Today I’m joined by a very special friend of mine today, Lana Hopkins
Another Aussie! Lana has spent the last 10 years building consumer facing brands that blend tech and products.
She started her first venture, Mon Purse, in 2014 when we were just getting used to this new and exciting world of social media platforms like Facebook, after exiting in 2018 she’s now launching her latest venture, Some Place as the world starts moving into the metaverse.
some·place gives individuals the ability to collect, curate and flex their
NFT collections; in a social, 3D space and in real-life, via exciting augmented reality interactions. Now I have to say - I’m not entirely versed on all things NFT’s and crypto so I’m trying my best in this episode and I learn a lot from Lana. I hope you you do too!
Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!
Lana. Hi hello, welcome to the Female Startup Podcast. Thank you for having me. It's been so long since we caught up in person and it's lovely to see you happy and glowing in London or all the way from London and you today. I don't know if I'm glowing, I would say I'm great but I'm thinking the same. I haven't seen your face since like 2019 I think right I think you're right because 2020 and 2021 a carnival vital. Um and so the the pandemic has done that to our travel. I did not. Yeah and we, we catch up on the phone but we don't do facetime. So it has been quite a while. I'm excited, I'm excited to be talking to you about business and your new venture and all the things going on in your world.
00:03:38Edit I want to give everyone a little bit of context before we jump into your own intro, you have been through a decade of building super successful businesses. You were in the D. C. E. Commerce, space building and accessories brand. You took that all over the world now you've kind of transitioned into this new digital world of N. F. T. S and before we started recording you were dropping these terms that I don't actually know what they mean. I think you said dow we're probably gonna have to go through that in a second but you've got a lot of different learnings and so many things to share with us. So I want to get you to start by giving us a bit of an introduction to who you are and then I'd love to jump into your first business and get a bit of a founder story 100%. So um everything you said in 100% correct, a dow actually for those who don't know is a decentralized autonomous organization but more on that later so he told me to that.
00:04:41Edit Um But long story short so um look I started my journey, I started my entrepreneur journey in 2013 2014 um just before launching month first um with with another excessive fines where I got really excited as it was halfway through the web to, or I guess the web to journey when we were learning about google search and facebook has just become a thing. I don't know if you guys can remember that, but we're all trying to learn and navigate the um in and out of the facebook advertising platform and how do you really build an amazing branch and drive eyeballs to the site? That was all of this, all of the commotion and all of the things for those of you who can remember what was happening in 2012 in 2015, late 2014 and fairness 2015, I started a one of the first direct to consumer companies which specialize specifically in customized excesses called my first.
00:05:41Edit Um and as you rightly pointed out, it was actually an exercise in learning everything that I could about how to build a branch, how to also build a consumer technology platform on web gl which at the time back in 2014 2015 was pretty novel and that really was my first foray into the three D world. So how do you automate and provide a three D tool that allows you to render the bug or accessory of your dreams. Um and that's kind of what led me to where I am today. But long story short, my mom plays journey lasted from 2014 to 2018, I exited the company and spending 18 and then spent about a year and a half um consulting to accelerate our venture funds and also meet to private equity funds because I've had quite a bit of experience raising capital during my time at one person and I wanted to share the perspective of a founder, particularly one from a consumer perspective.
00:06:45Edit Whilst I was working out really what you do now, what led me to start someplace is, as I mentioned previously, I was in this web three journeys and I guess three D journey for such a long time and the my interests and my passions have always been in web three. I've been interested about what we now have come to speak about in recent times as the metaverse and I remember I think telling you about the metaverse a year and a half ago or a year ago, instead of watching people's faces and I can't recall about your face of somebody else's faith and something which is long over, What are you talking about exactly. Um first forward to 2020 to to this moment in town and all you seem to hear anywhere you look and go and have a conversation if this metaverse metaverse that long story short, what it really comes down to and what I'm really passionate and excited about is the web three economy and how we can mature from web to into web three, what that encapsulate and really the part that I'm excited about it, decentralization and the opportunity for artists in particular and people who have been marginalized to really take advantage and take control over how they monetize their experiences.
