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Episode 77

Lisa Messenger: The Money Mistakes That Nearly Broke Her 

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Episode Description

 
 

Lisa Messenger: The Money Mistakes That Nearly Broke Her 

What money mistakes made you richer in the long run? Molly sits down with entrepreneur, author and founder Lisa Messenger for a refreshingly honest conversation about business, money and reinvention. Lisa's built (and rebuilt) some of Australia's most iconic brands over her 25 years in business, including Collective Hub, the cult magazine-turned-app that's just relaunched for 2026. In this episode, she gets real about the financial mistakes that nearly broke her, why she believes bigger isn't always better, and what she'd do if she only had $5,000 to start a business today, no fluff, no ego, just the lessons she wishes someone had told her earlier.

Whether you're dreaming of starting your own business, trying to get your head around AI and whether you should be using it, or just love hearing successful women talk honestly about the times things didn't go to plan, this episode is packed with wisdom you can actually use. In this episode, you'll learn:

  • The financial mistake that had Lisa's CFO asking for another $100K, every single day
  • Why "bigger" isn't always "better" when it comes to profit and business growth
  • How to reverse engineer worst-case scenarios before you take a financial risk
  • What Lisa would do with $5,000 to start a business today =
  • Why you should test demand before you spend a cent on your idea
  • How to find non-competing partners who can promote you for free
  • Why women should be adopting AI now, not later, and how to actually use it in your business
  • How one piece of intellectual property can become five different revenue streams
  • Lisa's biggest lesson from becoming a mum, and how it's shaped her as a founder

Perfect for: aspiring founders, women thinking about starting a side hustle, and anyone who wants a masterclass in money mindset from someone who's built (and rebuilt) it all.

The biggest takeaway from this episode? You don't need money to start, you need clarity, courage, and a plan for what happens if it doesn't work. 🎧

 

CHAPTERS

 

00:00 - Introduction: Meeting a Money Mindset Idol on Get Rich
01:13 - Meet Lisa Messenger: 25 Years of Building (and Rebuilding) Iconic Brands
01:33 - Collective Hub Is Back: Why Lisa Relaunched Her Cult Brand as an App
02:34 - Redefining Wealthy: Lisa's Honest Take on Why Bigger Isn't Always Better
03:57 - Inside the New Collective Hub App: Community, AI & Financial Literacy for Founders
06:59 - Should Women Be Using AI? Lisa's Case for Adopting It Now
09:40 - The "Digital Twin" Prompt: How to Train ChatGPT or Claude to Know Your Business
11:20 - Lisa's Biggest Money Mistake: The $100K-a-Day Cash Crisis at Collective Hub
14:34 - Know Your Numbers: Why Reverse-Engineering the Worst Case Scenario Changes Everything
16:54 - The Best Financial Decision Lisa Ever Made: Investing in Property Early
19:28 - Future-Proofing Your Income: Turning One Idea Into Multiple Revenue Streams
21:01 - What Would You Do With $5,000? Lisa's Blueprint for Starting a Business From Scratch
25:12 - Motherhood, Surrogacy & the Biggest Lesson Her Son Has Taught Her
27:20 - Where to Find Collective Hub (Plus a Free 30-Day Trial for Get Rich Listeners)

 

RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE

30 days free trail of the Collective Hub for Ladies Finance Club audience 
https://members.collectivehub.com/checkout/ladiesfinanceclub

Collective Hub Membership
Course Plus Annual Membership

 

CONNECT WITH LISA MESSENGER

Website: https://collectivehub.com/
Collective Hub Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collectivehub/
Lisa Messenger Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisamessenger/

 

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

👉 Register for the 2026 Online Wealth Summit
Buying a property? Need Financial Advice? Time to sort the Will? Let us help connect you with an awesome woman in finance! https://directory.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/
Newsletter: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/newsletter23

Show Notes

 
 

 

TAKEAWAYS

  • Bigger is not always better; profit margins matter more.
  • Adopt AI early to automate and enhance creativity.
  • Understand your data to make informed decisions.
  • Slice and dice your intellectual property for multiple income streams.
  • Start small and validate market interest before investing heavily.
 

SOUND BITES

"Bigger is not always better."

