Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs. Hosted by Top 20 Female Founder, Stephanie Melodia, Strategy & Tragedy features candid interviews with entrepreneurs who have scaled - and failed - their businesses - sharing their lessons in entrepreneurship along the way. From Nick Telson-Sillett who achieved financial freedom after selling DesignMyNight (on The Wildest Exit Day in History™) to Emmie Faust, the founder of Female Founders Rise, who opened up about her breakdown on the road to discovering her mission in supporting female founders.
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In this episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Maxine Laceby, the Co founder of Absolute Collagen, the award-winning beauty supplement brand. They've sold 53M doses in the UK today and Maxine stands as an exemplary pro age entrepreneur.
Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript:
SM: Take us back to that kitchen table in 2015.
ML: Yeah, it was crazy. So I'd embarked on a fine art degree, university and one of my projects was Dare to Go Bare, where I stripped myself of makeup, let my hair go grey and just wanted to see as a woman of certain age, would I disappear? People's disappear in people's vision made me realise how I thought about myself so badly really. And I started looking at myself as a whole. And one of the first things I did was I started looking at what I was putting in my body. And so I started making and drinking my own bone broth. And from that we discovered collagen. There's a very, very long story, 2 year story actually, which I won't bore you the details. And so, yeah, we created the formula in our kitchen. Absolute collagen. And yeah, here we are today.
It's been a crazy seven years. It's crazy. 73 team members, 30 point something turnover, million turnover this year, I mean.
SM: Wild. What a wild ride. What would the Maxine of today, sat here across from me, tell the Maxine of seven years ago in that kitchen, making this bone broth? Would you believe a word of what you've just described there?
ML: Do you know, it's really interesting. I'm ADHD, I'm batshit crazy and I think most ADHD people are foot to the accelerator kind of person. And so I just always went at things. I cannot walk across an empty room without getting inspired. You know, I'm, I see opportunities everywhere. So I was always doing something. So I never really thought that far ahead, to be honest with you. I just got on with the job in hand and got on with it. I knew I had something in me absolutely new. There was something, and I think I've always known that since I was a teenager, to be honest with you.
SM: And what's interesting with you saying you had that pure self belief. I wonder we're in that kitchen table with the bone broth. You discover collagen. I'm always fascinated how entrepreneurs have experienced either a personal pain point or they've stumbled on a discovery like this and then how that transforms into this hugely successful business. So how much of that do you think that was kind of sheer belief will the energy, everything that you've got to make it happen versus product market fit right time, right place, maybe a combination of all the above?
ML: I think an absolute combination of the above. We created the liquid collagen market. It didn't exist before we came. But if I go back to my childhood, my brother would say we had quite a terrible childhood. I would say I learnt resilience and I mean, he's five years older. He had a different point of view from me.
I was left on my own a lot, council as kid, alcoholic, mother, all those sorts of things. But what I didn't realise at the time is what I was learning. I was learning to get on with stuff. I was learning to turn the turn the dial in constantly because I was the only one that can make things happen for me. There was no one else to do it and and I was the outcast as well. My mum was the black sheep of the family, probably because she was an alcoholic and so we were the black sheep of the council estate. But that does build resilience because you just got to get on with it, right? I knew I was different or us, our family was different. I've, I think I might have said before, I'm adopted and I was always, I always felt like the owl in the nest, like as soon as I opened my mouth, nobody got me. They go what, what, what did she just say? And I am, and I think a lot of it is nature, not nurture. You know, I knew I was loved.
I knew beyond doubt my mother loved me. And I knew she struggled life. And so we had this kind of like, connection where we were really, really there for each other. She relied on me a lot, and that was OK. And I think all that did come to flourishing, to be honest with you. And I do work with the Princess Trust. And when I talk to the young enterprise people, I just say, you know, some of you might have a really tough time at home, but you're learning stuff that might feel painful right now.
SM: The importance of perspective comes to mind.
ML: For me when it hurts at the time though.