00:08:06Edit Um so for me that's something that I'm particularly interested in and about that's amazing. And I think what's really interesting is, you know, you were saying when you got started with Mon purse, you're at this inflection point of people coming onto facebook and this new world that we were kind of living with and then now, you know, we're coming into this new world of metaverse and we're starting to hear about meta and all these kinds of different things that we're trying to navigate. So you've really been like pioneering these spaces for such a long time before we jump into your new venture and you can tell me all the things that I don't yet know about. I want to talk a little bit more about the raising capital side of things with your first venture? Obviously you went through that you raised money with one person, then you went and worked in the industry, what are the kinds of things that you learned, what what are the best learnings that you can share for other founders, who are either thinking about raising capital, like who should raise capital for example or who are like trying to navigate the money like funding path?
00:09:09Edit I think, you know, it's such an interesting question and something that I've thought a lot about over the years, particularly since my exit from one person. It's something that I try to share with people from an advisory perspective, I think that there really is such a thing as good capital and bad capital and that takes shape in many ways and forms and what I mean by that is you really in the same way that you select your partner in life, you should also be very, very selective about the people you choose to partner with. I think that particularly in this climate in this environment there's more capital going around then we know what you're doing and I think it really comes down to finding the right alignment and having the same North star, suppose because whilst all those lead to Rome people have different ideas about how to get there. And so I think it's really important to be aligned on what success looks like for you and then having that conversation with your venture partners to actually understand if you're on the same page from the get go and it's not, it's better to know that up front as opposed to later down the line.
00:10:21Edit So I think you have to give you a very thoughtful um and consider it about your application for your review application and you have to d d your investors as much as they D D. U. I think that Diddy being due diligence, Right? Dude I'm sorry. Yes due diligence, so thorough due diligence being as diligent as possible, asking specifically other founders about their experiences with a particular group of investors doing as much independent research as possible. So you can figure out also if you these are the sorts of people that you wish to work with but also having the tough conversations with the investor themselves and trying to understand are your stars aligned? Are you looking for the same things? Are you looking for the same sort of exit? Um It's important to understand if it's a venture funds, what terms they've got what stage of the fund a light so that you can understand if you will get the support as a founder that you need. So due diligence, I think it's very very important value alignment is also very very important and making sure you get along with this individual, making sure this is somebody who really wants to spend time here, month in, month out, it might be day in day out hopefully but it should be every couple of weeks.
00:11:39Edit So that's something that I certainly learned through my experience and the process that I went through. I've also been extremely fortunate because some of my buckets from Mp Monfort have actually gone on to back my new venture and they are some of the most incredible intelligent um and remarkable people that I've ever had the pleasure of with with, so, again, truth wisely, um secondly, I think the second part of this is also about really kind of understanding is your business right or suitable for venture capital funding? Is it distorted business that requires venture capital? Because not all companies do if you're starting a large style company, um that plans to generate x amount of revenue, maybe you can figure out if you can bootstrap for as long as you can prove your point, bring on customers and get customers to actually fund and part of your journey. I know you've done that in your previous venture and that's proven to be extremely successful for you.
00:12:42Edit So I think it's also about identifying what sort of outcome are you looking for? Are you looking to scale something At 10 2030 100 x from a return to perspective or are you looking at a stable income from a lifestyle business? Neither is right or wrong. Both are incredible. It just really depends on what is the objective of your capital rate. And the third and final thing that I sort of say to everybody and this is come from my own experiences, be very, very frugal with the capital that you raised. We, for my new venture for our new venture, we've raised a small round of capital late last year and we're still sitting comfortable from that position and so try to incentivize team members as much as possible through a sock, make sure that you've got any stops our employee option schemes. So um I should clarify what I'm talking about here. Um but I think what you want again, as we talk about north down value alignment, if you've got people who believe in the business and who were willing to work with you, she built the business for future upside that is always a really really good way of um I suppose validating the demand for what you're building.
