early twenties i was diagnosed with a

brain tumor that was the first knock

down

holly tucker ex-ceo and founder of not

on the high street holly's story

is mind-blowing we go and pitch the idea

of not on the high street to

the land of vcs who would tell us that

it was lovely that us women

wanted to create a crafts website but

really there was nothing in it

and i just said well we're actually

going to change the face of retailing

funny enough

it's not craft website we tried to build

a marketplace with

no tech experience but we knew what we

wanted and so we found someone

who built the technology that ebay were

building in america

and we just relaunched and we nailed it

how could i smile or laugh

i found myself becoming a different

version of me

one of the lines at hollandco is

bringing colour to grey and i think i

was turning grey

holly tucker ex-ceo and founder of

not on the high street one of the uk's

most loved brands

but a real pioneer in its space at its

time holly's story

is mind-blowing how she rose from

someone that had no experience

didn't have huge amounts of capital at a

time when women in business

especially women in tech had it harder

than anybody else

she built an online tech company

that went on to be worth hundreds and

hundreds of millions

but her story isn't straightforward it's

riddled with pain

divorce heartbreak turmoil

and having to reinvent and refine

herself time

and time again the fundamental life

lessons

that she shares today and that she

unpacks for us

are life lessons based on problems that

we're all going to experience in our

lives it's a real joy to bring you this

conversation

and i want to thank holly for her

openness her intellect and her

incredibly inspiring personality

without further ado i'm stephen barlow

and this is the diary of a ceo

i hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

[Music]

i always start in the same place in this

podcast because i think it provides the

greatest amount of context on a person

so i i'm i'm somewhat sort of

bored of asking these questions but

they're so incredibly foundational to

who you went on to become

because everything from you know the

start of your journey till now proves

that you are

clearly an outlier in every way so tell

me

below the age of 18 what were the

factors that went into making

that person that went on to become this

person

well um i was nicknamed holly hurricane

and that was because i couldn't

wait to get to the next stage so

when i um you know turned i think it was

12

i persuaded my dad that i needed to get

a job in a pub

cleaning it so he would wait outside in

the car park at five o'clock in the

morning i don't think i'd do this for my

son by the way anymore but

he would wait outside the um the pub and

would um pick me up after my shift

i went on and then i just continually

worked when my friends weren't working

i um decided that you know i needed the

first mobile phone you know one of those

bricks

i think it was one to one i think that

it only worked in the m25 and

um and so i was just continually pushing

it

to be grown up or to be out of childhood

i think

and so why um

because i was in i think and still am

today

incredibly excited by life i i really

wanted to juice life and i was

ready to work and i think work has

always been

um an incredibly important thing i

remember at

15 um becoming an intern

for publicist advertising agency um on

bake street

so as my friends would spend the summer

out in the

you know getting up to mischief no doubt

i would be traveling up to bake street

to spend my summer working and i did

that when i was 15

16 and 17 and it actually and

ended up being on the day of my a-level

results my

mum waited around the corner and i went

for a job interview

on the same day i was getting these

a-level results in the morning

and i got a job as the junior junior

team maker at publicis advertising

agency

ra and that i now call my sort of

university of

life um and then my mum got me in the

car and we went to pick up my a level

results

where i thought up until about a year

ago i got a d

in business studies i actually got an e

and

that was just ironic because that was

the moment

i started work i celebrated my 18th

birthday in the office

and i've been working ever since i'm 44

now and

so i think that that says a lot about

who i was i was just so eager to be in

the big

wide world um i remember my parents

going on holiday

and i was living at home and i mean

again if my son ever did this to me

i just um rented a place with some

friends in halston

because i was working um in in bake

street

um and just moved out i just packed up

the car and drove the car

and text my parents to say mom dad i've

moved out um

i'm living in holston which they weren't

necessarily

thrilled about um at what age i must

have been 18 yeah

18. um so

that is how that has been me i was

dyslexic didn't find out

um for my exams i am

definitely someone who has to work hard

to achieve um and always been creative

so that has been a constant in my life

i studied art uh at a level

and i created this huge sculpture that

they had never

had someone do before called tom dick

and harry

and they actually cast it in bronze and

had a crane pull it out of the

art studio and had to take the windows

out and that it's still

there today at my school um because i

i always go for it i suppose um

so yeah that was me you know but i'm so

when we say before the age of 18

you know i was in an office at the age

of 18. um all my friends went to uni

um and as i said i did this university

of life thing

um that work ethic was it at all

influenced by your parents when you say

you're excited by life but

was there an example set by your parents

about work ethic

um i think you know i was always

fascinated by my father's

role he was a financial a cfo at general

electric

and he traveled the world and i was

always fascinated with what he did

my grandparents all had you know their

own businesses

and i was fascinated by that my mother

had a small business

um when i was younger i think that

always

you know how we get our money was always

placed

um we didn't have you know

we weren't we were fine

but money and where we got our money was

always spoken about

so i i very quickly realized you work

to live so that's what happens and so

if i wanted to go out i needed to work

for that money

so that has just that was always part of

me

so you know maybe that just led to me

just continuing to work

because that meant that you lived and um

so yeah so i i think that but my work

ethic you know again

we were talking off air you know i give

it my my all

you know i lose myself in my work um it

is me

and so that's an interesting thing as

you get older so you you work at

publicist until you're 20 years old

i i yes i worked there until i was about

21 years old and then i

got head-hunted to move to conde nast uh

meantime i managed to marry my childhood

sweetheart

again uh hurricane holly was in a hurry

uh so

i bought a place i got married um

i need some more context here so your

childhood sweetheart you met him when he

was

we were 14 14 yeah yeah okay you're both

14. yeah

yeah and we got married uh at 21

and um divorced by 24.