SM: For sure, for sure, absolutely hurts. And you know, this podcast has almost been a fantastic research project in a way. I've been, you know, especially where the person sat across from me is really the only variable. I'm in the same studio, I'm in the same space, similar is kind of questions and stories. So the brain is so great at pattern recognition. And that's something I've definitely know I love to prioritise diversity of the guests on the show. And no matter age, race, background, gender, it's, it's the narrative that you choose for yourself. So I'm picking up on that with you as well. It could be so easy for anyone else to assume victimhood, I guess, and let the alcoholic mum, the ADHD diagnosis, the growing up on a council estate be, I guess, part of their identity and be like, no, OK, it's not for me. And then maybe develop kind of a chip on their shoulder. Yeah, it's not for me. It's definitely. Whereas you, you have that kind of perspective and you actually have that healthy mindset of actually, these are all the lessons that I've learned from that. So resilience was one of them. Any others that you want to touch on here?
ML: I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. I do not fear. Fear never have done.
SM: Do you have any fears at all? Phobias?
ML: I have fears if something happens to my children. That's like I think every mother has that. I don't know. I don't fear if something is really if something shit happens, right? Life.
Life is life and I've had nothing terrible happen to me in the sense of, you know, I've had no one very close to me pass away at young age and you know, that I think is painful. I've had stuff go on but I just don't fear fear. You just got to get on with it. What your cards are dealt and sometimes you do your own cards and you just get on with it. So I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I think building the business has been a brilliant thing. I really do not fear fear.
SM: I think that's incredibly interesting and I reckon the fear of the fear is always worse than the actual thing, right? It's always worse what we're building up in our minds, the anxiety, the build up to things. It's amazing that you don't have that. What advice could you give to someone for a friend? Asking for a friend who does suffer.
ML: What's the worst that can happen, you know? And I think, I think nowadays particularly, everything is blown out of proportion. Like there's basic human conditions that are basic human anxiety. You know, when I say I don't fear fear, I don't just get gripped by it. I just get on with it, you know, it's really bizarre. And I do think that's probably my childhood, I guess. But I, my, my piece of advice would be everybody feels stuff, right? You're not special. You're not feeling stuff other people doesn't feel, you know, and, and, and it's basic human condition. And I think we've blown that all out of proportion.
SM: I love that you say that because I feel like in those moments we do feel like the only ones who are feeling that's.
ML: OK, because it's your reality, right? And actually things pass. You know what you feel on one day. So I can get crap days. Of course I do on but tired and I'll just say, oh, I'll go to bed earlier, watch some rubbish on TV, have a read, go to bed and wake up a different person, you know? Yeah, it's OK.
SM: Love that, I love that. And I'm already I'm already thinking about future stuff that's going to be so grateful for listening back into your words. And hopefully these are some words of comfort for some of the listeners who are tuning in right now just on this as well. Just holding this thought for a quick second. The other thing that comes up to mind here is especially as women nullify validate, I think as you're saying about, you know, sometimes we have low moments, high moments. We also have cycles, different phases of our lives as well. We kind of, you know, we assume what seems like more emotions. We feel all these things to greater extremes that sometimes seem, you know, compared to our male counterparts. So is there kind of something there that you can speak to or?
ML: Yeah, so I have this theory that women have many, many stages in their life and I'm sure men do too. But I can only talk as from a woman's point of view. My first stage was when I was seven. I realised I was a girl and I wanted to be a boy because boys had a better life than girls. Absolutely.
I would do all the housework on a Saturday and the washing and ironing bloody twin tub. I hated it all while serving my brother breakfast in bed. So I knew quite early on that boys in my environment had a better life. That was the first stage. Then it's you're frigid if you don't want sex, You're prude if you you know, if you're sorry, you're frigid if you don't want sex. You're taught if you do want sex and you have periods and it's just like it's ongoing. And I just think women have so many different stages. But what it does, it prepares us and we just get on with it. And again, everybody's levels different. You know, I've never had really, really bad period pains. Yes, I've had period pains and I know some women are really gripped by them, headaches and stuff like that and the mood swings. But it just prepares us. I, I see a positive in everything. I can turn any negative into a positive. Bit weird but I can.