00:14:01Edit So there's many, many different ways to I suppose think about funding one it through bootstrapping and self funding in other ways through adventure. Then you've also got things like accelerators potentially or customer funding funding through your supply chain partners or in addition to that literally building an M. V. P. As far as you can with the support of other team members who are just as invested as you are for equity in the business. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also what you know, your experience has been building essentially to businesses that heavily rely on the tech piece of the puzzle. And tech is so expensive. So that's something that probably you do need to gravitate towards having access to more capital versus another kind of business where maybe you're able to buy, you know, limited pieces of stock and that kind of thing as you go and kind of build up from there. Let's talk about some place, let's talk about the new venture. Let's talk about where you got the idea from what kind of got you interested in this space in general.
00:15:07Edit 100%. So, um and I could talk about this all day, sadly we haven't got all day, but as I mentioned, so when when I was starting in p I was thinking a lot about the feed the space and when you think about what someplace is someplace is, what some of our friends of the company have so described as the most spectacular metaverse now, a little bit about that and why that particular statement matters. We are trying to build a different narrative, particularly one that is friendly and I guess accessible to women and mainstream communities who feel potentially marginalized by some of the experiences they've seen from an energy or crypto or Blockchain perspective. I don't know one was the last time that you try to set up your meta mask or your crypto wallet or anything like that and was that a painful experience for you? Have you gone on this journey yet? Am I going to johnny?
00:16:08Edit You're going to take me on the journey. A lot of my husband's super into it. So we can say we have a crypto portfolio, I can tell you that we have in excess, but truly it's not being led by me at all. It's very much all him, he's super into it. He's in all the communities, you know all the things, but it goes a little bit over my head. I mean, I understand it. I have like a basic understanding of everything, I guess you would say, because I listen to what he's listening to and he tells me about it and that kind of thing. But I haven't embarked on the journey at all of setting up my own crypto well, I haven't gone down that pathway and I don't know if any of my girlfriends have either to be quite frank and I already see that as a problem. I know it's a problem and I'm like, but why? And I guess maybe because for me, my wife is like, well he's doing it, so maybe I don't need to, which is silly, but besides that, I'm like, yeah, why isn't it more accessible to women and why aren't more women? And I'm not saying like generally, because maybe so many women listening and like, oh yeah, I'm all over it, like I'm 100% into it, but like in my circles, I'm like, yeah, I don't really have any friends who could, like sit down and tell me how to do that at all, and I wonder why, and neither did we neither did my co founder juliana and I when we first started to speak about what the storm meant in terms of why we're starting someplace and what are we doing, let's go back to the top level vision and how we're thinking about everything.
00:17:38Edit We initially wanted to start some place as a space which had a narrative that allowed you to meet and connect with like minded others. Think about how we used to originally meet people, we went to the same school we studied at the same university um or perhaps we did the same boot camp together, maybe we stalked each other on instagram maybe favorable. And that was how we interacted and connected in Web two. Right, fast forward to web three and we've got the ability to build something that is immersive real time and far more engaging and we'll talk about the manifestations of three D. World versus A. R. Because I think that's another conversation that's really worth having. But then when you really start to condo about what is this Web three business and what does it all really mean? And ultimately centered around how we're redefining what it means to socialist to interact and also what does it mean in the context of shifting capitalism.
00:18:40Edit And I touched on decentralization earlier because that's such an important part of, you know, when you think about Web two and you think about all of the fangs and everything is really centralist with facebook amazon et cetera. Right, so there's a lot of control around how would you what we do this censorship, there's so much that we're now sort of saying is this okay, we're starting to question the paradigms and the principles of how things happened and continue to happen within Web two and the internet in its purest firm was supposed to be this, I suppose paradigm where we have much more control over our creative freedoms and that's not how it turned out. And so far particularly about saying the bigger picture vision is about ultimately creating a space where you can connect with like minded others. How do you make that connection happen? Well, how it currently happening people who belong to certain Nhe community that I'm part of a cryptid ship, for example, you have to definitely join, I will connect you with the globe.
