#awinewith Erin Deering
MEET Erin, Founder of Triangl
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Erin, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Erin Deering (00:09):
Hi Danielle. Thanks for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:11):
Of course. I have been a long time, as I said earlier, before we hit record stalker of yours on Instagram, so very excited that I'm bringing all of my business owner dreams to life by talking to you today. So thank you so much. Pleasure, pleasure. Amazing. Look, I always like to start these podcasts out by just telling everyone quickly who you are and what you do.
Erin Deering (00:34):
Perfect. All right, so I'm Erin. I'm an entrepreneur through and through I co-founded Triangle Swimwear when I was 27. I exited the business about six years ago. Went on a whole career, switch up, what am I going to do with my life scenario, A lot of healing in there, obviously, which I'm sure we'll get to later from burnout and all of that. And went into mentoring, consulting. I wrote a book. I had two more children. We obviously had a global pandemic in there, which made things a little hectic. And now I'm about to launch another brand and I'm also entering into a bit of a political era and running for Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne just because I'm not busy enough.
Danielle Lewis (01:23):
That is wild
Erin Deering (01:25):
In a nutshell.
Danielle Lewis (01:26):
Yeah. Oh my god. And I know we will get to the end game, but how did this all begin? Did you have a career before you decided to start a business?
Erin Deering (01:35):
Yes, absolutely. I've always worked in fashion. I've loved it. I actually didn't go to university, so at school I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was obsessed with fashion, but I also kind of thought perhaps that wasn't really worthwhile in terms of a career because for me, my, and what I've learned is that my love of fashion is obviously more in the marketing branding side, and I kind of thought in with fashion, maybe I'll be a designer, but I couldn't design, I can't draw to save my life. So I was like, that's not me. And I couldn't quite place it. So I wanted to go into fashion, didn't really know how. I ended up just working, not just working, but started off in retail because that just felt like the easiest way for someone who's not going to uni to get into the workforce.
(02:16):
So I worked in retail for a number of years, which to be honest, is really what credited me with so much of my knowledge about the consumer and my love for the consumer and my love for that space of how to connect with the customer and how to understand them. Then I moved into kind of the backend, I guess I wanted to get into head office and I wanted to get into head office in any way possible. I thought I wanted to be a buyer that sounded very glamorous, lots of overseas trips. But when I got into product development, which is sort of a step into buying, I realized it was just sitting in front of a spreadsheet all day. You do those buying trips that you come back and then you're on spreadsheet, and I was like, that is so boring. I don't actually want to do that. So left that career trajectory path down there and moved over into, at the time a very exciting new space, which was e-commerce, and that was the idea of shopping online from someone who was a retail girl. Just felt like the absolute dream for me personally. I was like, oh my god, I could shop at 9:00 PM on a Sunday on my bed. I was like,
Danielle Lewis (03:23):
How could life get any better serious?
Erin Deering (03:24):
I know. I was like, this is the dream. So I obviously naturally gravitated into working in that space and really working with building out those platforms for brands. I did a couple, I did two brands and then met a guy and I was loving that space. It was so exciting. I was able to talk to the customer in a less aggressive way than on the retail shop floor. It was only talking to them in reply to them talking to you first, which was nicer than going out to a customer in a store and being like, can I help you? How you going in the living room? Which I hated, hated. Anyway, so I was going really well with that to be honest, and I was loving it. I did feel like the ceiling was quite low in terms of that space, and that was also because it was a new industry.
(04:09):
So I just wasn't really sure as to how it was going to work for me and did I want to go into operations? Did I want to get more into the fashion creative direction side? I wasn't too sure and I would've worked it out, but I met a guy who was a very impressive man, 10 years older than me. He was a designer, and on our second date we went to a beach and started talking about the fact that I couldn't find a bikini to wear and decided to start a bikini brand. And that was something that I was 27, so I was very much still in the corporate world of sort that career trajectory. I hadn't yet, I think felt empowered enough to start my own brand or start my own business. I felt like I had a lot more to do. I had a lot more learning to do and growing up to do. But when we came up with the idea on that beach, I was like, why not? That sounds way more exciting and fun and a lot more freedom, which it really is way less freedom business. You know what I mean? So yeah, I was like, why not? So we just jumped into that business.
Danielle Lewis (05:16):
That's so cool. Isn't it interesting that thought process and the thought change from I've got so much more to learn, I probably shouldn't do it, and then when it's sparks, you're like, well, now is the time. Well, I don't have overheads. Maybe I don't have kids, maybe I don't have this. I've got nothing to lose. Let's throw everything at this
Erin Deering (05:35):
And it's a great time to do it because you don't, no mortgage, no children, nothing. Just a lot of ambition, a lot of naivety, which I think is crucial. Starting use this when you don't have anything, you got to be a little crazy. Yeah, you got to feel like anything's possible and you got to really think big, and we definitely did.
