Founders' Fears & Failures

An Exited Founder on Staying Optimistic and Resilient on the Entrepreneur Rollercoaster with Aaron Chatterley

• Dr. Melissa Parks • Episode 28

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In this episode I’m excited to introduce you to Aaron Chatterly, an exited serial founder who, having sold his beauty retailer to Sephora in 2021, is living the dream so many founders aspire to when they start their companies. However,  in this episode we’re going to be talking not only about the highs, but also some of the lows he’s experienced along the way and what’s helped him stay optimistic and resilient through it all.


Aaron co-Founded beauty retailer feelunique in 2005. feelunique was Europe's leading premium online beauty retailer with 80,000 health and beauty products from over 900 major brands such as Chanel, Estee Lauder, bareMinerals, Dior, Clinique, Decléor, Benefit, YSL and Lancôme.


He led a partial sale of the business to Private Equity in 2012, and in September 2021 sold the company to LVMH/Sephora. Aaron has recently launched a new teen beauty brand called indu. He is also an independent Director of Nasdaq listed beauty acquisition company Waldencast, a non-Executive Director of Digital Jersey and an Ambassador for the Prince’s Trust Women Supporting Women. He was voted one of the 50 most powerful people in Online Retail for 2014 by Retail Week, IoD Director of the Year for a Large Organisation 2013 and finalist in the UK Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012.


We cover a wide range of topics in this interview including how Aaron and his business partner broke into the competitive beauty industry, how he stays optimistic and resilient despite the inevitable challenges of entrepreneurship, and his experience of selling his company and the lessons he learned along the way.


We also explore some of the mental health challenges he’s faced, how he juggles family life alongside the demands of entrepreneurship, and how being a parent to twin teen girls inspired his next business venture.

Find Aaron online:

Connect with your host, Dr. Melissa Parks, elsewhere:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissacparks/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissaparksphd

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissaparksphd/

Website: https://melissaparks.com/


Schedule a free 30 min. discovery call with Melissa to see if executive coaching with her would be a good fit: https://melissaparks.com/free-consultation-call/

If you’d like additional support for your mental and emotional well-being as a founder please visit Melissa’s website for a list of resources to help you find a coach, therapist, or peer support.

Melissa:

All right. Hi, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Aaron:

It's lovely to be here.

Melissa:

Yeah. So we were just chatting a bit about how it's taken us a couple months to get this, get this on the but what we had it on the calendar, and then, you know, we had to make some changes. Because as I told you, you know, I do have podcasts of very busy people, but you reminded me, everybody's busy. So thank you for being here. And thank you to anybody listening, right? Taking time out of your schedules, also to listen, and I'm so excited to share your story today.

Aaron:

Thank you, hopefully, it'll be vaguely interesting to you and your audience.

Melissa:

I'm sure will be really interesting. Why don't we just jump in Aaron, and you've been in the world of entrepreneurship for a while? How did this how did you get started in this world.

Aaron:

Um, so I was never like your kind of cookie cutter entrepreneur, I was never the kid at school that was buying something and selling it in the playground or, you know, actively looking at ways of making money or, you know, doing that kind of traditional, you know, route to entrepreneurship that so many people successfully, successfully, to me, it was more, I was in a pretty comfortable corporate corporate job with a big telecoms company that was operating actually in the Caribbean. And I'd been there for a couple of years, mostly in sort of marketing roles. And this was in the very, very early days of the World Wide Web kind of the internet was been knocking around for a couple of years, people using email. And the World Wide Web was just starting to get some traction and working for a kind of telco out there. My role was within the kind of marketing team for an Internet service provider that was being rolled out across the British Caribbean, I spent a year doing that. But when I moved back to the UK, there was I was put into a job where I went to a role within the same organization where I was kind of evangelist role for talking to big companies about the internet and what it could do and how the worldwide web could help them, obviously, on the basis that the company that I worked for, would be able to sell ancillary services off the back of there, and then getting getting involved in these kind of emerging data technologies. And I found that when I was talking to lots of companies, they there was a real kind of laughter. Where do we go then if we want? We want a website built, where do we go? Because they would come to me and go, Yeah, this is great. Sounds sounds excellent. Clearly, it's becoming a thing. It's growing. And Amazon is becoming this thing. Back then it was really just a bookseller, but it was getting awareness. And people were moving away from printed brochures to kind of online online brochure where a lot of it was at the time. And I kind of looked at it and, and I realized that actually there was, there was a real lack of people who could build websites, specifically for these bigger companies that had a need for not just great looking design, but also, you know, commercial application, technical ability, there were lots of fragmented people doing web design, if you like. And I kind of a good friend of mine was a was a graphic designer, he'd been doing a lot of kind of emerging design technologies he was with BMW said he was doing some kind of progressive design work in digital design. And I said to him, Look, you know, I think there's something in this, you know, maybe we could join forces and quit our very well paid jobs and create a business. So this sounds like it was, you know, like, centuries ago, now. It was actually a century ago in 96. I say 1996 to my kid than they think I'm like, 1000 years. So we basically we both quit our jobs. And you know, over the next two or three, over the next three years, we built up her business, basically building corporate websites. And that was my first step into being an entrepreneur. And then we sold that business in July 2000. So anyone who knows that internet history will know that. So end of June 2000, July 2000 is kind of when the internet bubble burst. And these these extended and hyper realistic valuations just popped, we were lucky, our timing was good, but it was more by luck than judgment, sold the company to to a publicly listed software company. And then I spent the next three or four years in a kind of earn out where I was not able to do anything, or wasn't able to launch a new company because the restrictions of the sale that we'd been through, and it wasn't it wasn't a life changing amount of money, but it was enough to, to you know, it was it was it was it was a good outcome for such a small organization. And then in 2004 when I was kind of coming to the end of my earnout I was living in Jersey, which is the original jersey, not New Jersey. which is a small island in between the UK and in France where my dad was from when I where I'd actually been born, although I grew up in Australia, but I was living in Jersey and some friends of mine had a business that was doing extremely well, they were turning over, you know, four or 500 million pounds, they were, they were basically selling DVDs and CDs and games online. And at the time, I said to my now business partner, you know, I, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to start something else. You know, there's, there's a real emergence of E commerce kind of in 2004. And there were lots of people starting to make a land grab of various sectors, you know, and Net-A-Porter, were doing luxury fashion, Amazon had kind of was still dominating books, but they were starting to move into other categories. The guys that were that I was referencing earlier, had a business called play.com, which in the UK, and Europe kind of owned media, CDs, DVDs, etc. Asos were doing amazingly on High Street fashion, and I sort of said to Richard look, you know, I think there's a real opportunity to to create something substantial and potentially something global, if we can find the right vertical market to go after. And at the time in 2005, when we hit upon beauty, it was largely underserved, and or it was badly done, or put, you know, it was poorly executed. And we thought, well, you know, there's an opportunity to create a dominant, you know, multi brand beauty retailer. And, you know, what started off as a crazy idea in 2005 became sort of, yeah, 2005 became, you know, the business that we created, which is called feelunique, which we spent the next 16 years building, and then ultimately sold it to Sephora. At the end of 2021.

