#awinewith Hailey Brown
MEET Hailey
Hailey is the Founder of Vacayit.
Find Hailey here:
Vacayit website or Instagram @vacayit_app.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:10):
Haley, thank you so much for being here on Spark tv. It's an honor to have you.
Hailey Brown (00:16):
Thank you very much for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:18):
So let's get started by telling everybody what your business is, what it does, vacate it. Talk to me.
Hailey Brown (00:26):
Okay. So tourism marketing is predominantly visual. So if we look at how we promote destinations, it's usually through imagery or videos or visually heavy written content. And so what we're doing is we're creating an audio guide that allows people who are blind and low vision to be able to experience the world, because right now they're pretty well left out of the Australian tourism market and kind of the rest of the world as well. Really?
Danielle Lewis (00:57):
Holy crap. That's awesome. Is this a cause that's close to your heart? Why did you get started on this?
Hailey Brown (01:07):
Well, I was actually never really in the space before this. My degree is in psychology and tourism, and I had an opportunity to present something to the World Tourism Forum about two years ago. I would say maybe a bit over that, just about a gap in the tourism industry and what I was presenting at the time. I didn't feel like I had a good enough tangible solution, and there was just really a couple of us at the uni who had the opportunity to do that. So I wanted to do it well, and I was over at my friend Henry's house and he broke down some of the barriers that had been created by the industry for him because it's not the barriers that are created by the person, it's the barriers that are created by the industry. And he's been blind since birth. He's got a beautiful guide dog, Yaz, and yeah, he kind of broke down some of the stories and he is like, I just want more easily accessible information over audio or another form that's more accessible. And so then I wrote it up overnight and submitted it to the World Tourism Forum, and we actually ended up winning the World Tourism Forum Innovation Award about a year or two later. So that was in November of last year. We ended up winning that, but the more I spoke to people I tried to find, tried find everything not to do it, I was like, this product shouldn't need to exist. There must be something out there, and I didn't want to be a startup founder, whatever.
(02:41):
But no. Then the more I interviewed people, the more I spoke to people. I spoke to people in 16 different countries in the world, and it was not isolated to a person, to an age group, to a country. It was really a problem for everybody.
Danielle Lewis (02:56):
Wow. So reluctant startup founder. So does that mean this is your first business?
Hailey Brown (03:03):
It's my first.
Danielle Lewis (03:04):
Awesome. I love it. So how's it been? How are you enjoying the rollercoaster?
Hailey Brown (03:11):
To be honest, I love it. I think the reason that I didn't think I ever wanted to own a business is because I had a 50 year plan from the age of seven. So I think that's
Danielle Lewis (03:21):
Probably, I had that too,
Hailey Brown (03:23):
Why I didn't want to be a business owner. But no, I really love it. I think the journey's incredible. I always surround myself with people smarter than me, and it means I learn more every single day that I think I could ever imagine. And throwing yourself in the deep end is the best way to learn. So I can't be anything but grateful.
Danielle Lewis (03:45):
I love that philosophy. So I had a corporate career before starting a business. I didn't know that you could start businesses, and as I reflect on it as well, I'm like, I would never have gotten the experiences that I have gotten over the last decade that I would've behind a desk in a corporate office. I find in business, it's literally every day you are learning something new, faced with some kind of new giant problem that you need to overcome. It is pretty cool.
Hailey Brown (04:20):
And I think it also teaches you that everything that's urgent isn't actually that urgent. It helps you prioritize and it helps you kind of deal with stress really well, I guess actually be able to say, okay, I've got 500 burning bridges right now. What's the biggest burning bridge?
Danielle Lewis (04:42):
It's so true. It's really interesting. I was talking to a few people about the pandemic and they were like, oh my God. And I was like, well, to be honest, it's like, what else is new? There's always an issue that you have to overcome. So if it wasn't going to be that, it would've been something else. So I love that philosophy, like prioritization, how to handle stress. Running a business is a good just life thing to do.
Hailey Brown (05:07):
Yeah, no, I am very grateful, very grateful for the experience, and I'm really glad that the idea just fell into my hands. I'm sad that I have to be the one to do it, and it doesn't just exist. I would love to be out of my job as much as I love what I do. I think this just should be something that exists already and it should be all around the world, and it should be in everybody's hands, but nobody's doing that, so that's why we're doing it.
Danielle Lewis (05:32):
No, that's so cool. So Ben, what does that look like for you? So and what are your team doing on a daily basis to I guess, build up this record of audio files?
Hailey Brown (05:44):
So we work with destination marketing organizations around Australia on a local, regional, and state level. And so right now we're just in Australia. And so what we do is either myself or our partnerships manager creates a partnership with either a state or a region, and then we go through all the admin with them and then send it off to Lisa who's our head of content, and she has lived experience and she edits all of the content and makes it really, really sensory. One of the many things that we always talk about is how do you describe something to somebody who's never seen? That's why we also have Lisa in it because she's got that lived experience where she's able to pull that the right information. But for me, I'm really bad at explaining things. And so it's like, okay, well how do you describe Coral to somebody who's never seen or touched Coral? And I think they described as the deflated mushroom with long cylinder stems that create little trees of the ocean.
