Lisa Jones: And I remember thinking, I'm fucking broken. I'm so tired and so scared. I can't process stuff like a normal person anymore. And that really started a huge transformation for me. I think that we may see a shift in the next five years away from the current ways that we see social media platforms and the power they hold. I am able to leverage off my experience that I gained building that brand to now help and support other women to build theirs.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to ADD to cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that expressed delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush catches up with Australian e commerce leaders to get all the insights, tips and lessons to keep you at the top of the e commerce game and of course, keep your customers adding to cart. Here's your host, Pushy.
Nathan Bush: Today's guest has gone from selling solar panels to developing the world's first truly eco disposable nappy and now runs a community for over 5,000 female E commerce founders. Of course, we are talking about Lisa Jones, founder of shecom, a community for connecting and mentoring female founders in e commerce. She was also the co founder of Eco Originals, which was that disposable nappy brand that she sold to private equity in 2020. In this chat, we learn about Lisa's hip tattoo. Yep, it's a first for ADD to cart. We're getting real personal here, but it says stay humble, choose kindness, be present. We definitely get this. In today's honest and very personal conversation, we cover everything from how Lisa founded Eco Originals, the low point of her founder journey, which included domestic violence, motherhood and small business pressure, how she found the mentors that helped pull her out, and how shecom became the silver lining
Nathan Bush: out of it all.
Nathan Bush: Oh, and we also hear why her
Nathan Bush: husband calls her Dory.
Nathan Bush: All right, let's get into it. Thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Lisa Jones, founder of shecom.
Nathan Bush: Lisa, welcome to ADD to cart.
Lisa Jones: Thank you. Very excited to be here.
Nathan Bush: So excited to have you here. We met at the Orias the other night. It was a fleeting moment. I think you were on your way out smoke bombing and I was on my way out smoke bombing. But it was so lovely to meet you and it's led to this. So I'm really excited.
Lisa Jones: Definitely smoke bombing. Like the oldie you get, the more you realize 8pm is actually quite late.
Nathan Bush: It is. Especially when the band starts playing, you go, oh, I'm too old for this.
Lisa Jones: I know, way too old.
Nathan Bush: But we were talking the other day
Nathan Bush: and you told me about a near death experience that you recently had while you're on holidays. I reckon this is a great story to kick off with. Can you tell us about that?
Lisa Jones: I certainly can. Well, interestingly, I am setting up a business retreat next year for my high end ladies in E. Commerce. And I had this idea of a Robinson cruise. I was style retreat, you know, luxurious beach retreat buyout where it's just us on the beach. And of course that leads to the conversation of where can we go that's a little remote, a little exciting, a little luxurious. And I settled on an area in Indonesia called Flores La Juan Bajo, which is in the Komodo Islands. It's very exotic, very amazing. The only problem is that it's Air Asia that flies Bali to Labuan Bajo. And in my mind Air Asia, it's pretty big airline. I'm thinking this is kind of safe, I'm okay with this. And so I just went up there to do a test run and I can absolutely, hand on heart say the resort is incredible and would hold the most incredible retreat. However, both ways on the aircraft, I just didn't think we're going to get in the sky. And then when we did get in the sky, I honestly thought we were going to drop out of the sky. And in fact at one point the sunshine landed on the back of the seat in front of me and I realized that there was about 12 months worth of grime that hadn't been washed off the seat in front of me, which in times of COVID is pretty hard to comprehend. So I get home and I ring my dad who's been in the airline industry his whole life. In fact, he was safety standards manager for Jetstar, so he definitely knows what he's talking about as a pilot. And I said, dad, it was AirAsia, they're all right. And he was like, oh no babe, that's AirAsia, Malaysia, Air Asia. Indonesia is just a license they give to a bunch of Indonesians to run an airline. And I was like, what? He's like, definitely Indonesia, one of the worst countries in the world to fly domestically. I was like, why didn't you tell me that before I traveled? Now I can't take my ladies to Labuan Bajo. I just couldn't consciously put them on a flight if they were going to fall out of the sky.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, but it could have made for like a great White Lotus Season 3 or something.
Lisa Jones: Oh my God, how embarrassing and how awful. And I tell you, gripping your Husband's arm. While you're, like, worried that your plane might actually get off the tarmac, it's not very pleasant.
Nathan Bush: Oh, wow. Well, what a great holiday that was.
Lisa Jones: It was a fantastic holiday and a reminder that we have to have holidays because I remembered what it was like to be a human when I'm not a machine.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. You are one of the busiest people that I know. With everything that you've got going on. The thread that combines a lot of what you do is enabling other women in E commerce, especially founders. Can you tell us why you're so passionate about that?
