks. Yeah. I don't have any more shifts for you, but I love you. I

I know. See you tomorrow at dinner. Oh, yeah. That was the worst. You like very iconically describe yourself as a cash grabber. Firstly, for anyone who might not be familiar. Yes. That might need some explaining. But also you talk about why starting a business for the purpose of just making money should not be like one's main priority. So I call myself cash grabber and like people that have followed me for many years call me cash grabber. And it's just because one time like three years ago I

Once upon a time. It was this one time. It was one time. One person. So yeah, one person sent me a DM when I was talking about something that we were doing. And this woman said, you're such a cash grabber. Like as if though a woman starting businesses and trying to do something for herself is a bad thing. And so I remember getting on my story and just saying, look at this fucking idiot calling me a cash grabber.

But you know what? I am a cash grabber. And what's so bad about a woman trying to make some money for herself and start businesses. So that's where the cash grabber thing comes from. And just ever since then, that's what I call myself. I often, well, not often, but like every now and then I'm like, I wonder if that person still follows me or if she got like too butthurt by me laughing on my story. You've grabbed too much cash, babe. She's off it. And so that's where cash grabber comes from. And I

I guess people can start businesses for a multitude of different reasons. Like they want to work for themselves. They want to make cash. They want to make millions of dollars. But of course we all want to make cash. You have to to survive. Exactly. But I think because my whole career has been so like, I want to say it's been really organic because it started from those YouTube videos and it's been, you know, almost 15 years or something that I've been making content online and my whole business journey has been so organic and

The money side of it was never my motivator and I think that's why I've been able to get to where I am now.

Because, I don't know, I've just enjoyed every step of the way. And I think if someone wants to start a business, and I think it would be especially hard in 2025, like seeing how many businesses there are now. And like when I started, there was no such thing as like a business on Instagram. Yeah. So I just did it out of like passion for wanting to do something of my own. And I think if money is your number one motivator, by all means, like go for gold. Like if your dream is to be a millionaire, a billionaire, go for gold. But I think...

People can have that as their goal and not understand like the work that it's going to take to get to that point and maybe be disappointed. And I just think it would be hard if money was the number one motivator because, you know, what if you go into a low period? What if you're not making sales? Then you're feeling shit about yourself when there's like so much more to business than just making money. It's so interesting. I can't remember this guy's name, but he's no one famous, but he was just a businessman that started, he had a startup over in like San Fran. It was acquired for business.

of millions of dollars. And he did a post saying, you know, like, this is how much I made. I never have to work again. My friends don't have to work again. My family doesn't have to work again. He's like, I've never been more unhappy. Wow. Yeah. And because all of a sudden he's like, I don't have a purpose. I've got nothing to fill my day with. And money doesn't necessarily, like, you know, I don't trust all of the people around me. Money doesn't necessarily bring you what you think it's going to bring

and he always worked towards selling it for this huge acquisition, got to that pinnacle and thought it's actually not what's going to make me happy and I think this is why you can't do things purely if your intent is money. Yeah, exactly. I couldn't agree more. Well, I think a lot of people like sell their businesses and then just go on to start another business, right? Well, he will, no doubt. That's the thing. Like if you're doing it because you love –

being an entrepreneur and you love creating businesses, the reason why people sell them is because they're like, well, cool, I've built this one up. I can do another one. And I can do that whole process from scratch again, rather than just working on something that's established. What would you say is your biggest challenge since becoming such like a huge entrepreneur or maybe something about business that no one warned you about? I would say the hardest part for me and probably a lot of other founders would agree. It's the staffing side of business because

Again, like you start a business, especially if it's like a small business where it's just you and maybe like one person that's coming in like two days a week to help in the shed. And I have no previous management experience, obviously, and never worked a job for like more than six months. And I would say the biggest challenges that I've faced are

now and throughout the entirety of Fate has just been like the people and culture side of the business. Just dealing with, you know, so many different people and like we've got a team of 70 now. So just like, can you just imagine like having a room of 70 people that you're with every day and like ensuring that all of them are like 100% happy 100% of the time? It's absolutely impossible. And people will just test you beyond belief. And it's

It's hard because business isn't personal, but it feels personal when it's your business. But it's not like it's, it's so weird, but just that constant feeling of like someone always having an issue with something and trying to problem solve and maybe never being able to make everyone happy and then being hard on yourself for that and beating yourself up over it when at the end of the day, like that's just life. We're never going to be able to make people happy in life in general. And you're never going to be able to make people a hundred percent happy a hundred percent of the time in business because

and that's definitely where I've faced most of my challenges. And I'll take any other challenge any day, logistics, shipping stuff going missing, transportation,

massive tax bills or whatever, but the people of the business, like they're everything in your business and you need them to run the business. But that's also where I think most of the challenges in business are. I think as well, like retail, I mean, there's other industries that are the same. Retail can be a particularly tricky one because a lot of your core staff, especially when you have bricks and mortar stores, are staff that are working in store and that's not necessarily their passion. They're doing it because they're at university. And that's the hard thing as well. It's like, this is my passion. And like, I can give examples like-