and so it was an incred my early 20s

were a very very difficult period of

time of my life because

i had built up since i was 18. you know

i had built up this life in this world

and of course you get married then right

and you know you're gonna have children

and you've got a property

in chiswick and you know you're all

there

and then sort of life pays you back or

gives you i don't say pay you back

that's the wrong way gives you an

interesting lesson

which is be careful to be in a hurry all

the time just because you want it

and you can get it doesn't mean it's

right and so

we found ourselves as natural human

beings developing in our personalities

and things

and realizing that we weren't destined

to be together forever

um meantime i was diagnosed with a brain

tumor

and that was fine it wasn't fatal um but

it had a lot of side effects so at

quite a young age at sort of 23 24-ish i

was

dealing with a lot full-time job um all

these sorts of things and i again i look

at my son who's about to turn 17

i think all right wow holly you were

young

to do all of this so in my early 20s a

lot of things changed for me

um and i had to slow down i had to

lose full-time work i had to become

freelance i had to concentrate on my

health i had to

get divorced um and so yeah and that was

the first

knockdown i would say i've had two of

those in my life um

and that was the first one and it was

pretty painful

you find out at 20 through 24 years old

that you've got a brain tumour

how did you find that out i was just

very poorly

i put on a lot of weight and

i was uh just not functioning correctly

and

in the end um with all pushing it

because also also a young girl going to

the doctor and

pushing it with all the scans we found

out but as i said it was

it was livable with and um you know and

that's something

that's fine um but it caused just a huge

amount of turmoil and um that's not to

say i think

my marriage would have ever lasted

anyway but it just created turmoil

and i now think back to how tough your

early 20s are

you know i don't think i would repeat

them um i think it's quite a difficult

age you're meant to be grown up you're

just still a kid i'm trying to work

everything out at the same time yeah

absolutely well especially you the

situation you'd put yourself yeah

exactly

exactly yeah but you just think the

world's against you

and now i just realized it was a it was

a great kick up the butt

and so you go into freelance work you're

you're separated from this partner

you've learned the lessons there

hopefully yeah um you've understood the

situation with your health

yeah you didn't have to have an

operation no no you couldn't have one no

yeah i was i asked that particular

question because i actually found out

last week that one of my one of my best

friends has a brain tumor

and i and i was intrigued by the array

of emotions

that you felt in that moment and i asked

that question from a supportive

friend standpoint as how you support

someone that's

that's um found that out i think she's

24

24 and she found out that she found out

two weeks ago that she's having she had

a brain tumor and they put her into

an operation the next tuesday wow

because of the severity of the situation

so she's just come out of the

operation last night oh i really wish

her well i mean mine wasn't

you know it wasn't that serious so you

know that was something that

um i was very very lucky about

but i think one of the things was is

that i had to

find you know twice in my life i've had

to find out who i am again

because when you pull your identity into

something

else that's not yourself or or it

becomes your identity

i think we all do that in relationships

sometimes you know that you are

married or you know that's what i did as

a young girl

so then when it all fell apart who who

who am i and that was a really

difficult moment for me and slightly the

thing that saved me was going back to my

creative roots you know

if i hadn't gone to the university of

life i was going to go and do an art

degree

so creativity sort of saved me and i i

went on to

you know create vegetable wreaths which

again i just always think

you know the story needs to be sexier

than the vegetable race but there it was

and i i built this wreath and i went

down to my local high street to try and

sell it and i was just freelancing at

that time in publishing

but this was allowing me to be creative

in the evening why vegetable wreaths

though

um you know it it was just i needed to

be creative i love

i love interiors and i've always you

know at the age

my 14th birthday present was a

subscription to the world of interiors

um so you know that has just been

something i have to have a creative

environment

to exist in so my home right now as a

shrine to not on the high street i had

to move house to get bigger and bigger

homes

just to hold what you know you can

imagine

um what i'm surrounded by and so um

that was just glorious for me you know

why not um

i just did it and then that was this

path that just opened up to me because

i realized that i needed to sell these

things because i was going to obviously

become a millionaire

you know for reinventing the wreath

because that's what need was needed in

the world

and i realized that actually there

wasn't any local fare that i could go

and sell it so again

if you dream it up you can make it

happen so i created the first chizz at

christmas fair with 200 stalls so that i

could get the best store

you say that like it's so simple because

a lot of people

a wouldn't even they would have had the

reef idea and never done anything about

it

and then when they realized that they

couldn't sell it anywhere they would

have never done anything about that as

well

but there's clearly something that

underpins that perspective that okay

well that doesn't exist so i can create

that and yeah well that doesn't exist

i'll create that to support that that's

my dna

that's what i'm doing now holly and

coats what i did at notton high street

i don't just because it doesn't exist

doesn't even bother me it's actually

just part of the fun of building i'm i'm

i love building i love it about the risk

um well what risk because

um you know what was going to go wrong

there people weren't going to come to

the fair

i knew that they would i knew that

they'd like my wreaths because they were

good

i didn't see risk you know i i

i just went into it and i created this

event and it

kicked off it was amazing sold all my

wreaths

hated wreaths by the end of the thing

was not going to have that career but

now i was going to have a fair

career i was going to put on events so i

quit my job

um and told my dad who's my

be my cfo not in the high street and his

cfo at holly

and co and just said right that's what

i'm now going to do and so i delivered

all the wreaths got rid of that out of

my household

and i then um created these events

and put on 20 events around london

with small businesses and that was

almost

you know again a pretty bad existence

because i was on my own putting on these

events it was

you know pouring with rain one day you

can't control the weather you can't

control the football being changed you

can't do anything

but what it did do is it made me realize

um my total love

for small businesses and what they

create because i curated

all of those stalls and i could see

that there was absolute hidden treasure

that no one else had

discovered before and so the town hall

roof i suppose was the prototype

to not on high street i want to i want

to

go back to something you said a second

ago which was about that moment where