Danielle Lewis (05:54):
That is incredible. I love it. And it's always a man. There's always a guy in there. That's how I started my first business as well. Met the co-founder, fell in love, and then, oh, there's the next 10 years of my life gone.
Erin Deering (06:08):
Yeah, exactly. That was me. I was like, this will be amazing, this sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs and yeah,
Danielle Lewis (06:16):
Absolutely. And never the case. There we go. Oh, that is so good. I love it. So talk to me then about the early years of triangle, and I'm always fascinated because I've mostly had service-based businesses. I'm always obsessed with product-based businesses. So how did you go from beach
Erin Deering (06:35):
To
Danielle Lewis (06:36):
Getting that first product into market?
Erin Deering (06:38):
Yeah, so we first came up with the idea in November, 2011. We worked on it part-time, whilst we both had full-time jobs, we were coming up with the name, with the logo, couple of bit of sampling here and there, which is a really lengthy process when you're in Melbourne and you're sampling overseas. It takes a long time and that was okay, but we weren't really getting the traction that we wanted to in terms of not getting anywhere because it's so slow and you can't get the momentum going because you're just doing it at nighttime. And so early on in 2012, we decided that we would move overseas to Hong Kong and sell everything and just move. And there was a few reasons for doing that. Firstly, we wanted to be near the supply chain to speed things up. We were manufacturing in China and we didn't want to live in China. We wanted to live in Hong Kong because that was a way cooler and more vibrant city, although I'd never been there before. I was just basing that off what everyone else is. Yeah, you're like, sure, that's a
Danielle Lewis (07:38):
Good plan. Let's just do
Erin Deering (07:39):
It. Yeah, let's go. And also we really wanted to focus on the brand and give it everything we could, and both of us definitely the kind of people that just go hard at something and we were just like, this is smarter because this way we'll be committed, we'll be focused, we won't have any distractions. So we moved, we sold everything we had and we got, I think we made about 10,000 Aussie dollars and we moved over with the intention to use that money to start the business. Of course, we land in Hong Kong and it's very expensive and we use that money really quickly. And within a couple of months we were completely broke, which was really scary and annoying and frustrating and really awful. To be honest. We couldn't even afford to fly home, nor did we want to go back home to Australia because we knew we weren't ready yet.
(08:30):
And we also just felt too embarrassed to go back like that didn't work. And we just needed money to get the first production run through. We couldn't work in Hong Kong, we didn't have visas to work and we didn't want to get them because it just involved a whole bunch of paperwork and money to even set that up. We were just like, can't even do that. So we needed as much money as possible to get production going. And we were like, if we can just get the bikinis out there, we were sampling. We'd come up with some great stars we wanted to launch with. Obviously we were doing a website online. That was my experience. That was what I knew to do. So we were setting that up and that was happening and it's kind of ready to go, but we didn't have any money to put an order through.
(09:10):
We couldn't place it order to get the brand started. And that's I think a lot of people's barrier to entry is that first initial production run that order. And so we asked for money from everyone back home and pretty much everybody said no. And then thank goodness, we had a couple of amazing friends of Craig's and fortunately him being a lot older, he was nearing 40 some, his friends were older and wiser and had a little more money. Craig on the other hand, was bankrupt from his previous business, so he had no money. He was great. My parents loved him as well, by the way. I'm like, I loved this guy moving over, started business and he's bankrupt. They're like,
Danielle Lewis (09:53):
He's ticking all the boxes.