Lisa Jones: Look, I've been a founder myself, like, eight times, and I am pretty passionate about starting and growing businesses. And of course, eight haven't all worked, but I've had three pretty impressive ones. And I know in my journey that having a mentor who understood what it was like not just to build an E commerce brand, but to also balance being a mom and a female in an industry, I guess I was looking for that mentor, and they're really hard to find. And I didn't have one when I was building my nappy brand. And I think I feel very honored that I'm able to create a community for these women to come together and to get the kind of support that allows them to strategically grow their brands, but also be vulnerable and remember that what it's like to face fear and to feel anxiety and to feel mummy guilt and all the things that come with building an E commerce brand as a female. So that's why I do what I do. I show up every day because I freaking love my clients.
Nathan Bush: So good. All right, so for people who might not know you and know your journey, can we dive into that nappy brand? Give us the context on that. What was it? How did you scale it? What inspired the idea?
Lisa Jones: Amazing. Well, like, all, I guess. No, let me rephrase that. Like most female econ preneurs, we've started a brand because we have a problem to solve of our own. And then we think, well, that somebody should have that product. Why does nobody have that product? And then we go out and we research it, and then we realize we can launch it into the world. And a lot of really cool products have been born on the same path, and certainly mine's no different. Baby arrived in the world on the way to arriving. We were looking around for nappies, and I couldn't believe how many eco brands weren't really actually eco. And then they were like two to three times the price because they were out of Europe. And Then all the ones that were the more affordable disposable nappies were pretty crap for the environment and well, I decided to change that. So I guess I naively set out thinking that within six months we could have a product to market. And it took me two and a half years. It was a pretty big job. But the journey that I went on with that brand resulted in me eventually selling it to a really cool guy who's now massively increased the revenues further. I raised capital. I had a big team working remotely. We were Australia's highest rated nappy brand by parents on the Product Consumers website. Product reviews. We won a bunch of awards. Telstra business awards were featured in Media look. It was a wild ride, I'll be honest.
Nathan Bush: And that was Eco Originals.
Lisa Jones: That was Eco Originals.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And when you said you originally thought six months to get to market, ended up taking two and a half years. Did you have an ecom background before this?
Lisa Jones: No, we didn't really. We were running another brand doing a couple of mil a year. It was in the solar business. So we had a Solar Heart dealership. So we, we understood a fair bit about business. But at that time we were selling solar hot water systems and solar power Systems for between 3 and $15,000 a client. And so the idea of switching across and selling a nappy packet for, you know, $10 a packet, my brain just really struggled to find a way to make money out of this. Started researching it and I actually started getting a bit shitty about how crappy nappies are, literally, pun intended. And then I realized by starting to speak to other people that other people thought the same and look like all businesses, I recommend proof of concept. So we, when we were close to prototype, we actually went to five baby expos around Australia and I guess we put our money where our mouth is. We built a database of 32,000 parents. We sold $100,000 worth of product before we'd actually press go on our first container of nappies. Some of those parents had to wait a little longer than we originally indicated. But we got there, we bought out our first container of nappies and we ended up when we sold the brand, we were doing a 40 foot container every week.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Lisa Jones: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And you had kids at that stage?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, I had three, so one of my own and my husband at the time had two children that were 2 and 4 when I met him. So I had three kids under 10 and I had two companies because we were still running our previous company, our solar dealership at the same time. As we were building incorrectionals because one funded the other. And yeah, that was a pretty bad period in my life. In hindsight. I broke my adrenals pretty dismally during that period.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Okay. And do you remember was there ever a time that you wanted to give up and throw it all in?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, there was many. But in particular I had this moment and you know, sometimes life is a series of. Of really epiphany moments, if you like. I think I just made that word up, but we'll go with it. And I had this moment. I remember the exact. The weather outside, the room in the house that it happened in. And the dog barked. We had this dog at the time, it was a bit of a crazy stuffy and it barked really loudly at something outside and I burst into tears. And I remember thinking, I'm fucking broken. I'm so tired and so scared and so I can't process stuff like a normal person anymore. And. And that really started a huge transformation for me. But it did take a very long time to recover from that. So I'm a very big advocate of women being really aware of their adrenal cycle and just how much we can secrete adrenaline before we eventually break it. You know, we're only meant to secrete it when we're running from a lion and all of a sudden we secreted all day because we're like stock out. Customer problem. You know, it's like the body doesn't know what to do.
Nathan Bush: Foreign.
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Nathan Bush: today. And when you say the adrenal cycle for women, do you think it is largely different for women and men?
Lisa Jones: Honestly, I do, but I don't mean it to be sexist. I think women take on a lot out of choice. It's our choice, but we're genuinely more aware of the things our children need. We're more aware of school pickup time. We're More aware of the dog needs walking. We know that the shopping needs doing. And often in business. And I can only speak in my situation for either being a co founder or a founder of a brand. I'm all over everything in my business. And so that's a lot of things to remember, what to do every day. And I don't know if men, I think men are amazing at being more strategic, but maybe don't get as involved in the tiny detail as women do. So I think we take on more perhaps on our shoulders than men do.