00:19:48Edit They are amazing, they're roadmap, it's insane. We are looking at how we can work together with them at some place, but other people are members of board aid, somebody else is a member of crypto plants, etcetera. Everybody that I know has a particular affiliation to a certain down or community and a community. Um and that is where they congregate on discord. As you mentioned, your husband spends a lot of time and discord why? Because this is where he connects and shares ideas with like minded. Are there So, energy communities really have true purposes. One is to trade some people are in there purely for financial gains in financial upside, but others gravitate towards a common goal, a common thing and the desire to belong to a certain group and so what we realized coming back to narrative doing what we realized pretty early on, we couldn't come out with an app or a product or platform or dow that was seemingly like second life or the Central are change or something that you may have heard of on the fringe of the conversations, but probably do not venture out in tune.
00:21:01Edit What we realized is we have to treat this like as if as if we're baking a cake now, when you do back cakes, do you love baking cakes? Sometimes? My baby. Yeah. So if you were baking a cake and you had a couple of friends coming over for dinner, chances are that you would probably incorporate a lot of ingredients that people were familiar with. You wouldn't turn completely fine ingredients because even though it looks like a cake, it doesn't taste like a cake. So in the case of someplace, we realized that in order to make this a success with mainstream audiences, we had to focus on three core things and those were changing the narrative in terms of how we speak and how we engage with our audience. Thinking about every single touch point from a ux user experience perspective, How do we streamline and simplify this experience? How do we not make it scary, daunting and overwhelming. So we focus on the words that we use, we normalize those words, we focused on the overall aesthetic and experience.
00:22:10Edit And thirdly, and something that we're hearing all the time, which comes back to this comment around this is the most beautiful and spectacular metaverse I have ever seen is really about elevating the aesthetic beauty of our spaces so that there's a sense of warmth and familiarity and for those of your viewers who are familiar with the beginning of the drug to consumer era, you can probably remember a time way back when before we had the direct to consumer brands, there were a lot of more brands. There were a lot of, you know, sort of supermarket brands or large box retail brands. And they also did not have strong commands over clarity over storytelling and over a genuine engagement and connection with their audience. This is where we know we're at right now. We're trying to make people see the beauty of Web three and the abilities that exist within the web three paradigm.
00:23:11Edit How do you do that by breaking down the barriers? So back to the cake, I'm baking the cake, you're baking the cake, we're baking the cake together. And so what's happening in that context is we are basically coming out of the gate with an opportunity for people to do three things. Those three things are trade, collect and flex. Now, what that means specifically is when you enter the up you select your avatar, you enter an absolutely gorgeous personal space and you start to collect various NFC collections from various collaborations and drops that we have lined up. We have a really long roster of interesting brands. We're working with a lot of female led brands and also female artists to create a different type of three D N. F. T. Which isn't in and of itself a different offering. Most thing achieved to date have been P FPs which is profile picture reality.
00:24:16Edit They tend to be J pegs. We are turning everything into a three D. Dimension in a real time engine with much more utility with much more application and the ability to actually see what it's like to be in that space and to interact with things that matter to you. Then you've got the other component which is flex well hang on a second if I have quiet beautiful collection digital collections, let's call the digital collections. Not only achieved that might disarm the conversation a little bit. If I've got beautiful collections that are really meaningful and really special to me. Well what do I want to do? I want to share them with you. I want to share them with other people. So I'm flexing that and I'm showing that your people through what through instagram through twitter. I'm talking about the collection that I have. I'm showing you what I have right now. If you want to share your collection with me or your joint portfolio with your husband, you would send me a link to your open stay account and I get a static page with a couple of energy picture.