Danielle Lewis (06:51):
Oh my God, that's
Hailey Brown (06:53):
So cool.
Danielle Lewis (06:54):
So cute. Wow.
Hailey Brown (06:56):
And so it's shifting that typical marketing instead of being like, oh, come over and look at the view, go to the top of the mountain and embrace the view. It's like, okay, what's
Danielle Lewis (07:07):
The view that means nothing? Yeah,
Hailey Brown (07:09):
What are you looking at? So it's actually predominantly changing the way that we even market destinations in the first place. And then once Lisa does that, then Ivan, who's our marketing and pr, he goes in and gets all the one stock, send image, the logos and everything and loads it onto our backend, which then gets put on our app.
Danielle Lewis (07:32):
Wow, cool. And so do you monetize through the tourism bodies or to the consumers that use your app?
Hailey Brown (07:41):
No, so our users are for free and our customers are destinations, but they're also hotels of major event providers. We aim to be one of the major sponsors of all elite major events like the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, world Cups festivals, so that there's access to information everywhere.
Danielle Lewis (08:02):
Amazing. So then it obviously sounds like you've got a good workflow process team going on now. So what does that mean that your day-to-day role is in the business?
Hailey Brown (08:14):
Oh, it's never the same. It's hard.
Danielle Lewis (08:15):
Yeah, it's still jack of all trades.
Hailey Brown (08:17):
Yeah. I've recently really turned more into the investment legal aspect of it.
Danielle Lewis (08:29):
Oh, fun.
Hailey Brown (08:30):
All of the admin. And I think that's also because my team does everything that looks pretty, everything that's done well, everything that the world sees, that's not me. It's my team. And that's why whenever let's say I win an award or I get nominated, it feels really wrong because I'm like, they're the people who are creating this and they're what makes the product good, not me. But no, I do. It's been in the last month or so really changing to investment and admin.
Danielle Lewis (09:01):
Amazing. So have you raised capital before or is this the first time?
Hailey Brown (09:07):
We've had a lot of grants and awards money that actually kept us going for our whole first year of operations, which is very, very lucky. But no, we're very lucky to have had a lot of that support early on that we didn't need to raise capital at the time where we weren't ready. And now we've just taken in a large chunk of capital to go to just our pre-seed.
Danielle Lewis (09:33):
So Cool. How did you find that process?
Hailey Brown (09:37):
It was actually okay. I think we pulled from a lot of people who've been supporting us along the way. We have had a very, very dedicated board of advisors and a lot of people who I've asked for advice along the way because I kind of came in knowing nothing, and I really feel like I'm actually able to kind of do it all alone now. But I still like having that bouncing board and I send weekly updates to monthly updates to my advisors and ask for questions and help on things that I may not know how to do that they know how to do, because they've all been very, very successful in their careers. So really once I opened it, I kind of closed it straight away.
Danielle Lewis (10:27):
Every person listening in hates you right now. I know, I know.
Hailey Brown (10:31):
No, it wasn't, wasn't a large range. It was just going to get us through until we launch, because we've put a lot of time and effort in making sure that we've got profit and revenue coming in and making enough partnerships so that we're not having to be reliant on investors, especially going into an economic downturn.
Danielle Lewis (10:51):
And that is like sage advice. I love, I think two things that you just mentioned there. Firstly, the raise was easier or quicker because you had existing relationships and you'd kind of been taking people on the journey and they know you, they trust you, they believe in what you're doing, which always makes it easier. But then not needing a raise, I'm actually focusing on the profitability of your business. Yeah, I mean, I think there's no better advice around right now than to be profitable.
Hailey Brown (11:24):
Well, we did have to go back a couple months ago and actually sit down for a whole month and restructure everything so that if we can't get any capital over the next couple years, how are we going to be profitable and how are we going to survive if there's an economic crash? So no, we did take, the advice that has been plastered everywhere is, I don't know how true or not true it's going to be, but it's better to be prepared than underprepared. Absolutely. But I definitely expect of main raise that we would actually open publicly and do properly. I expect that to be a lot longer and a lot harder. And we've allocated around seven months to open and close that, so I'm not expecting it to be like this again. This is just to get us through into our launch, which is on the 16th.
Danielle Lewis (12:12):
So cool. So that's imminent. How are you feeling?
Hailey Brown (12:15):
Oh, feeling good, feeling good. I'm glad it's en route. It's a content platform, so you can't launch it without content.
Danielle Lewis (12:25):
Exactly.
Hailey Brown (12:27):
So we've been working with a lot of destinations and we've got 50 experiences coming in from Tourism Tasmania soon.
Danielle Lewis (12:35):
Wow, that's
Hailey Brown (12:36):
Cool. Which is really, really cool. And we've got a lot of destinations. We've got Bundaberg tourism, and I think we've got maybe four regions, five or maybe six regions in Queensland and five or six in Victoria, and I think about three in South Australia, only one in New South Wales. But we are looking at growing it, and we've got so much content coming in the next couple weeks, and so we should be updating these stories every single week to the platform. And we've got a good enough runway now that we can actually launch and make sure it keeps coming, which is really the hardest part for us, which is we've got enough to launch, but we didn't have enough to keep coming. So that's really only a new development.