Obviously, I'm super passionate about fate and everything we do. So then I make a massive song and dance online saying, these are our stores. This is our grand opening, blah, blah, blah. And then like the store opening happens and you've got this store. You're then putting so much trust in those staff to- Have the enthusiasm. Yeah. But-

accepting and understanding that that's just a retail job for them. Totally. And being okay with that and knowing that like, it's not their responsibility to have that same enthusiasm as you do. And then, you know, we've had numerous times over the years, people going into store and again, back to having that like online brand, people are walking into our stores with an idea in their mind of exactly how this is going to

pan out for them. And then if that person working one day is like having an off day or they're feeling like shit or they're hungover or whatever, because we're just human at the end of the day, if they don't give that person the service that they thought or the experience they thought, then that falls back on me. Totally. And it's you said that your store experience was amazing. And you're like, she's 21.

won and she went out on the weekend before a break. No, it's so true. It's really difficult. But it's a really hard thing to manage because you can then err into the territory of micromanaging it. But at the same time, we've all had jobs where we did it because we earned money. Yeah. You're not passionate about it. I see both

Besides, I see the customer's disappointment, but I also remember myself working in retail and saying, fuck this. I worked in a nightclub that I wasn't enthusiastic about. I was like, fucking take a drink and go. I know. It's so difficult. And that's the scary thing with opening more and more physical stores is that just physical side. You're opening the doors to people actually coming into your business in person. Yeah. Whereas that's where your online is more safe.

How do you manage like people and like not just staffing but like everyone wanting a piece of you because you're so entrenched in your brand. Like Fate is, even though the names are different, and especially that's because of kind of the way it's been set up across social media. Yeah. But I would dare say that because of that set up,

your staff probably all feel a connection to you or an excitement or like hiring they're like I know Brittany and I want to work for her but also so do customers like how do you manage your time when there's probably a thousand people who all want a little bit of Brittany? Again I think it comes back to our workplace structure like for example with our stores like I'm not involved in their operations there's someone that is like that oversees all the stores so that I'm not and again when we first opened like our first and second and third store I was doing that wrong I was in the group chats I

I was worrying about their rosters. I was so involved. I was texting them all, you know, and I learned, you know, maybe after store two or three, hang on a second. I don't need to be in the work group chats. I don't need to be looking at their shifts just because I was just opening myself up to like so many people contacting me at all times. For sure. And again, it just has to, you have to delegate and have that

person doing that. Otherwise, you're just going to burn yourself into the ground worrying about who's doing the lunch cover at Miranda today because so-and-so called in sick and like, you know, someone's going to figure it out. As a CEO, I can't be worrying about that kind of stuff because I need to work on like moving the business forward.

Well, when you do have your own business, and I even think of this from the perspective of Life Uncut, but when you have your own business, you don't ever turn off, right? Your brain is always thinking about it. And we are unique in our very small business because we will talk to each other at midnight sometimes or 6am or whatever. We don't have boundaries.

But what, we need them, but we're also friends. So we get away with it. But what do you and AJ, your partner put in place to protect your relationship in a way? Because you are both in the same business. It is both. It's like you're, you know, you're both working towards the same goals. Yes. I imagine it's very hard when you come home in a relationship to not want to continue talking about work and not prioritize work. Do you have any rules where it's like,

hey, no work, no phone from seven to nine. We're going to talk. We're going to have a date night. What do you guys do? We definitely say that to one another. We go out for dinner and we say we're not talking about work or AJ's started to become like more involved a little bit with like more meetings at work that happen so that I'm not having to go home and tell him what's happened because

So I've like started bringing him more into my role and the people that I kind of oversee so that it's not like I'm doing all these meetings in the day and then I go home and have to repeat it all to him, which we've only just recently kind of started doing. And I think that's going to be really helpful. But yeah.

Also, like most of the time, the stuff that we're talking about is like pretty exciting or we're like thinking of the next big thing that we're going to do. So when we go out for dinner, if the topic is work, like we're never really talking about negative things. We're talking about like exciting stuff or ideas. You're on the same page. Which we don't mind. Yeah. But if sometimes at night he'll like pull out his laptop and then start going, so-and-so hasn't done their timesheet. I'm like, put your fucking laptop away and I'll sort it out in the morning. April has not put her timesheet in.