SM: Love that, I love that. I feel like we should maybe put that to the test. All right, so let's get back into absolute collagen. So we're still there in your at your kitchen table. How did you then go about validating whether there was enough of a demand there to launch this out as a business? You just go for it, put it to the test. What? How did it go from bone broth to creating a whole new category of liquid collagen?
ML: I had no validation, the only validation I had was mine, me and my friends. In fact, I met up some friends on Sunday and I was feeding them seven years ago. This stuff just come to. And I made a more signed disclaimer and they signed it. Hilarious. And I'd phone them up every week and I'd get their feedback. You know, that was my validation. It worked. It worked on me and it worked on my friends. And why would it not work on other other women? And there was no market. There was skin supplements. They were very expensive and the big bottles and needed to take a lot of them. But there was nothing that was just collagen. And I knew the collagen was the key ingredient.
And so there wasn't a category. So we launched it. And my point of reference was I knew it worked. It worked on me and my friends.
SM: So you had that belief in the product efficacy of this?
ML: I, it's a bit weird actually, and I don't know if this is part of ADHD, but I can really believe in something. Like really, if I believe in something, boy do I And I think that is like we go in 105% and we are so focused and that is what happened.
SM: This is what I'm wondering. This is where I'm, you know, there's always this debate around you're finding that product market fit to your point, you know, you did have the product efficacy. It did work. You, you, you know, you tried it on, on other friends and things. But then I, I do totally get what you're saying as well. There were like, if you believe in something like, you'll find a way to make it happen. Or at least it will energise you enough to pick yourself up 12 times instead of eight times, right?
ML: I had to get shit done because I was the only person that was going to do it. So I had to get it done. There was no one to rely on. I had nobody, nobody at all. So I just had to get it done. And there's a great strength in that actually. But also what comes with that is the risk that, you know, I, I remember I knew within the first year it was in cost quite a lot of money to create a market. You know, I, I put in £249,000 in the first year and a half of my business. Wow.
SM: Yeah. May I ask where that money came from?
ML: I remortgaged my house. And I said to my children, right, I want to do this. I really believe in it. And it wasn't like, you know, it was like marketing that don't doesn't come in every month you're spending on marketing. Every month it goes up and it doesn't come in straight away. My first batch had to be thrown away because I didn't sell it in time. There was lots of things that happened and I sat the children, dangs, they were my only concern was Darcy and Margot.
Nobody else didn't care about anyone else. You know, my parents had both passed away. I was divorced. Only only person I people I cared about was Darcy and Margot. And I said to them, right, I want to put some money into the business. I can remortgage the house. What do you think? And they said, well, what happens if it doesn't work? And I said, well, we sell this house and we buy maybe a smaller one, and they're, oh, OK, you can say anything to kids, can't you? I mean, they were young adults at the time. But I do have this ability to get people to really believe in me. It's very bizarre.
SM: So we touched on resilience, obviously a key ingredient in entrepreneurship. And what we're touching on here now is also risk tolerance. I don't know how many people especially, you know, my world is more in the tech sort of space. I've interviewed amazing tech entrepreneurs and in that world you've got such an automatic connection with VC venture capital was external investors. It's almost like you don't even thought it through. It's just like, oh, schmooze the investors and get their money. So it is quite rare to sit down with someone who's got that level of risk tolerance to remortgage their house for this. So you said before you don't fear fear. Were you just kind of like, I believe in myself, the product is great, this is going to work, we're going to make it happen.
ML: Yeah. And I don't think I had any choice. The product, it was just unfolding in front of me and I had to. I had to make it work. I had to. I had to do it. There was nobody else. I am very I'm a risk taker beyond belief.
SM: Amazing.
ML: Sometimes, yeah, sometimes no, which is why I went for investment, actually, eventually to put some risk in because, you know, I will. Yeah, we'll go, we'll go on to that. But you know, when you're a bigger team, when you've got responsibilities, a risk taker can be too risky sometimes. So I wanted to be challenged on every penny we spent, and that's why I went for investment. And that's OK too. I love being challenged.
