#awinewith Alice Armitage
MEET Alice
Alice is the Founder of Pandaemonium.
Find Alice here:
Pandaemonium website and Instagram @p.andaemonium.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:09):
All right, well, let's do it. Alice, thank you so much for being here on Spark tv.
Alice Armitage (00:16):
Thanks for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:17):
I'm so excited. I have been an Instagram stalker of yours for a little while and obviously followed pandemonium, and I am super interested in the work you do, especially now being a little bit regional myself, so love hearing stories from other regional businesses, but I always like to kick things off with a bit of context for anyone who is tuning in. How did you get here? So did you always have a business? When did you start the business? Did you have a career beforehand? What's kind of the journey?
Alice Armitage (00:58):
Sure. I think I've always been quite entrepreneurially minded. I remember as a kid roping my next door magazine to selling come courts on the side of the road.
Danielle Lewis (01:15):
Amazing thinking
Alice Armitage (01:15):
That they were mandarins, but they were not actually mandarins. We did the whole, I was probably being a real bitch and making everyone do all the things that I wanted to. They had to be packaged really nicely and we made up this whole song that we sang on the side of the road to
Danielle Lewis (01:37):
Like, you jingle the concourse,
Alice Armitage (01:39):
Going to embarrass it myself by giving everyone a revival of that tune. But yeah, I think I've, I've always just had the ideas and this drive to be like, I see this thing. Why is no one else doing this thing? Even if it turns out to be a terrible idea, I guess I've always been like that. Yeah, I guess I'm country's kid. I'm a country kid. I'm a farmer's daughter. I have three brothers. I'm the oldest, so again, the bossy vibes, but most ambitious country kids really never felt like I had any alternative, but to get out of town, go to the city, I always thought I would be a doctor because I always thought that that was the epitome of success and the epitome of proving how intelligent I was in some ways where I was at uni, I did an undergrad medical science degree.
(02:53):
I was living in Sydney and I came across this thing called investment banking and realized that that was way more fun. Yes, way cooler. Yes, way cooler. I fell in love with the boy who worked in that space and I was doing a bit of work for a guy who was a serial entrepreneur. Literally, I was his absolute shit kicker, but I was really exposed to, he was an angel investor. He worked really closely with the startups that he supported, and my mind was just blown about this thing and it was very much the height of tech and startup culture kind of really emerging as this thing. I know that Silicon Valley has been cultivating that for a really long time, but it was a really hot time to be in that industry and yeah, I finished uni. I've never, ever done anything with my science degree since other than one could argue. It's where I get my very process driven and analytical thing. Well, that never goes Australian business, so maybe not a bad thing.
(04:08):
I can still make some weird chemical compounds, but don't very often you're our go-to if we have. Okay, excellent. Not really something I implement in my day-to-Day life, and I started working in the space, the boy I fell in love with started a brokerage firm with a few other guys, some fantastic, fantastic small team where we were brokering money for startups, most of them in the financial tech space and supporting their commercialization as they launched, and I guess it was such an insane time in that industry. There was so much money moving. There was seven of us in that team and we raised 310 million in two years. It was crazy. Holy shit. And I guess that's unreal To me, that time has really laid the foundation for a lot of my experience, a lot of my knowledge and a lot of my understanding of what it means to build an agile business and to really meet the needs of the market and just really understand stakeholder management and why that is so important.
(05:36):
So many different layers, and then that business was acquired and this bubble that we were all living in just popped very suddenly. I think a lot of us thought that that would be our life for a long time. I think I really struggled that a little bit as well because I was just also the safety net of the team that I was working with because I worked out closely, but quite naturally I just got consultancy work from our network and ran very successful consultancy business for a few years, just myself and then just bringing in other people when that was necessary and I guess got to a point where I had this really big healthy business and it was kind of everything that I thought it could possibly be, but I kind of hated it. I guess you kind of get to that thing where it's just like you reach the summit and you're like, oh, I am not up here and I'm tired, and it's not really all it's cracked up to be, I guess, or
Danielle Lewis (07:00):
It's somebody else's definition of success.
Alice Armitage (07:03):
Yes.
Danielle Lewis (07:07):
So what happened then? Oh my God, this seems like a mental breakdown moment,
Alice Armitage (07:13):
Break moment. Oh my god, there's been so many mental breakdowns for all this time. I just skipped over them a little bit. Perfect.
