#awinewith Alexandra Sinickas
MEET Alex
Alex is the Founder of Milkdrop.
Find Alex here:
Milkdrop website or Instagram @milkdrop_pumps.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
Alex, thank you so much for being here on Spark tv. Spark TV of course, is a show where we interview amazing female founders and share their journey with our community. So I'm so honored to have you on the show.
Alexandra Sinickas (00:26):
Well, thanks so much for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:28):
I would love to start with your story. So obviously you're the founder of Milk Drop Pumps, but I assume there was a little bit of life before then, if you can remember that far. So how did you actually get here? What's your backstory? Did you have a career? Have you had other businesses? What's the deal?
Alexandra Sinickas (00:48):
Yeah, sure. So I started out studying. I was a fairly nerdy kid. I was quite good at maths and I studied engineering and commerce at university. And so I had quite an enjoyable career actually from that. I think I started out in finance but didn't really love that and ended up back in engineering quite quickly. And I did about 10 years of that until I had my daughter. And that 10 years was super interesting and taught me lots of things. I think in engineering, it's one of those, it's quite a misunderstood profession. I think that people often think that it's very introverted and you only work on your own and you're sitting at spreadsheets all day. But actually it's a very, depending on the type of engineering you go into, you're often working in big teams and you're working on projects together, kind of like how a marketing campaign might be run.
(01:47):
But so instead of building a campaign, you're building a building or you are building a product and there's all these pieces that have to go in. And so I really loved that because I quite like the creative side of things. And so yeah, I did that for 10 years. And then I had my daughter who is now three, and I struggled to breastfeed her, and I ended up on a breast pump. And I think that practice of being an engineer and being in design, I just looked at this machine and I was like, how is it that this exists? I'm grateful that it exists, and I'm grateful to the designers who made it because we can feed our babies breast milk. That's what we want to do. But it just seemed crazy to me that we were jamming our soft bodies into funnels that were hard plastic. And when I talked with my friends about it and surveyed other women, it sounded like there was an extremely high rate of injury and pain, and most people just hated it. It was something like seven out of 10 women say pumping is uncomfortable, and eight out of 10 say it makes them feel like a, and so to me that,
Danielle Lewis (03:01):
And this is not the time of your life where you want to feel like this either.
Alexandra Sinickas (03:05):
No, just first of all, you've managed to get pregnant, stay pregnant, have a baby, and try to breastfeed or whatever you want to feed. And at this point you need care and love and support, and these things can provide that. But it just seemed to me to be an open invitation to someone who likes to solve problems, which is like, okay, how might we make this experience one that leaves women feeling strong and powerful and they're doing a really good thing for their baby, which they are. So that's kind of where it all started for me.
Danielle Lewis (03:39):
Wow, that is incredible. So I'm super interested in product like physical products because I know from a little bit of personal experience that they can be a giant nightmare and come with a bunch of challenges. Well, firstly, the design, getting it right, getting feedback, and then suppliers and all that kind of stuff. So what was your process like actually bringing this to market?
Alexandra Sinickas (04:09):
It's a good question. Sometimes I look back, I'm like, how did we make this happen?
Danielle Lewis (04:14):
I had have known, I never would've done it.
Alexandra Sinickas (04:17):
I mean, it turns out in retrospect, the design was the easy part, which is I think partly arrogance from a designer. The hardest part is actually getting the word out there that this thing exists. But if we go back to day one, we'll get
Danielle Lewis (04:31):
There. Don't worry. Yeah,
Alexandra Sinickas (04:33):
Sure. Really, I just took a really methodical, quiet approach. So I was using this pump, I didn't like it. I had seen soft materials being used elsewhere that were robots, mimicking hands that could pick things up. And I just thought, well, why wouldn't a breast pump be made out of jelly-like material that could move and a jellyfish almost suction your breast in a gentle way, but not a creepy way.