Melissa:

Wow. Quite a big shift then, right from your first venture to the Feelunique venture.

Aaron:

It was not huge, because actually, it was it was that skill set. It was it was, it was our first venture was, you know, what started off as building brochure were quickly became, you know, we were building ecommerce sites for some pretty big organizations within the UK, you know, we were working with Sky Television and various organizations. So we had a lot of experience in building transactional websites. But also, back then digital marketing was very, very different. But we knew how to attract customers. We knew how to, you know, find customers, attract them retain them. We knew about user experience, we knew about digital marketing. So all of those skills were absolutely transferable to launching an online beauty business. What we didn't know about was beauty. Yes, yeah. That was the challenge for us. Yeah, and, you know, I know talking about a sector and an industry, which is full of brand equity, heritage, history, you know, it's it was not an easy in hindsight. It was a very, very difficult industry to break into, and to establish a degree of credibility, which was the biggest challenge.

Melissa:

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, the way you told the story, right, it sounds like okay, well, then we did this. And we did that. And then like, kind of like, following along, but I know that these stories aren't like that. Right? It's when you look back, you get to kind of see the nice flowing. Nice

Aaron:

Am I allowed to sweear on this podcast?

Melissa:

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Aaron:

So yeah, do you know what actually, it's a really, really good point. Because, you know, the, in hindsight, I guess, and I don't want to say it's like having a baby because I get shot by my wife whenever I say that, because clearly, I have no idea what it's like. But it's that is often that kind of story in that narrative around having a baby and that it's so awful process for a woman for a woman to go through. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of, but actually, once the baby is born, the only narrative that really matters is that you got pregnant, you had a baby, and now you've got this wonderful life that you're responsible for. And it's kind of like that, you know, if it's, we made lots of mistakes along the way. mistakes, and I say mistakes, kind of in a parenthesis and I don't really believe that there's a right and a wrong path. But I think there's lots of left and right choices. And who knows, if we if we'd gone down the a path rather than the B path, we might have made a lot more money and had a lot less pain. But who knows what might have happened alongside that that the whole thing might have got derailed and you know, it might have been a complete and utter bomb. So So when we look back and we go, oh God, you remember that period, that was awful. And we had to work with these people, and we hated them. And, and this was that, and God, if we'd only done that this might have happened, you can tie yourself up in knots. And it is completely pointless exercise. So when we look back to me, and don't get me wrong, you know, an awful lot of people were involved in the evolution of development and the building of the business and ultimately, the exit of it. And many will have different versions of their experience with it. And many might be kind of upset or bitter about how things turned out whether, you know, multiple multitude of reasons, reasons. But for me, the only narrative that matters now, in hindsight, is we started a business in 2005, with 70,000 pounds, and 16 years later, we sold it to LVMH, slash Sephora. And that is, that's the only thing that really matters when we when we look at it retrospectively, yes, we will learn lots and lots of lessons along the way, but anything else is? It's it's kind of it's almost irrelevant.