(07:24):
I think I understood because I had a big client who was a huge part of my business and it was just absolutely horrible to deal with. I think the more disillusioned I was getting with that space, the more I think it also happened in conjunction with me just getting a bit older and wanting to not be all over the place all of the time where I coincidentally was being exposed to a couple of people who were doing extraordinary work in a very different way, in a very different way to what we think tech and startup culture should be.
Danielle Lewis (08:09):
Who were these people? What were they doing?
Alice Armitage (08:11):
Yeah, they're all very, very cool. So it led me to publish our book in 2020 where I just had this hair-brained idea and I asked my beautiful, beautiful friend if he wanted to do it with me. And then both of us were trying to tour around Australia yet in 2020, which was a very difficult
Danielle Lewis (08:34):
Thing. Great timing. That's really good timing. Yeah,
Alice Armitage (08:37):
Literally our first trip was the last week. Our first scheduled trip was the last week of February. We got that one in and then pretty much nothing else happened. Oh my
Danielle Lewis (08:49):
God.
Alice Armitage (08:51):
But we got there in the end and I loved the process. I still was full pelt with all of my consultancy work. I was very tired and very stressed and it was really tricky. It was one of the trickiest things to have self-published book. As you're also familiar, that process is not necessarily very easy, but I think people really liked it. It was really well received. I was really happy with it.
Danielle Lewis (09:28):
Looks gorgeous, an absolutely gorgeous book.
Alice Armitage (09:32):
Thank you so much. But then I didn't really know what to do next in 2021. I thought I was going to have a sabbatical for a year. It took me far too long to break up with my clients that I had. I thought that would be an easy process. It was very messy and it was very stressful and it was almost way more stressful than actually having them, and I struggled to let go and it was really difficult at this point, I hadn't really, really decided to do the paper. I just really needed a break. Life has this way of throwing us curve balls that we really didn't know that we needed, but someone very close to me died very tragically in that time when I was, see, I'm going to try not to cry.
Danielle Lewis (10:33):
Oh my God, you can
Alice Armitage (10:34):
Trying. Yeah, when I was trying a wine
Danielle Lewis (10:37):
Break
Alice Armitage (10:38):
Of those clients and they were pretty horrible about it, so I think that was the kick in the pants. I needed to be like, I really don't have to have anything to do with you and don't want anything to do with you. And all I wanted to do was be with my family, which am very grateful that I was able to do that. I think I acknowledged that it was a very privileged position to be in, to be able to essentially just drop everything and be at home with the people that I loved through that time. I think that
Danielle Lewis (11:20):
That's such an amazing thing. Just to kind of put a pin in a little bit, because I feel like sometimes we have these grand visions for our business and exactly what you said, we just hustle, hustle, hustle. We reach the summit and we're so fucking miserable. We've built this trap for ourselves and I feel like then when horrible things happen in life and they look like a myriad of different things, we kind of go, holy shit. I built this trap and it's so hard for me to do the things that I need to do as a human being. So being in the position where you could actually make that decision is amazing.
Alice Armitage (12:02):
And again, I'm just so grateful that I was able to do that and I think in a lot of ways all of my hard work paid off and maybe that that was enough,
Danielle Lewis (12:14):
That
Alice Armitage (12:15):
All of the tricky things and all of the lack of sleep and the stress and anxiety, if I had to do all of those things again so that I could have the chance to have that freedom when I really needed it, I was very appreciative.
Danielle Lewis (12:31):
I think sometimes you don't know though. I think sometimes you need to go through that. You need to go through the stress, the taking on shit clients, the changing your mind, the world changes, the market changes. It really does help you, I think, figure out what you want your business to look like.
Alice Armitage (12:55):
And I think people might not agree with me, but I think if you have any kind of service-based business, 80 to 90% of figuring out your business is figuring out boundaries and how, oh
Danielle Lewis (13:10):
My God,
Alice Armitage (13:13):
Boundaries about how you deliver work boundaries, about how you engage with your clients boundaries, about how much you charge and all of those things. And boundaries are not something that you learn. They're things you have to learn that the hard way, I think, which is quite unfortunate.
Danielle Lewis (13:33):
I know, and it's really, it's interesting. I'm literally writing pricing down on a post-it. No, you've just sparked something side by head. Thank you. Raising prices. Thank you for that. Oh my God. But it's so true, and I think it's really interesting. So many courses out now you can learn anything on the internet that you need to know, but still, every person in business I know doesn't value themselves. Takes on too much work, eats crap for a long time before somebody has to go, yo, stop it. Value yourself. Put your prices up. Set boundaries. I love that you've raised that point.