"Adopt AI early to automate and enhance creativity."

"Know your numbers or risk losing everything."

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Get Rich. I'm your host, Molly Benjamin, and I am so excited about today's episode, because they say you shouldn't meet your idols, but I did. I met one of mine. I interviewed her on this podcast, and she was a legend. So, I am chatting with Lisa Messenger today.

[00:00:21] She's an entrepreneur. She has published more than 40 books and founded The Collective Hub, which was a absolutely iconic brand back in the, um, mid-2000s. So, she's spent the last 25 years building and rebuilding businesses, and she's been through some serious highs, but also some serious lows. And I think what I loved about this episode was she was really open about, well, what were some of those lows?

[00:00:47] What were those big money mistakes she made? And I think if, especially whether you're in business or you're thinking about starting a side hustle, there's a lot you can learn from this episode. She was literally someone I could have talked to forever. Like, I was like, "I wanna be your best friend. I love you."

[00:01:04] But I was also trying to play it quite cool. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, um, this week's episode with Lisa Messenger

[00:01:13] Well, Lisa, welcome to Get Rich, our podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:01:19] Uh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me, Molly.

[00:01:22] All right. Now, you are a busy woman, and it is super inspiring. Can you give us a bit of an update on what you've been up to and what you are up to now?

[00:01:33] Yes. So what I've been up to, I mean, yeah, so this is my 25th year in business, so there's a lot to pack in there, so maybe I'll just hit fast-forward.

[00:01:43] Yeah.

[00:01:43] As to where, as to where I am now. So I've just relaunched Collective Hub, which is incredibly exciting, and I know we're talking all things finance, so we can dig into any and all of that. I am an open book. Um, and we've just relaunched it as an app. It was in a eight-year hiatus, um, uh, after being a very, very large brand with a print magazine, a big digital footprint, and, um, like four events a week.

[00:02:10] The print mag was in 37 physical countries. Uh, yeah, so lots of financial mistakes through there, and lots of learnings. And then eight years later, we've just relaunched it as a 2026, you know, kind of reimagined version, which is an app which is really for founders and creatives and everything in there that you need to know about business, which is very, very exciting.

[00:02:34] That is very exciting. And I would love to know, after, you know, your 25 years in business, what is your definition of being wealthy now?

[00:02:45] Uh, well, interestingly enough, it is definitely having the time and space to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. Yeah. Uh, I think oftentimes we chase the wrong metrics, whether that's for ego or, you know, just thinking that bigger is better.

[00:03:04] And certainly having run businesses, many of them very large, um, and now very small in terms of just me, and now I have a co-founder with our app. But what I will say about that is for 22 years of having physical bricks-and-mortar offices and a lot of staff, um, and tens of millions of dollars of turnover, my profitability was almost negligent.

[00:03:30] And now my turnover is less, but my profit margins are so much higher. So bigger- Yeah ... is not always better.

[00:03:37] Yes. And you mentioned, okay, we've got the re- the, the magazine took an eight-year hiatus. It's now come back as an app. I guess, why now, after eight years? Uh, and why an app? And, yeah, w- I guess, who is that kind of ideal person that would be using the app?

[00:03:57] Great. So anyone who was around, and some people will be and some people won't be, for Collective Hub in the, between 2013 and 2018, it was just this cult brand that just exploded and, yeah, it was amazing. I'd been in business 11 years prior to that, so it was like 11-year overnight success. But just fell in love with it.

[00:04:20] We told the story behind the story of so many extraordinary brands and founders, and one of the reasons that it existed was to say to people, "You know, we will showcase you and your brand if you are happy to talk about your supply chain, your finances, investors," because so much of this isn't talked about, and I think it's an absolute imperative.

[00:04:39] Um, so I then went on to write 40 nonfiction books about all sorts of things- That is- ... to do with business. ...

[00:04:46] incredible. Yes, I have your Money Mindset one on my shelf back home.

[00:04:50] Oh, thank you. And then I've just been, you know, speaking on stages and running retreats, but really listening to founders and creators and, you know, people working in, in all sorts of different industries for the last eight years, and I think what's an absolute imperative is that people really want information that they can, you know, digest at a time they need.