Melissa:

Yeah, yeah. Which I think is good for people to hear who are listening, right? Who might be in some of those moments of like, is this a mistake? am I preparing to make a mistake or fail? Right? It's to note, like, kind of keep your eyes on the prize, the hopeful prize, right?

Aaron:

Yeah. And we were always incredibly focused, we had lots and lots of opportunities to diversify, or to add different, you know, genres to our portfolio, we could have had fashion, we could have better jewelry, but we always had the view, we need to own beauty before we do anything else. And you know that, like I say, We made mistakes. But I don't kind of like I say, I don't really it's kind of like sounds slightly trite. But it's easy for us to say, ultimately, we got where we wanted to go. And with that in mind, it's easy to look back and say, all the mistakes that we made never really actually, in the grand scheme of things mattered that much at the time, they mattered a lot. And I fully appreciate because I've been involved in many businesses, both from an investment and an operational perspective that have kind of achieved what they set out to achieve. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a, it's a really rocky road.

Melissa:

Absolutely, yeah. Well, do you think from your experience, like, is there a secret formula that people can follow? or was there some luck involved for you?

Aaron:

I think that we were lucky in some ways, I think there are, you know, without getting into the whole kind of like, without being too kind of cheesy about business processes and formulas. And I think for us, there were some not necessarily formulas, but ingredients, which we brought to the party. Not necessarily intentionally, but I think, gave us an edge. One was, we had a very, very clear objective in mind. We had a, I think we had a very, very strong market opportunity in terms of finding which part luck and part you know, identifying it in the first place and coming up with a strategy to go after it. I think the kind of the more kind of esoteric pieces around that were, as a retailer, I think more than our competitors were very relationship driven. For us, we had this absolute obsession that as a retailer, if we lose a supplier, it's game over, potentially, it's game over, you know, four or five of our suppliers may have accounted for 60 70% of our revenue, because they were big, multi brand groups, the likes of L'Oreal and LVMH. And Estee Lauder. So for us, we always had this obsession with being easy to do business with and having strong human connections with our suppliers. If we lost the customer, that was terrible, we do everything that we can to fix it. But if we lose a supplier that's potentially game over, so we partly by the time but partly by the nature of the people that we employed, and we we employed, I think in the main nice people, people that I would hope would represent our organization in a way you know, that, that people would want to continue to do business with them and I think all too often in business. We get too focused on the commercial outcome. Certainly at a at a micro level, I you know, I would often you know, often you'll go into meetings and people are very focused on I need to come away from In this meeting with X, Y, and Zed as my kind of negotiating position, this is why I've got to deal with and secondarily, or actually, often not at all, are they thinking about, I also need to come out from this meeting with this person liking me. You know what I mean? And I think, too often we, we, we aren't empathetic enough. And we don't really think enough about the longer term relationship and the longer term impact. And yes, you might go in and you might win, the more the war, and you might get a few points of margin. But if you come away from that meeting with the other person thinking, maybe not even, maybe not even consciously thinking, I don't really like this person, or I don't want to spend time with this person, that's going to bite you on the ass down the line when they're not looking at, well, you know, we've got an opportunity to work with XYZ, we need this kind of company, or we want this kind of supplier, you know, and in our case, maybe it's a new brand that's launching. And, you know, they've heard that well, actually, you know, these guys are really nice. I really liked this team, or, yeah, these guys can do the same job. But actually, they're assholes. You know, people buy from people and people want to work with whether it's purchasing from or, or selling to, you know, human nature is that we want to, we want to be with people that we kind of like and we get on with. And I think, for us, we were really, I think I think we were just nice to do business with. And the flip side of that is sometimes probably we gave away too much. But I think when we look at the big picture, we might not have got the margin that some of our competitors might have got. But when it came to new brand launches, or, you know, us getting... you know feelunique, it's certainly in in our side of the pond was the only online retailer that had the luxury brands like Chanel and Dior. And I think the big part of that reason is not only the kind of respect for the heritage of the brand, and the understanding what they do commercially, but, you know, we weren't viewed as being mercenary, we were viewed as being flexible, easy to do business with, I think, when we talk about the the kind of you asked me, you know, what was the kind of magic sauce? I think it's, I think it's as a retailer being focused on relationships and human connections. Yeah. And to that end, I think, as an entrepreneur, that's, that's the greatest prize, you get to choose who you work with. You know, we get to, you got to spend 789 10 hours a day with somebody, again, you're going to work with people, you're going to want to recruit people and hire people and bring people into your culture that you want to hang around with. Yeah, so I think that was probably the most that and focus, and this is what we do. And we used to own that before we start getting clever and trying to add things just for the sake of revenue.

Melissa:

Yeah. Okay. I'm at the point where I'm like, Okay, do I think you were saying go left or right, which question do I want to ask? I wanted to ask you, was the plan all along to exit? Was that going into growing the business? Was that your plan?