Alice Armitage (14:18):
And so unfortunately, usually we have to have a really shatteringly horrible experience before we assess that. It's like you would never put up with,
Danielle Lewis (14:35):
Oh my God,
Alice Armitage (14:37):
You were dating someone and they behaved the way your clients behaved. You would dump them in five seconds. You'd be like, that guy is an absolute loser. I'm never ever going near him ever again.
Danielle Lewis (14:48):
Totally. It's a weird thing. I reckon. It's like when we are starting out, we kind of go, anyone that says yes, they'll pay me. I need to take them on and I need to charge what I think I'm worth. Well, not what I think they'll pay, not what I'm actually worth. It's a really funny thing that we do for ourselves. So right. If we were in a relationship, it'd be so quick to meet up with our girlfriends and be like, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. We need a support group for females in business.
Alice Armitage (15:27):
Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (15:29):
This is terribly
Alice Armitage (15:30):
And talks to the person on their left and says, put a zero on your pricing. I promise you, you probably should.
Danielle Lewis (15:37):
Totally. I don't even know you and I know that you need to do that. Yes.
Alice Armitage (15:43):
I don't know how much it is. I know you're undercharging.
Danielle Lewis (15:46):
Yes. Oh, that's amazing.
Alice Armitage (15:49):
It's the dichotomy of being in a small business or being a freelancer, a consultant, whatever that looks like. Yeah. You are always struggling with that. I think always struggling to try and deliver more for less value, but at the end of the day, it's a complete disservice to yourself and to your client if you don't have the ability to really deliver. I have been doing it in some way, shape or form, literally since I was at uni, and I still really struggle with it. I think particularly now, I still run my consultancy business just in a very different way. Well, well,
Danielle Lewis (16:32):
I know you do mentoring. Is that how it looks now?
Alice Armitage (16:35):
Well, I still have clients that I work with very closely. So yeah, not trying to get ahead of myself, but pandemonium is my little baby, our media outlet, but also Native House is my consultancy business that still lives and breeds and exists, and I'll come back to that in a little bit because it's really interesting how that's kind of reemerged in a much healthier way. But yeah, we do also offer mentoring through pandemonium as kind of a way to make my knowledge and my experience accessible to someone who's just starting out, I guess
(17:22):
Not necessarily having to have me on retainer. People are in my consultancy business. I guess that's kind of what the paper is all about in a way. I think a lot of people, anyone who doesn't feel like the life they're living is really what they want to be doing. I, that's why I kind of frame it as being outside the traditional metropolitan mold is the kind of people that we feature and the kind of audience that we're cultivating because that speaks to so many different people, whether you live regionally or if you live in a metropolitan area. Everyone we're trying to speak to those people who feel like they don't quite fit and they're just trying to push the bounds of what their life looks like. And yeah, I think I am a really strong advocate that, especially from my own experience as a regional kid and having lost my cousin Nicholas, I think very similarly, we really struggle to imagine a life for ourselves if it doesn't fit into this very prescribed mold.
Danielle Lewis (18:46):
And
Alice Armitage (18:47):
I'm just trying to shake that up a little bit. So yeah, I guess that led me to launch the paper.
Danielle Lewis (18:55):
I think that is incredible because, so my story in three seconds, did corporate for a decade, met someone, started a business, then went down this rabbit hole of business, and I think I learned what business was from everyone, external books, media, and I built a business I hated. And so I absolutely love that your driver is to show a different side of the story because it took me a decade, another decade of doing business in a crap way to realize that it's not the life that I wanted for myself.