Erin Deering (09:54):
They're like, to be honest, someone who's been bankrupt actually, they're like, that's someone who knows what it's been like. They've failed and they know they failed and they know how to not fail the next time, which really was very, very pivotal to triangle success I think. So we had a couple of friends loan us a bit of money and we were able to put a production run through and put an order through. And because our overheads were so low, we had one studio, which was our office, which was our bedroom, which was our apartment, which was our creative studio, which was our photography studio. It was this one little room that had everything and Craig and I didn't go out and had no social lives and we were literally eating canned soup for months on end. We were able to be profitable really quickly because we were just able to make money. And it wasn't much at the beginning. It was basically enough just to get the next production run through. And it was hard. It was a real slog, but at the same time it's a real slog. But there's so much joy in those first sales and those
Danielle Lewis (11:02):
First little
Erin Deering (11:03):
Wins and being like, and because for us, neither of us had really any platform. No one knew who we were, no one knew who the brand was. It was so hard to get even back then, it was so hard to get the brand out there because no one knew. And it was kind of that constant, how are we going to get this brand out there? And for me, it was very much just targeting one customer at a time, one person at a time, and treating them. They were the only customer in the world, which to be honest, a lot of them really were at that time. And we just started to see some traction and we just kept going with that. And we just really set ourselves up in a way where we didn't have the option to fail. We put so much pressure on ourselves in terms of the way we'd set everything up. There was no, we didn't have the job anymore. I'd left my career behind. It would've been very hard to get back in. So the pressure, even though it was so uncomfortable and stressful and miserable, that kind of pressure is what really does make diamonds. So that's kind
Danielle Lewis (12:04):
Of what Absolutely. And it's interesting. So you talked about treating every customer as if they were the one and only. And so I'm super interested, I'm always interested to ask people how they did get their first early sales. I feel like today when you talk about products, it's like, ah, be on Instagram. But I'm always curious as to, okay, so how did you get that early traction?
Erin Deering (12:28):
Yeah, so a few things that we did, we firstly launched with as not just online but with a wholesale model. And that was purely just for brand recognition. So we went into a few shops in Melbourne and it was really just to get the brand out there. I don't really think that worked at all. It was good for a little bit of feedback on the styles and the designs and to understand what they were liking. And there were obviously people in shops that had a bit more understanding of the market. So that was helpful at the start. And we got a little bit of brand equity I guess from that, but not much. I was just going around, I went back to Australia for a few months, a couple of months into the brand, launching to base myself there, really be on the ground selling bikinis, getting the bikinis in, getting them out, doing what I could from Australia. And that was really much just relying on friends and family to support. And I was selling them for cheaper. We were selling the bikinis with $79, but I was selling to friends with family for I think 45 cash. So I was driving around and had all these bikinis in the boot of my car, driving around to meet people to, I'm driving my mom's car and using her petrol. Thanks mom.
(13:40):
Driving around, just literally dropping off bikinis to people and selling them and just getting that awareness and that sort of traction. And every opportunity I jumped on, if I ever spoke to anyone that perhaps there were a few bloggers that I knew in Melbourne a little bit, and if I got to meet them or talk to them, and there were a couple of them, it was like you run at that opportunity, you make most of it, you follow up, you go above and beyond for them. So that was kind of what I did and we decided to get a little bit of traction that way. And it was just very much me, selflessly and shamelessly promoting triangle and annoying the hell out of everyone and just sending Facebook messages because Instagram wasn't even really done back then. And it was like, Hey, we've launched this brand and can you buy some? And we backed in the designs that were really cute and people were like, this is really cute. We these are fun. And so it just started to kind of evolve. I think it was very much a case of really pushing the customer side and dealing and talking to everyone in that personal way, but also having a product that was different, that had a point of difference. That was exciting for people because you can't push something onto people that's just not thrilling. It's not going to work.
Danielle Lewis (14:56):
It doesn't matter how much marketing you do, how much money you have, if the product's shit, the product's shit. Right,
Erin Deering (15:01):
Exactly. And some people say you can market anything and you can to a certain extent, but that's kind of tricky people. And I just think you actually give them something that they want
Danielle Lewis (15:10):
And that creates a repeat customer, right? So when they love it and have a great experience, that's what we want. It's more profitable to have repeat customers than it is to go chasing another one, another one, another one,
Erin Deering (15:23):
Exactly. And you've got to be obsessed with your product. You've got to believe in it as much as you possibly can. And to the level that, to be honest, I hated the bikinis. I was so because I was so nervous, no one would like them. I like them so much. But it was this weird kind of no one's going to like them and they're all wrong. And this you just second guessing yourself at every turn. You need to have that obsession for the product. That absolute, it's never good enough. It's not, no one's ever going to want it. You need to feel that drive behind you to get it out there because that's what the customer feels. They feel how much you care.
Danielle Lewis (16:05):
Yeah, absolutely. And I do love that you speak about the hustle because that's another thing. I often speak to people and they're like, well, I just don't want to be on stories, or I just don't want to do this. I'm like, we have to do everything it takes. It doesn't actually matter what you want to do. I think that in the early days especially, you do have to jump at every possible opportunity.