Danielle Lewis (05:07):
Thank you for clarifying. Yeah,
Alexandra Sinickas (05:10):
Yeah. So why couldn't we do that? And so I ordered a robotics kit and some silicon, and I ran into some limitations, my own personal limitations very quickly on how to use that stuff. And so I called a friend in Daniel, who's a roboticist. I'm married to a gp. And so I had the medical side of what's happening in the breast physiology. And Daniel introduced me to now a really good friend of mine who's also one of our business partners, Ravi, whose whole job, he works at Swinburn University. And his whole job is to help students make the stuff they want to make. So he's like a prototyping guy. It might be he makes machines, things on metal things, or it might be that he's making robots or woodwork or whatever. So the four of us got together and started trying to redesign the pump from the nipple up. And the way we did that was not dissimilar to how people might make digital products. We just thought, okay, what's the simplest thing we can do first that we can test? And so we would 3D print molds, we'd pour silicon, we'd bring out this shape of silicon pad, I would stretch it over my pump, and I would pump with that every session I was pumping like six times a day, so we could just
(06:25):
Try and print, pour, test, and then go back to the beginning and do that over and over again. And we did that probably about 20 times until we found something that worked. And then from there, it turns into a manufacturing process, which is quite brutal and long. So I think that design period probably was six months worth of work. And then manufacturing a medical device, much more regulation, which is a good thing that took about 18 months to get it to market. And then we've been out providing these cushions to women in Australia, just in Australia for the last year.
Danielle Lewis (07:03):
Wow.
Alexandra Sinickas (07:05):
Yeah, it's quite a long process.
Danielle Lewis (07:07):
Totally. And did you know that going in that it was going to take especially the 18 months part?
Alexandra Sinickas (07:13):
No idea. I mean zero. And I think I just thought, oh, the hard part will be the design getting something that actually works, and then we'll just make it and people will want it. And actually, if you look at it, the design, the reverse,
(07:32):
The amount of effort we've had to put into marketing to just even get your head above the parapet for people to take notice because it's so clear and noisy. Now, that has actually been more, I would say, more energy, more people power, more effort than the design in the initial step. So I think people doing product things, I guess they always talk about this minimum viable product thing. Is there a way you can test whether people need or want this before you go down that path? Because once you've started that path, especially with medical devices, there's less room for changing things. You've got to be sure that it's something that is desire. I think they use three things like desirable, feasible, and viable. So do people want it? Can it be made and can it be made cheaply enough so that you can keep making them and people will buy them at that price. And so those are the sort of three things that we just kept coming back to. Anyway.
Danielle Lewis (08:41):
So how many did you have to, so what's kind of the risk profile once you got to the end of two years and you finally have this approved product, did you have to order a minimum number to get the manufactured? So then what's this like, oh, crap, now I've got to go sell this many? Yeah,
Alexandra Sinickas (08:58):
Silicon comes in buckets of 400 kilos.
Danielle Lewis (09:03):
Great. Oh my god.
Alexandra Sinickas (09:07):
And you can't use a bit and then put the lid back on it. It's not like milk or something else. So you have to use it all at once. So you have to make five or 6,000 of our cushions. And the other thing is that we are making this stuff out of Holly hobby silicon in our garage. I can't test that even on a friend. I had loads of friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll try it. And you're like,
(09:36):
But what, even if I get her to dump the milk so she's not feeding it to the baby, what if that silicon reacts to her skin and caused, it's a delicate time? I don't want to have anything to do with doing the wrong thing with other women. So we wanted to make it in a medical grade facility and then test it. So we actually made the call to manufacture 5,000 units having only tested the product on me. And the gamble was, does my breast and nipple represent all the other women in Australia who were pumping, or am I an outlier? And yet there's no way of knowing that there is no data collected about women's nipples. Most of the data that is collected is about creating the perfect, what is a perfect nipple? We have, I would argue, but there's a lot of research on how to create the perfect, most attractive nipple for surgery. There's quite a bit of research on shapes of nipples for algorithms to pick them up so that they don't get posted on social media. But there is hardly anything on actual women's nipple size, let alone a lactating nipple. And so when you're trying to make design decisions about, okay, well, we've got this silicon pad that stretches over breast pump heads to make it more comfortable, how wide do we make the hole to put the nipple in?
Danielle Lewis (11:00):
Oh my God.