Aaron:

Um, yes. Yes. I mean, it definitely it definitely was. Didn't really have a timescale in mind. We probably thought 10 years, as you probably thought, five to 10 years. And, yeah, no, the plan was absolutely to execute it. You know, we kind of saw the way that m&a was going in both ecommerce and in beauty. We wanted to create a global e commerce business, that was our objective. And I think if we hadn't sold it to this forum, we'd sold it to somebody else, or we'd sold it to private equity, I still think there would have been an opportunity to do that. But actually, Sephora was the perfect home for it. Because for multitude of reasons. I think in the very, very beginning, we thought we would probably be looking at a probably a five year horizon. But realistically, in the back of our minds, we'd have been thinking 10 I think it was 2012. So 2005 we launched, in 2012 we sold half the business to private equity. And we did that on the basis that there would then be a three year horizon to a final exit. Now the reality is it took another eight so that was that at that point, it was kind of beyond our control. Because obviously you bring in private equity depending on the terms but for us it you know, they came in with a controlling interest.

Melissa:

Okay. Okay. If I can ask any regrets about about making that decision, or is that something that that actually helped you to continue forward?

Aaron:

More than anything I've ever done with I would regret that decision. Now I say that I say that with the massive but, I say that with a smile on my face. I think, again, hindsight, I think I think we may have were our biggest concern was that we were growing superfast. We, we, I believe that we were on, we were in a position to be able to create exactly what we wanted, which was a kind of Net-A-Porter of beauty, we wanted to be a global beauty player, we were doing really well, we were growing exponentially, we were profitable from month 18, all the way through to that point, we were getting all the brands that others weren't. But we were getting nervous that Net-A-Porter could become the Net-A-Porter of beauty, or Amazon could become the, you know, the Amazon of beauty. And we had we'd had lots of inbound interest to acquire the business to invest in it. But we weren't looking to do anything per se, we weren't looking to get out at that point. But we were getting nervous that if we didn't own beauty before somebody else did. And Sephora at that point in Europe, and certainly well, in the UK work support weren't in the UK and afterwards. And so when Sephora could come to the UK, there was a whole bunch of things that were threatening, and in the back of the back of our minds. So we thought we went into a process and we spoke to several trade buyers, big organization, blue chip beauty organizations. But the downside of doing that kind of deal would have been it would have been a two or three year complete exit, they would have owned the whole thing within within a period, the benefit of going with a private equity transaction was they would invest into the business, and we can de risk which we did so 56% of the business. And it gave us optionality. So we could build the business together over the next three, three or four years and then do a bigger exit, or an IPO or something else now. That was the dream. And that was that was the plan. But you know, things changed once we've done the transaction. You know, we there were there were there were certain things where we kind of differed in terms of strategy and execution. Some stuff, some good, some bad, but with hindsight, I think I think we were probably overly nervous about and overly pessimistic about our own abilities to have actually taken the business for another three years ourselves. Okay. So I think practically, if I look back, the ego in me says we probably would have done better than they did, because I think we would have made different decisions, which I personally think might have, might have built the business more quickly, more successfully, more profitable. But again, I still would make exactly the same decision. If I was put back there, because I don't know that if we didn't, something might have gone wrong. And actually the outcome. Back to my point about the only narrative that matters is where we started and where we ended up. You know, it was we did pretty well, I would I would I would I want to risk that not happening now.

Melissa:

Yeah, absolutely. Right. There's no control group in life right to go. Go back and compare. Yeah. And what about when, when you did exit the company? What was that? Like? Because I hear so many entrepreneurs say like, you know, that's the dream, right? But it is kind of your baby. It's something you've we know, you've worked so hard for all those years.

Aaron:

Yeah, it was for us it was. It was slightly unusual in that we didn't start the business, and then do a complete exit and then walk away. There was a few stages along the way. First of all, we started the business and we did we ran ourselves, then we bought in private equity. So there was a partial sale at that point. So which was great, you know, after seven years of hard work, we'd established value in the company, we were profitable, we weren't desirable, and we were able to take money off the table and de risk. And that obviously gives you you know, that gives you a degree of financial comfort doesn't necessarily make you any happier. But it certainly makes you move from worrying about paying the bills to worrying about other stuff. But in terms of financial comfort that that solved that problem at the time. And then we went into another we went three year period where we went into a sale process again. In 2018 actually says 2000 that 2018 We went to separate but we didn't sell the business. It didn't work. Didn't get we didn't Get the offers that the PE guys had hoped we would. So we went through this kind of the year long. And any sale process is an intense affair. It's longer than you think it is going to be. It's it. It's highly stressful. It's intense, it's distracting. So we went through that sale process, then we pulled the plug in, we went back to business as usual. And then we went through another sale process kind of coming out of COVID, which is when we ultimately sold the company. So it wasn't anything wrong. It was it's, it's great, because, you know, we sold the company, and we sold it to Sephora, and it's you know, it's it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful home for the business. But it's, yeah, it's fantastic. I'm not, you know, I don't want to underplay it. sold the company to LVMH is a dream. Buy. Yeah, it's great. It's exciting. It was, yeah, it's fantastic. And I will live off it for the rest of my life. In terms of like, you know, dinner party stories, but yeah, but it was not without pain along the way.