00:25:18Edit We're blaming that on its head and we're saying no no no come into this gorgeous space and be able to interact and engage with what you are. But in addition to that we've also got an A. R. Component and I'll tell you why we're bridging the gap between I. R. L. And U. R. L. And what that means is if you own one of our beautiful N. F. T. S, let's stay the device which is dropping in early february if you want. I know of one of those. Not only can you interact with that in the three day space, but you can actually also have that as an A. R. Component anywhere within your home. And that is something that the people have been pretty pretty special. It's no longer just a jpeg off the internet. It's now an item that you can literally have in your house on top of your pallet town. I've got to pull it on there, You can't see it very handy by the way. But that it could be working from home. But why is that important?
00:26:19Edit Gene? It's important because the truth schools of thought for the metaverse, one school of thought belongs to that Microsoft and facebook where they really focused on the three D. World and what it's going to be like to exist within those three D. Worlds which is quite often linked to gaming, right? So a lot of games operate in that way, which is why there's been such a strong correlation between game like environment. Um and the metaverse, The second school of thought actually belonged to the Niantic cohort, which is another major technology organization. And they talk about the fact that they say absolutely no way are we going to go down this three D rabbit hole? What should be happening is people need to be getting out and about more and the A. R. Component needs to be present all around us. Think of it like Pokemon go, you're going about your day and the Pokemon running around you. Guess what we're saying? And I'm going to use a DtC analogy here that I think everybody will understand it's not books and water or online.
00:27:21Edit It's both, it's whatever the customer needs advance. And so throughout this entire journey, which said, we are bridging ira with you Ella and we're creating a deep connection and elevating what it means to have utility in the sense of digital ownership. And so that leads us to our longer term goal, which is okay. Um Here's my collection. Here's what I've got, I'm talking about it. I'm flexing that I'm having an amazing time celebrating all of this and now I'm actually able to engage and connect with my community with my crypto chicks. The crypto chicks might have a fashion show or an event in the space that all of the other crypto chips will come along to that and be a part of it, for example. Um and so all of a sudden these communities are starting to form and congregate in beautifully curated spaces where we're celebrating the ability to connect with people in different ways. We're doing that in discord already. But imagine if you were able to do that in a highly engaged, personalized, curated and immersive space, so that's really what the short and the long term vision is about.
00:28:33Edit Obviously, as you can imagine, we couldn't come out of the gate with the whole proposition. So we've had to take baby steps. Yeah, and I mean I love the sound of it. It all sounds so exciting and obviously where the future is going, it's down here, back to hype you up about all things Crm with a little message from our friends at hubspot. A Crm platform takes any customer interaction and transforms that data into valuable insights as the world's leading Crm platform, hubspot is rolled out over 50 plus integrations over the past year to help businesses connect with customers like never before. The latest suite of customer centric tools to help your business, show your customers. A whole lot of love includes seamless payment tools. Crm powered CMS, customer portals and feedback surveys, seamless payment tools, mean payment links and recurring payments can be directly embedded into hubspot is quoting tools and emails for easy delivery and collection from customers and Crm powered CMS means both your marketers and developers can personalize the customer experience and ensure all engagements are timely and relevant, learn more about how a hubspot Crm platform can help build, maintain and grow your customer relationships at hubspot dot com.
00:29:53Edit I'm interested to hear about like your launch plan and how you actually find women like me like you like people who are maybe on the fringe of knowing about it, but not so much about it, where you will need to have that strong education piece as well as the kind of enter this new world. What's your launch plan? 100%. Great questions. So interestingly, initially we were thinking about this sort of proposition appealing just the mainstream consumers and we'll talk about that in a second. What has happened over the past couple of weeks is the existing nhe communities and our such as the ones that I've mentioned already getting really excited about what we can offer um their existing community members. Some of them are women. The crypto chicks, for example, is a women's N. F. T. But some are not. So that's where the interesting thing has come about. What we're doing though, is by creating these spaces which are so beautiful.