SM: So the exact reason that would be so off putting to most entrepreneurs? I don't want to invest. This is breathing down my neck. Quarter 100 states was actually what you wanted.
ML: It was the absolutely number one reason we didn't need money. We hadn't absolute college was doing really well. I think we're turning over to about 15,000,000 at the time. And I said to the team, there was four key players, me, Darcy, Brad and Rich. Who's Darcy's partner, right? What do you guys want? This is no longer about me. And they said we want to take business forward. I said that's fine, we've got this money in the bank because we didn't take big wages. Maybe foolishly, I don't know, but we had this money and we've got all these absolutors that we are responsible for and we've got a team that we're responsible for and every team member has a family. That is where my, that's where I become responsible. Actually, when it comes to other people. I'm like, right, That's when I can really rein in. This is no longer about me.
It's about every I want to challenge. I want to be challenged with every single pound I spend. That's why I went for investment. I'm a risk taker, remember? So I, I do I, I really know myself very, very well and I, I think that comes with sounds really patronising, but I do think it comes with age. I think it comes with experience and you know, would I have done the same thing at 30? Absolutely bloody not, you know, I yes, on risk taker when it comes to me, but when it comes to people I'm responsible for, I really think a lot.
SM: That makes sense. This is where Mother Nature kind of comes from mother instincts, OK, I love that. So getting investment as a direct to consumer, you know physical kind of product brand was this private equity, what was the process?
ML: So I kind of had a feeling that I knew the big. I knew we could be big. I knew we were growing really, really fast
SM: Can I just check at which point how many years in were?
ML: So this was 2020, so we officially launched in May 2017. Yeah, so we finalised investment in 20. So at the beginning of 20, I decided to go for investment and we secured it at the end of 2020.
SM: So it was only within a few years you transformed liquid collagen from bone broth in your kitchen into a 50 million turnover business.
ML: One product direct to consumer. And I don't think we ever knew how brilliant we'd done because for me, we were just getting on with the job in hand, right? We had our heads and our and our laptops bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That's all we were doing. We didn't even look up and yeah, we just got on with the job in hand. And I think something we've, well, I know something we've always integrity is really, really important to me because that's the thing you see. And I think that's why I've got No Fear, because if you're doing everything properly, if you do everything with integrity, you've got nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of. So we never cut corners. Every night we hit the pillows and our our heads hit the pillow and we knew we'd done the right thing every single turn of the business. So that when you're when you operate like that, you've got nothing to fear.
SM: Yeah, I love that. Incredible. OK, so sorry. So you're on this incredible rocket ship trajectory going out for investment. So where did you turn?
ML: So I've spoken to a few investors, London and Birmingham businesses based in Birmingham, and something about them I didn't like. I was like, not sure about you. And I'm a bloody good judge of character. And I do. Again, is it a misplaced childhood? Is it age? But my intuition is never been wrong.
I'm so good at it. And I can read people and I can feel people talking about energy. You can. If you've got that, you get it right. And so I'd met them and thought, no, you're not. You're not the people for me. And so I then got introduced to Alantra, an investment banker and they kissed all the frogs for us. So they went out and they obviously we paid them a fee and they said we'll go. They, they operate in the consumer food space. Collagen's a food supplement and beauty. They operate in and gone on really well with them. And they went out and found some investors because obviously they know who to who's looking and who's not. So I felt they kissed all the frogs for us, guided us. I mean, it's hard work. It's hard.
10 months of due diligence where you're having every single thing about your business checked. Yes. And it takes the main players away from the business as well. So it's not for the faint hearted.
SM: How did you divvy that up between yourself, Darcy?
ML: Maxine didn't do much. I'm really good at going out and getting and then I'm actually, this is probably my biggest skill and no, I'm not good at and I'm not good at loads of stuff and I'm OK with that. I just put people in that are bloody brilliant at what they do. Yeah. So it was Brad who was tech, Darcy was OPS, Rich was finance. They did it all. Yeah.
SM: And I guess a lesson here for some is, I mean, I, I do often advise founders, if you're going for that, if you're, if you're going through that investment process, then like go big because you don't want to repeat that process.