Erin Deering (16:26):
You have to do things that feel uncomfortable and that are out of your comfort zone. And you don't have to continually do them, but you have to at least try. I know people are like, oh, I don't want to talk on camera, or I don't want to cold email people or I don't want to. And it's like, cool. Well, if you stay safe, you're not going to get amazing results. You're not going to see the magic. You've got to just try. There was so many things we did in those early days at Triangle where I'm like, Ugh, just really. And we tried things that didn't work. We were very fortunate and very lucky to ride the Instagram wave and have this monumental success. And the gifting program was like, these things were great and they worked, but there were other things that we were trying before that there were things we were trying at the same time as that, that were done, that were falling flat that were like, oh, that didn't work. It is normal, but you've got to try. You've got to put yourself out there and feel uncomfortable.
Danielle Lewis (17:22):
Yeah, I love it. And so that's a really good segue because I'm interested then in going from the early sales and growth to then the huge scale that you experienced. So how did things change? Because I love that you mentioned, okay, you've got to get out there, you've got to try everything, but then obviously when things don't work, you can put them to the side and double down on the things that do work. So how did you experience scale? What changed in your marketing systems ops? How did that work?
Erin Deering (17:53):
So for us, we were gifting and I mean, that was something that we made up. I mean it might've been someone else doing it somewhere, but to be honest, I don't think anyone was very transactional. It was like, I will send you this, but I want this from you. And I was like, well, we are a new brand. I can't say that's so inappropriate. Be like, hi, we want to send you something and expect something in return. They're like, who the hell are you? We dunno you. So it felt very natural for me to think for knowing with no expectation, just gifting. That's literally what we're trying to do. Here we are. And for me, it was not just about the marketing side of it, it was about the feedback side of it. I needed people to tell me they liked the bikinis. I needed to hear well, sizing was like we were in this bubble of making product and not knowing what anyone else thought.
(18:45):
We loved it though I needed other people to be telling me, I like this, I don't like this. This is great. I needed to see what styles they were picking. We weren't getting enough sales to see that. So that was really, it was like a two-prong kind of thing. And it just worked. We gifted a lot. It was bikinis are a great category for social media. It evokes emotion. And we really, really wanted to harness that. Every photo we put up was evoking that summer vacation, holiday freedom feeling. And I knew from my years of working with customers how important and how much people bought things based on emotions, and we still do. So for me, emotive, connecting with them in that way was just going to make sense. And it was easy to do that with swimwear because it was like a customer. They were always asking, I want this for a holiday, I want this.
(19:41):
I'm going away. This is honeymoon, holiday, Bali, Queensland, whatever. And so that was such a great opportunity to connect with them. So that was really working and we were consistent. I think that was the thing. That was a big one for us. It was working, we were consistent. We didn't change. We were just staying on a good thing and seeing little ways we could tweak it. For example, we were gifting girls individually and it was working really well. So we started gifting groups of girls. So I would find a girl on Instagram that I thought was really cute and fit the aesthetic of the brand. And I would instead of just saying, I want to send you a bikini, I'd say, I want to send you a bikini and do you have three or four friends that want one as well? And so for me that was like I knew how much that meant the brand would be spoken about. It would be like they would then pick their friends, they would talk to their friends about this brand triangle. They would all get online, they would all pick them, then they would wait for them to come, then they would come, they would all try them on. They would bicker over the sizing. Which style did you get? Which color I wanted? That one, you can't have that one. And then they'd all go down to the beach together and they'd all be in triangle.
Danielle Lewis (20:51):
This is so genius. I love it.
Erin Deering (20:53):
It was just a really nice, it evolved really nicely. And the funny thing about that is that that still is a rite of passage for young girls now that they turned 13 and they put it on their Christmas list and they all go down to the beach together and still wear triangle. And it came from that. It came from our strategy of getting them to all be wearing it together and feel like they're all part of something. And that just worked. It just kept working for us and people just wanted to buy into our community that we were setting up and we were setting it up in a really nice organic way. And of course, gifting, this is the thing too, it wasn't just influencers, it wasn't just to people that were of note, it was literally people that we just plucked out of. They're not even micro influencers.
(21:42):
They were people that literally we just would find and be like, we want to send you one. So everyone had this. It could be me, it could be me. It could be, as opposed to being like, oh, this brand's so elitist, they gift to influencers all the time and they don't even value me. It was kind of that almost like luck of the draw. I could get picked to be a triangle girl and to be gifted a bikini because that's how we were doing it. And I think that would still work really well. Obviously easy to send a bikini out, the cost of a bikini is low. So for us it was a smart business decision to just write that cost off. It does get a little bit harder with more expensive products, but for us, again, it was really easy to do because it was just part of our marketing budget was just to send those gifts out to everybody.
Danielle Lewis (22:26):
And it's really interesting, isn't it, where you put that marketing dollar so you can think about the cost of a bikini versus the cost of a Facebook ad. And sure, you're probably doing both, but if you think about do I want to give my money to Facebook or Instagram or TikTok now, or do I actually want to create this incredible experience and send a bikini out to somebody and have them talk to all of their friends? Just, I don't know. There's a value there that I think that you just can't get with an ad these days.