you kind of lose orientation your

marriage has ended because i just think

so many people listening to this

either have gone through that are going

through that or are going to go through

that moment where they have a

significant life change

which completely makes them unanchored

from what their like

purpose is and who they are and um

i'm fascinated by how long that process

lasted for you

and what advice you'd give to someone

who because i experienced it a little

bit when i like left my business

or actually the first time i experienced

it was when someone made me a really big

offer for my business

and then i went home that day and like

mentally spent the money and i thought

well then what who am i

yeah who now like yeah because your

whole identity was attached to this

business so you might say like

what advice would you have for someone

um that's going through that sort of

like loss of direction

because there's been a significant life

change and they they don't know

you know who they are or which way to go

anymore well it's actually something

that now i have a word for

um whereas at the time it was a sort of

process

when i consult with small businesses um

and i i don't now do one-on-ones but

um in my book for instance it's called a

brand heart

and it's basically i believe that a

business has a heart

and everything has to come off it

you know that's the pumping organ that

everything should

come back to now you as a founder need

to understand what should go into that

heart and it actually should be made up

of you

so i think what i did was i went back to

so what makes holly exist what makes

holly alive

and through that process which was about

a year

um and my second one which will come to

probably

you know lasted two or three years was

um creativity was one um discovering

um creative folk um my

the my community who was i meant to

belong to

um building entrepreneurism um

all these elements were coming through i

was lucky

um in my life at the end of the first

this year

i actually met my partner who's been my

partner for 18 years and i got married

and locked down so now he's my husband

um so i was lucky to find somebody

um and he did a lot of cheerleading for

me

you know sort of because when you're in

that place you don't

really um you don't have a perspective

on

anything that you can give anymore and

so i think that's another incredibly

important thing is to surround yourself

with people

who adore you and are willing to tell

you

what makes you um what makes the sun

shine out of you

you know what that is and so i was lucky

to have that

but that brand heart like the who is

holly

just cutting it up into five pieces and

say okay if there were five things i've

got to concentrate on

to bring to restore me what are they

um but it's a pretty painful process

what role does patience play from

in all of that process well none at the

beginning i mean

zero patience hurricane harley i mean do

you want to mean

now i've got a little bit more you know

actually i'm enjoying that getting older

and just having a slight

um listening more um

not running so fast um and picking up

the cues along the way

which i think i probably missed the

first time around so i'm actually really

happy

to become more patient i mean we'll put

it in perspective you know i'm

you know i i'm uh very ambitious so

but i am actually learning to listen um

to listen to the world a bit more

and even even though you've cut your

heart into five pieces there to dissect

who you actually are

um that doesn't necessarily mean you

know the

the path as in in terms of like the

business idea that's going to get you

get you there or the career but you you

know the fundamental principles of what

you're looking for yeah

and then what you need to do like

experiment do something yeah just

well actually that's not what i did for

not on the high street but it

is what we've done for holly and co

because um

that was the you know that's the point

isn't it you

learn i you know from not on the high

street holly and co i have learned i

don't want to do it all again

as i did but not in high street so i

don't want a final destination

when you take vc money on you have some

final destinations that you

you know you've turned right and not

left so always your course of direction

will be

to the right with holly and co what i

loved was

not not having that and also being able

to

um you know when people said so what is

holly and co

i could barely explain it i didn't have

an elevator pitch

i didn't want to fall into that actually

i think that is the beauty of what i

was looking to do but i did have a brand

heart i knew that we had that i didn't

have the final destination but i have

the coordinates of a few places i know

to go

and i know that i am you know i know the

direction i'm heading i always call it

like an anchor you know i've got an

anchor in the future

i've got the rope that i'm holding and

that rope will change

change it will pull me to the right and

left but i am anchored

um yeah and um and i'm enjoying that

that's what i'm really enjoying

so i've got a we've got to go through

this um this

uh not in the high street story because

i when i was reading

um about your journey up until this

point

and the experience you'd had in you know

working on you know creating a

a market or affair for for these small

businesses and then to go from there

to trying to create a e-commerce site

in the year that you did i thought was

just madness and i think about

entrepreneurs coming into the den and um

one of the questions i always ask them

is like have you got tech experience

yeah who's who's got the technical sort

of competence within the team show me

what you know

yeah and from looking at what your

journey opened to that point you didn't

have any of that stuff

yeah no none how beautiful is naivety

well yes delusion it is awesome

you know i look at it you know before

when i was in it

in it you know i thought oh my gosh

there's so many things that we need to

have done

before now i look at it and i think

could i just bottle up that naivety and

just take a swig of it

every single day you know naivety is the

thing if we had known

really that we were creating one of the

first marketplaces in the world you know

at that point in time

there was ebay and amazon amazon was

still selling books

ebay had you know your socks that you

got for christmas and the

you know the title was one two three

grandma's socks um

uh etsy hadn't launched yet um we

were basically looking at uh you know

like many businesses start a human

problem that we were experiencing and

thought we could

create a solution and all we needed to

do was take all those small businesses

that were under my town hall roof

and just put them on this thing called

the internet and then wouldn't it be

great if you could

shop from you know lily bell and shop

from the letter room and put it into one

basket

well of course okay well we got 20 grand

so let's

build a website for 20 000 pounds and we

found someone who could do that

big watch out there and funny enough

three days before launch

uh we realized that they couldn't do

that you know that there was no checkout

but because again there was no

experience we had already told the whole

world with a microsite that was counting

down the days to launch

and all the press that we were very able

to get

um that we were launching on this

specific day the third of april

so this 20 grand where did that come

from well the

the startup um that sophie and i had so

i i

uh the story is that basically after

your local fare had a three-month-old

boy called harry um with my now husband