00:30:55Edit We have had women like you, we went like Jasmine who is a great friend of yours um obviously support the branch and other women who um are super interested in the space and want to learn more about it. They are excited by the narrative and what I mean by that is the fact that we have been so thoughtful and our aesthetic And in our language, this is something that even when people don't fully understand it 100%, they are excited and motivated to have a conversation and find out more the response that we have had on Twitter from various female artists communities you name, It has just been so heartwarming to say the least. Absolutely heart warming and I think what we love hearing from them and I like this done the other day, we spoke to somebody who basically said until some players come and came along and having so many conversations at the moment that I have to like bite it down, but until some players came along, they said there was absolutely nothing out there that was built for the consumer like me.
00:32:02Edit There was absolutely nothing out there that allowed me to honor my creative integrity and there was absolutely nothing out there that felt like it was designed by someone like me. So, again, it really comes down to the fact that when we think about building technology and consumer product, it's also really important to remember who is at that table driving that conversation. So, to answer your initial question, what's our launch plan? We've been deeply engaged with some major energies and our communities and we're working in partnership with them as well as artists and brands to actually put together amazing partnerships at the end of january slash early february to the date a little bit secret, We will be dropping 10,000 energies um which will be the beautiful bottles that you may have seen on our side that you may have seen on instagram etcetera. Um, and they will be what we call the access path and that access past then allows the 1st 10,000 people to enter our beta platform on the, on the IOS app.
00:33:08Edit So we're launching on IOS only initially no other platform um that was also probably the most difficult decision ever. It would have been much easier to build this platform on desktop or VR but we knew that the women we were reaching and the communities you were reaching are all spending time on this little guy, not on desktop or anywhere else. And so we've been quite fortunate in the sense that we've had some really organic conversation and we've been supporting female artists and that is how the word is getting out there and that's how we're hoping to build and harness that community because for us really it's about people falling in love with the proposition and they are indeed falling in love with what we're about, which is very exciting and heartwarming. I'm so excited for you, this is so amazing, I love it all. Are there any brands that you can mention publicly who the upcoming partnerships and co labs are with? We will be able to announce that towards the end of next week so you will just have to stand up and watch this space, I will have my blinkers on, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled.
00:34:21Edit What is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs coming into 2022? Gosh, well, uh presuming the pandemic will continue um where your mouth can wash your hands, but no, that is side, uh hopefully uh that is all coming to an end and that will soon be behind us. I think the biggest piece of advice that I can give to anybody is really built an incredible change around you and build an incredible network of supporters around you. I have been extremely, extremely fortunate in that, I have found an amazing co founder who's both talented, brilliant, passionate and highly intelligent to go on this journey with, but it's not just the two of us, there's a team behind us as well, um I should stay alongside us, no one is ever behind you um and so we will work very, very hard together and we work three things together and we have done so for the past year and a beach um and so I always say it really comes down to picking your team wisely whether that's your investment partners or whether that's your partners in business or in life um secondly, I think be very open To the possibilities of Web three because I think what is happening right now is exactly what I have not been this excited doing since like 2005 or 2006 and I was probably too young to know what was actually happening, but we are really interesting sort of point in history and point in time where things are changing all around us and it's important to take knowledge and pay attention.
00:36:11Edit So I think approach it with a very open mind and a very open heart and try to learn as much as possible if something scares you probably a really good waiting to attack it and learn more about it. Oh amen! Absolutely, I'm going to be holding you to helping me set up my wallet and step me through that process as well as the introduction to crypto checks, that sounds super cool. We usually wrap up every episode with a quick fire round of six questions, some of which we might have covered, some of which we might not have, but I asked them all the same, so question number one, what's your, why, why are you doing what you're doing? I think that when you get out of bed every morning your heart has to skip a beat, your mind has to want to know more and your soul has to want more every day, being an entrepreneur is something that is challenging at the best of times and so I think you have to have this unbelievable passion for learning and for knowledge for me, I feel like I'm learning something new every day, my brain is constantly stimulated and that is how that is, and has always been my way.