Alice Armitage (19:41):
And I think, so the pandemonium paper, we have a quarterly physical newspaper where that is all we do is just write stories about thought leadership in that space of just pushing downs of whether that's in your own business, if it's in your own life, if it's in your own community, you don't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur or a business owner to be interested in reading the publication. And all of our content is hosted online. I just genuinely believe that people should be able to access that content for free if they want to. But the paper's only $6 80, so
Danielle Lewis (20:24):
You can spring for it, trade your cup of coffee. Yes,
Alice Armitage (20:29):
Absolutely. And yeah, exactly that. I think we're not necessarily pushing a particular narrative or a particular way of doing or being. It's more look at these incredible people that you probably already are familiar with or you might have never heard of them ever before. A lens into their own life, their own challenges and how they have got to where they are really. Or just breaking down some of the barriers to these things that we potentially could want our lives to look like and be like, you know, could actually do that thing. And your idea might be different to the idea of the person that you're reading about or the business that they've built, but hopefully you'll garner some inspiration and maybe some actual practical advice about how to make that happen, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (21:35):
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that people who are not necessarily going to be business owners actually get value from it as well, because I think that there is a real movement around people wanting to support local support regional, and it is difficult not to, I guess, get the Woolworth story. The big chain story is everywhere, and I love championing local, I love championing regional because they are people with amazing ideas and really unique products and services. So yeah, absolutely love that.
Alice Armitage (22:16):
I also think that in a lot of ways, if you're not a business owner and just an engaged human who wants to learn interesting stuff, we're moving so far away from, as you say, that Woolworth's narrative or that fast fashion narrative or whatever you want that to look like, and not wanting to make this about Covid because I feel like we have so many narratives around that. But it has been a real disruptor, particularly in this space of people reevaluating their lives, but also really reevaluating the way that they consume things. And I guess you will never beat a marketing strategy that is built around building a connection with a product or a service a person. And I think for a lot of the people we profile, that's also something that we can offer for them as well, is giving them a helping hand to speak well about their work, show them how important some great photographs can be.
(23:24):
And I think for a lot of us in our own businesses, it is so difficult to build that really strong brand narrative about what you actually do and how to portray that both visually and in writing. And I hope that that is also a gift that I can give for people who are really trying to make their fantastic businesses work as well, is just be like, here's a little token of appreciation and I guess don't want to get too into it, but also just trying to build a really progressive business model around what the paper looks like. So there's strong value exchanges for everyone who's involved in just, yeah, I don't want to say cultivate a community because that feels
Danielle Lewis (24:17):
Different. We're using my phrase a little bit too much these days, aren't we? Yeah, it's Hold you there though, because I am a little bit obsessed with communities at the moment. I think that we might be, and I guess because I come from influencer marketing background that's all about digital communities and obviously in the spark realm it's all about female founder communities. And then as I do a bit of research into NFT Web3 space, it all feels like these online communities. So I kind of think if you're not focused on, like you said, that personal connection and creating a community in some capacity, you might be missing the point.
Alice Armitage (25:00):
I agree. I do really agree. And I think for us, I have been absolutely blown away with the success of the paper since we launched in February. But even just the bare bones of the people that follow us on Instagram, the quality and the alignment of the people that are finding us, it just astonishes me every day. And I guess you could say we are building a community in that way and that resonating with people I think. But at the end of the day, if someone who is feeling isolated is feeling like they don't fit in this mold that they're supposed to, can engage in our content and either feel a little less alone or just ever so slightly inspired, take that leap of faith into the road less traveled, then we've done a good job.
Danielle Lewis (25:59):
Oh my God. And I think it is a testament to the work that you do and the quality of the content that you create that these people are finding you because it is incredible and you're spot on. I think about small businesses we talk to, I think about the businesses that I'm meeting here now that I'm a little bit more regional and that marketing now, the creation of the content, the copy, the how to communicate this, they do amazing things, but the communicating of it is really difficult and I love that you have gone well. That's the thing I'm awesome at. So let me bring that to you.
Alice Armitage (26:42):
Yeah, well I hope so. I also think you can never, ever underestimate when you get your foot in the door and contribute to a regional community how much that community will give back to you. It's amazing how much you cannot beat it when you can engage with the real true sense of what community is, how valuable that is for your business, because it'll always come back to you in spades and it just comes back to you just when it comes to community, be generous and just try and just think about each individual in front of you and how you can deliver something meaningful to them for no other reason than you feel like you can help them in some way. And I think that is an immense power that people are yet to truly understand about what it means to move out of the city and the opportunities that exist for startups and for founders is that regional communities will go above and beyond if you can really genuinely show up in their community and offer value. And if people can understand what it is that you were doing, they will show up and support you in ways that you never even knew was a thing. I recently reach out to me and tell me that she had done a research paper at university about pandemonium,
Danielle Lewis (28:24):
Stop it. I
Alice Armitage (28:25):
Never spoken to her before, but I know her. I know her. She lives in the same community that I live in, befriended her and now I want to keep her forever.