frank

and i realized that i couldn't ignore

what i had witnessed when you put a

group of small businesses together that

are like-minded

and bring together discerning customers

there's something that happens there the

high street was dying

and i needed to do that but i knew i

didn't want to do it alone after your

local fare which was my fair business i

couldn't do it alone so i just wrote to

my old boss sophie

from publicis so she was my boss saying

you know

i basically don't think there's anyone

else on the planet that

has the into my yank you know is able to

rewrite the english dictionary

um and can be that person

and so i wrote to her and i still got

the email and it says

you know i want to bring everything

that's not on the high street

together but i had a terrible beater

name

and uh 24 hours later she said yes

because she

was that customer too she wanted to find

the curious

the discover the small businesses and

things but i had a three-month-old baby

that wasn't going to stop me and so we

went on this

journey to build it and as i said you

know we

tried to build a marketplace with no

tech experience or retail experience

but we knew what we wanted and so we

um pulled together a few savings

we were both with young children our

husbands were

working to pay for the mortgage um

we got a loan from a bank very small

loan and we remortgaged our homes

slightly both of us so i think we came

to it with about 80

000 pounds thinking that we had

contingency in there

i mean everything and funny enough

uh we didn't have enough money but we

launched

on the third of april with no check out

to our shopping site

um why was there no checkout well

because funny enough ebay couldn't even

build a

multi-partner checkout with one basket

you know

no one had yet actually done that

technology

so and i remember naively calling you

know

calling ebay just picking up the phone

to ebay thinking i don't know who i'm

going to get through to ebay hey hi is

that the cto you know that stuff you're

building there's any chance uh i could

have it too

because we're dealing with a company in

cornwall

who uh has led us down

um so we didn't you know this hadn't

been built yet this this this

functionality

and so we launched we called it a press

preview

and we just pivoted and we were uh

on something called daily candy which

was huge at the time we were on the

daily mail front cover

all this sort of stuff it was great so

we got all the traffic but no one could

check out

um but you know as mother lions that we

were

and i always liken businesses

to being a parent

something that in my latter years was

frowned upon

by the vcs because actually i do believe

that when you have that spirit of a

parent you can lift a car

off a child when you're a founder and

literally you're launching a shopping

site with no checkout what are you going

to do

and so we found someone who in two weeks

built the technology that ebay were

building in america

um and we just relaunched and and we

nailed it

did you run out of money in those early

yeah yeah

totally we ran out money we launched in

the april and we're running out of money

in the july

um because funny enough technology costs

a lot of money

especially when it's never been built

before and um

and so we had to go and raise money

and that was one heck of an experience

because if you want to take yourself

back to 2006

when we know one percent of vc money

right now goes to women what do you

think the statistic was

then so we would pack up our

personalized bags

we get on the tube no money for taxis we

would knock on the doors

with meetings you know that people knew

someone who knew someone

and we go and pitch the idea of not on

the high street to

the land of vcs who pretty much

a hundred percent would tell us that

their wives did the shopping

in their household and that it was

lovely that us women

wanted to create a crafts website but

really

there was nothing in it and i just said

well we're actually going to change the

face of retailing

funny enough it's not a craft website

and

that continued right up until the

christmas

and we were now paying our staff on our

egg credit card checkbooks we were my

parents remortgaged their house twice

uh sophie's parents uh lent us money i

mean it was

dark dark days i mean not in the high

street was definitely

on its last breath but the issue was it

was working

you know it hadn't been working up until

that point we used to have a bell that

you would ring

when there was a checkout of 30 pounds

and we were taking 10

and this bell would ring every second

day and we were just thinking my god

this is

just hell but just as we were really

running out of money

the bell just kept on ringing it was

happening because it was christmas and

people wanted

great gifts um so that was an

extraordinary journey

but one that ended well because we found

someone who understood what we were

building um

and by the february 2007 we got our

first

round of investment how long did that

take to find that person

so from when you realized you had to

start fundraising to the point when you

the money hit your bank let's say well

it must have been uh

eight months um but when we were

pitching it was just before christmas

and i remember just telling them we

hadn't got our first set of accounts yet

you know we were there and i remember

my father being in the pitch meeting

and um you know we were putting what we

were doing there

obviously avoiding the conversation that

we were paying the staff

with our credit card checkbooks you know

like

everything is fine oh my gosh that you

know it's like every time you raise any

money the graphs only go

you know through the sky and how you're

going to do it

will work it out but it was an amazing

moment and uh tom tightman who was the

investor had just written the first

check for lastminute.com

and he saw what we were trying to do and

he actually

saw the power of female uh female

purchasers

and that whole world and so um

we did the pitch and he he you know he

played with rc

he basically said that's great thank you

so much and we packed up and we left and

my father said i'm so proud of you both

knowing that not in the high street

just died that we hadn't got the money

and it was

finished because where our homes were on

the line it was

it was finished and just as we pressed

the bell for the elevator

he said actually do you have a moment

and he bought a bottle of champagne and

and that was it our destinies changed

but that was how

close we were um but you know we

definitely turned right that meant

we got our first vc fantastic and then

um you know we started building not on

high street and

it was growing very very quickly

was it ever going to fail in your view i

know you came close but was it ever

going to be not at all

never isn't that funny never never never

you know at the same time that we were

running out of money i was buying every

single euro

for the whole world so we couldn't pay

for the heating

so we had coats on between you know 9 am

and 2 that was the coldest period in our

office

and then the because the whole building

was being knocked down but we just kept

our office

so we had no boiler no heating but i was

still buying the urls

across the globe and and to this day

i think it's one of the most fantastic

businesses

um but never would it fail ever

because you know you as a parent you

know

if your child had any issue would you

not think that you could overcome those

issues

absolutely and that's the resolut

resolute that you need

to be in business it's why i call not in