ML: No, you don't. No, you don't actually. Well, it was interesting because one of the frogs I kissed in Birmingham valued my business then at 5 million and I knew it wasn't worth more than that. It was valued at 42,000,000. What? So he was definitely trying on.
So you've but to a lot of people, 5 million, Oh my God, that's, you know, so you've got to, yeah, you've got to really look into it. And I say to anybody, you know, you should be looking at investment on day one of your business because, because you should make sure everything. So make sure everything's right. Don't cut corners, make sure you think you do things right because that stupid little thing that you've cut corner could stop an investor investing in you. So there was 10 months of due diligence. At the end, we had three offers on the table. We didn't go with the one that offered the most money because it was never about the money. We didn't go with the one that grows the fastest because it was a journey for all of us to enjoy. We went with the one that had the investor that I felt had the most EQ, absolute collagen and was built on emotional intelligence EQ, no doubt that. And that definitely comes from me and I needed to know I could look that investor in the eye and have really crap conversations and they were going to be honest with me. And we, you know, that was end of 2020 when I 24. We've got a great relationship.
SM: Amazing, really good you magazine that's wonderful.
ML: You're you're the one with the power. They have a portfolio. They want to invest. They have this money. They have to invest to keep people happy, right?
You're the one with the power they want You never forget that. Never go with your tail, but in your legs you go in. Not with attitude either. But you know what? You've built bloody hardwood work. We all know that. And actually, they want a bit of you.
SM: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, my God, I love this. Maxi. I feel like you're getting me all pumped up as well. Now give me an investor. I want to go and pitch to them. I don't have a business, but I love that. I love that ultimate hype woman. You are Queen collagen. So the subject of power, how did it feel for you to let go of the rein, so to speak, or at least step away from the steering wheel to hand over absolute collagen to a CEO because you brought in an external to then lead the business?
ML: I get asked that question a lot actually, and it was something that when, as I said before, I know I'm not good at, I know I enjoy as well. And we always do the thing we're good at, the things we enjoy, right? And sitting down, looking at spreadsheets, flipping now, you know, absolutely not my mind, my ADHD brain goes, I'm looking at a spreadsheet. I'm like, Oh my God, I was looking on the train on the way, way up actually. And that's fine. I've trained myself too. It was no big deal for me. I, I don't have, I'm not a powerful person. I don't have to be in power. It's not about that. And you know, I'm really, really happy for somebody to to do it who's better than me. And when we first started speaking about investment, when the team said we want to go forward, I said that's fine, but I don't want to be CEO going forward. I didn't want those crap conversations. I didn't want I'm the fun, right? I don't want to be delivering the hard stuff to the team that do this. And why don't you done that? And you know, we're on a meeting today. I'm looking at the CEO thinking, great, you're glad she's doing that. You know what I mean? So I don't have I'm not I don't need to keep hold of the reins. And I listened to somebody, one of our competitors actually, in a conference about a year or so ago, and he said, I always employ, you know, I never employ anybody better than me. And I'm like, whoa, yeah, I always employ people of far superior. And we're all different, though, Steph. It's what works for you. We're all different.
SM: Yeah, I love that. And on the self-awareness piece, I read that you use the line, you know, not another underestimated woman. So we'd love to dive into that. So I want to try and move away from the typical questions that you often get asked. So what did you mean by that phrase exactly?
ML: See my e-mail sign off Maxine Laceby another underestimated woman. Now what I will caveat with that is I possibly underestimated myself. I'm not pointing the finger at anybody, right? I knew I was capable, but was I really? You know, I think a lot of women feel that. I know I can do it, but can I really? You know so and I do see, you know, no.
Well when I started the business, you know, I was 50, I had no business experience, had work since I was 25I happily gave up work to look after my stepchildren. Then we had children. My ex-husband and I had Darcy and Margo. I had no experience. Darcy was fresh at Avuni. I created this formula in my kitchen and was about to feed it the general public via direct to consumer, which nobody was really direct to consumer then. Yeah, I get that nobody believed in me, right? But.