Melissa:

Yeah, yeah. And in here, you're saying that maybe some of those steps like stepping stones along the way helped soften that a bit. But but it's, it's a huge life change, right to be working towards something for so many years? And then it's like, all right now, off to someone else.

Aaron:

Yeah, to your point about the emotional attachment to it as a company. I wasn't I didn't think I would people used to get Oh, aren't you gonna be sad for your babies? This thing, but actually, I was always quite pragmatic. And we're like, now you know what this is a means to an end. However, when it actually happened, when we sold the business support, there were several other potential buyers in the mix. And while practically Sephora is the best time for the company. And, you know, it's the perfect place, this is the perfect buyer, one or two of the other organizations that were looking at buying a business would have kept the fairly neat brand. So, as a sort of legacy, I was like, you know, it's not like we created Net-A-Porter, and that's just gonna live forever, or Amazon, like, no one's ever likely to rebrand those organizations, but because we sold it to a retail organization that had bought it because they wanted to, you know, move into the UK and in a significant way, they were never going to retain the feelunique brand. So, you know, I'm surprised people remember it now, which is nearly two years later, but at some point it's going to be it's irrelevant. So the legacy thing is, you know, which is why the next project that we're doing is we're launching a brand because part of the reason is because nobody who ever buys it is that you know, very unlikely changes.

Melissa:

Okay, okay. I want to ask you more about that. But I also want to ask a bit more about you know, before we jump into what's next. You have a family throughout all this. I know you have I think twin daughters is that you told me to two daughters when twin daughters Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so I'm just doing the math here with if I remember, right, their age is like

Aaron:

14 now. All right. So

Melissa:

yeah, so yeah. So So you are growing your family while this was going on to tell us about how has that been balancing all of that? Juggling it?

Aaron:

Yeah. So yeah, we we had twin girls in 2000, in June of 2009. And at that point, feelunique was three, three years old. It was growing. I think at that point, we were probably turning over maybe four or 5 million. It was growing exponentially. It was an intense amount of work. I was mostly in I was starting to do a lot more work in London. So we live in Jersey, so it's a half an hour flight to London. We had offices in London. So I started to move backwards and forwards. My wife had previously worked at Clarence for a long time. And then she was running the beauty department in a big department store in Jersey where we were living. And when we found out she was having twins, she obviously she stopped working because pregnancy with twins is quite complex, especially with identical twins. And fraught with potential risks. So she stopped working then and we built we were building the business I suddenly found out I had twins, the business was doing well, but we weren't earning a lot of money personally because it was all being carried back into the business. And I remember I remember speaking to my wife, like, just before the girls are born and I was thinking oh my god, how are we going to do this? We were living in a tiny little cottage and and suddenly we're having twins, she can't really work, obviously, because we couldn't afford to pay for nannies and daycare. And also, ideally, the ideal solution situation was that, if she could, if she could look after the girls, from a sort of personal preference, that was that was our goal, to have their mother there full time. And she didn't, she was not, she was not obsessed about going back to work. So our idea was, and also we couldn't afford to have nannies and stuff. Yeah. We had some help during the day, but we couldn't afford. And I remember, I remember saying, she, she bought some nappies, almost just for the girls were born. And I was like, I was looking at the price guy, oh, my God, you know, thinking Hang on a minute, we need. We need x of these per day. And we've got two to two kids coming. And I was genuinely worried about how he's going to pay for nappies. You know, like, he was going to be like, 100 200 pounds a month, just in nappies forget, you're getting everything else that suddenly we've got. So it was a it was, it was really like, concerning financially, initially. Luckily, as over that first sort of 6, 12 months, the business was starting to make better and better profits. So we were able to take a bit more money out, which helped ease that burden. But at the end of the day, when I finished work at five, six o'clock at night, it was a 10 minute drive back to my house. And then I'm on like dad duty, immediately On arriving and twins are intense for having one child is hard work. But having twins It was intense, the first six months was physically a blah, you know, very, very little sleep. When I get home, I'd obviously helped my wife with food and getting the baby's ready and washing and bath time and, and then you know, we hit, the kids would fall asleep at whatever time we were just exhausted, would just crash out anywhere. And then they're up every three hours. And you can't you know, and you know, when there's just too early, you can't you can't you can't change and clean two babies in the middle of night. Well, you can but it's not, it's not ideal. So we would both get up with the girls three or four times and they were terrible sleepers. So the first six months was a horrific

Melissa:

I can see it on your face, remembering.

Aaron:

It's like bringing back all these..And as a result, it took me quite a while. So I was like in hindsight, I was a terrible dad, because I just found it so difficult trying to build a business, coming home having literally no time to do anything, just just working all day, and then pretty much working all night and the next morning and then going back. And it was just this blur and no sleep. And it's as good as it was, it took me a while to really bond with them. And don't get me wrong. I was so grateful that we had them. But at the same time I really struggled with it, I found it intensely difficult. But as the as they got through that real baby phase. Obviously, slowly you get your life back to the point where you don't even realize that these luxuries and these, this time is coming back. And I'm not complaining about it again, if I rewound, I wouldn't change a single thing, but it was really really intensely difficult and running a business at the same time. But luckily to think a point I heard on all your other podcasts, having a co founder, you know, without that the business would have failed. Having somebody who could take up slack, you know, and it's not just for the having been through kind of having a baby. It was also you know, at times where you might be off your game or you might have the flu or you might have a family emergency to attend to having somebody there that can take up the slack. Even just knowing that they're there is incredibly beneficial.