high street my first business baby

holly and co my second i love them as if

they are my children

um and they will get my my full

attention

what is your favorite flavor of heel

jack

berry my favorite flavor of fuel is

banana berry used to be my favorite

flavor and i saw someone tweet the other

day they said

um because puel is now in tesco's but

the only flavor in tesco's is the

chocolate flavor

they were sort of demanding tesco's put

the um

the berry flavor in because that's

steve's favorite it's not my favorite

flavor is clearly banana now

those are the ones i look for the most

what does huel do for me i mean i've

talked about this extensively

but for me i get that a nutritionally

complete diet

in 60 seconds and in the world i live in

that is a that is a remarkable thing and

this is why

even before they became a podcast

sponsor i was buying heel to my office

um every single week you know and the

funny thing is jack who's the director

and producer of this podcast

he tried cure once he was like yeah yeah

the guy is addicted to hill he's a fiend

for you now because once you see the

impact it has you understand the

convenience you understand it's

nutritionally complete

for me it's life-changing and that's why

hula is a bit of a it's a bit of a

cult once you try it you can't go back

you just said there that you know the

company was completely out of money but

but i

i could tell that you also didn't

believe it would fail which is a

bit of a contradiction to some degree

but well because it was just money

yeah and you could you could figure that

out i don't know how yeah

but you know you know money is just this

you know okay so if we got the money and

the hard bit really is

doing the doing isn't it it's building

it so i always just knew

somehow this will work out i mean of

course you have your terrible dark days

but i knew it was going to work out how

could it not

were you on to something and i knew that

that level of optimism in upon

reflection of your career of the last

you know couple of decades how important

has that optimism

been that just like unexplainable

unjustifiable

i don't know why but it'll just it will

all work out optimism because you've

also because because you've employed a

lot of people seeing the opposite

that sense of like catastrophe you know

that catastrophizing oh no we're a

[ __ ] you know that kind of oh

yeah oh man i've i've kissed a lot of

those frogs

um yeah wouldn't you say that that's a

common denominator you find

in entrepreneurs 100 i mean even in team

members

someone so i've i it's so i say i can't

explain it enough

i one example i always come back to was

um

i was flying to brazil and obama was

speaking at the same time as me

um on the same stage as me just like i'm

speaking just after me

and i thought well obama's here i'm a

speaker he's a speaker

can't i meet him and someone that was

working for me at the time went oh no i

asked somebody and they said no

sick as a [ __ ] if they said no ask

someone else and just keep asking

and then they're like no no steve we've

been asking and they just said no so

i'll do it then and i

i sent some emails and within

30 uh within 30 emails someone comes and

grabs me goes come and meet obama

yeah and i just think there's always a

way there's always a way

and your life yeah and my life is

testament to this upset this like

there is a way or there's a way that's

you know what i mean

there's a way where i have to work

harder you know what i mean and i don't

i don't allow for this other outcome

which is that oh no we can't

i've never allowed for the other outcome

ever

and it's actually my entire battery is

powered by that

and i am told i radiate it

so when you're around me you get hooked

on to that

and that's can be a really good thing

because it drives people in those dark

days when

actually the entire world is telling you

no

and i'm saying yes and so

it's an amazing thing and i think that

optimism and actually

now as i said getting older it's

actually

i i would say there's optimism and now i

also have gratitude

that's powering my battery you know i

worked out my 40th birthday i have 29

000 days on this planet

because i'm and as another golden thread

that i'm sure you recognize as

efficiency

i'm freaking addicted to it so i needed

to know

so you know this life i just need to

schedule this a bit

so you know so i've got 29 000 days oh

[ __ ] it's not 29 000 days it's 14

000 days because i'm 40 right okay and

so

that has also led to a countdown till i

die

so that also has fueled this optimism

and and [ __ ] it mentality

because if today i am going to change

the world which i can

it's even fueled even in in a better way

actually i didn't have that

not in the high street because that was

just you know fire fighting and

optimum was that that that that fuel

but now i think i have gratitude

powering that even more and that's been

in a beautiful beautiful stage of my

life

that is amazing and you're right you so

you're you're in survival mode and now

you're

now you've got choice now i've got

choice and

a bit of you know the battle scars are

there and

i have an appreciation that you know i

can give everything and

all but i need to make sure that my time

on the planet

is also for me too because i do believe

i'm here to serve

and i've again i can only say that now

in hindsight

but if i am here to serve i need to also

serve myself

that sense of by the way i completely um

resonate with

this um this focus on the amount of time

we have left i wrote about it in my book

at very

long length and you i think somewhere

behind me there's a little sand timer

somewhere on there there's usually a

sound timer i don't know it seems to

walk around but because i wrote about it

in my book at such length people started

buying sound timers

and and uploading them online and the

whole point of the sound timers it's one

of the things that really allows me

it reminds me of time it's like one of

the ways we can see time happening

just by turning it you see your life

moving away

and it's that important reminder just

like get on with it and focus on what

matters

you mentioned um you now feel like

you're here to serve

do you think that comes from

understanding your own power

yeah i think so i think so i

i would have found that really difficult

to tell you

20 years ago but now um

i have been through it and done it

and i also know that my optimism helps

people

and i can see the effects and i can see

you know what we

brought up and not in the high street

was full of it you know i used to have

people come in to the

office um from other businesses that we

would hire

they literally could feel it in the air

they were uncomfortable with it

it was optimistic it was creative it was

emotional

and they were like this place is so

emotional and i'm like yeah

and they're like uh we need to stop that

and i'm like

we're never stopping that and i think

that that's

what i've realized is that that is what

i can muster up you know i

i listen to one of my favorite songs is

cloud busting by kate bush

and when i listen to that song i feel

like i'm whipping up a storm

and that is my power but what i try and

whip up

is very positive and good for the soul

good for small businesses good for and

what are small businesses they're

founders with dreams you know

i love that and so um

that is why i've writ potentially that

is now

my job description um for the rest of my

life

is to build something that i can pour

that in

and be efficient and so amplify it so

not build an empire

but be really smart and amplify that

feeling

out to other people and help them