Danielle Lewis (13:24):
That's awesome. And look, couldn't have come at a better time by the sounds of things.
Hailey Brown (13:30):
Yeah, no, it's been a long process. I think I try to stay as real as possible at every point. And to say it's been easy would be the understatement of the century. And I think we've had a really terrible couple months as well.
Danielle Lewis (13:46):
So whether you want or not, let's go a little bit deeper on that because so people that tune into Spark TV are usually, they're the people who want to start a business who haven't taken the leap or founders who are in the trenches going, why the did I do this? So what has transpired since you've had the idea and fell into being a business owner, what challenges have you found? I don't know, maybe the most difficult to overcome.
Hailey Brown (14:17):
Oh, wow. Okay. I think one of the many things that's going to always be a problem as you grow is finding enough time a balance between your team and then also investment, for example. So I found myself a couple weeks ago, I almost completely really for the first time since starting realized I neglected the whole team aspect because I was just, so I realized that we weren't going to make it to launch, and I was like, we've got to go do something about this. And so I just went completely in the other direction of what I'd been doing and been like, okay, now to pull on every string I've ever pulled and completely neglected my team, and then realized that that was not something that I really ever want to do again. And so now we've had to implement a couple of things in at the start of every week, give everybody an update, where are we at? And as we grow, I foresee that becoming a problem. But I always hope to be the best leader and leading with EQ throughout, but it's hard to be the person in many shoes or whatever the saying is. I always get 'em wrong.
Danielle Lewis (15:32):
Many, many hats. Any kind of outfit
Hailey Brown (15:36):
Is too, any outfit, whatever. Too many jackets. Too many jackets. I think I foresee that as becoming a problem, but also getting contracts signed with government. Oh my God, it's exhausting. It's just a lot of brainpower.
Danielle Lewis (16:00):
You have picked off a customer base that is notorious for taking a long time to do anything.
Hailey Brown (16:09):
But in saying that, I'm very lucky that all of the people who are on our app are also advocates and heroes for accessible tourism, and they want to be doing better, and they want this to be out in the market. But it's the people who are trying to turn the people who aren't the heroes. They're the people who could be the heroes. But right now we're in that limbo where they haven't really considered accessible tourism before. They know they should, but right now their priorities lie elsewhere. And that's where we've seen a lot of apprehension from. It's is being like, well, how can I justify spending money on something that we actually don't have a strategy for and we don't know if it's going to be successful? And I completely understand it, I completely understand it, but no, it's got its own. Actually turning those from the original interaction to the end can take a really long time. And then when you get to the end, then it's like three months of procurement. Yeah. Oh
Danielle Lewis (17:06):
My God. So you essentially, you've had to go through an education process, so because this is so new, you can't just sell it to somebody. You've actually got to educate them on the problem first.
Hailey Brown (17:19):
Yeah, exactly. And everyone's actually, I'm very lucky that the tourism industry is quite open-minded, welcome to change. They care. Yeah, it's an incredible industry to be in because I think also the tourism industry facilitates young voices to be heard, unlike any other industry. And I think you see a lot of stigma in a lot of industries, not only just being female, but being young. I'm a 23-year-old founder, and you're going to have your own. I often do not say that publicly because I know it's got its own stigma and biases attached to it. But no, it's, I know,
Danielle Lewis (18:04):
But I actually like that you did because I think people will find any excuse to hold themselves back. So they'll pick on age, they'll pick either way, you are too young or you are too old, or you're too,
Hailey Brown (18:18):
Okay. I'm a young female in the accessibility space, so I'm a triple threat,
Danielle Lewis (18:24):
Which is why you're going to be a giant frigging success. That's great. So totally. No, that's super cool. Did you find challenges, obviously tourism got hit pretty hard in the last couple of years. Did that slow your progress or didn't make any impact? No,
Hailey Brown (18:43):
I think it really accelerated it to be honest. Cool. I always say if I think I came in with this a couple years ago, I don't think it would've gone well at all. The tourism industry wasn't ready to make these changes a couple years ago, everything. So it's
Danielle Lewis (19:01):
Kind of given people a kick up the bum almost.
Hailey Brown (19:04):
Yeah. I think that up until really 2020, the same old tourism problems were occurring every single year. Nobody knew how to deal with them. You had over tourism, you've got crowding, you've got how are you going to make this sustainable? How are you going to make it so that, but it was never accessibility. Even in my degree at uni, I never learned about accessibility as a part of the three pillars, economic, environmental, social, even the social and the environmental. It was never accessibility. And so it taught, it wasn't, wasn't a priority. And it wasn't until I really think the tourism industry crashed and burned that we saw a huge change to the tourism industry being like, shit, we can actually do things right. This, sorry, excuse me. But we can actually do something. We can, how are we going to combat over tourism? How are we going to meet every single level that we haven't met before? And it was a couple of years ago when World Tourism Day was focusing on accessibility, that was a huge, huge moment because it hadn't been recognized before and people didn't even understand what it was. So it's a real education journey for everybody to realize, okay, accessibility is not a ramp. It is not tactile indicators. Accessibility is a start to finish experience. They need to have, people with disability should have the exact same experience that somebody else has. And I think there's a saying, I'm going to absolutely butcher it, but
Danielle Lewis (20:43):
Perfect.