Alexandra Sinickas (11:02):
So we just had anyone we knew, we just asked them to measure for us. We did the best we could. And so that first set of products worked really, really well for about 75% of women, which in medical advice land is insane. It's great. But in commercial land, that means we wanted to provide full and friendly returns for anyone who tried it, and it didn't work because our whole goal is to help women not to stress them out. So it meant that the cushions that didn't fit that group of women, we were frantically working, not frantically, but quickly working in the background to make ones that would suit them. But in that sort of few months while they were coming online, it's not sustainable. So it's quite a risk At the start, did
Danielle Lewis (11:54):
You use that, so that early data, so that early 25% of people that had to return theirs. So was that the collection point for you where you said, okay, can you give us some info about your
Alexandra Sinickas (12:07):
Groups so that
Danielle Lewis (12:08):
We can improve our product?
Alexandra Sinickas (12:09):
So the 25% was from a pilot study that we did. We didn't actually have that many people
Danielle Lewis (12:17):
Buy and return.
Alexandra Sinickas (12:19):
I think that it may be a conservative number. It was probably sitting at about 10%. But anytime anyone said to us, oh, I don't think it's working right for me, or I'm not getting the right letdown, I don't think it fits or anything like that, we would just spend as long as we could with them to try to make sure there wasn't something else going on. Then basically apologize profusely, ask them why they thought it wasn't working. And then from those sort of open-ended questions, and we would come up with a new design, and then as soon as we had the new product, we would email them again and say, Hey, we've got this new one. Would you like to try that? And if they were still pumping at that point, everyone says, yes, it's free. Why not? And quite a lot of them found that that actually worked. So we were like, okay, we've figured out why that group, why it wasn't working for them. And we just keep doing that. The human population is so varied. You're never going to be able to make, you don't have a one size bra fits all usually. Right? Totally.
Danielle Lewis (13:23):
I haven't even found one that fits yet. So
Alexandra Sinickas (13:27):
Yeah, there's no reason why one cushion would fit everybody. So we are trying to get to 99% of people covered, and we're currently sitting, we've since had a third design, which was coming out in October, which has different sizes. And so we've tested those with people, and the feedback from those is amazing. Like, oh, this is chalk and cheese. It's working really beautifully. So we finally feel like three years later we've got to the point where as a design perfectionist got the product that's working, and we're also working on other products, we're working on a pump and other things. But for this particular one, it felt like the life cycle of it is really three years by the time.
Danielle Lewis (14:17):
Well, that was my next question to you. So interesting having a product for a consumer that may only purchase once ever or maybe a couple of times, how do you find that? Do actually connecting with that person, finding them, and then at the right time? That's got to be a huge challenge.
Alexandra Sinickas (14:40):
Yeah, it's really hard. And it's not just women who've had a baby in the last year. It's like three weeks had the baby on the pump. Sore nipples need to prevent injury at that point. So we've really, it's just three weeks postpartum and maybe a couple of weeks going in. The thing about birth and having babies is that as you go into it, you're really nervous about the labor and often you're like, oh, breastfeeding, that'll be fine. So you don't shop around for the same thing, especially if you're a first time. You might have people say, oh, it can be really hard. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll be fine. I'm more, I'll
Danielle Lewis (15:29):
Figure that out when I get there. Yeah,
Alexandra Sinickas (15:31):
This giant thing that's about to happen to me, and I'm nervous about how that's going to go. And so you're kind of all trained on that, and there's also a lot of noise coming at you at that time as well, and you kind of just want to chill out and get away from it all. So yeah, it's quite a hard point. On the flip side of that is though, this is a problem that's really viscerally felt, and I know now that we can help. So one of the first things I did was a survey of other people who'd had to pump. And what shocked me about it was I had initially asked, did you have pain or discomfort? And those numbers came back. I expected two out of three had pain, and six out of 10 or seven out of 10 had discomfort. And everyone else thought they felt like a cow, that kind of stuff. But what really blew me away was how women described the experience and they were saying things, I felt like a failure. I felt isolated. I felt defeated. I felt guilty for not collecting enough milk and feeding my baby perfectly. I felt alone just these dreadful feelings attached to a product, which is just a piece of plastic. It really shouldn't be that awful. So I think what I've learned is that we actually can help in that stage. And as you say, the key is to be able to get there when she's looking for us.