Danielle Lewis (28:39):
That is awesome though, because it's really interesting because sometimes I feel like it's really easy to get discouraged. You are sitting in your home office super isolated, just putting out, doing the work, doing the things, and you
Alice Armitage (28:54):
Go to you 50 times a day and you're like, oh my God, I hate my life.
Danielle Lewis (29:00):
Really, what am I even doing? Is this even a thing? And then out of nowhere someone will be like, oh yeah, I've been obsessing over you for years and I've done this thing. And you're like, okay, people just don't always tell you the good things. Oh, that's incredible.
Alice Armitage (29:18):
Yeah. Yeah. So I think the point is that those are also the kinds of things that we're trying to highlight where it's just like, did you actually know that you can do this thing? I think a lot of people don't, almost just as many papers are going into metropolitan areas than they are into regional ones.
Danielle Lewis (29:40):
Oh, that's cool.
Alice Armitage (29:41):
There's definitely a lot of aspirational readers as well. Ones you don't necessarily need to want to upheaval your whole life and want to go and live in the middle of nowhere to enjoy what we're producing. But
Danielle Lewis (30:01):
I just think it's amazing as well, like us city folk also being in a country like Australia where we have such strong regions where there are obviously mining minerals, resources is a huge part of Australian lifestyle. But as a city person, so I lived in Brisbane my whole life up until six months ago. I didn't know anything about regional towns. So I love that as someone living in the city, I can tap into these stories of all of these people that are actually contributing to making Australia an awesome place to live.
Alice Armitage (30:39):
And you have to be resourceful when you don't live in any sense of the word. I think we've also found out our real kind of sweet spot for those progressive thinkers who have moved out of the city, also the progressive thinkers who are living in regional Australia and not necessarily feeling really connected to this thing that really drives them. But a lot of our audience is in Tasmania. I lived there for two years and Hobart, I miss it every day. That the culture that has evolved there from a lot of people moving down there with these fantastic ideas and being like, we can afford to live here and do the thing that we love and we tell our corporate jobs to go and get stuffed because we don't need that wage to live anymore. And I mean obviously life is not free when you move to Tasmania.
Danielle Lewis (31:38):
Yes,
Alice Armitage (31:39):
Totally. Cheese is expensive and it's very good down there.
Danielle Lewis (31:44):
Oh, I miss cheese.
Alice Armitage (31:52):
There are a lot of things I miss about the city that can be delivered to your door,
Danielle Lewis (31:57):
Right? You just have to get super savvy about online delivery sometimes.
Alice Armitage (32:04):
One of my great mates when I first, I was living in Melbourne in 2019 and came home in 2020 and for a couple of months and then of course we know what happens after that.
Danielle Lewis (32:18):
Fill in the blanks. Yes.
Alice Armitage (32:21):
One of my great friends, he was so worried about me moving back to the sticks where four a year after I moved home, he delivered me a box, like an assortment of natural wines from my favorite wine shop.
Danielle Lewis (32:38):
Oh my God.
Alice Armitage (32:40):
Every month. Every month I got a delivery from him of these natural
Danielle Lewis (32:46):
Women who is this person? We need him in all of our lives.
Alice Armitage (32:50):
He's amazing. But I guess it's just if you have some people around you who can inspire you to really think about how you can take on the challenge and just try, it's really not that scary. It's immensely scary. But I also believe that people should be very practical about some of the things that they do and not necessarily take this major leap, but maybe build the cord of the parachute and then jump and the rest of the para will appear.
Danielle Lewis (33:35):
That's what I did. So I was like, okay, I know I'm going to be total culture shock. So I'm like, I know myself, I lived in Fish Lane in Brisbane, which is this gorgeous little laneway bars restaurants. I was on it every day and I was like, okay, so I know I'm going to struggle moving to a regional town, town. I live in Kalgoorlie right now for anyone who doesn't know. So I made an emergency kit. I was like, okay, what are all the things that I love that is so easy to get that I know if I have? Because we also came at Christmas, so we had to do two weeks quarantine. And also because we had to beat the border closures, our stuff didn't arrive until a week into quarantine, so we had to camp in a house for a week before our stuff arrived.