Hailey Brown (20:44):
It's something like diversity is everybody gets the exact same shoe. And it was saying that equality and accepting and letting everybody be everybody, everyone gets their own perfectly fitted shoe and they get it all tailored to their needs and so that everybody can have the same experience and feel just as happy at the end of it. And I think that's what tourism is shifting. It's not just physical infrastructure, it's the experience. Just because you can get into the coffee shop doesn't mean you're going to be able to drink coffee. Yeah. So I think in saying that a long-winded answer, it's really the first time I think the tourism industry has been ready for the change and it accelerated it saying, well, what can we fix? And this was one of the many things that people were ready to fix because everybody wants more visitors. And when everybody realizes that people with a disability spend 2.8 times more than the average cited tourist or spend 2.4 times more on rooms or whatever it is, they realize that it's not just about accessibility, it's actually the economic value they're providing is huge. And so just by making your destination accessible, you're going to get more revenue.
Danielle Lewis (22:01):
Wow, that's so cool. So will your platform cater beyond the audio experience? Is there a future plan for, I guess you just mentioned there's so many different things in terms of accessibility that people need to think about. I know you sort of focusing on audio at the moment. Is there a plan to shift that in the future, or is that the niche that you are going after?
Hailey Brown (22:27):
No, we want to stick to audio right now. Everything else has a platform for whatever. We don't really have a tourism platform for audio or storytelling platform unless it's a book, I guess audible or audio books. But no, what we hope to do is if you create a product for and with the people who have the most access needs and it's a universally designed product, then it's a product for everybody. And that's something that I think a lot of startups are missing is just because you've got a product does not mean it's a product for everybody. If you don't build it with accessibility first, then it can't be a product for everybody. And so what we're doing is we're integrating stuff now. We've got transcript options for people who are hard of hearing. We're integrating a map integration right now, and we're hoping that it actually, the map integration that we're really hoping to put on is a one that navigates you through wheelchair through ramps instead of stairs and can go to different speeds. So we're trying to make the product accessible from get go, and we've got voice search for people who are blind or who have limited mobility.
(23:52):
And then one day it can just be a product for everybody because it's just audio guides at the end of the day.
Danielle Lewis (23:56):
That's so cool. I love that. And then I assume world domination. So once you nailed Australia, will that be what the capital raise is for, or will you target just Australia first? What's that plan?
Hailey Brown (24:15):
Well, we want to completely build out Australia first, but we're kind of on track to do that by mid next year. That's so cool. Which is really, really cool. And it's really nice to see the world responding so positively to accessibility because it's just so unheard of to have this much support at this early on, really within one year of operations. And then after that, once you can go to all of the destinations in Australia, at least I think we've got a goal of 70% where it's built out enough that you've got enough options. So that's probably about 20 experiences per region. And then once it's built out enough, we'll expand to New Zealand first and then to the us.
Danielle Lewis (25:05):
Wow.
Hailey Brown (25:06):
But as soon as we expand into Europe or Asia, then we need to find a way to do nine different languages. And we're an audio content platform, which means we have to record everything in nine voices. So we're holding off on that one for a little while. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
Opens up the challenges just a little bit,
Hailey Brown (25:28):
But that's also accessibility is having access to more languages so that everybody can listen to it. So it's a problem for down the line, but it's going to be one that we're going to have to tackle.
Danielle Lewis (25:40):
Yeah, no, and look, it's interesting, isn't it? I think the bigger you get, the more you grow. Challenges never go away. They just become bigger. And there's so many different things to think about. So your first couple of years in and your pre-launch, that's kind of a similar stage to some people and they might be thinking, okay, what do I need to know? So if you are at the start of your journey, what do you think that you would tell yourself? What kind of advice would you give yourself if you were just starting out?
Hailey Brown (26:17):
Don't do it. Don't
Danielle Lewis (26:18):
Do it.
Hailey Brown (26:19):
Yeah. Seriously guys. It's tough out here, so do it. Oh, funny. No, I would say that before building a product to make sure that there's product market fit, that's one of the biggest. I know I hear it a lot and it was overused. The only reason I did it was because I got forced to do it and because I was trying to solve a problem without having to solve it myself. But you see so many products go out to market and they've built this thing they haven't marketed beforehand, and then they're like, oh, it's been a year and I haven't had any more customers, or We haven't developed it anymore, or people aren't using it. The same story comes up with all of them. It's like, okay, well how was your user acquisition process and what was the data based off of? And it was just like, well, I spoke to five or 10 people, but I don't think at any point you should ever stop learning. I still stop people who are blind on the street and I'm like, Hey, there's this. What do you think? Can you give me,
Danielle Lewis (27:37):
That's amazing. I love that.