there's an irony in that that you're

talking about whipping up a storm and

your nickname's hurricane holly

yeah actually i've never even said that

before and so yes i like that link that

just happened there

slightly different meaning now it's not

necessarily about urgency and more about

i guess just

power but yes exactly yeah yeah two

different weather

types yeah yeah so take me back so that

you start

not on the high street it starts moving

you've got the vc money things

you know team is small things are agile

typically the most fun times yeah yeah

the team was small um myself sophie

i hired my sister um who was just going

to help me out for a summer

uh she still works for me at holly and

co so that's been a good

16 17 years that we've worked together

now um

hired then her university friend her

university friend came and coded the

site

that but you know it's that beautiful

moment that you're just literally do you

have a pulse and do you breathe

okay would you like to come and work for

us you know i was talking to somebody

the other day

um and he said it's that wonderful

naivety where you get in a car in the

cab and the taxi driver is really really

chatty

and so you almost go and offer them a

job because it's just

this moment where you need soldiers you

know that's that time isn't it

you don't need the skill we need power

and

um we need energy and we need commitment

and we need you not to have a high

salary

that's the that's that moment in time

and so that was what it was and you know

we were growing at 2 000

we were trying to keep up with it i call

it like that speed train with all the

nuts and bolts of flying off and you're

you're at the driving seat and there

you're going

and as you said with optimism that

energy is just infectious

and so we just were growing

so rapidly so we were going from

a hundred thousand pounds ttv to

a million the next year to two and a

half million

to six million now keeping up with that

and also remember

in a marketplace you have two clients

yeah i always laugh at people that

moan about having one client like try to

you know you've got

your customers and you've got all the

small businesses which by the way

you are only as great as their ability

to keep up with 2 000 growth

some of them are growing at 5 000

because they're the hot product

and so it's that coaching of that group

of people to keep

up with you meanwhile you know the swan

to the customers and the swan to the uh

partners which we called them partners

from day one you know they weren't

sellers we were only as great as they

they were

and that was that beautiful shift that

we were creating in this world

we were we were respecting small

businesses they would get a media pack

that cost us way too much i think about

five pounds per thing

but we wanted them to know how talented

they were

we curated from day one which now

you know uh is a word we use a lot back

then

it was not a word you know why aren't

you accepting everybody

and we would be no we're turning away 90

percent of everyone that joins even

though they're paying adjoining fee and

we're eating baked beans and worrying

about the mortgage

we're not getting paid a salary we will

turn away 90

because one day our brand will thank us

for it

and it did it very very much did

you talk there about hiring and that

flipping hiring process at the start

which i know very well and i i've joked

about on this podcast before like

walking into pride and the guy selling

the bags was like jonathan a director i

was like yeah

and then like i had some guy on facebook

he's called ash one of my good friends

now and he even laughs about it he was

on job seekers allowance he'd never done

a job in his life

i made a marketing director and i was 18

and i was just like [ __ ] it you know

like

yeah but you're like what's the worst i

don't think i think this could work

out right imagine if it does work out

that the taxi driver

is going to be amazing funny enough

it doesn't necessarily work out that way

almost never

so but it's just i think the interview

process when you're that naive is

literally would you work for me

and they go yep fine you've got the job

yeah or is there salary

low enough that's actually double bonus

yeah

yeah absolutely yeah it's it's a crazy

thing the hiring process has been

again on reflection something i'm

learning right now to do

is that would probably be one of the

most beautiful points of building holly

and co is my team and investing

heavily in the development of each one

of the souls that i think

are life is with me now not on the high

street it was the soldiers you needed

the energy and then you get into the

next stage don't you where

actually those people by very nature

can't stay with the business because now

you need skill

and there's that awful moment where

you're having to let people go for the

first time

and bring in skill and to bringing skill

you now need to interview don't you and

you now need to be able to know even

what the skill is that you're even

looking for

as you're running at 200 miles an hour

and then it goes into that's next stage

where you're now looking for the people

to run the people

who you've just hired you know and that

process for me

was not something i could spend enough

time on i mean we interviewed

absolutely everybody until the point

that we had a c-suite

and um i always remember my father

saying

that 90 of my role as ceo

should have been the people

90 of my role was not the people because

how on earth could it be

i mean you know you were the next race

was happening or we were going

international or

you know we've decided to double the

company in a year

and now on reflection when i look at

that oh

it's the people so with holly and co

i've now got a good group of people

that i believe are life as and i'm happy

to say that because what i

believe is that they don't even know how

great they are and i'm going to shine

their diamond

until it completely shines and that's

dealing with their personal side

that's dealing with their professional

skills that's dealing with their whole

self

um and that is something i'm fascinated

by

and i think i'm potentially going to

build one of the most incredible teams

um that i've ever

been lucky enough to manage and you've

learned those people i just everything

you said then i'm not i just agree with

it all

i agree with every single word because i

went through the same exactly the same

journey of

hiring anybody bringing in skill

bringing in a bunch of people that had

done this job for 20 years to tell me

what to do and i got out the way

and i let them run the team and do all

the hiring for me but then i also had

the reflection three four years in that

in fact this whole time what i actually

was was a recruitment company

and that was my sole responsibility yeah

and then you look at all the people

there and you

go to the kitchen that i i would and i

would

you'd be getting a cup of tea and i

wouldn't know the person to my left

how terrible is that and also that you

realize when you get that c-suite in

because that's what we need to do

because we've now got vcs and we need to

get the

the huge company cos and the cfos and

all the seas

um i call it um in

that they just then recruit the carbon

copies of themselves

so suddenly you've got an entire

organization of many

you know of those people and actually my

gosh suddenly

the pendulum swings so for not in the

high street remember

we always used to say you know we've got

our marketplace hat on one day

so that is about trading the site and

understanding what customers need and

then we've got our retail hat on