Melissa:

Yeah, yeah. But I didn't realize like so I just have one. And he's a toddler now. And so I totally understand that feeling of like, yeah, the time starts coming back to you. And you're like, oh, yeah, three years ago, I would have loved this like time on the couch with him sleeping and knowing he's gonna sleep for a few hours like, but it just comes back to you and you forget that once it was something you wished for. But yeah, it's so I didn't realize before becoming a mom just how many things were going to be time sucks, right like you were saying you just yeah, they get sick or the I don't know Are we he doesn't go today. care, but it's like the daycare closes abruptly. And it's like, Oh, what did we do? Yeah, or your partner gets sick

Aaron:

It's complicated having kids.

Melissa:

It's very complicated. And so just hearing that the point you're at in your business, too. It's yeah. I appreciate you saying that about having the co founder because yeah, I don't know. I don't know how you would have done it. Especially with the twins. Wow. It sounds like a lot.

Aaron:

Yeah, and hey look, we've, in the grand scheme of things, we're very, very fortunate. And I know people who've had triplets and you know, single parents who've had twins. And for me, it was, you know, that was that was, particularly it was it was a real challenge. But we got through it. And yeah, also wouldn't change anything?

Melissa:

Well, and I'm just here, you've said that a few times, right. Like looking back, I wouldn't change anything. You know, it just sounds like do you think you've always been like that, like you said, just very optimistic and resilient? Like, it's just a quality you feel like you've always had?

Aaron:

Yes. Yeah. And it's a good thing, because my business partner, Richard, is, he's not the opposite. But he's very pragmatic, and bit more cynical. And, you know, he was, we were saying that if I'd started the business on my own, it either would have gone bankrupt or just folded. But he never would have had the impetus to start it on his own. It was it was it, we have a good, we have a good mix of both skill sets and personality types, I think, to work together well. But yeah, and no, I am I, you know what, maybe not always, but I think life I think just, you know, life lessons are, you know, you can't dwelling on something and picking it apart and being affected by either bad decisions or bad circumstances, or, you know, it is, it's helpful to understand what might have happened and learn from it, but dwelling on it, and ruminating on if we've done this, or if we've done it, it's just completely, there is of no help whatsoever. And again, I always, you know, I've had this, I think probably always had this left path, right path thing rather than the right or the wrong road. You know, because like I say, you know, it's like saying, you know, somebody bought a lottery ticket before me and they won $10 million? Well, I don't know that if I bought that lottery ticket, I might have been so excited. I might have stepped up in front of a bus. You know what I mean? You just don't know. So I think it's, I'm kind of like, tend to try and be content. With with my lot. I just think I just, yeah, I am. I am probably overly optimistic in my Outlook, but it just feels like a happier place to be.

Melissa:

Well, it just it sounds like it really helps you. And yes, if you have a business partner, who helps you balance it out. So it doesn't, you know, why? as well. Yes. Yes. And I do you know, people don't talk enough about the people kind of behind the scenes supporting them. And I'm sure I mean, just, you know, imagine your wife with the twins, and I'm sure just you know, along the way, you've had a must have had a lot of support with her to keep this business kind of,

Aaron:

oh, yeah, I can't without her I think this wouldn't exist. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, so why don't we talk a little bit This this. Without her this wouldn't exist a because if she ceased to exist, I would quit everything to just do what she does. Because that would be that would be my priority. You know, I would shut everything down. If she was no longer around and my kids needed me then yeah, I wouldn't put their care into anybody else's hands. So I could not exist without what she does. And you know, I only have to you have to sort of step into her shoes for a matter of hours if she's a way to fully appreciate that it's a complete partnership. Yeah, you know, it just happens that I'm the one that you know, that actually run the company with with was certainly ran the company with Richard, but it was her support and her her doing because it you know, like requires a shitload of admin. Outside admin stuff needs to be done. And you know, when you're running a company that this is a lot of stuff that you can't focus on. more well, actually, before before we get jumped to the next I do want to know, so we talked about you know, your resilient, are you optimistic? Have there been times along the way where you have struggled a bit more, maybe there's been some anxieties or sleepless nights or anything like that? Yeah, loads, I mean, yeah, no, absolutely. And again, And it's like, all sorts of people do focus on the outcomes. And yeah, but I think like anybody, we had loads lots and lots of different challenges along the way, I think probably the most difficult is. Yeah, it's, I mean, fortunately, and nobody's really died. But, you know, I mean, we have, we've had all of life's challenges that others have had, you know, along the way. And I think, for me, personally, you know, I had to deal with quite a lot of anxiety when I was sort of in my late 20s, and residually, kind of addressing that, and finding a way through it, you know, kind of panic attacks and anxiety about my health, finding a way through that, while at the same time building a company and, you know, building mental resilience and has been, you know, quite a challenge. Yeah, you know, life is, life can be completely unpredictable and crap and challenging. And, you know, I think the problem, a lot of the problem today is because we, we all view each other's lives through this lens of social media, where it's the highlights, and the great moments that I think a lot all too often we can become less content with our own lives, because we're making these unrealistic and ridiculous comparisons with what other people are doing. Because that is not what they're doing. That's what they were doing for like 40 seconds of 24 hours. Yeah. So that, you know that that kind of worries me. But I'm very worried about social media at the moment. And especially I've got twin daughters who are 14 years old, they are right in the middle of, you know, the danger zone, both in terms of their personal development, the technology that they've got access to the peer pressure that they're that they go through.