Nathan Bush: Okay. And you'd see that repeating with some of the women that you mentor at
Lisa Jones: Shecom all the time. We've got 5,000 women in our community and a percentage of those are active customers at the moment. And I daily talk to amazing women who are so dynamic, clever and broken. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: What got you out of that moment when the dog's barking and everything's going to shit and your adrenal system is going bananas? What was it that got you through that and led you to the eventual sale? An outcome for Eiko.
Lisa Jones: Yeah, look, in my situation, I was also in a marriage with domestic violence, and I think that was another layer of broken adrenals. And for me, that was my moment. I decided that I finally had to leave the marriage and that I couldn't continue in the current circumstances of what I had on my plate. All the monkeys on my shoulders, if you like. And so a couple of things. One was finding a business coach that could help me find a new way to run a brand. And in addition, it was also about putting my hand up and seeking emotional support. I think for many women, we try and run the race of I can do everything and I think sometimes we can't. And it takes professional support to get us through that. So in my case, it was a psychologist to help me deal with just how many monkeys I'd put on my shoulders willingly and find a way to recognize those patterns so that I never did it again. And then to seek some really strategic advice about how to. Well, firstly, how to run a brand with your ex husband who's still equal partners in the business with you, and how to manage this with team and an investor who don't know that you're in a domestic violence marriage. There was many aspects to this that were quite complicated to manage, but I think a big part of it was not just those support tools. It was actually that I had to sleep for a really long time, like about 18 hours a day for about a year. It takes a long time to heal adrenals, surprisingly.
Nathan Bush: And I can imagine with all that going on, you're not going to go straight into an 18 hour slumber that takes a lot of time to work into, right?
Lisa Jones: Well, actually, no. I disappeared to a forest cabin and fell asleep for about a month. And then I had to realize that I had children and a business and staff. And so I found a new rhythm that looked very different and I really did for about 12 months. I cut my hours right back. And I was a mom. I was a very present mom. But I shared custody and I was able to find support tools around me to let me deeply rest. And so one of the pieces of advice that I regularly share with women is that when we recognize some of the signs of adrenal fatigue coming on, which is the barking at the dogs or the need for sugar or caffeine to get through the day, and there's a million other signs, just Google adrenal fatigue syndrome, that we actually need to change some of the patterns in our sleep patterns before we break, because it's very difficult to change it after we've already broken them. And I think definitely resting more and resetting more is a really important thing to do. One of my tools now is I holiday twice a year, quite significantly. Two weeks in the middle of the year, completely offline, and then a month, at least a month over Christmas where I'm not working at all and I can really pull myself back into a place where I can rest.
Nathan Bush: Okay, and when you talk about your sleep cycle now, what does that look like? What's the habit today?
Lisa Jones: Do you know? It's embarrassing. I'm 44 and I go to bed at 8 o' clock every night. Like, literally, if it gets a minute past eight, my whole family, even my husband, they joke, oh, quick, better get Lisa to bed. She's going to fall asleep at the table. Like, it's embarrassing. But I am a 5am wake. Like, I am on at 5am, my brain wakes me up and goes, right, we got stuff to do, let's go. And so by the time 8 o' clock rolls around, I'm cactus. And you know what the interesting thing in that is? It's recognizing that that's okay. Because I don't need anybody else's approval to live life the way that I live it. I show up, I'm kind, I give back in as many ways as I possibly can, and I'm proud of who I am. And I'm also really okay with having a bloody good sleep every night.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. So Obviously getting out of that relationship, changing sleep habits, being prepared to say no to other people, live the way that you want to live. Was there anything else that came out of that period that you still hold to today in terms of your core life principles?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, lots. One of them is being not negotiable about being able to show up to my kids school events and to be able to work anywhere on a laptop. So I'm very religious never to take anything that deviates away from some of my personal criteria, which those are two of. But I think a big part of it is the team that I was able to build. And I was having a virtual team long before COVID arrived. In fact, when Covid arrived and everyone said, ooh, staff can work from home, I was like, catch up. I'm already long ahead of you guys on how cool this is. And I love, I have a lot of moms. I've got 22 in my team at the moment. And they're all women who have almost all got kids. We've got one or two exceptions to that. They're hard working, multitasking, incredibly dynamic females who all love to work from home. And every month or two we get together as a team. In two days we're flying into Sydney. There's about eight of us that are going to hang out and run an event and every few months we meet up somewhere or we book a nice hotel for a weekend or we get together so we get that face to face interaction and that cup filling connection and then the rest of the time they manage themselves and we all get our work done, but we do it all from our own home offices and to me, I think that's real power in life. Being able to be able to live life the way that it works for you.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah. When you talked about, about the business coach side that you said you went out and got help both personally through a psychologist and then also from a business perspective through a great brand coach.
Nathan Bush: What was it that that business coach
Nathan Bush: helped you with that set you up for the eventual sale?