Erin Deering (22:55):
Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I think the organic growth and the personal touch is so important still. And yes, there's so many automated things and ad spend is great and there's these things that can work alongside that, but they should never replace the brand actually caring and personally connecting with people and offering them something a little bit extra.
Danielle Lewis (23:17):
Yeah, I love that so much. Okay, so now we've figured out what works and we've scaled to a, is it 200 million business?
Erin Deering (23:25):
Well, yeah, it got to that eventually it was valued at that. We were selling by 2014, I think it was like a thousand bikinis a day, and then 2015 was like 2000 bikinis a day. So we were sort of selling, I think it was a hundred thousand US dollars a day of sale. And that was, that's every day we hit the American market, which is the jackpot, which everyone always asks me how, because as an Australian brand that's cracked Australia, everyone wants to know how to get in overseas. And we were just very lucky. There's no trick to doing it. It's an incredibly hard competitive market to get into. The benefit is they love Australian brands and they love Australian swimmer brands because they think we're all sea, sun and surf. But it was really fortunate. We were lucky. It wasn't like there's no clear strategy to get into those markets. They are kind of luck of the draw situations for most brands.
Danielle Lewis (24:20):
So what did the business look like at that size? Did you warehouse all over the world logistically selling that many bikinis every day? Sounds like a nightmare.
Erin Deering (24:30):
Yeah, look, it was. And the thing is nothing really changed at all. And that was not a good thing. We were so busy and so under-resourced from the very beginning that we didn't even have time to hire anyone or set up a marketing team or really set up creative and strategize and there was none of that. It was literally just make as many bekins as possible and send them out and our focus. And it was just Craig and I still essentially with the supply chain team in Hong Kong, that was it. Craig designed everything and my job was to market everything. And also we did photo shoots together and then his job was to sort of creative direct them. And my job was to logistically arrange them. And that was the capacity that we could do, which is, you see with the brand, it was these beautiful campaigns and bikinis everywhere.
(25:20):
And that was just because all that we were doing, it was like all we could do. We spoke about so many different things we wanted to do. We wanted to set up warehouses in the US and we wanted to move the company to the US and so many different things that we tried to do, but we were never able to follow through with it because we just were so, we had no infrastructure and no one else. So that is one of the things about scaling so quickly, that is really not ideal because you just can't, we would sit in these meetings with people that wanted to buy the business and they would be like, oh, we can't buy you because it's all just you two and it's in your head. There's nothing to buy here. It was IP
(26:03):
They were buying, but we were the ip. It was literally just Craig and I doing everything. So nothing really changed when we were at that scale, which as you can imagine, the workload was just astronomical and we didn't even know how and where to get the help first and who do we and what, we had a big warehouse in Hong Kong, our third party warehouse that were able to handle the volume. And obviously we had FedEx and DHL on speed dial because they loved us because we were just doing so much volume. So that was great. We had a lot of people and PayPal and we had, everyone was top tier service with all those people. So that was great. They managed all those accounts for us, but it was really just that it was just making bikinis as quickly as possible and getting them out to people and doing great photo shoots to support that. And that was pretty much all we could do.
Danielle Lewis (26:51):
Oh my God, that's incredible. And now at this point, you mentioned having meetings to potentially sell the business and you made the decision to exit.
Erin Deering (27:02):
Yes.
Danielle Lewis (27:03):
What was that time like? Because it's really interesting as I'm hearing you talk, obviously we know the stress of being an entrepreneur, but there is that, oh my god, I made it, I did it. I created this huge business. But there was a point where you decided I've had enough. What was that like?
Erin Deering (27:20):
Yeah, so when you start a business and you dunno what you're doing, which at 27 of course you wouldn't. And suddenly you are running a global multimillion dollar company and you've not upskilled really at all because how could you? You've learned things, but you have no idea. I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have any support. I just didn't even know how to and what we were doing. So impostor syndrome was obviously a huge one. I just didn't know how I fit into the business and I didn't feel like I had any support to level up. And a lot of that was my own lack of support for myself. I didn't believe in myself at all, and I would've hit burnout over and over again. I was pushing through burnout and just fight off flight pure survival. For years. I had two children during it all. We were literally on a plane every two weeks. We never were in the same place we were shooting or we were doing something else, looking at another place to move the business to or just constant moving around. No support system, no home, no security, no safety really in my head. We had all this money, but there was just no foundation.