Hailey Brown (27:40):
And it's gotten to the point where I know everybody now. That's my, and they like, hi, Hailey. But no, I always try to ask for feedback because you can never have, if you are building with your customers and not just building with your customers, but building with your users and often they're different. So I really think that is the most crucial thing that you can do when you're starting up a product because going in there, just assuming that it's going to succeed, that is the biggest reason why people fail. But for us, even though we haven't launched yet where we've got corporate, some of the largest corporate partners in Australia, we've got some of the largest organizations supporting us. We still go through Vision Australia or Blind Cat Citizens Australia and even guide dogs sometimes if we need advice on something, even at the point where we feel like we're experts in the industry, we still have people who are more experts and have lived experience that we're speaking to every single day. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing.
Danielle Lewis (28:51):
And I think that you are spot on the amount of people that spend, oh, look, I'm actually guilty of it. I built things without asking and think this is the best idea ever. Let's build it. Build it. But you waste so much time and money and resources building stuff without talking to customers. That is literally the best advice ever
Hailey Brown (29:15):
Do. It was also because I got, somebody said to me, they were like, who said that? Who said this was a problem? And I was like, what do you mean? Of course it's a problem. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (29:28):
The people that have the problem, they're the ones that are telling me.
Hailey Brown (29:34):
I was like, how dare you say this is not a problem. And then they're like, okay, we'll get your data for it. Then it's like, okay. And then I did everything just prove the person wrong. And he was like, you're making, he's a good
Danielle Lewis (29:44):
Motivator.
Hailey Brown (29:45):
He's like, yeah, you're making so many assumptions right now. And I was like, that is fair enough. But I'm angry about it.
Danielle Lewis (29:52):
Oh, that's awesome. So then being a founder, do you have a life? Do you take time to look after you outside the business?
Hailey Brown (30:05):
Yeah, sometimes it's hard because I do advocate for work life balance. I actually got really sick last year because I didn't have much of a work-life balance. Oh no. And had a couple major surgeries.
Danielle Lewis (30:20):
Oh wow.
Hailey Brown (30:22):
Just due to stress. And so I do try and be an advocate for work-life balance as much as I can. But to be honest, I always also stay true to myself. And I don't really have a work-life balance. I would love to get to the point where I feel like I can do that. I don't feel like I can do that at this stage, but I feel like I am approaching it. And I did go away for a holiday about three months ago, and the team completely ran it, completely ran it without, and I was worked one day of the seven days that I was away. So that was really nice. But no, I try and I always go out for a walk in the middle of the day, or if I want to work at home, I work at home. If my employees want to work at home, they get to work home.
Danielle Lewis (31:13):
So it becomes like that micro self-care when you can't do big things and you feel like you're kind of right in the thick of things at the moment, taking those little moments to break it up is probably,
Hailey Brown (31:27):
Yeah. And even though it's work, a lot of my advisors who I catch up with or something, we'll go out and we'll do something fun while we talk about work. And it kind of breaks it up a little bit because you get a little bit of life in there and you get a little bit of ness.
Danielle Lewis (31:46):
Yeah. And it's always nice when you work with people that you like. It does make it a lot less like you are in the trenches grinding it out when you can actually have a board meeting over a wine dynamic.
Hailey Brown (32:04):
And our team does game nights, which is kind of fun.
Danielle Lewis (32:07):
Oh, that's cool.
Hailey Brown (32:09):
Is And we don't talk about work at all, but it's not really a rule, it's just that we don't want to talk about work and that's fun. But no, I do try and I know my team gets out and does fun things on the weekend. I know marketing and PR guy, he skydives a lot.
Danielle Lewis (32:27):
What
Hailey Brown (32:28):
I know. Oh
Danielle Lewis (32:29):
My God.
Hailey Brown (32:31):
And do little things here and there, but it is hard. It's very hard.
Danielle Lewis (32:37):
Yeah. No, but that's it. I just like that you've just got to make the time for it. And even if it's not giant things, just making sure there's little things often in there just to keep things balanced
Hailey Brown (32:50):
And yeah, it is hard because you have to give up a lot. And you do figure out, A lot of friends are a lot more patient than other friends. Oh,
Danielle Lewis (32:59):
Yes.
Hailey Brown (33:01):
Oh, it's Haley. She's busy all the time. And some are just like, majority are probably just like it's Haley, but I'm sure there's a couple people who probably feel like just got lost somewhere along the way. The friendship just kind of slowly started to dwindle and fall out. But that's also life some people are meant to be for the moment. Some people are meant to be forever. And I love and respect everybody and I love what everybody's doing. And I'm very lucky to have a lot of friends and startups as well, because a lot of the time it's shared pain.
Danielle Lewis (33:38):
Absolutely. If you can surround yourself with people that understand what you are going through, I find that helps a lot. I found that to some friends, friends for life, but I never talk about work with them because they have no fucking idea what I do.
Hailey Brown (33:55):
Exactly. Exactly.
Danielle Lewis (33:56):
But also sometimes that's amazing. Then you just go and have a wine or whatever and you're not talking about work. So that's awesome.
Hailey Brown (34:04):
Yeah, it's definitely important to have people who you can deep dive a problem with and they not in your work, but they're like know your work life and they understand what it's like. But then it's so important to keep your friends who have no idea what you do. I still don't know if some of my friends know what I do. Really. They're like my biggest fans, but I honestly wonder sometimes.
Danielle Lewis (34:29):
I know. But it's so cool. It's nice to have the different changes of pace depending on how you're feeling.