Lisa Jones: Well, interestingly, I struggled. This is, we're talking eight years ago now. It was quite difficult to find really good business coaches that specifically were trained in or had experience in E commerce back then. There's more now which is amazing and plenty of really cool ones for guys and for girls. But back then there wasn't a lot available. So we picked a coach overseas who was very dynamic and was capable of bringing some really high level strategies into our lives about building business and going global and building to exit and some values that I still use and teach every single day, but had no actual e commerce experience. So I feel like in some ways it was half the equation. And I'm a really big fan now of people seeking advice from only those who've walked the same journey as them because it's difficult for somebody who's scaled a service brand, for example, to teach you in E commerce what decisions you should make when you face a crossroads. And I don't think their advice would always be accurate. So I personally since then have gone out on the journey of always finding e commerce giants to walk in the footsteps of. And of course, now with Shecom, this is also a service business. So I have to walk in two different sets of two different sets of journeys here because I kind of am bridging both business models here, which makes it interesting.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I'm really interested to hear about
Nathan Bush: the moment you sold Eco Originals. We had Simon Beard on a couple of weeks ago and one of the quotes that he left us with that really stuck with me was when he talked about be prepared to sell your business when you love it the most. Don't wait until you fall out of it to sell it because it'll be too late. Was that the case for you?
Lisa Jones: Look, I wish it was and I wish I had some really fantastic anecdote to give you, but I spewed vile in my throat for a few years about how much I had to leave my nappy brand and never wanted to. So it was a bittersweet moment. I was divorcing my business partner and we had an investor involved and essentially we had to sell when I didn't actually want to leave the brand. So I think for me, it probably there was no choice. And I think the interesting thing about life, and this is something I focus on with a lot of women that I work with all the time, is finding silver linings. And for me, it took a while. It felt awful. And honestly, I felt like a failure I'd had to this business that I completely believed in with everything in my soul. I just suddenly was out the other side of it and I was like, hang on, what just happened? What do I do now? I didn't, I didn't have a no escape out. And actually, of course, something potentially more exciting came out of that, which is my Shecom empire now. So I am able to leverage off my experience that I gained building that brand to now help and support other women to build theirs. And you know, there's, there's still things in this chapter that are not quite finished yet. So I'm interesting to see where that journey will eventually take me to. But. But certainly I think anybody who's ever sold a brand could always look back at the exit later and wish for something different or wish they'd held fast on a particular negotiation point or something. And I think nobody ever gets the exact perfect exit. Well, maybe there's a few, but not many.
Nathan Bush: And obviously there was a lot of factors going on at the time that you sold. What's the one thing that you go, I wish I did this differently?
Lisa Jones: Well, to be honest with you, I wish I'd been able to stay the brand founder in some form. And I think part of the problem, I think when you're really burnt out is you actually get a certain amount of fogginess come in when it comes to making decisions. And I see this a lot too, with women who have incredibly exciting businesses. And you and I chatted about this the other day off the podcast about so many business founders being the cork in their own bottle. And it's often because you're so tired, you've got decision fatigue because every day you have to make a thousand decisions and you end up making a decision that you think maybe in the end wasn't the right one, or that there were actually other options that you just simply couldn't see. It was too cloudy on that day. And so looking back, I wish I'd made a decision to try and stay in some capacity, even if it wasn't as an owner, but stay involved in the growth of the business. And I didn't. And that's okay. We. We all have a journey and the silver linings are plentiful. So I'm not, I'm okay with that, but that's probably the one thing I would have done differently.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Thank you. I mean, that's amazing honesty.
Lisa Jones: But I will say sorry, just to finish that conversation, I think, is when you do sell a brand, if I'm going to come up with a clever epiphany for you now, when you do sell a brand, I believe that the thing you're looking for is that that brand continues to succeed. I think to exit a brand and have it fall in a heap like we've seen happen so regularly lately to some really big household names, that's actually really awful. Like, that would be a terrible legacy to leave in the world to know that you built something so cool and. And then somebody else bought it and it was like, dead. Right? So for me, Eco Originals continues to go from you know, strengths to strength with an amazing team building it up. And I think that that makes me really proud. And I think if you can exit and you know, three years later say you're still proud of that brand, then that's a clever exit.
Nathan Bush: Have you reconnected with the Eco Originals team that's in existence today at all? Just to say, oh, checking in on your baby? How's it going?
Lisa Jones: Just recently actually, I was able to say thank you for the stewardship that you've given Eco Originals under your watch because it's continued to grow and that makes me really proud. So I think that's a really important conversation to have.
Nathan Bush: How nice is that? It feels like almost like the stages of grief, like with a bit of closure coming through and 100%.
Lisa Jones: And then it comes, right? Grief. Grief maybe doesn't come back to gratitude, but I think it comes back to some sense of acceptance. And I think my layer beyond acceptance is gratitude. I think that's where I'm able to say the brand has absolutely flown since I built it and whatever I left behind has long been superseded. And that's exciting.