Danielle Lewis (17:03):
Yeah, wow. Because interesting. I mean, we've got listeners who are serving a similar audience. Have you found any luck, any great strategies of actually connecting with moms or women in general?
Alexandra Sinickas (17:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's weird. It feels so random. I did one TikTok a couple of months ago that was,
Danielle Lewis (17:31):
Oh God, TikTok, I knew you'd say TikTok.
Alexandra Sinickas (17:33):
Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm nearly 40. I have to jump on this. And I feel like very old person, and I'm not, I'm tech savvy all the rest, but I just look at this, I'm like, how are you communicating how? Anyway, I did this one almost out of frustration, and it was just me holding a pump, and I think I had a fake boob in it. We have a fake boob. We call her Artemis. She comes with all of our testing, and I had her in the pump and showing her nipple go into a breast pump. And I just had that. And then I showed what it was like with a cushion on, and I was just a bit frustrated one day, and I was like, see how the nipple goes in? But the ola is supported so you can collect milk. That's all I said. And it just went on loop. And that got to, it's 900,000 plays.
Danielle Lewis (18:24):
Oh my God.
Alexandra Sinickas (18:26):
So I don't, and the thing that's so frustrating,
Danielle Lewis (18:31):
Especially as an engineer,
Alexandra Sinickas (18:33):
I know, it just drives me nuts because I can't control that experiment. I can't go back and repeat it because I don't know how it happened. And another video I did of what they used to do for women who were breastfeeding in the 1840s, if your milk didn't come in is they would put leeches on your breast to try to what? Yeah, so it was pretty foul. And so I put a video up about that, and that just got an insane amount of engagement, which it kind of makes sense. It's pretty gross. And we also still do that in some medical situations. The other thing they made you do was they would get the nurse to suck on your breast as well. So then there were a whole lot of nurses who was like, you can't pay me enough for that. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (19:22):
There's flaws against that now.
Alexandra Sinickas (19:25):
So I think that stuff really connected. The other thing that I'm learning is this is a really sensitive time, and we were always sort of, there's a lot of jokes you can make about boobs. There's a lot of puns. I think we originally had joked about calling our pump the turbot 9,000 or something like that. Just something totally tasteless.
(19:53):
So you have these jokes and then you're like, okay, no, we can't seriously do that. These are women who've just had a baby. They're probably in tears. We get orders at 4:00 AM express. That girl is not having a good time. So that joke is not funny to her. But then once she's through that period, nine months later, she can see that the whole pumping thing is so, it's just so absurd. What are we doing this? Someone sent me a video of their breast in a pump, and they played, I think it was the baby elephant, like dude. So I think that the absurdity of it is, it's quite funny. But then you've got to balance that with not the
Danielle Lewis (20:42):
Emotions someone's going through right at that time.
Alexandra Sinickas (20:45):
Exactly. And so I had pretty much written off all that absurd stuff, but actually that's the stuff that gets the most attention. And so it's a real challenge to be there, be there genuinely, but also even get people to know that it exists. So those are the things that worked so far. And the rest of it's just good old fashioned building relationships with lactation consultants and asking them their opinion and their feedback, because they are the ones that are seeing this play out for women. And so what they don't even realize, they know when they look at this stuff, they're like, oh yeah, I could see how that would work. Maybe you could think about this. You're like, okay, yeah, I'll go do that. So I think that sort of relationship building is really good. And yeah, no quick wins. Sorry.
Danielle Lewis (21:38):
Well, no, I think that that's the point though, right? I agree with you. It's kind of as much as you want to be analytical and you absolutely should be testing and measuring and all those things, you just got to try everything. Especially in the early days.