(34:26):
So I was like, okay, I'm in for a rough ride for the first month or two. So I literally went, what is all of my favorite stuff? What's all the skincare I use? What's the wine I like? What's this? What's that? And I put it all together. So I was like, okay, at least for the first month or two, you're not going to go without anything and you can spend that time exploring. Once we did quarantine, you can kind of go find your favorite coffee shop, find your favorite pub, find the little gift shop. And I think the challenge with regional areas is it takes discovering. You really kind of have to put in the work to find the stuff or find people who will give you all the recommendations. It's not like in Brisbane you just look it up on Instagram and you find the latest restaurant to go to or something. You really kind of have to get into the town.
Alice Armitage (35:20):
But I think discovery is a great term because we should all be at least trying
Danielle Lewis (35:27):
To be
Alice Armitage (35:27):
Discovering things all of the time.
Danielle Lewis (35:30):
I
Alice Armitage (35:30):
Think it also is great no matter where you live, to be trying to discover things mystical.
Danielle Lewis (35:41):
No, I totally agree. I totally agree.
Alice Armitage (35:47):
This might seem like a bit of a tangent, but this weekend I'm going away. I used to do it all the time because I used to just be so burnt out and so stressed and my brain would break where I would book myself a really nice place to stay for three or four days and turn my phone off and just remember what happens in my brain when, oh my God,
Danielle Lewis (36:10):
That sounds like heaven.
Alice Armitage (36:13):
So I'm doing it this weekend and this completely. That is the perfect example to me of what it means to remember that you need to discover something sometimes, whether that is, and I think for me personally, putting me in, taking me from one space and putting me in another space is so helpful, but I think we can trigger that in ourselves in lots of different ways. When I lived in Tasmania, there would be a point where I had to get off the island and a lot of us used to talk about this thing where it's like, it's time for you to get off the island for a little while.
Danielle Lewis (36:57):
I love that.
Alice Armitage (36:58):
Take that $80 flight to Melbourne. Just be somewhere.
Danielle Lewis (37:04):
Go amongst the people for a minute. Yeah, be
Alice Armitage (37:06):
Somewhere where someone might accidentally push you for a minute, be in a really loud restaurant that annoys you,
Danielle Lewis (37:16):
Remember why you moved here, remember why you love this.
Alice Armitage (37:21):
It's just perspective that helps you keep all of the other things into perspective. And I think we can sometimes really lose perspective very easily in our day-to-day lives and yeah, rediscover the perspective. That's probably what I'm trying to actually say is just,
Danielle Lewis (37:44):
And I just
Alice Armitage (37:44):
So important no matter where you're at, is to remind yourself that perspective is necessary. I mean, we all wish that we were on the other side of the world getting that perspective on a cobble beach in Italy, but that's not, it can literally be like, turn your phone off. What is this novel you've been wanting to read and go and be outside in a park somewhere, something that you normally wouldn't do, go to a gallery, go to the opening of some weird event in the weird town you happen to be at because you never know who you'll meet. But it's also just good for our brains.
Danielle Lewis (38:37):
Totally. And I love even that you said go to the opening of a weird place in a weird town they in, because I think we forget to appreciate where we are. I think we get so stuck in our routines that we, even if you live in a big city, you stop trying the new restaurants, you stop trying the new things. I love that idea of discovery anywhere that you are,
Alice Armitage (39:04):
And hopefully that's what the paper can also do. Oh
Danielle Lewis (39:09):
My God, that was the world's best segue
Alice Armitage (39:13):
Now that did just come to me. I was not trying to make that work.
Danielle Lewis (39:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Alice Armitage (39:20):
But I guess it does really kind of solidify what I'm trying to do is inspire that in people in lots of different ways, I suppose.
Danielle Lewis (39:35):
That is absolutely incredible. So I'm just trying to think. This conversation has been fucking amazing. I'm, I just want to, I've literally got a post-it note full of things that I've written down from what you've said. So let's leave it there. But I'd love to. So your journey has been amazing. So going from being part of the founding team of a massive brokerage vc, having that experience regional to big city life, the consulting gig, the book, the, you've done a lot. Let's be real, and I know you champion people's stories in business. Is there any piece of advice that you might give somebody who was wanting to start something was in that space of not really happy where I am right now, whether it's a corporate job, whether it's a business that they've created, what's maybe a piece of advice for somebody who's ready to take a bit of a leap
Alice Armitage (40:40):
Slide into my dms and I'll give you some really unsolicited advice.
Danielle Lewis (40:45):
Well, I'm doing that right now.