Nathan Bush: I'd love to talk about the silver
Nathan Bush: lining that is shecom. Obviously an amazing community for female founders.
Nathan Bush: Can you tell us, how does shecom exist?
Nathan Bush: What is it made up of? What do you guys do? How do people get involved?
Lisa Jones: Shecom is like the most incredible business and it's absolutely going to be my next legacy in this world. It started with me leaving Eco Originals and wondering, you know, who the hell am I? What am I here to do in this world and what, what do I do? Well, and I realized that people had been asking me for years for my advice when it comes to them building their brand. And so I gravitated into this coaching space and I started coaching and then I started group coaching and then I niched right down into females building e commerce brands. And then I brought coaches in and I said, well, I don't want to be the only expert in here. So the coaching programs grew up and now we run an annual retreats program, we run awards programs, we run big two and a half day conference on the Gold coast, we run five dinner series events around Australia. We're going into the US next year. Like it's just steamrolling. And we've got a podcast, we've got a Facebook group where women ask the dying questions they need answers to every single day. That is just women e commerce related. And so it feels like a community now. And I think that's where I'VE come to is that, you know, I was laying on a massage table in Bali last June and before that we were Lisa Jones and Co, which was my business name. And we were running under that banner and I sat bolt up right in the middle of this massage and I thought, oh my God, it's called Cheat comp. Because I realized it's so much greater than Lisa Jones. I already have a couple of brand ambassadors that sit inside of our programs and it's not just me and I don't want it to be me. It's not about me. It's about a community of women who support, uplift each other, provide education and hold each other accountable to growing their businesses. And that's really where she comes has become amazing.
Nathan Bush: And tell us about some of those brand ambassadors who you partnered up with. Who's in this community?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, Amazing. So Anita from Hero Packaging, who's also got sell anything online, is one of our absolute sweethearts. So Anita is actually our head coach in my mastermind program and creates content for us and he's one of our brand ambassadors for Shecom and we've absolute gold crush on each other. And she's amazing. She's not just an incredibly clever, strategic, geeky e commerce woman, but she's actually a kind human. And I have like a kind human only policy. We have like zero trolling in my community because we just don't show up and help each other. Like whether it's free or paid help, it doesn't matter. We just want to help a sister. And I think that shows up with the women that become part of the community on every level. And we're just at the moment talking to a few other really cool ladies that I probably can't announce yet, but there's another program about to drop with someone who sold their brand for 35 mil last year. Who's going next? Brand ambassador. So we've got, we've got some really cool things that are, that are growing. And the really interesting thing is how many amazing women keep showing up like magnets to what we're building. It's sometimes I find it quite humbling.
Nathan Bush: And then who is the ideal female to join the community? How do you know who's right to welcome in and we'll get the most out of it.
Lisa Jones: Right. So we have women from I've got an idea for an ecom brand through to startup, through to I'm building something, but I can't quite get there. Through to I'm building it and it's growing through to I'm making 10 mil plus per year. Like, we have everything. So if you're a female and you're in an E commerce brand, then we're your community because at every point during the journey we have something for you. The only people we don't like are the ones who aren't kind.
Nathan Bush: Do you come across many of them?
Lisa Jones: No, not really. We just don't seem to attract them. I think I hear some other female coaches talking about getting trolled so publicly. I mean, there's the gorgeous Angela Henderson in Brisbane. She's a business coach and she shared an article on Mamma Mia last year around how she has household support, a nanny and a gardener and a pool guy and she got nailed. She had like hundreds and hundreds of trolling comments around. What kind of woman are you? What kind of mom are you? Like, it was. It was horrendous. The shame and the guilt and that. It was just so uncool. And I feel for her and I felt for her at the time. We, we. I literally can't tell you the last time I ever got a negative comment on anything. Anyway, I don't know what I've done to deserve that. Let's just call it karmic payback. I've done well somewhere.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you get back the energy you put out there. But it was interesting on that point. I was reading an article around Annabelle Krabs, that series that she does around making food with politicians and the blowback, apparently, that Julia Gillard got when they filmed her in her house and she had an empty fruit bowl and people are like, why have you got an empty fruit bowl when there's all these male politicians turning up and they can't even cut a slice of bread? There are. It is double standards.
Lisa Jones: It is double standards. It's awful. And I don't know, for whatever reason, I do agree with you. I think that if you have a good moral outlook in life and you. I do. I treat everybody with kindness and we try and help and share and support and uplift. Somehow we've just keep manifesting the same thing. I'm not saying I don't have people in there that maybe aren't exactly that, but they certainly don't pipe up.
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Nathan Bush: now chance for a For a Plug Are there any businesses or women in your community that might be going under the radar that you just like? They are just phenomenal and deserve more airtime than they're getting?