Melissa:

Most challenging. Yes, absolutely. The latest challenge in parenting, right? I mean, I'm in denial that my son's gonna ever be a teenager, but it's in the back of my mind, right. And it is scary. I just, I just see all of my clients, I can't say I'm not victim to it myself. But I try to be really like conscious about that. Right? You know, what we see on social media and try not do those comparisons? But it's tough, right? It's tough what we're working up against. And yeah, life is hard. If you put yourself on the entrepreneur roller coaster in the midst of it.

Aaron:

Yeah, like to say, It wasn't intentional, it was more the idea came along, and it was like, Oh, my God, this idea is so good that we have to do it. And as an entrepreneur, you get loads of ideas. You know, I think it's kind of in in my nature that I, you kind of spot things that don't work quite well. And you think, yeah, maybe we could do this, disrupt that or change that, or, and I think often you have an idea. And over time, it tracks one way or the other. Mostly you have what is the greatest idea in the world and you start, the more you start to think about you go, well, actually, somebody else is doing that. And they're probably doing it really rude really, really well. Or, actually, the cost of goods are higher than we thought or customers aren't really going to like that. And the idea tracks to the point where over a few days, you've forgotten it ever existed. And then sometimes you have an idea. And I think that was certainly the case and feel unique, where you go, Oh, this is quite good. And then over time, as you're validating it, you get your work, actually, the market is probably bigger than we thought and, you know, cost of goods are lower, and we can reach customers this way. And, and then it gets to the point where it's and it happens. Rarely, but it gets to the point where it's so good that you go. This is so good. We just have to do it. And that was certainly a case of really need.

Melissa:

Yeah, I've heard that from others, too. It's just like, oh, I can't say no to this.

Aaron:

Yeah. Because then you can potentially live a life of regret, which would be worse than failure.

Melissa:

Yes, yeah. Yeah. Well, Aaron

Aaron:

I mean both...

Melissa:

Yeah there are cons too. Right. But, but I understand what you're saying. I did want to ask, is there anything that you feel like you're doing these days that you would say is is helping your mental health and helping you to to be on that emotional roller coaster that comes with with how to prepare like,

Aaron:

If you if you ask my wife or my kids that they would have a field day because they think I've turned into some kind of like bio hacker tech bro because I've got I've got this kind of like whole series of sort of protocols that I've got quite excited about and I and I really believe if and I think it's come from, I think we're I think one thing that social media has done, which is amazing is it's given us it's given the populace access to some incredible resource. You know, there are some amazing podcasts, social media accounts, from some really, really interesting, you know, sector experts around wellness and around health and around. I'm not going to say longevity, but you know, around kind of, yeah, wellness. People like Andrew Huberman, and Peter Thiel, who have this amazing way of talking to you about your health and your wellness, in a way that makes sense as a layman, right? Not just, this is a science of why you should do X, Y, and Zed. And it's, it's kind of in a way that makes you as a layman go, Oh, now I get why actually not eating for three hours before I go to bed and getting eight hours sleep and, and why cold exposure makes, you know, I understand in a way that you can cook an hour, I understand. And when I think when you can really understand how something works, it makes it a lot easier to buy in. So as a result of my kind of life, sort of four or five years of really trying to understand what can I do to take control of my own physical and mental health, because I've had this kind of realization that, you know, going to the doctor is great if you've got something that needs fixing, but in terms of like, owning your health and wellness, I, you know, I've really kind of come to understand over the last four or five years that that's something that we need to proactively do ourselves. And as a result of that, yes, to answer your question, there are things that I do that I think has had an enormous impact on my purse on my mental health and my physical health, which are very simple things like meditating every day, I do have an ice bath, which I get into probably four or five times a week. And when I when I get a lot of like, you know, grief from friends and family about it, but And yes, I'm sure that there are many, many physical and physiological benefits to doing it in terms of, you know, supposedly cardiovascular health, immune system response. To me, the single, the single, biggest, measurable impact is that I feel great after it. I mean, genuinely, I think the dopamine hit that you get from three minutes or three degrees of water. I just feel physically a lot calmer afterwards. So for me, I think it has had a massive positive impact on my mental health, and probably physical, physical as well. And it started off by getting in the sea, but the sea warmed up in the summer, and it was no longer cold enough. And then the flip side of that is we also have a sauna. And I use a sauna a couple of times a week, and just again, end of the day, really, really relaxing. And then eating better. You know, I was, especially when we're super busy, it was quite difficult to eat really well. Now I take a lot more care about what I eat. And the diversity of food I eat not just from a physical perspective. But also I think there's pretty strong evidence that the healthier your gut microbiome is the better that is for your mental health. And I think just Yeah, I mean, I'm exercise and exercise, and I really prioritize my sleep. You know, I like a lot of people my age, I went through the 80s where, you know, it was like lunches for wimps. And you know, if you didn't if you slept more than three hours a night you were wasting your life away and and now I really prioritize making sure I get seven to eight hours, good sleep, and you don't really drink alcohol.