(28:41):
And that was just exhausting and overwhelming and it just was so confronting. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know how I fit into the business. I felt like the business had destroyed my life. It was just a lot. And for me it was mainly that was all would've been okay if I'd not suppressed it. But because I felt such shame about being this multimillionaire who lived a dream life, who was hating it, I couldn't tell anyone. So I just pushed that feeling down for years and then eventually had to deal with it and address it. And I did that by having to exit the business because it was just so desperately unenjoyable by that point. I was like, I just have to get out. So yeah, I did just left.
Danielle Lewis (29:36):
And how did you do that? So you mentioned obviously Craig is the co-founder, so is he still in the business or Yeah. So what does that look like and how did it actually happen?
Erin Deering (29:48):
Yeah, so he still has triangle, which is lovely because we have two children together. So it's still in good hands and it's still very much feels like a brand that I'm attached to, which is nice, which is really lovely to be honest. And then we separated romantically before I exited the business. So obviously the writing was on the wall that someone was going to have to leave the business. I was like this, it does make it hard. We spent a few months dancing around that of who I actually took the business over initially. He said, I don't want to do it, you do it. So I did, and that was really exciting. I moved to New York, I started to set the business up there. I had all his plans. I was talking to marketing agencies and just like, let's go. Let's spend some of this money and get this brand going.
(30:45):
And then I had a newborn, I had a three week old, so I was probably overcommitting to anything and I living in land at that point, it was just not sustainable. And then Craig also was getting involved back again in the business because we had no formal arrangement yet, and it was just too much. I just was like, I need separation from all of this. And so I just made the decision, pretty snap decision to say to him, I want out. I just don't want any of this anymore. I need to go away from everyone and just work out why I'm miserable and figure out how that could possibly happen when you have everything you could. I mean things that I'd never even dreamed of I had, you don't dream of having a multimillion dollar business. It's too far beyond even my expectations, which were really high for myself. I never actually thought triangle would be in the cards or on the cards for me, and I needed to go work out why that wasn't making me happy. So I exited and it happened quite easily initially, and we had a settlement drawn up and exiting was quite straightforward. And then that fell to pieces when I moved back to Australia. And then we had a four year legal battle to separate and settle the business, which we only settled two years ago. So that went four years after we actually settled.
Danielle Lewis (32:01):
Oh my God, it's wild. So I went through a similar thing with my other business scrum influencer marketing platform. And everyone tells you when you go into business with a partner that you need to have everything sorted and you need to think about these things and you're just wildly in love and you just think everything is going to be amazing. And it's really tough actually going through the process. There's just so many emotions in a co-founder relationship, let alone if it's a romantic relationship as well. It's just incredible. So kudos for you, but getting through
Erin Deering (32:40):
It. Yeah, it was like, I remember just my husband now who was obviously part of the whole settlement process when he and I met, I was just going into it. Craig had just defaulted on the settlement and it was just two to three years of that's all we spoke about every day, every day it was what we spoke about every and you wonder if you will ever talk about anything else again. And then we did settle, and then you move on and you're like, oh my God, wow. Now I can talk on that in a reflective way, thank God. Because that when you go through it, it feels, it's horrific and so many genuine fears for me for not getting what I worked so hard for and regret and resentment and frustration and anger. And on paper I'm still this. And it was funny, during that time I was still getting on the rich list, which I was asking to not go on because
(33:40):
I was like, I actually don't have any money. And they're like, we're going to put you back on the rich list again this year. Woo, you're so rich. And I was like, you have no idea. You guys have no idea. So that was a very confronting potential reality of me having to start all over again and not, and I think that was actually really incredible experience because it made me really evaluate my values. And when you become so rich so quickly and you've never had money, I'm middle class, I'm paycheck to paycheck person since before I started triangle. To suddenly have that amount of money is such a confronting situation to not potentially have it and to just have to address everything about it and be okay with it. And I had to go through that process where I was like, I'm okay if I don't actually get any of this money, which was such an incredible experience, which I'm really grateful for because it's not that important money to be honest. It's great for a lot of reasons, but you can actually be really happy without it because we were.
Danielle Lewis (34:50):
Yeah. And interesting you mentioned the healing process and trying to figure out why you had on paper everything that one should dream about and then were horrifically miserable and going, I've got to go and figure out why that is. And then going through that process and thinking maybe I need to figure out how to be happy outside of business and money.