Lisa Jones: Honestly, there's a million with just so many businesses every day that I'm so incredibly proud of. But I I'd love to share a couple. I mean I interviewed one on my podcast this week. Kelly from Clipstar. I think she's such a clever lady and absolutely epitomizes what I call a chicompreneur. A female ECOM founder who had no ECOM experience at all came up with an idea for a clip that can tie a hat to a school bag and decided it had to be manufactured in Australia. So of course we all know how difficult that can be to stand your ground on needing to manufacture in Australia. So not just the engineering of it, but then finding a manufacturer who can profitably produce it for you here. And you know, she does. I think it's over 270 grand a month on Amazon in the US already. This has just been a couple of years now, but you know, her resilience to show up every day regardless of last knockbacks and her her desire to be able to show her children that you can do anything in this life. Like to me I think she is just the absolute humble, never give up, resilient warrior of a woman that I think really does surmise the chicompreneur world that I work in every day. And I think she's quite amazing. But there's so many examples of incredible women like this in my community. I feel very fortunate to be a in such inspired by the women I hang out with every day.
Nathan Bush: So good. And in terms of the conversations and the discussions that are happening in your community right now, what are the kind of the hot points in E commerce that keep coming up?
Lisa Jones: Well, I think that I would not be alone in saying Facebook and an inconsistent ROAS or an inconsistent ability to track accurately ROAS. And I think for many women 2023 has been like a suck to the face. I think a lot of women this year got a little comfortable with the last few years in E Commerce, assuming that's actually how it was going to be from now on. And this year hasn't stuck to the same trends. It hasn't been as easy to sell this year as it was in the last two to three years. And I think there's been a lot of women who've stepped back and said, oh well, it's the economy, you know, it's, it's, it's over, the boom is over. It's all a bit bust now. And it's in. The fact is it's not, you know, I've got plenty of women still doing month on month growth. There's a lot of women still massively growing in the market at the moment. I think the thing that's changed is the ability to rely on Facebook advertising has diminished. And I think the women that are clever, that are still growing, sure they're putting money with Mark every month, but it's only one of say 12 eggs in 12 different baskets. It's about omnichannel marketing and it sounds, you know, cliched in 2022, but it's true. We have to have omnichannel marketing. We have to bring our attention and awareness to making sure that we're selling in multiple different places through multiple different channels and avenues and different platforms for paid advertising than organic. And if we do that and we do it successfully, then we're still growing at the moment.
Nathan Bush: And I think, you know, those challenges aren't unique to female founders, are they?
Lisa Jones: Not at all. Not at all. I think that's across the board. And look, I definitely think, think or would like to think that the entire threads example that we just saw is some kind of change to the power in social media. I think that we may see a shift in the next five years away from the current ways that we see social media platforms and the power they hold. I think I'm hoping we get some more entries to the market and maybe things shake it up a bit. Because let's be honest, the amount of money that not just women, all brand owners spend with, with Facebook every month is, is actually really horrifying. And I think, you know, an E Commerce brand, it's not always very profitable anyway. By the time we account for the rising cost of producing, manufacturing and then shipping and then, and then, and then, and then, and you put in the fact that, you know, the cost to acquire a customer was $5 and can be $30 or more now, like it's a very unsustainable model. So I like to ask my clients to spend less on Facebook, to actually reduce their spend and to look at other ways to try and navigate sales growth so that it becomes a more profitable venture as well, and therefore hopefully more sustainable moving forward. Less reliance on it having to perform.
Nathan Bush: Do you find that there's any skills or characteristics of female founders that male founders typically don't have that you encourage your community members to lean into harder because it's like a special source that is there waiting to be to be used?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, 100%. I honestly think that it's a 50, 50 mix of the ability to multitask like a crazy person, because I think women are incredibly adept at doing three things at once, which means that they're able to navigate a lot more projects every day than a male counterpart might be able to. Combined with a sense of resilience. You know, I. People often say to me, like, Lisa, you've interviewed a lot of people, you've met a lot of really successful brand founders, like, what's the secret ingredient? And I honestly believe it's the ability to hustle and to never give up. And it's. It's the ability to hustle every day. And when you get a punch to the face or you get knocked down, you wake up the next day and you completely forget about that. My husband calls me Dory sometimes. You just get up and you're like, right, what are we doing today? Let's get on with it. It's like a sense of resilience and a never ever give up attitude. And I think the combination of those two things makes us quite a unique entrepreneur.
Nathan Bush: Now, speaking of uniqueness, you've got something very unique coming up in September. Tell us more about that.
Lisa Jones: Yeah, we have our annual conference on the Gold Coast.
Nathan Bush: I love how you call it a conference and then you look at the webpage and you go, this isn't a conference.