00:37:22Edit I love that, I love this, get out of bed and have your heart skip a beat every morning. Gosh, so poetic. Lana, jesus question number two is this can be from potentially mon purse because the new business hasn't officially launched yet, but maybe there is a moment that we can talk about. But what's the number one marketing moment that you've had in either business that kind of made the business pop Well, I think it's actually really funny doing, I couldn't make this up if I tried, but I texted somebody on the team today to say we had a really big day, we've had a lot of commotion with um unbelievable excitement from literally some of the best streetwear brands in the world. My co founder met with this unbelievable, unbelievable group of people and she came running back so excited, she could not contain herself, but it was just saying that joy and that passion was just unbelievable today, but we've had the same with a couple of meetings that we've had over the past few days with Unoci communities, et cetera, and people are just getting so excited about this and that's why you do it and started what I checked it.
00:38:34Edit One of our team members today is I said, is there a parallel between what's happening today and what was happening in the very, very early days of mp when everything just seemed to be happening and working and living in the right direction and this person said, absolutely yes, amen to that. And so I think when I think about marketing at its core, this is not to take away from, you know, the performance, marketing, digital activities and whatnot that we all need and have to do, but it's something that's authentic and organic and just happens. And I think things just happen when people fall in love with what you're talking about. Um, for us, that's the biggest validation of the fact that we're onto something, watching other people get excited, smiling, wanting to talk about, wanting to promote it, wanting to partner with you. That's also the hardest thing, potentially sometimes because it takes the most time and you have to be so, so patient for that to happen. But I think if you can hit that Eureka moment, then you actually know you want to something that has longevity question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter?
00:39:45Edit What are you reading or listening to or subscribing to the other founders should know about? Well, I've actually, I bought this book, it's a really interesting book um called The Happiest Man on Earth. Um, it's by this wonderful wonderful gentleman. He passed away not long ago. He was over 100. His name is Eddie Jackal and he was a holocaust survivor. Um, and throughout all of the terrible, terrible moments that took place in his life. He always maintains extensive integrity and dignity and kindness and I think we all have moments, we all have bad moments. We all have moments when we sort of think bad things, feel bad things, et cetera. And this man, it just never did for one reason or another and I think I kind of have that book lying opposite me as a little reminder every day that no matter how tough things get tomorrow is always a better day. And this is no comparison to what, you know, it took place during that terrible moment in time, which is a personal thing for me as well, but it's something that I think is a constant reminder of what's important and what matters in life and that's human, human dignity.
00:40:55Edit I've also got, this is very weird, it's not like educational books, but I've got to be funny way the holidays are coming up and it's really all about artie parties. So again, it's a bit of a reminder of how to bake more cakes, how to cook exciting things and how do we take joy in the simple pleasures of life. Um, jokes aside from a business perspective, I'm a big leader, I think you know this, we are bouncing podcasts articles, all sorts of things back and forth all the time. I think it's really important to be well prepared in terms of the things that matter to you, but also the things that are societally and economically important. I try to read a broad range everything from the Wall Street Journal new york times. I try to cover major european papers in terms of staying up to date on economics, foreign politics, domestic politics here in Australia as well to have a sense of what's happening. Um, and I also subscribe to very specific sub stocks and things like business, business substructure develops, cooked food, sub stuff, which I will not bore people with today.