Erin Deering (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That it was very much going, ah, okay, society tells you one thing about money and success and that you will arrive at happiness forever. Here's all the money and welcome to happiness. And it doesn't happen that way at all. And I really lived that and it was the experience of my life to live that and then to go through the settlement situation as well and then to be actually confronted again with the scenario of, well, what if you actually don't get any of this money so money didn't make you happy? Will no money make you happy having a, what's going to go? And it was lovely. It was during Covid and we lived in this cute little house and I didn't know if I was ever going to see any money again. And we were really happy. And so that was a really nice grounding experience to kind of reevaluate everything about my life and I can now say, and we settled and it was great and everything's fine now, but I just know that it's just not a defining factor of my life. And if I lost everything tomorrow, yes, it'd be inconvenient and it's frustrating and you'd be like, ah. But at the core of it, it wouldn't change my happiness levels because it's just not what makes you happy money. It is just not, people say it is, but it really actually isn't.
Danielle Lewis (36:42):
Yeah, and it's interesting too. I love that you mentioned your now husband and having to have that conversation every day again. So got goosebumps because similar story, so now husband had to listen to the gripes of the previous arrangement, and I'm like, how good When you find a partner that is supportive, and I mean, I know we're all girl bosses and we can do anything on our own, but when you do have someone that comes into a new relationship and all they're hearing about is the last relationship, that's very good. Men exist,
Erin Deering (37:16):
Great men exist, and it's helpful. Yeah, we can do everything ourselves, but it's nice to have someone to share the load with and great men can take that on. And I think also men like that, my husband now, they like to fix things and they'll be there for you and they want to feel useful. So he felt very useful during that period, which was great for our relationship, really.
Danielle Lewis (37:43):
I love it so much. Now you penned this entire story into a book
Erin Deering (37:49):
Hanging
Danielle Lewis (37:49):
By a thread. What was the process of actually writing your story?
Erin Deering (37:54):
Yeah, it took a long time to decide to write it. I always felt like I would write it and it timing worked out really well. I settled from the business early 2022, and then I'd started writing it at the end of that year. So it was like, I think I needed that chapter to end before I wrote the story. And it was a really cathartic experience because I had a lot as I found out while writing it. And there were a lot of situations that I thought were one way in my head and I remembered them in that way. But then when I came to actually relive them, I was like, oh, hmm, that's different now. That feels different now. And a lot of that was during the triangle period. I was so lacking and my sense of self that I was blaming everything around me for what was going on.
(38:48):
So I'd demonized the business, I'd demonized Craig, I demonized Monaco. Everything was the problem. Everything else was the problem. But me and as I was writing a book, and I knew this already because I'd done a lot of work leading up to that point on myself, but as I was writing the book, it was these constant affirmations of like, oh yeah, it was me. It was me that I saw things differently at the time. They played out differently in my mind. I went to a different place about it, whereas when I was retelling it in the book, I was like, whoa, that was just because I was so hurt and I was seeing it in a different way. So there was a lot of that was, I wrote it. I wrote it in a really short amount of time. I did it in two week bursts,
(39:34):
So like 12 hour days every day, which is I got told to write a thousand words a day and I was like, that's not going to work for me. I need to be in it. I need to go into the place to remember the story, to really be in the story, which is why I think everyone that reads it says that it reads like a conversation. And that's how I wanted to write it. I wanted it to not be stop, start, and if I wrote a thousand words a day, it would feel very like, so I had to write it with flow and I wrote it and I never read it. I didn't read it, I've not read it again. I'm no interested reading it again. I needed to write it to let it out and let it go and close that chapter and move on.
Danielle Lewis (40:16):
Oh my God, incredible. Absolutely incredible. And now what's next?
Erin Deering (40:21):
Yeah, I know. So the book, it wasn't clearly enough. It was sort of closing that chapter and really allowing me to start the new one. And it's funny because, and it's just how life works. I released the book in September last year, and that was literally at the same time as deciding I was finally ready to start a new business, which I never thought I would do. And that was only because I hadn't closed that chapter off. I still was very much, I think in triangle. I was still very much there. And so writing the book allowed me to let that one go, and then I was like, oh, I'm going to sign a new brand. So that came together really quickly. It was just felt so easy. And I think that's when decisions are right in life because it was just flowing. I found my team immediately.
(41:09):
Everyone's amazing. It just all felt nice and easy and still touch wood has been not stressful for one minute at all. It's really nice and it's nice to do a business in this way where I'm not so stressed because you are wondering where every penny comes from. I'm able to invest in my business and I'm able to work efficiently and close laptop and go home to my family. And I wanted to do it that way because I was like, oh, I deserved it. I need to do it again. Smell of an oily rag. I've done that. I ticked that box. This is different, this, and it's such a different business. It's obviously ready to wear. So it's clothing, it's not swimwear and it is just a different era. Fashion has changed so much. The e-commerce space, the marketing branding is so different. There's really no crossover aside from me caring about the customer as all accurately care about.