Lisa Jones: No, it's really not. And it's interesting because I'm in the final stages. We're only a couple of weeks out now of our attention to detail preparation. And I can honestly hand on heart tell everyone there is not an event like this in Australia. Never, like not a single event to the detail that we go to, of uplifting and supporting women to deeply fill their cup with laughter and fun and indulgence and self love and connection to each other. And plus the best strategies they're going to get this year in Australia when it comes to E commerce. So we have nearly 30 speakers coming to the stage over two and a half days. And I'm talking about the Julie Mathers and the. The incredible success stories of women who've sold E commerce brands and those that continue to scale them right down to the ones that are still in the earlier stages of success. Because we don't just want to hold the really successful ones up to the light. We want to show people that it's possible to be successful, whatever the level is that you hope to achieve. We have the most amazing women coming to the stage and we don't fill our stage with sponsors or, you know, agencies that are going to tell you why you should use them. We actually bring to the stage women who are actually building brands and they will tell you because we have closed doors, women only in the room vulnerably and really exactly how they've overcome, you know, overcome objections, barriers and what is actually working right now to build their brands and that you cannot put a value on that kind of knowledge.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. So this is the plug part, right? So when is it?
Lisa Jones: So it's 5 to 7 September at the QT Hotel on the Gold coast and tickets are still available. There's limited seats left. And if you're even thinking about it as a female founder, you just need to go and buy your ticket right now. We have after payment plans. You just honestly, you will not get the knowledge and their connections to each other. There are women who met at my event last year who still daily check in with each other for strategies and accountability. Like, you could just meet your next collaboration partner that's going to help you blow up your brand. You just don't know how this event's going to repay you.
Nathan Bush: I'm not saying this is a tactic, but it could even be worth it just to say, I'm going to the Gold Coast. See you all later. I'm going to the Gold coast for a couple of nights to hang out with some cool people. I might learn some stuff while I'm there, but it's on the business and I'm out of here.
Lisa Jones: Oh, my God. It's tax free and it's away from husband and children. Are you even still listening to this podcast? You should have your credit card out right now.
Nathan Bush: How good. So as you're looking out towards guests, so whether it be for your podcast, whether it be for the conference, whether it be for other mentors that you might be able to bring into your community, who do you look up to, who do you get inspired by that's not already in your circle?
Lisa Jones: Look, for me, I Am inspired by a bunch of women that are, I guess epitomized to me. Very strategically clever women that execute with no fuss and no hoo ha or I guess who don't need to have a show of ego around them. This is just what I take inspiration from. You know, I recently had a tattoo on my hip that says, you know, stay humble, choose kindness and be present because they're three of my mantras in life. And I think I'm. I probably aspire to hang out with more people who epitomize those strengths. So the perfect example of this is someone who I had on my stage last year at chicom Live, which is our conference, which is Christy Chong from Modibody. Built a brand no fuss did not make it about her, but was uber successful and had $140 million exit like I had her on my stage. And I'm going to be frank, she is an incredibly clever woman. So clever that my pre prepared interview questions were over in half the time I'd allowed for them and I had to ad lib for the remaining half of the the time slot we had to interview her because she is just bang bang bang bang bang, no fast, get in, get it done. And I think that's the kind of person that I look up to and wish to emulate. I. I'm absolutely in business to have a big exit one day unashamed about wanting to semi retire very young and travel the world. But will I always be involved in some capacity and consulting or e commerce boards or coaching? Yeah, absolutely. I just. I'm building to sell and I need to have really amazing women above me to keep me inspired because otherwise getting out of bed every day could be a bit of a chore.
Nathan Bush: Not if you're dory.
Lisa Jones: Well, that's right. I have to leave myself to do lists every night so I remember just how many chores I've got to do the next morning. No, here's a little bit of a fun fact. I have the kind of brain that puts me to sleep at 8 o' clock at night. Gives me a rock solid don't even roll over kind of sleep from around about 5am has clearly been processing during the night because the very first thing that happens is I become aware in the darkness that my brain is giving me my new to do list for the day and it drops them in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 usually around about things that I forgot to do the day before that need my attention today. So the first thing I do is I hop up, make a Cup of tea. Write down the extra things on the to do list that I missed yesterday. So I don't know if that's freak or what it is, but that's how my brain works.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's not normal.
Lisa Jones: No, I don't think it is. So hopefully someday somebody is going to say, I aspire to be like Lisa Jones and her massive exit from her brand.
Nathan Bush: I'm sure people are already saying that. So what else is going on there? If we've got that exit at the goal and we're building Sheetcom at the moment towards bigger and better things, surely you've got a thousand other ideas floating around in your head that you'd love to execute any you want to give away.