Alexandra Sinickas (21:56):
I know. And I mean designs like that as well. I think we got to prototype number 16 or something, and it just wasn't working. It'd either be more comfortable, but I couldn't get any milk out or it'd slip off the flange or whatever. And it was 4:00 AM and I just threw this blob of silicon at the wall. I was like, oh, this is no good. And it landed next to, for some reason, there was a Stanley knife there. I dunno why, just
Danielle Lewis (22:29):
The mental state. Yeah,
Alexandra Sinickas (22:30):
No, it was there because I think we were fiddling with the molds and trying to cut things out. Anyway, the Stanley knife was there and the blob fell next to it, and I saw the two of them together and I was like, huh. And I just picked it back up and started hacking away at the bulk of the cushion. And I tried that and that worked. I think that my view as an outsider in the world of marketing is that it's quite similar in that to that design process where you're just trying and trying and trying. Sometimes it'll be total luck, but you have to put it out there for it to be lucky. You can't just think about it the whole time. Yeah. Anyway.
Danielle Lewis (23:09):
No, I love that. So tell me about the experience for you going from being an engineer to being a business owner. Has that been interesting? Mindset shift? Challenging?
Alexandra Sinickas (23:22):
Yeah, I think it's pretty challenging. I think engineering teaches you to life. Probably, it's probably a bit arrogant to say engineering teaches, but to
Danielle Lewis (23:36):
Take, well, my partner's an engineer and he'd say the same thing
Alexandra Sinickas (23:40):
Sometimes a bit full of it. So I think the Not your partner, your partner's,
Danielle Lewis (23:44):
No, you're right.
Alexandra Sinickas (23:46):
So I think it teaches you to be able to look at big problems and break them down into bits and methodically, work through them and actually execute and deliver stuff. Engineering is responsible for most, you don't realize it, but for most of the things we do, you go on a trip overseas, you fly on a plane, who made that plane? You eat food. How was that food manufactured? You wear a T-shirt. What machine made that T-shirt? These lenses in here, I can see now because somebody figured out how to magnify certain parts of the way. There's so many things, thank God,
(24:24):
So many things that people have thought through. So the world, you learn how to make things. So I think a business is probably no different, but where I've had to challenge myself is to move a bit quicker. So not every project is a multi-day project or a multi-year project. You can just put stuff out there. And I think naturally for me, really, if you did that in science, you'd be crucified. And the less you say in science, the more people trust you, but the more other scientists trust you, but other people just look at you, you're not answering the question, which I'm doing right now. So I think the thing that I've learned is to just get the stuff out there and move a little faster. So I've had to do that and I've gotten better at it, but it still makes me anxious. And so I do try to do both at once and plan for the long term and methodically, quietly achieve that goal, whatever it is. But I've had to sprinkle in all these bits along the way because otherwise you just don't have the market feedback. You don't build the community if you're just standing there at the back of the room all the time, nobody knows you're there, right?
Danielle Lewis (25:51):
Yeah. And I guess that's it. I mean, interesting parallel between science and business and the long term versus short term. But it's interesting. I think that that short term is the inputs. So it's kind of like without putting stuff that's crap out into the world, you don't get the feedback to make it perfect. Because I feel like we all go into a product or a service or a business with the idea of what perfect looks like. And then day one teaches us that we are idiots and we know nothing. Exactly.
Alexandra Sinickas (26:24):
That's all in a lot of science things. There's a physical property like gravity that it equals 9.81 meters per second square. It's never going to change or hopefully. And so you can rely on that, whereas in business, it's like, will people like this this month? Is this what they need? Are we answering the actual question? It's exactly what you say. If you don't put it out there, you'll never get that feedback. And I think for me, moving into this world, the way that I've become comfortable to that is just in my mind framing everything as a little experiment. And that helps me put stuff out faster and be comfortable with it because I'm just like, okay, that's the experiment. And in this case, I know this sounds really weird, but in this case, the product that we're putting out there is imperfect. And so that's part of the constraint and part of the problem. And the result will tell me this or that, and then I can move to the next experiment. And that's how I've been able to trick myself into doing it.
Danielle Lewis (27:34):
But I feel like as well, setting that expect the imperfect expectation would not be a bad thing to help, I think shield ourselves from the bad things we say to ourselves sometimes when things don't work out as well as we thought they might.