Hailey Brown (34:37):
And it's also weird keeping friendships who, when you're in completely different areas, and in the startup world, you get a gold medal for everything. You get so many awards and there's nominations for everything, and you don't know really when it's happened, what you're getting. And I think as a friend of somebody in a startup, it can be quite demoralizing because it's like, oh, my friend's getting awards here, left, right center. But they're not in an industry where they give out gold medals at every corner.
Danielle Lewis (35:11):
Yeah. Oh my God, that is so funny. I never thought of that. But you are so right. There are so many different awards and conferences and bits and pieces. There's
Hailey Brown (35:21):
Something for everything. Right. And I don't want to undermine any of the awards, but it's also a lot of industries do not give, they don't have awards because it's a corporate workplace or it's this or this, or they've just got the annual end of year party or something. But it's all within the workplace. And so I'm sure for some friends, they see what I'm doing and they're like, oh, well happening. We're living very different lives at 23. But it, it's so not comparable, is it?
Danielle Lewis (35:55):
No, not at all. And it's interesting because I feel like there are good things and bad things about the startup industry. I love that. I do love that. Whatever you need, what conference you need, event, you need advice, you need some, I'll give it to you. Sometimes I think that we get bogged down in the hustle and the capital raising and the media and this and that, which I think detracts people from the sage advice of solve a problem for your customer and create a profitable business. Sometimes I think it's easy to get distracted by the fundamentals when there are so many shiny things going on. But I think if you can keep that balance, then it's an awesome thing to be a part of.
Hailey Brown (36:42):
Yeah. It's what we call at work, the shiny object syndrome. Yes.
(36:48):
And that says, and we've got a list that we review every couple months, like, okay, what's fun and what do we need to do? And I think at the start, I was very much on the win awards, thrives vibe, et cetera, et cetera. And really within the last six months, I've just, unless somebody nominates us for something or it would be beneficial, if we can find a tangible impact that's going to be beneficial for our business, we won't apply for it. And that's the same with everything. We don't go to a conference if we're going to lose day and it's not going to be beneficial for us. We don't apply for award if it's going to take X amount of time for a piece of paper that we don't gain anything from, or we have had to completely knuckle down. And unfortunately, we've got a great story. And unfortunately I'm a young female founder and accessibility so often a lot of news channels would like to cover, but I've just kind of pushed everything back to launch. I was like, Hey, can you please cover when we launch? Yeah. So for the last six months, I've really had to just turn down everything so that we can just focus on getting our product into market. And then I think that's when we can maybe focus on that.
(38:13):
But it is what you said, it's just very essential to not lose sight of what you're building and get caught up in the glam and glitz of all of it.
Danielle Lewis (38:21):
Absolutely. And I think, I guess we're putting all the puzzle pieces together here, but even when you're in build business mode, it is hard to take a break and look after. So if you're kind of piling on top of things, events, awards, interviews, blah, blah, blah, blah, that have no direct correlation to your business growing, then it's just too much. It's just actually too much stress for no outcome. So I actually think that's amazing advice. I did that. I had to do that a couple of times, just go, because again, I was a tech female founder when there weren't a lot of tech female founders. And I just used to
Hailey Brown (39:04):
Hard to do that.
Danielle Lewis (39:06):
He just got rolled out onto all of these panels and I was so exhausted. And I was like, hang on a second, I'm just helping you guys and ticking your boxes. And I'm like, this isn't helping my business at all. So I kind of had to draw the line in the sand and start to get very picky about what I did as well. I think that's awesome advice.
Hailey Brown (39:26):
And it was advice that I received. It was like one of my advisors said, I won an award. I was like, oh my God, I want this award. How cool is that? And he was like, okay, and how's the business? I was like,
Danielle Lewis (39:42):
Oh shit. Way to kill my vibe, man.
Hailey Brown (39:47):
Evidently still not launched, but thank you. And then after that I was just like, okay, we really need to knuckle down. We need to get the product into market, and we really need to make sure that we've got enough content flowing. So yeah, I heard a little bit. A little bit, but sometimes
Danielle Lewis (40:06):
That's how we learn.
Hailey Brown (40:08):
But no, it was one of the best, and I would give everybody the same advice is if it takes more than more time than what you're going to get out of it, then you should not be doing it. If it's a grant that you are like, okay, I'm going to get $10,000, this grant is going to take me two days, how much is your time worth in that two days? How much would you be getting paid in that time? And how many resources are you going to have to pull to do that? And then is that worth your time? Is that what you should be spending it on? Or even for an award, a lot of the time there's no monetary value that comes with it, it's just the recognition. Is that recognition going to boost your company? So I know that one of the awards that I had recently applied to is with the destination marketing organization of somebody that we want to work with. And so I'm hoping that we can be a finalist in that, and then hopefully it's something that we could actually continue to work with them in the future. And for me, I saw that as a really tangible goal that if we do become a finalist, that's something that we can maybe work together on in the future if they're interested.