which is the brand because we're not in

the high street we're not ebay we're not

amazon

we are not on the high street we are

that beautiful mix

because we know our customer and so

that was very interesting because

actually what you need and require

to be able to curate unique products and

unique companies

is creativity eyeballs taste

all these things that are unable to

excel you cannot put you know

many times i've been asked can you just

please tell me the process between a and

z

of a great product and i'm like you see

you even asking me that my dear

means that you don't even understand

what makes a great knot in the high

street product

so that was the difficulty is that

suddenly you would get too much of the

processing

too much of the operations everything

was a meeting

everything was a powerpoint everything

and that room for creativity and life

and entrepreneurial spirit

started being pushed to the side and

that was a very difficult period in time

you know

we were you know still growing so

incredibly quickly

um so it was a difficult moment to try

and balance

that state of growth and tech issues and

operational issues and funny enough hr

issues when you have enough people

um with that need

to be what i call truffle hunters now

you know people that can

really find the most unique amazing

small business that will create

the next bestsellers did you find

yourself at war with the business you

created

um

i i loved it so again if i look at being

a parent

i loved it but i didn't enjoy them right

now

you know i found them difficult to live

with

you know and that's what i would say

it's you never lose your love

you never lose the but actually what was

happening

was the process had become so big

that the core of what i loved

founder titus you know the duracell

battery

you know that is why founders are

unbelievable

should never be moved from a business

whatever should maybe take a new role

that's okay because actually they don't

enjoy the role of the operations

but that sort of duracell battery when

you take it out of a business

you know it i'm sure you've interviewed

many people that you

something goes the customer even knows

it everyone knows it

and so that was that's just been a

brilliant uh

lesson for me but also a lesson that i

now pass on

through holly and co you know holly and

co is all about me being vulnerable with

the truth

and hopefully inspiring other people

that when they're growing their small

business and they think they're going to

hire the next person that's going to be

the silver bullet a

there is zero silver bullets in business

but b

it doesn't work without you you know for

all your defects and all your faults and

all your weaknesses it just doesn't work

without you

and was there a moment where you

realized that you'd have to take a

different role

within the business yeah i suppose it

got to that point where

um 200 people five vcs i was chairwoman

and ceo um and

things were changing you know i was

you know 15 meetings a day running to

the loo

with my pa who would then brief me as i

was in the loo

on my next meeting to go into my office

where it was already set up

to be countlessly doing board meetings

you know one board mini

team would finish and we'd be preparing

for the next board meeting

um and basically being

at at a stage where

in any given day did i do anything

that i loved you know my new book is do

what you love love what you do you know

i brought up this business that i loved

but every single day did i actually ever

do

what i loved and there was that moment

where i needed to make that decision

um and it was a pretty

goddamn painful one where i sort of

realized i'd lost myself

you know i was um i didn't look like i

looked today you know i was in the tube

dress

with the high heels on double spanx on

i was a she man you know i needed to be

that person i was brought up remember i

was 28 when i started i was i was

brought up through not on the high

street and experience

that's all my reference point was and so

i knew i needed to

dull motion and you know drive this and

be

this person and um and i think i was

probably in reflection tired

of not being holly

could you feel it yeah yeah yeah yeah

but i didn't know at the time like you

were just saying i was just in the

motion i was a hamster in the wheel

you don't know any different you know

you just exist don't you and

your whole purpose is to fuel everybody

else and sort of you

you realize that when you're not there

things go off the rails and so

you have this sense of responsibility

and every night i went to sleep

um i would lay on my pillow i would have

my son

as my responsibility i would have my

home i was the main breadwinner

of our home but i would have the

thousands of small businesses that if i

go wrong ever you know a lot of them 50

of them relied on that this was their

only income their husbands had quit

their job you know they were doing

million pounds two million pounds a year

like

this was my responsibility and the staff

were my responsibilities i had

this heaviness so how could i be light

holly

how could i smile or laugh i you know i

i found

myself becoming a different version of

me

um one of the lines at holland co is

bringing colour to grey

and i think i was turning grey did your

partner know that frank

yeah yeah you know definitely knew that

we were in a catch-22 though you know

when you bring up a business

that's providing the only income there's

no way out you know

how how does this go somewhere because

my ambition

you couldn't stop me i was on the

hamster wheel i could see everything you

know i always

have to be reminded what year i'm in

because i can see what the future is

i know what it is so why i just need now

need to make it happen that's the

the part so you know we we nearly didn't

survive a few times

during that um time you know being an

entrepreneur and having a relationship

is a very very difficult thing

because and having a young child you

know harry was three months old when i

started not

if the nanny didn't arrive he was put

under my desk

you know i remember at the age of two he

was under my desk he had a dvd player

you remember where you actually put the

dvd and you open the screen and you put

the headphones on

what sits in ribena and i would just

sort of shuffle

them in there and there used to be a

program called mr british where she

used to talk about putting the baby in

the drawer when mr president that was

what harry was he was under the thing

because

being a woman and a mother no you know

the kid doesn't come to work even though

i was the boss

but it was their mindset no we are tech

female entrepreneurs we have got to be a

certain

way um and so that was very challenging

and it puts a strain on relationships um

and so that has just been difficult you

know

you know the downs are very down dark

dark days when you're running out of

money

you've got to raise again but the

business is going amazingly

you have no choice let's do it again um

and

you know your family takes a toll and

that decision to

sort of change your role that's not a

decision that's made overnight that's a

slow sort of grinding down and other

conversations up until that point with

the board and with

other people and with frank or yeah

there was i mean

it was a bit of a storm of lots of

things i can't quite

remember what was going on at that point

in time but it was you know

another christmas was coming up it's

going to be double what that

is coming in um a very full c-suite

managing that group of people um

being at you know now vcs are really