Alexandra Sinickas (27:49):
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's made, it makes you a better, you're improving yourself, right? It's just totally. So I've found it to be quite a delightful thing. And I don't know what it would be like going back to engineering traditionally again. I might be like, what? You'd be too
Danielle Lewis (28:14):
Rogue now. You'd just,
Alexandra Sinickas (28:17):
You're too loose. In a good way. In a good way. So I think you only realize how much you've learned and grown when you look back at all of that. But yeah, it's been a real privilege to learn from people who are the masters of this new craft. And it's quite an impressive craft, like marketing and yeah, it's really broad and deep and there's a lot of skill in it and some really clever people. So it's been delightful.
Danielle Lewis (28:48):
Oh, that's amazing. And what a good attitude too. The fact of the matter is, being a business owner, you do have to wear so many hats initially. And I think that can be really overwhelming and confronting. But if you do have that opinion that you can look to other people and get experts in and learn and grow and yeah, it can be really cool.
Alexandra Sinickas (29:10):
Yeah, I think, sorry, interrupted.
Danielle Lewis (29:12):
Well, I was just going to say compare it to when I had a full-time job back in the day, and I go, for as much as I get stressed out, overwhelmed things are hard. I'm like, I have learned things that I never would have thought that I would ever be interested in or be possible by running a business, which is so cool.
Alexandra Sinickas (29:32):
Yeah, it is. It's a pretty fulfilling and lucky thing to be able to do. I think there are some pretty big stresses, and this is a product that's going out to women who are at a moment in their life, the milk that touches it goes to feed their baby. There's some serious, and so there's sort of some things that I just can't budge on and I won't ever do quickly. So that's medical regulations, putting that woman first every single time. Our genuine desire, we really just want to help. We're not just saying, oh, here's a market we can address. What can we make to address that? And that's fine if that's your thing, but that's not where we started. That's really important. Making sure that we're advocating for women's centered design. There are all of these things that I just wouldn't have had the opportunity to do in a different role, but there are also things that I'm not going to budge on. And that kind of makes me feel like, okay, some things can go quickly and it doesn't matter if they go wrong, and other things are sort of non-negotiable, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (30:40):
And also so good having those underlying values. So why you're showing up every day.
Alexandra Sinickas (30:46):
Yeah, yeah, it helps. It does help. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (30:48):
Absolutely.
Alexandra Sinickas (30:49):
I love the cynicism that sometimes, especially when you're young, you go into your first job and you're like, the world's going to be fair and amazing. How quickly why are we doing this?
Danielle Lewis (31:03):
What am I doing with my life? And so how have you, speaking of women and being a woman, how have you personally managed being a mom? Oh yes. That and running a business because they're both pretty tricky.
Alexandra Sinickas (31:22):
Yeah, they're two children, I think. Oh, look, I have a partner who is, as I would say, he does probably a little more of the child and home stuff than I do. He also has his own career. So I think without that, there's no way this would happen. So he's kind of prioritized it. Sometimes he prioritizes that making time for me to do that more than I might. So I think having that support is the only, I don't know how I've seen other people do that where they don't have the support around, but I just dunno how they, how they did that. I find it really hard. I find that in a good week you coasting, you're like, oh, this is great. My daughter's in childcare four days a week, three days a week we have together. And you're like, yeah, this is great. We're going on adventures all the time.
(32:21):
It's fantastic. She's growing up into a fantastic human. And then you go to work for the four days and you kick some goals and it's all great. And then the next week crying because quite work out how you plan. I think it's just a bit more volatile that I'm used to, but I've gotten better at that, partly a bit sad, but I don't ride the highs as much. So when things go well, I don't get quite as excited. I don't want the lows to be quite so low. So I've had to work on, if your emotions are like this, I've had to compress them down like that. So that's been the way that I've coped with it is that healthy, who knows?
Danielle Lewis (32:58):
Time will tell, time will tell. We'll have to do a, where are they now? Where is she now?
Alexandra Sinickas (33:05):
But I think it's important to talk about that, honestly, because I think that question does come up a lot. And there's a script that you can say. And there's the other one, which is it's not that easy.