SM: Where did that confidence come from for you?
ML: I don't know if it was a confidence or so yes, I am was underestimated. But you have to prove yourself, don't you? You know no one will believe in you unless you've proven it. And I guess you have to prove yourself to yourself too. So I get that people didn't believe in me. I get that right. And then you prove you do it and you do it and then they believe in you.
But there's still so many women out there that are under underestimated. And I remember going in 2019 to a conference and there was all these women with business degrees. And you know, hey, I would never be able to do a business degree, right? Don't think I could and I respect that. No one to know me because I had no experience and like I kind of got to look down on a bit, you know, and that really peed me off. I didn't, I think looking back, it peed me off at the time. I just got on with it, got a job to do, get on with it. That's what women do, right, Which is get on the job in hand. And it wasn't. So I was like telling over 10 million that people went oh, Maxine. And there was something I just thought, see, part of me gets really annoyed with that, but the other part of me goes, we've got to prove yourself because there's so much noise out there. Yeah, so you do have to prove yourself a little bit. So I kind of get it as well, but it's a little bit annoying.
SM: So on that shift on 10 million turnover successful and air quotes entrepreneur, what did you notice in the shift from people? Can you remember any specific instances where you were like, oh, I wouldn't, You wouldn't have said that to me in a room a few years ago?
ML: I suppose the initial? What's the word? The initial being noticed came from the absolutist and that was lovely. That was so lovely. I remember being on Oxford Street and we just won ACW award, which is the beauty award that it was just amazing. And I remember walking up Oxford Street in 2019 and someone going, Oh my God, Maxi, I'm an absolutist. So the recognition came from them first and that just felt beautiful. And then, you know, the bank finally took my call. I was turning over 10 million. Don't even start me on that one because I didn't borrow money, you know, I self funded.
And I think you have to go through those things that you can't demand respect without earning it. And we all grow with the journey, don't we? You know, I'm a different person than when I was, you know, when I first started. And I always say to people, whenever I'm mentoring or speaking to people, I always say, you know, if you've got a Shopify store, we all start at one ping, ping, you know, and.
SM: I was going to ask you, actually, do you remember where your first ping came from? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. What was it?
ML: It was Winnie Gooch was her name, and she's still a customer today.
SM: That's amazing.
ML: I love her, I've been to see her.
SM: Shout out to Winnie Gooch!
ML: I know.
SM: Do you know how she found you?
ML: Oh it would have been social media.
SM: Just through social media. Amazing.
ML: And so the recognition came from the consumer 1st and that's all I ever wanted. I didn't care about anything else.
SM: Maxine, I mean, I'm loving everything you're saying, but that in particular as well.
We so often talk about the investors the, backing the, prayers like, the customers like, how often do we overlook the card the, product something, that's working for them getting, that advocacy I. LOVE that the. Other thing I NEED to highlight as well obviously. You're bang on the money there. Are so many underestimated women and of a certain age as well you. Know this, is going back to your art project too about, you get past a point and you disappear and I DON'T even think you know you, need to be that old a. FRIEND actually said to me why she was like Steph, How, old are you exactly I? WAS she had my like my birthday and she was like, did it like guys used to turn their heads and look at me when I walked down the street and like I've suddenly overnight become invisible. So I really love this really interesting meaty part in this conversation here where you've got it's unfair, it's annoying, gets you down, it's not right. But at the same time, I do get that logical part that comes in, which is like, well, you've got to earn that respect too, I think.
ML: I'm OK with that. I don't get my kicks out of that anymore and I think you, I can't, I can only talk for myself. I am really unusual in the sense of I don't fear ageing. I don't, I care about my weight more than what I look like. Actually, my weight is probably the thing that I I go up and down the scales, 2 stone up, two stone down. But what I look like ageing really not bothered. I always say I don't care because that's flippant. But you know what? I've earned every single line I've got, right? So there's that and then there is the, you know, yes, I'm, you know, I got a £30 million business. I couldn't of cope with the things that I cope with now like seven years ago. So you grow with the business. And that's, I remember going to woman of the year in Birmingham again, 2019.