Danielle Lewis (41:21):
So it's totally strategic,
Hailey Brown (41:24):
Or this award is really good in the tourism industry, or this award is really good in the accessibility space and it gives you a bit of extra value or whatever it is. But then when it's just something that maybe isn't going to, there's a lot of smaller awards or a lot of even accelerators is the one that I've had to pull the plug on all of them. I did two accelerators and I don't know why I did two. I should have just done one. Not saying that the value of either of 'em were less or more than the other, but it was more, A lot of time in a week goes towards spending time at Accelerators. And I'm very glad that I did both because one was specialized in the accessibility space and one was specialized in just the startup world when I was starting out.
(42:18):
And so I don't regret it, but I had them one after another. And it meant that only until about a month or two ago, I had five full days where I had it to myself with one of them. It was one whole day and the next one, it was every morning. And it was just like I was losing so much time doing these things that I don't actually know if it was a smart move for our business, even though I learned so much, I just felt like a lot of, I was spending a lot of time doing elsewhere because one started the day before the other one finished. And so I didn't really have that time to ever recover and recuperate, and it really took it out of me. And I got covid at the first week.
Danielle Lewis (43:03):
Oh my God.
Hailey Brown (43:04):
And the first week, and then I was so, so sick on the last week, and I think it showed because I was just so run down, I didn't have any time for myself. Any of the extra time was spent towards the accelerators. And so it is something that I think people need to look at and think, okay, how much time do I have? Is this going to be smart for our business? While I still do think that both of 'em are smart for our business, I kind of wish they were a year apart.
Danielle Lewis (43:32):
Yeah, no, and you're exactly right. You have to make that calculation and balance anything that you do in your day, whether it's an award and accelerator, even later down the track as a leader, what you delegate to other people. If you are a solo founder who doesn't have a team yet, you're doing everything plus all of these other things. So when you do start to bring people in, really being honest with yourself about what value you bring to the table and getting that off your plate so that you as the founder can be working on the most high value things that are actually going to grow the business.
Hailey Brown (44:11):
And it's also about letting go. I had to figure that out.
Danielle Lewis (44:15):
It's hard. It's so hard.
Hailey Brown (44:17):
It is. And to be honest, I learned to let go pretty quickly when I realized that what everybody was creating was better than all was better.
Danielle Lewis (44:25):
That always helps. Always helps.
Hailey Brown (44:28):
I was like, again, that was another hard moment. It was a hard pill to swallow,
Danielle Lewis (44:36):
But a good lesson to learn because you've said it a couple of times, surround yourself with people who are better, smarter, more specialized in different areas. I think we founders that probably tend to be control freaks, but you're right, the quicker you learn to let go, the more things do actually accelerate and get better. And you can do the stuff that you're really good at.
Hailey Brown (45:02):
Yeah, absolutely. And you still find yourself, everybody finds themselves tripping up like, oh, how's this going? How's this going? And they say, okay, no, just let it be done. Let it get done. It's going to get done. I've got an incredible team. It's always going to get done. There're incredible people. There's no reason. And even better workers and all of 'em are more intelligent than I, so I just trust them with my, I wholeheartedly trust them with whatever I give them.
Danielle Lewis (45:32):
That's an incredible position to be in.
Hailey Brown (45:36):
Yeah. But it's a highly curated team.
Danielle Lewis (45:40):
Yes, yes. Well, and that's that in and of itself, hiring is such a huge challenge for people. Finding the right talent, making sure they have the right skills, making sure the culture works team is literally a whole nother ballgame. It's a whole nother podcast in that.
Hailey Brown (46:00):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The onboarding process is so important and it's something that is neglected a lot as well.
Danielle Lewis (46:11):
Totally. It's so easy to have people come in and you kind of go, oh, I will just let them sink or swim. And because you kind of do have those moments of, well, I've still got to get my stuff done and I'm trying to bring them in to take the workload off. But if you don't invest that time upfront, you'll end up investing in it at some point when they're not quite getting it or whatever it is.
Hailey Brown (46:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And I've found the difference. I onboarded every single one of my team members differently, so I kind of wanted to see,
Danielle Lewis (46:46):
That's cool.
Hailey Brown (46:47):
But one of the weeks I had one of my employees start was one of the craziest weeks. I don't know what I was thinking getting, it was just the wrong week from them to start in my eyes because I didn't have the time to give. Luckily, he's very similar to me. And so I remember this was one of my one moments that I cracked and I had no reason why I should have, but I just remember I gave him, I have a little document. It's like, what are we? Who are we? Where do we want to be? Who are the key people? Who are the advisors? Who are our developers? Who is everybody in the company? What are their emails?
(47:34):
Who do you contact if this? Who do you contact? If there's a problem with the team, contact me if there's a problem with me, contact this person. All of it. But I hadn't actually summarized what I needed to be done. And I remember him asking me a question and I was, I was in a rush. I was out the door because it was late for a meeting that I had to run to. And I just remember going, I dunno, figure it out. I remember thinking the whole walk. I just thought, oh yes, that was not good. And I called him and I was like, hi, really sorry. This person is this person. And if you could email them this, that would be great. Oh no. Yeah, I'm really, really sorry that I just spoke to you that way because that'll never happen again. And it hasn't. But I don't think he took it to heart or anything. He is like me. He is like, okay, I'll figure it out then
Danielle Lewis (48:33):
My right. Yes,
Hailey Brown (48:36):
It is easy. If you don't actually spend your time onboarding, then they're not going to know what they're doing. They're not going to go who's who. They're not going to know the key stuff that you're meant to know because you haven't taught it to them. That's the reason they don't know it. It's not because they don't know. It's because of you. So very, very important process.