Danielle Lewis (33:16):
Yeah. Oh, look. And I think, so I'm not a mom and I can only speak to being a business owner. And the rollercoaster in that alone is full on, is full and too much for some people. And I can just looking at friends and family who've had kids, I go, wow, I couldn't do it because I just ghost.
Alexandra Sinickas (33:39):
You could, but
Danielle Lewis (33:40):
Yeah, I know. And it's like that you say that you dunno how people do it and blah, blah. And you'd find
Alexandra Sinickas (33:46):
Humans are pretty resilient. But I mean, I think the other thing that I try to remember is that we're up against, we're not up against the world here. We're up against the world plus algorithms. I know this sounds like sort of conspiracy robot bear with me. What I'm saying is I wasn't really on social media much before this business, but I need to be, get the word out. And I might only be posting about business things, but you put that post up and then you find yourself checking your phone five minutes later to see if somebody liked it or if it got shared or all that stuff. And whether you look at that or not, it's still going to happen or not, you can't control it. But because our brains, these things are designed to be addictive. And so even if you're trying to separate yourself out from this thing, you're still judging your own value by how quickly this thing gets success or not.
(34:40):
And I think that's, so when I'm having a tough time with it, I go back to that and I'm like, no, no, no. You are trying to build a business that is relying on these products, Facebook or Pinterest, whatever it is that have been built by thousands of people who are designing them in a certain way. And you are just in that system. So don't be too hard on yourself about things going well or not because it's not actually in your control. So I think that's really helped me. It might be a little nerdy for
Danielle Lewis (35:15):
To
Alexandra Sinickas (35:15):
Help. Yeah, it makes sense. No,
Danielle Lewis (35:16):
I totally agree. And I think the thing there as well for me is don't think that one tiny action is going to change your life. It's the stack. It's like the post, but it's not just the one post. It's the thousand posts over however many years. It's this over, this over. It's all those little things. So I do the same thing when I find myself going back, I'm like, have I gotten any more followers since I posted that reel? And I go, stop it. Because it won't be that one reel that changes the game.
Alexandra Sinickas (35:48):
Exactly. And I think it sometimes helps. My grandfather was a businessman, and sometimes I think, okay, what would he do? Like 19, 60, whatever, how would he have built this particular business? What would he have done? And I think that that helps because there was no internet. They had to do everything by writing letters to each other. What
Danielle Lewis (36:15):
Your perception of how long it takes to do anything
Alexandra Sinickas (36:17):
Is far different. Yeah, exactly. And what's the basics here? Human behavior, well sort of has changed, but human needs. So what is the 1960s version of this particular issue I'm having? That seems to help as well.
Danielle Lewis (36:35):
Yeah. Amazing. So last question for you. Any advice for a budding new entrepreneur? So somebody who has maybe just taken the leap into starting their own business, any advice that you might've given yourself back in the day when things might've been a little bit tough when you're starting out?
Alexandra Sinickas (36:58):
It's still tough now, but yeah, sure.
Danielle Lewis (37:00):
Oh, that never ends.
Alexandra Sinickas (37:03):
I think the advice I would give is just start by starting. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. So what is the piece of information you need now to get you to that next step? How do you go and find that information? Just keep it real small, because you will need to do that about a thousand times as you build your business. And three years in, the questions are just slightly different. 10 years in, they're slightly different, 20 years in. So I think that that habit of like, okay, what do I need to know to get to the next stage? It's this. How am I going to go test that? What do I need to build to make that happen? Just focus on that. And I think the nice thing about that is if you are thinking about starting a business, you don't have to quit your own to do that. You can do that a few times, get your feedback and get to the point where you feel like it's actually not that risky to leave my business now, my other work now because I'm confident I've got the evidence to jump in. So I think that's probably what I'd tell myself or someone who wants to be analytical about it.
(38:15):
But I think it's a long haul. I think I read somewhere it's like seven years average to start and end a business, and that's probably short. So just keep your eyes on the prize and yeah, start by starting.
Danielle Lewis (38:29):
Oh, I love it so much. You are absolutely incredible. Alex, thank you so much for sharing your story with the smart community. It's been an honor to chat to you.
Alexandra Sinickas (38:40):
Oh, you too. Thank you.