Lisa Jones: Yeah, I do have a lot of things in my head all the time. I suppose there'll be a lot of people nodding their heads at this point in the podcast because there's a serial number of e commerce founders or business people in general who are just dynamic thinkers and that's me. And so my brain doesn't switch off. It probably drives my family. No, it definitely drives my family insane. Which is why my husband calls me Dory sometimes, because I will literally say, oh my God, I'm so tired. And five minutes later I'm like, oh, I've got a business idea. He's like, dude, you just said how tired you are. Like, what? So, yes, I have a couple of things on the go, but nothing I can share with you today. You just have to have me back at some point in the future and I'll. I'll drop the next exciting projects that
Nathan Bush: we've got on the go, guaranteed. Love it. All right, so we've got the conference coming up that's all hands on deck for the next month, building up to September. What's next for yourself and the Shecom team over the next 12 months?
Lisa Jones: Yeah, we've got, we do twice yearly retreats. So what I recognized a while ago is that I am a. I guess my second home is Bali. I've been going there for more than 30 years and a lot of sourcing on a more handmade basis can be done in Bali. A lot of fashion labels are produced ethically in Bali and it's also a really cool, very affordable place to take women to work on their businesses. So we took 37 women to Bali in March this year and ran an incredible life changing business retreat, business and sourcing retreat. And we have another one of those coming up in October. So that's next after Shecom Live and then Next year we're repeating everything we've done this year, but we're adding in the usa, which we're very excited about, bringing some of our American friends into the Shecom community and growing over there that I personally have aspired to look to American brands for a really long time. In fact, when I was building Eco Originals, one of my biggest brand crushes was the Dollar Shave Club and watching what they were doing in the US and then of course their eventual exit to Unilever for a sum of money that I can't even say out loud, they were a very big inspiration point for me. So I still look to the US for E commerce success stories and innovation and inspiration. So we're very excited about taking Shecom into the US next year.
Nathan Bush: Great. Does it mean you've got to spend some time over there next year?
Lisa Jones: Definitely does. In fact, I've just signed the paperwork today for our next au pair to come and live with us from Sweden. So I have a 12 year old daughter and who by the way is going on 19 and tells me very confidently that she can stay home alone and doesn't need anyone to look after her when I travel for work. Which means that she's taking absolutely in her mother's footsteps, which terrifies me.
Nathan Bush: I was about to say just offload some of those business ideas to her, just see where they go.
Lisa Jones: Yeah, exactly. She's absolutely my daughter. But yeah, so the support tools around me because my husband's in the Navy and he doesn't live at home with us at the moment, he's moving from one remote location to another later this year. So. So we, I guess like all business people, we juggle many different things and being able to create a home life container that feels rock solid for my family and for me to stay sane is really important and I, and I rely upon other people to help me to do that. So we've just about to bring out a. I've never had a Swedish au pair before. I've had French and Italian and a number of other nationalities, but this is new for us, so. And exciting.
Nathan Bush: All the cuisines around the world just.
Lisa Jones: Yeah, I know. What's not to love? Work our way through Europe.
Nathan Bush: Lisa, thank you so much for sharing with us today on ADD to cart. You know, incredible story of what you've built with Eco Originals. Amazing community that you've got now with Chicom and I can't wait to have this chat again. I reckon, you know, three years, five years, I see this exit figure, you know, throwing around a few exit figures here. I'll be interested to see where it lands.
Lisa Jones: Me too. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too.
Nathan Bush: All right, Lisa, good luck for September. We'll put a link to the conference in our show notes in our blog. If people want to take that tax,
Nathan Bush: write off, I mean education, experience and get involved.
Lisa Jones: Thanks Nathan.
Nathan Bush: What a story. Hey, I am hugely appreciative of Lisa sharing her story, especially her personal story with us. No matter whether you are male or female, founder or non founder, I am sure there are work and life lessons that you can take from that chat. And don't forget if you want to join Lisa and the Shecom community at shecom live on the 5th to the 7th of September on the gold Coast. Tickets are now available Links in the show notes or on the Add to Cart website so many lessons in here. Too many to get a tattoo on my hip. So I'll share my top three here. Number one the Adrenal Cycle. I'm no doctor, but I could definitely relate to Lisa's build up in the adrenal system where constant decision making, work commitments and home pressures build up over time and get to the breaking point. Recommended recognizing it early, combating it with whatever works for you. Sleep socialization exercise is crucial. Don't ignore it and try and just plow through it. Number two Finding the right mentor. I loved Lisa's advice of seeking advice from only those who've walked the same journey that you want to take. Of course it won't be the same journey that they have, but it will start from the same spot and a position of empathy.
Nathan Bush: I really like this.
Nathan Bush: It doesn't mean they're the only mentors that you will have, but at least
Nathan Bush: having someone in your corner who's done it before is a great starting point.
Nathan Bush: Number three Proud exits. Lisa openly says that she was really negative when she let Eco Originals go to private equity. It just wasn't on her terms. However, her advice of making sure that the brand will succeed when you do sell sell was great. If you're no longer going to be with your brand, make sure it's in the hands of others who actually care. To get the highlights of today's episode. Head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to export the your next E Commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated E Commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free e Commerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly e Commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to card.