And I remember looking at some of the women there thinking, Oh my God, look at those, Oh my God, Oh my God. I was invited last year to be the headline speaker. But I'd earned that. I could not have done that in 2019. So I'd earned that journey. And I don't know how that sounds, but you can't be in a place of authority without the war wounds, without the scars, without the learning, you know. And for me that that's what it's all about. And I'm still learning. We're all learning on the job, right?
SM: Yeah. And I apply that to business success. So whether it's personally that belief in yourself or even the belief in the business, I had another really interesting conversation, actually. Shout out to Ranbir Arora, another fantastic guest who had the pleasure of interviewing and he was talking about, yeah, the formula for entrepreneurship is resilience plus the vision and then like 90% delusion along those.
It's like you need to be somewhat deluded to remortgage your house, risk the roof over your head, do all these things. But there is still, there has to be that valid. There has to be those dates points, there has to be those first pings or there has to be something that proves it to yourself. I just think the problem here, I know we're getting into this really nuanced great territory, but I think the problem is, is that women in particular, women of certain backgrounds, races, abilities, ages, perhaps need a lot more of that, of those proof points than perhaps the male Palinsdale, you know, classic counterpart. So it's the classic, you know, you women apply for a job if they meet 100% of the criteria, men only if it's 70 or whatever. So is there anything you can speak to on that? Any advice you could possibly give?
SM: Are the women in their 40s, fifties, 60s who are seeing all these kind of Forbes 30 under 30 lists, all these young whippersnappers, especially in our age of technology, Is there something there you can speak to to kind of boost their confidence to go for?
ML: It absolutely be the difference, be the change, stand up and be counted because it ain't going to change unless you do that right? And that's what I did. I think women are very humble. I think it's beautiful. I think we need to update script, and I'm talking about myself as well. You know, absolute collagen is quite a humble business. We've had to update our script too. And I do think women are humble. But you need to be that change. If you want to see the change, you need to be the change. And I always say, people say to me, who inspired you from history? Every single woman that's gone before me to make my journey possible, I will not let down and I will be the change. Absolutely.
SM: I love that it's so powerful, Maxine. We're standing on the shoulders of giants, right?
ML: We are, absolutely.
SM: Yeah, I love that. That was really powerful. I need to take a moment. My mind just very quickly flickered back to all the incredible men and women in history who have helped us get to where we are.
ML: Do you know there was a lovely, lovely woman, Artemesia Gentileschi? She's an artist and she works. She's beautiful. You would know her painting. She was the first woman that ever painted. She was sat on a sofa and there was three men ogling her from the 13th century. And she was the first time any woman had ever gone like that. And she marketed herself. She was the first. I love what she did. She had no money, so she borrowed clothes and she hired a maid to make her look real expensive. And she'd walk past all the expensive houses. So the people go, who's that woman? She was, She had it going on. And I, there's so many women like that and I love it. How can we let them down?
SM: I love that I need to Google her afterwards, she sounds amazing. OK, we are very sadly coming to the end of our session, but I do know that there's a really meaty story with my traditional closing question. Just before I ask you at Maxine, is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners before I start wrapping things up? Nope. All right, let's dive in. I love it. All right, one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson, Maxine.
ML: The tragedy for me was divorce. I knew we'd fallen out of love, we've fallen out of respect, we didn't respect each other anymore. And the tragedy was I knew it would break my children's heart. You know, they were 11911 and I knew it would break their heart and it did break the heart. The thing that's come for that is whilst I was married, my ex-husband was the breadwinner. Most people thought I was pretty incapable because he did everything.What I've realised is I'm freaking unbelievably capable. Hallelujah.
SM: Hallelujah. And a woman to that. Maxine, thank you so, so much for coming on the show. It has been a genuine pleasure. I know how busy you are, so I'm very, very grateful to sit down with you here today. But I think it is incredibly important to Share your story to have this incredible representation being the change. So I'm incredibly thankful to you, Maxine. Thank you so much.
ML: And thank you for having me, I've enjoyed my time with you.
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