(42:08):
That's that will never change. It's just who I am. But everything else is very different and it's exciting. It feels like having a first business again. I sit there in meetings and I'm like, what is that? Tell me about that. I have no idea. I'm like, that's new. I say things like that wasn't around in my day. I say that all the time because we were at the start of Social Media Triangle was at the very start of using it in business and now, so there's always these different terms and things and I'm like, what is that one? Like a dinosaur? Oh, my glasses. Yeah. But that's really exciting. And we launch in two weeks and it's just a really beautiful brand that I am so excited to, I mean, for me, when Triangle launched, it was a golden era of Australian fashion. There were so many amazing brands.
(43:00):
There was just mid-tier brands too. They were everywhere and they were wonderful and they were all unique and they just did their own thing. And it was just a wonderful, wonderful time. And that has just because social media and it blew up the world. So we were able to access these overseas brands in ways that we've never been able to access before. And it just, Australian fashion just started to get less and less exciting. And in the last few years, a few brands have come in and done amazingly well. And there's a couple that are still around that are incredible. There's Kil and Mark and Beck and Bridge, and they're incredible brands that have stood the test of time. But there's new brands coming in like Henny and Bear Park, and it's an exciting time for Australian fashion again. And what I want for this brand that I'm launching is to help lift that space up and say, we're bloody good at fashion.
(43:55):
We are seriously so good with our designs and our styles and our ethos and our Australian way of doing things. And let's get back up to where we were that exciting, where there were so many mid because now it's like luxury, which is unattainable for everyone including me now because I have a business I spend and I'm just like, they're going out 30% every year. These prices, it's just ridiculous. They're just taking, it's just a joke. And then there's fast fashion, which is churn and burn crap, if I may say, which I understand that some can't afford the mid-tier, but if you can't afford Midtier, which a lot of people can, and they're just choosing to buy this fast fashioned nasty stuff that is, there's got to be the in between. There's space for the in-between brands. And I really want to come in in that way and educate people to buy less and buy well and buy into brands that are exciting and interesting and talking to you in a way that's not so like buy now and then trends, and then this week this. And so that's really exciting. That's really why I wanted to come into the market at this point.
Danielle Lewis (45:09):
Well, I could not be more excited to follow the next chapter, and we will absolutely be sure to link everything up so everyone else can follow along as well. I love to end these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your journey in business, what piece of advice would you give to another woman who is currently on her business journey?
Erin Deering (45:35):
I would say just to go all in and to not be afraid of failing, because it's inevitable. You will fail. There will be things that go wrong, big things that could go wrong, they will. And just to see them as lessons and to just understand that it's a blessing and a gift to have a business. And it should be exciting and it should feel good, and you shouldn't feel stressed all the time. And anxious and nervous people normalize these feelings when you have a business and you don't need to feel that way. You shouldn't feel that way. There are stressful moments, but that doesn't mean that you should feel stressed if you are a problem solver and you have that mentality of like, oh my God, that went wrong. We just had a scenario with stock that's just the boat crashed our sea freight so nightmare.
(46:35):
But I'm like, okay, cool. So what do we do? It's just like, what do we do? What's the solution? There's no point stressing. We can't change it. There's just no point. And for me, I think that I wasn't able to do that in triangle. Everything absolutely freaked me out, and it was stress constantly, which is why I hated it. What I did to change that. And what I think every female that's in a business, and this probably should be the piece of advice, is to do the work on yourself personally, to help you feel supported, to not feel like your life is ending every time something goes wrong that is not sustainable, you will not survive. I think most businesses, when they say 90% of businesses that don't make it, it's not because of the climate or the economy or this, it's because the founder doesn't know how to cope with stress, doesn't know how to enjoy ride because they've never learned how to find those tools and work on themselves in that way.
(47:35):
So that would be my biggest piece of advice because this business is, and people might think it's cruisy because I have more money to put behind it, but I actually don't. I didn't settle for anywhere near what people say my money is, where there's nowhere near that. But I enjoy it. I don't get stressed because I've done a lot of work on myself to ensure that I'm enjoying it. Because otherwise, what's the point? If you are hating it and you're miserable, firstly, your customers feel it. So it's like it's going to impact that energy exchange between them. And secondly, it's just not fun. Life is stressful enough for people. Just remove it from your own if you can. So that would be my advice. Do the work.
Danielle Lewis (48:19):
Oh my God, absolutely incredible. Erin, you are amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and wisdom with the Spark community. I'm so grateful that you came on the show.
Erin Deering (48:30):
Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