Alice Armitage (40:48):
My favorite thing to do, I think there are, okay, there are a few things you have to take the leap at some point, but the leap is very scary and it is hard, but this is maybe also a little bit of a tangent, but the name pandemonium comes from this really old concept, this guy John Milton. He wrote an epic poem like 400 pages long, a few hundred years ago, and speaks about how pandemonium is the city at the depths of hell.
Danielle Lewis (41:28):
Oh my God, okay,
Alice Armitage (41:29):
Heaven is this thing that we're supposed to aspire for. And this whole epic poem is about circling the depths of hell, doing all the really hard stuff, and in the end, you reach pandemonium, which is more extraordinary and fantastic than anything you ever could have possibly imagined.
Danielle Lewis (41:49):
Oh my God. So
Alice Armitage (41:52):
Take the leap is the point of this story. Wow. It's really hard. So yeah, my number one piece of advice is take the leap because I think in 98% of situations in Australia, we are so privileged and so well supported, and employment rates are so low in most situations. I am definitely have a good financial safety net, be smart about it. But in most situations you are going to be fine if it doesn't work out
Danielle Lewis (42:34):
Totally. And also there's no, nothing wrong with putting one foot in and keeping your job and taking the leap. I think that there's ways you can do it to take the leap. Absolutely. Like you said, build a quarter of the parachute.
Alice Armitage (42:53):
But also I think that comes to my next point, which I think is you really want to make sure your idea is actually valid. And you are never going to figure that out unless you put yourself in some really uncomfortable situations to get some feedback from people who are knowledgeable or from the market. But sometimes the best feedback is the feedback you don't agree with and you want to push forward anyway and prove that person wrong. So that feedback is also very helpful. I think it's a fine line between knowing this is not going to work, but also sometimes you just need a little bit of validation and someone really get it. And I think a good example of that is for me, I was, we launched the paper and someone else launched a regional paper at a similar kind of time. And in the very early days of pandemonium, people just didn't really get what the difference was. And to me, it really fueled the fire for me to push really hard and prove how different we were. And I think our success from them from then has really shown that that's the case.
Danielle Lewis (44:16):
Excellent.
Alice Armitage (44:19):
I think, yeah, and also if you are looking in the right places, you will never be in short of very smart people who are willing to help you.
Danielle Lewis (44:35):
I love that.
Alice Armitage (44:36):
And always reach out. Don't be afraid of the no, but it's always going to be a no if you don't try, don't necessarily think it's great to involve yourself in communities that are really supportive, but you don't necessarily need to find one person who has all of the answers, learn from people and reach out to people. And I'm generally sometimes quite socially anxious and socially all good, so I hate it. Even now. It has been my life for such a long time to just reach out to people, ask them for help, pitch my ideas to them. I still hate it, but I hate it until it's fruitful. And then, oh my God, this was so, so silly. Sometimes you get hilariously strange responses from people and you just got to let it go. But the more people you reach out to, the less offensive it's going to be no matter what their response is.
(45:40):
So yeah, I guess those are my three pieces of advice. Take the strategically, make sure you can eat and be fiscally responsible, and you have to put yourself in vulnerable positions to get really honest feedback from people, whether you take that under advisement or you use that to feel yourself to prove people wrong. You've got to walk that fine line. And the third being, reach out to people and ask them for help in a genuine way. And most of the time it comes from garnering their knowledge. I think people are always willing to answer, well, that's not true. People are most of the time willing to engage and answer your questions or give you some advice whether you want to take it or not.
Danielle Lewis (46:41):
Totally. Or even at worst, nudge you in the right direction, which sometimes that never goes astray as well. Alice, you are incredible. Thank you so much for spending your time with the Spark community. As I said, I've got a poster note full of things I have to go do right now and reevaluate my life choices. But no, but it was so incredible and I know everybody listening in to this episode would've gotten an immense amount of value from your honesty and your vulnerability. So I cannot thank you enough for being here and spending your time with us.
Alice Armitage (47:21):
Thank you so much for having me. I only cried once.
Danielle Lewis (47:25):
Oh, look. Oh my God. Look, it's incredible and I think it is the thing that makes you incredible as well, is your willingness to do that. Your willingness to tell it how it is, even though it sucks, because that is going to help somebody else out in business. And I am really grateful on behalf of Spark for You, my absolute pleasure. Cheers. The best.