00:42:07Edit Um, not to mention platforms such as lane likes, which we've also discussed, which really is a very light hearted community that talks about the jokes to consumer space. I'm interested in a number of different things and that ranges from politics, to art, to economics, et cetera. But throughout all of that, the two things that I happened to have in my table related to a personal story of a beautiful amount and how to have more fun and bake more cakes. So maybe they're just telling us that I need to get out there and even more case, I don't know, maybe, Oh my gosh, you just gave us so many great recommendations. I'm going to link them all in the show notes for anyone who is listening and if you do want to send me a list of your go to sub stacked, I will subscribe. I would love to check them out. Thank you so much. Question. Number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? The one and only thing that I absolutely try to do even though it has been new on impossible the past month, we have had a dreadful case of La Nina here in Beautiful Sydney um, is going for a walk.
00:43:14Edit Um, and I'm fortunate that I do the Bandana bronte walk every morning, which I know you love very much as well and I'm sure you're missing this terribly right about now. I'm missing it. So bad. I can hear it in your voice. Um, so I try to do that every morning either with my husband. So we have quality time together um, whilst taking a business call or whilst listening to our podcasts. Oh my God, if I don't do it my day just doesn't have the same ring to it. Please bring that to someplace. Please replicate Bondi to bronte. Uh, so that we can all join it in the metaverse when we're living in light, which is gray and bleak. I will pass that on to juliana. Yes. Please pass it on. Question number five is if you were given $1000 of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business and that's to highlight your most important, spend a dollar. I know it's not a lot of money in general. We honestly, and I've thought about this long and hard when you first showed me what your questions were and it really comes down to the communities that were affiliated within the communities that we support just today actually, juliana.
00:44:28Edit And they co founder, creative director and I, we picked out two of our favorite pieces of art and we posted about them on this someplace twitter, which I think everybody should follow. It summed up place at twitter and so both of them happen to be unbelievably talented female artists. And so because some place really is about supporting and fostering the arts community um for us it really would be about purchasing the N. F. T. S and the artwork of um up and coming female artists, why does that matter? It matters? Because that's the lifeblood, that's the soul of our community, that's the soul of what we do, that's the spirit of what we do. So, absolutely, we would invest in in the artists that we support. I feel like today or tomorrow. CJ Hendry is dropping her N. F. T. Collection. Did you see that? Which one? Do you know? Who's CJ Hendry CJ Hendry? I will check it out. The Brisbane artist. She's based in New York. She's I mean if you don't know how you're going to absolutely love her, but she drops the collection tonight or tomorrow.
00:45:37Edit Um I think she has 10 different styles going up anyway, it's really, really cool. It's all around this like collection around blonde wigs and she's like, absolutely mind blowing. So you should definitely check it out. Yes, I'm writing it down at which pages I'll send you the email with the link and all that kind of stuff. Last question, I know I've asked you a lot today, but last question, how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things inevitably don't go to plan? Failure is a part of life. I think failure is something that I've experienced myself personally and it's something that I've had to learn from adapt and live with. I think that when you think that the trajectory and the pattern of life, it's always like this, it's never always constantly going up or hopefully not constantly going down. I think a lot of it comes down to mindset and it comes down to how quickly can I pick myself up and how quickly can I say?
00:46:42Edit This is where my short coming along, this is what I can do better next time and improve from that. I try not to sit on something for a long time because that affects me mentally and emotionally. I tried to sort of sort of give myself time to breathe, to cope to deal with it, but then also figure out where I went wrong and how I can do it better next time so that I can continue to grow and evolve as an individual, but also said that I can continue to bake cakes and have fun because what would be the fun in um you know, reliving that terrible moment and trust me, I have had plenty of those Lana, Thank you so much for taking the time to have on this call with me today. I've loved learning about someplace and I'm so excited for it to launch and to get in there and experience it and do all the things. Have my first N. F. T. S, my own N. F. T. S, I should say. Well, I just wanted to say thank you not behind behalf of myself, but on behalf of my amazing co founder juliana and the rest of the chain, we're so grateful to have the opportunity to share our story with you and I cannot wait to see you back in Sydney, so we can go for that walk in, Bondi please combat same.
00:47:56Edit Same. I think the last time I saw you was was a walk in the park and it was so lovely. I can't wait me sharing.