And every Friday afternoon they're like, time sheets. So AJ doesn't go, what the fuck? Because he does the pace. So he doesn't have to be chasing everyone. You wrote a really beautiful chapter towards the end of the book about what it is that you're proud of throughout this journey. And that is like, I mean, we can always talk about stopping and smelling the roses and actually having this time to reflect. But what was it that you learned in doing that process and actually taking time to be like, okay, these are the things that I'm really proud of myself for achieving? I think...

overall, like writing this book and it reads like a diary. Like if you read it and I've been saying to everyone, it's a really easy read as well. Like when I wrote this book, I didn't try to sound like a polished author or use like fancy vocabulary or, you know, wording. It's just very much written in my own words. And I think one of the coolest things to come out of doing this book was just the

actually writing everything down and writing out my life story and all the things that I've done because it allowed me to like stop and reflect on everything that I've achieved because like I mentioned earlier,

It's such a rat race being in business and you can just get obsessed with the growth and always wanting to achieve more. And weirdly enough, the more that you achieve, the less you feel like you're achieving. It's like a weird thing that happens. Well, because you have a new benchmark to compare to. So you're like, well, I've achieved that and I need to do more, see bigger. Success creep. Yeah. I saw a quote the other day. It was something like maybe you feel like you're never achieving anything because you're just continuously raising the bar. 100%. Your standards become higher. Yeah. But like...

And again, I was adding in those chapters at the end because I felt like it was never finished or like it wasn't perfect enough. But yeah, to put it in a nutshell, like one of the biggest things I've gotten out of the book was just like being able to sit down and just like write out my feelings. Like it feels like I've written a journal or a diary. And I was even saying on my story, even if no one plans on writing a book, like just sit down and write some stuff about your life. Like it's really like a nice exercise to do. It's cathartic. Yeah, it's like relaxing and relaxing.

therapeutic and it allows you to stop and reflect because life is just a rat race and so is business so yeah I actually loved it like people are like would you do another one yep I reckon I'm just going to start writing it like just for fun like no one's asked if I want to do a second one but I'll just write it and give it to someone else. Do it yourself produce it. Someone will take it. Start a publishing firm. Because it was just like actually so enjoyable even though throughout it I would stop for two months and then I'd get an email from BookType here being like hey Britt how's it

going. Oops, sorry, I'll keep going. But yeah, I really liked it. Well, you said when you started out, you didn't have a lot of support and I imagine it would have been lovely for someone to have been there to guide you into your business journey. For anyone now that has either just started a business or really wants to start, but they don't know what to do, what's your advice for them?

Read my book. I'm going to be lame, but the book is called Just Getting Started. And the reason why it's called that is because I still feel like I'm just getting started, even though I've done so much. And also sometimes it's about just getting started. Like we were chatting about earlier on, like when you were talking about how when you started this podcast and you were working in the hospital that you were worried that people were going to find out and you were worried about what they might say or think. That's like the number one thing that holds people back from doing anything in life is just a fear of judgment from others.

That's literally what stops people. Like even if they know exactly what they need to do, it'll just be that fear. And one saying that I have been using a lot lately and I'm absolutely loving is do it scared. And that quote is in the book as well. Just because you're scared doesn't mean that you should not do it. But people go, I'm not going to do that. I'm too scared. And then like that is the reason that they don't do it. Whereas like you

You should reframe your mindset to just do it scared anyway. Like whether it's coming on a podcast, asking for a pay rise, asking to take on some more responsibilities at work, having a tough conversation with your partner, whatever it may be, just do it scared anyway. Because you can still do things even if you're scared and just do it with that scared feeling. Yeah, I love that. I also love what you said in the last episode we spoke about, which is about just not having to have things perfect. Oh, no. Like do it imperfectly, but just fucking do it. Like, you know...

Google everything. Make sure you know all the basics that you need and just start and then figure out the rest as you go. Because like truthfully, I'm still figuring out how to do everything as I go. And I'm so many years into my business journey now. But you're doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm doing it and figuring it out. You make mistakes and go, well, next time that happens, I'm going to do it differently. But it's just a matter of just starting. And if you've got the idea, if you've got the enthusiasm, the passion, the idea and the basics and the things that you need to get started, just give it a whirl. Like what's the worst that's going to happen? You know, there are a bunch of – I was at my hen's party on the weekend and

And there were a bunch of girls on there that didn't know this interview was happening. I hadn't said anything. And they were talking about you and how. Oh, really? Yeah, because some of them have just started a business and they were talking about how excited they were to read the book. And I thought that's really cool. So, I mean, the purpose of that is just to tell you that you are making a really big difference, even if sometimes you think you aren't. And you and I were just talking off mic before about like the imposter syndrome on writing a book. You're like, I can't write a book. Is anyone going to want to read it? Do I have anything to say? And because it was new for me. Like, you know, I've done a lot of things, but I'd never written a book. I was like, no, no.

It's not going to be good enough, but it is. But it's a brilliant book. Just getting started. If you guys know anything about Britney, you're going to want to read this. If you're starting a business, you've just started a business, grab this book. We've absolutely loved it. We've loved having you on. You're truly a little – You can keep coming back. Yes. We'll see you again and again. Anytime. Like, honestly, just let me know. And congratulations. We're putting all the links to podcasts, YouTubes, books, everything. Everything's going to be there. There's about 20 links down below. Yeah.

But thanks for coming in and having the chat today. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Brittany.