waking up you know what we're doing

where you know i think we were at 100

over 100 million ttv

you know this was starting to become

something it was about

internationalization so doing it all

again but in other countries

and um there was just this point that

that

needed to probably not be my existence

in the future

so um ripped off the plaster

and did it and decided to get a

seasoned ceo to come and replace me

um sophie had left the business at this

point a few years before

so i was why uh her children were at a

different stage of life

um were older than harry so again as a

mother

it's okay when they're little and she

gave me that great advice you know

don't worry you've missed his first

steps he won't remember

but when they're doing their jesus

season a-levels they freaking need

mom and um and so

she you know i realized that i was

again i thought i could do it all and i

i just

now in hindsight in my father had left a

cfo

two years before that so i was sort of

on my todd

i was now this woman with this group

with these feces and um

you know you're always plagued with the

imposter syndrome and i think that

i allowed that to ha you know

determine a few things in my life now i

look back thank goodness for that

because what i'm doing today i have

never

felt more powerful i've never felt more

holy i've never felt more

colorful i've never felt more of a

founder than i do today

and i'm in complete control

but when we go back to the story of the

two times in my life that i lost my

identity

might i not rip the plaster off if i'd

known what i was going to go through

because i'm sure you've had people

describe it it is not funny

losing leaving your business if we

relate it to a child

how does a mother walk away from his kid

you know talk to me about that process

yeah it's a very very hard one i think

actually

so many more people need to talk about

it because i think it's like a bit of a

dark secret like

it's it's that thing we're all bound by

certain things

all this sort of um our ego is at play

here

you know there's so many our shame are

all those points and i i wish

more founders spoke about this moment

it's your entire identity goes now now i

had built

i was just you know hi what do you do

i'm the ceo of not on the high street

really you know uh when you wake up in

the day

it's all those emails it's all it's all

that responsibility

the pressure on your shoulders wake up

the next day

what do you do um

you just forget to even say you found

not you know you were the founder of

norton high street you're but you're

nothing

so i had a couple of years that were

maybe two three years

two years dark years where you know at

stages i couldn't get out of bed

um but you know when i had to do it all

again

you know i had to look at my brand heart

i had to surround myself with people

who could raise the phoenix out of the

ashes

um but it was difficult you know i i

couldn't go

to events with small businesses i would

you know break down i would have to

leave

i i couldn't see people that i knew

i i couldn't meet socially with people

because i just didn't know who i was

um and it was just a very difficult time

in my life

how old were you at this this time well

i must have been

uh 39

no forty fourteen and what you're

describing there in terms of symptoms

sounds

like depression that phase is actually

what i think it is sounds like is

um what what i think now i think it is

is grief

grief yeah i went through i went through

the seven stages of grief

i um it really was a loss

you know that was what i was and

especially as i'd always likened it to

my child you know i had harry my real

baby

and i had not nice street now i wasn't

with my second baby

so how can a mother do that to start

with

what happens when i'm not there it's

going to fall and i'm not going to be

there to pick it up

so it was a very very difficult process

but as i said you know

i went through total grief i i i got

counselling

i surrounded myself with great people

i instantly had to start building you

know it was the only thing i knew

in my head um so six months

later i my sister

uh was employed by norton high street

she left someone else left who's now my

other co-founder and we would sit around

my kitchen table

um i decided to ditch the heels so i

threw away every single pair of high

heels i owned

um today i'm wearing glitter trainers

and i have done for five years

to really say that actually you can be a

very powerful knowledgeable business

woman

and wear glitter trainers and actually

this is holly

and so slowly i started peeling the

spanx off

the heels i slowly started rediscovering

who holly was

i had some cheerleaders around me who

would remind me on the darkest days

and i knew that creativity like it had

done with the vegetable reese

was there as my savior what i

had to be is holly again and holly is

only holly i think

with a business within her you know uh

and

when i say business and what i'm trying

to rediscover with holly and co

and trying to put it out there is

actually it's not just business

i believe creating a business makes you

happy

and actually um striving for happiness

i think that when you can control your

own destiny you can

work around your family when you can be

your most creative self

when you can answer to nobody when you

can dictate all of these things where

you live what you do

that is a real source of going for

happiness and

so actually people do ask me why are you

freaking obsessed with business holly

like

redefining business what is it about

business i'm like it's not about

business business is a tool and a key

business is just the thing the vehicle

to get all these other things and that

is why holly and co sort of had to exist

i did say to my husband never again

you know because he couldn't do what i

mean it's huge the whole family goes

through

your storm you're whipping up but

my yeah

yeah oh yeah but when you give them

enough glasses of wine

and you can sell anything to anybody you

can definitely tell them

so my sisters uh carrie my actual sister

gabby who left not in the high street

and has become almost like an adopted

sister but with the founders of holly

and co

they basically said you can't ignore

your bird's eye point of view that you

had that is unique to not in the high

street

you saw thousands upon thousands of

businesses

grow from nothing to where they are

today

because all i was obsessed with was the

common denominators the

they all felt alone and yet they were

going through the same thing

and i remember when we built not in the

high street

naively i thought we could have a

consumer site

but i knew very quickly that they would

need a b2b site because as they were

growing

they would need the tools so i said to

myself well we'll build two sites when

we launched norton high street

obviously that didn't happen um

now that b2b site was on the agenda not

in the high street every year

for 11 years and uh actually now i think

that holly and co

is my b2b scratch that i've itched

but when you talk about business

normally it's done in a certain way in a

2d way

in a greater way and my plight was to

help the dreamers we have a phrase dream

dabble do

at holly and co i want to help the

dreamers become doers and i want to help

the dreamers

go for it and i want to help the doers

never give up

and so that means you need to give

business a facelift

and so that is what i'm trying to do is

create a bubble

an existence for these small businesses

to live in

where i sort of with the my knowledge

have

created a world where i answer the needs

you know

you don't need to have a business plan