Melissa:

All right, you got all the foundations covered and sounds like

Aaron:

I think my kids and my wife and I've just like been obsessed, but the reality is I feel a whole lot better. I feel a lot calmer. I can spend you know,

Melissa:

Thank you for sharing all of that with us. And we're gonna get towards the end of our time. And I want to make sure we get a chance to talk about what are you doing next? What's what's what's the next project that you're launching the next

Aaron:

So I'll be super brief, but But um, we're launching, business. we're launching a teenage beauty brand called indu and the reason that we're launching it is because I've got two teenage daughters. And when I was speaking to them a couple of years ago about beauty and about what brands they were buying. The reality is that there isn't a a lot for them at that age, which is specifically designed to the teenage skin. But going back to the point about social media and about mental health, when I was asking them well, if if there aren't really any beauty brands that are for you guys, what are you buying, and the reality is they were buying, you know, growing up brands brands that were targeted at kind of 20, 25, 30 year olds, often positioned in a way which is perhaps a little bit overly sexualized for 13,14, 15, 16 year old girl by products, like you know, Two Faced Better Than Sex mascara. Which India, one of my daughters had, and Frankie had a Nars Orgasm blush, orgasm blush. And while the product is great, and you know, the quality is good, and the pricing was good. And it's, it's not ideal as a parent, when your kids are coming into this world of beauty and social media, to be exposed to brands, which are really pitched in an older audience. And we wanted to create a brand which is both designed with them, for them. And we've been working with, like 2000 Teenagers across the UK in the US. But also products, which are specifically formulated for their skin, colors and finishes and textures and smells that that are designed with teenagers and for them, but also a kind of way into beauty, which is about reinforcing their self esteem and reinforcing the fact that, you know, they're teenagers, and they should be celebrating that. And that's a great age to be and you don't need to be 25 until the time comes, you know, and let's, let's step back from that kind of, I use the word loosely, but that kind of narcissistic, sexualized image of which can often be the image that the beauty industry portrays. And we wanted to create something where as a parent, I'm, as as a teenager, we want to create something that they think is really, really cool. And they want. But as a parent, I'm also like, yeah, go to indeed because it's for you. It's great. It's formulated for you and you're not being exploited, the price is good. The ingredients are good. And fashion is really good at that there are some amazing in fashion brands that kids think are great. And me as a dad, I'm like, yeah, go shop there, because you're not going to look like you're going for nightclub in your 30s. Yeah, yeah. So we set out two years ago, and we're launching next month. All right,

Melissa:

Very exciting. Yeah. So if we don't get this out next month, just we're recording in August 2023. So it's launching in September 2023.

Aaron:

September 2023. In the UK? Yeah. Initially. Awesome. Yeah. And we will, hopefully in store next year.

Melissa:

Very exciting. I just I love that story too. Behind especially being a parent myself. And it's it's very exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Being and yeah. We'll have to get you back on the show in the future. And just hear more about about that, and how the the progress of that is going as well. Yeah. Thank you. And then Aaron, I just ask one last question. That I ask all my guests. If we could go back in time. Anything you'd want to tell yourself when you were starting on the entrepreneur journey?

Aaron:

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's gonna be all right. Because I think I think like a lot of people. I think I wasted a lot of energy. And a lot of I wasted a lot of energy and missed a lot of great moments. Because I was worried about what might happen rather than living in the moment and just enjoying it. Yeah, and I think that's kind of a life lesson anyway, just kind of being being mindful of right this second rather than this is great, but what's gonna happen in three months, six months, nine months?

Melissa:

Yeah, it's true, right? Because it's not like, you know, unless you're planning and like preparing for something like brainstorming not being out of the moment, worried about something, it's not going to change.

Aaron:

Ruminating. Yeah. And that's my biggest fault is you know, spending too much time in the future. In my head, what if what if this what if this is that? That's, that's my Achilles heel.

Melissa:

Yeah. I would hope that mindfulness has helped with that but I understand like yeah, the challenges that come with it. Yeah. Well Aaron and last thing where can listeners find you if they want to get in touch and just learn more about you and more about you and indu.

Aaron:

I'm really easy to find - my name on Instagram, LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm super approachable, easy to find. Aaron Chatterley.

Melissa:

Perfect, and we will put all the links to those things in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on today. Really appreciate it.

Aaron:

It was interesting. Thank you.