Danielle Lewis (48:56):
Oh my God, you are spot on people. You just can't expect people to walk into your company and know all the
Hailey Brown (49:04):
Things, everything
Danielle Lewis (49:05):
You need to empower people to be able to figure it out themselves. And that only happens unfortunately, by sitting down and taking that time. Yeah, I learned that the hard way too.
Hailey Brown (49:19):
I was
Danielle Lewis (49:19):
Like, Julia, you're just like me. You're just going to be awesome.
Hailey Brown (49:22):
Realizing that you are, the problem is not very nice, is it? No, it's not.
Danielle Lewis (49:26):
It's, I've realized that far too many times.
Hailey Brown (49:30):
But being open about it and asking, I've even asked my employees, sometimes it doesn't feel nice getting that feedback. But then if you just apply it, then everything gets better.
Danielle Lewis (49:45):
Totally. Yeah. And that's the thing, the quicker you can learn to kind of suck it up a little bit and take the feedback on the quicker that everyone just gets over everything and moves on and things get better.
Hailey Brown (49:57):
Removing emotion. Yes. Removing emotion to something that doesn't need to be emotional, but yeah. No, it's very interesting. It's a very interesting journey. And you learn a lot and you make a lot of mistakes. And I think if you've got people who are there as your heroes in the company, they love you, they support you. They believe in what you're doing and what we're doing together, then these are the people who are going to support you just in, you're never going to have a problem with them. And you have moments that are really extra bad in business. And even having to let people go is a terrible experience.
Danielle Lewis (50:46):
Fun. It's never fun. It's literally never
Hailey Brown (50:47):
Fun. It's not fun at all. But as long as you keep the doors open with them, because they may not be right for a role. They may not be, but they may be perfect somewhere else, or maybe they just didn't have the time to give if they're on a part-time role or it is not a fun experience. But what I've found is I always put everybody when they start on three months just as a contractor, and I put 'em on a project as a contractor and say, Hey, this is what we're going to work on and this is what we're going to achieve. And then from that, you're able to make a decision and you haven't given away any equity. You haven't sold yourself for three years, four years, and you can together figure out if they're right for the role.
Danielle Lewis (51:36):
That's super cool. I love that approach.
Hailey Brown (51:39):
And even I've had somebody who's like, oh, I don't think I'm right for this role. I don't think I'm the best person for this role.
Danielle Lewis (51:47):
That's awesome. Self-select amped. Great.
Hailey Brown (51:50):
And I remember feeling really happy with that because I was like, I need you to be honest, do feel, and it's by keeping that open relationship and checking in at different points, it's really great. It's a good environment and just lets people make sure that they're, I think people get very comfortable in organizations.
Danielle Lewis (52:11):
Oh, yes. And that's kind of the difference between corporate world and startup world.
Hailey Brown (52:18):
And I feel like people don't need to get comfortable. And even I've had an intern say, I really want to stay on it. And I was like, I actually want you to leave. You are my favorite intern I've ever had, but I want you to leave and I want you to go get experience elsewhere because I reckon we've captured knowledge for what we can provide you with. You need to have a higher level of, we don't have anything else.
Danielle Lewis (52:48):
We can't give you what you need. Yeah,
Hailey Brown (52:50):
I, I would love to have you. I would give you there, but I think they need to go off and grow elsewhere because I didn't have somebody above them who could teach 'em, and I didn't have that information.
Danielle Lewis (53:03):
And that's amazing. If you still nurture that relationship, there's no reason why they can't go off, get more experience, grow themselves, and then there's slot into a role that works in the future.
Hailey Brown (53:17):
Exactly. And even one of the feedbacks that one of my interns said is, I would've loved to have somebody like Ivan, who's a marketing NPR, come in earlier in the internship because he only came halfway through because I learned a lot from him. But I was kind of on my own before that. Nice. Because I'm bad at marketing. So yeah, no, it is good feedback. And it's always good to help people learn and grow and give them the next step up, but also encourage them to go out of their comfort zone. And that's what goes with our employees. If this isn't what you love, then don't do it. Go find what you love because I'm doing what I love. You do what you love and when the role opens, because you can love a company, but you may not love your role.
Danielle Lewis (54:04):
Yes. That's awesome. I love it. Well, you have been absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for spending your time and sharing your wisdom and stories with the Spark community. I couldn't be more grateful to have you on the show.
Hailey Brown (54:22):
Oh, thank you so much. And it's great to hear some of the other founders' stories as well. I've been listening to them on my walks recently. Yes. Oh my God, that's
Danielle Lewis (54:31):
So cool.
Hailey Brown (54:33):
So no, it's been really nice to listen to a lot of strong females as well in the industry because it's hard to find. And no, I'm very proud of strong females that come out of this.
Danielle Lewis (54:46):
Yeah. Awesome. I love it.