[00:05:15] There's just so much noise out there.

[00:05:17] Yeah.

[00:05:17] So we really thought about what is a way to bring community and learnings of the education aspect into 2026 when there's already so much noise out there? Yeah. So we've basically created, um, a whole lot of different sections. We tried to make it like a real-life situation, where you are going into a room, so there's a room in the app which is, like, for your wins and celebrations.

[00:05:40] There's a room in there which is about, you know, ask people if you need a supplier in China, or you need a great- Yeah ... you know, CFO or whatever it is you need. Go in there and ask for it. And then I've created a whole lot of content, one pillar being about financial literacy which is- Yeah ... all about little minuscule one to three-minute videos, so any questions or any issues that you're having, you can jump in there and do that.

[00:06:07] And we've created a very specific AI-led infrastructure in there, which is actually loaded up with all 40 of my nonfiction books, so you can ask anything and theoretically my brain- Yeah ... should come out, including- ... Money and Mindfulness. And we've also created something which is called, uh, The Drop, which is much more magazine-led, so we've kind of got evergreen content in there, and then we've got daily, uh, a daily digest of, you know, founders to watch, brands to watch.

[00:06:35] Um, you know, who's doing what, who's making great margins, who's not doing so well, all of that kind of thing. So we try to make it a one-stop shop, and then there's the whole community aspect, and we do, um- About three lives a week, so trying to, you know, educate people around all sorts of aspects of business, um, and having all sorts of guests on there.

[00:06:55] You need to come in there and present as well.

[00:06:59] Yeah. Love that. So community-led amazing content, and then access to the real world. So good. And I would love to know your take, because I am obsessed with AI. I use it every day in my business. A lot of my friends, colleagues, they do as well. But then we're hearing on an, there's some noise online where it's this big front against AI, and what are your takes on women adopting AI and adopting it sooner rather than later?

[00:07:30] I think it's an absolute imperative, and I say that as someone who did f- fight it at the beginning, and also someone who technologically was not great for I'd say 22 of my 25 years in business, because I had so many staff around me. I was kinda like the brand architect, and then I had so many people implementing and doing.

[00:07:48] Yeah.

[00:07:49] But I think it is so important. So many of the people that I've employed over the years have been creatives, you know, photographers, videographers, editors, writers. So I kind of thought, "Well, I can stick my head in the sand and say, 'La, la, la, this isn't happening. This is terrible,' or I can double down and learn everything I can about it."

[00:08:08] And I think, you know, it should not detract from our sweet spot and our genius zone, but what it can absolutely do is- Automate so much and, you know, help us with the systems and processes and repetitive work that we need to do in business. Mm. It can free us up so much to do so much of that. And so I think from an efficiencies perspective, it's great.

[00:08:32] Also, as a creative, um, I love it now. I, I became a certified prompt engineer, which sounds so wacky, but about- Wow. ... two year, about two years ago through Roundabout University in the US, because I just thought I need to understand, you know, how to do this to the best of my abilities. And now I'm probably across about 50-ish different platforms.

[00:08:55] Mm-hmm. But I do use ChatGPT as what I call my motherboard. Um- Yeah ... so it has the most information about- Yeah ... anything that I'm doing, including Claude. So I'll jump into Claude for a lot of different automations and things, but I'll always go back to chat and say, "This is what I've gotta do in this platform.

[00:09:13] Help me." Yeah. So yeah, I think we're crazy if we don't learn as much as possible and lean into it as much as possible, and I think that's also from an awareness and education perspective so that we can recognize deepfakes and, you know, all sorts of other- Yeah ... things that are going on out there, and we can choose to use it ethically.

[00:09:34] So I think, yes, adopt it, educate yourself, learn as much as you- Yeah ... can about it.

[00:09:40] Yeah. And I think if you're listening and you feel very overwhelmed or a little bit scared about it, you start small. You literally can just open it up and ask it a simple question and get it to teach you, get it to train you on how to use...

[00:09:55] ChatGPT knows me better than I know myself at this stage.

[00:09:59] Can I just jump in there and say three simple things? So, uh, 'cause I think there's so many prompt libraries out there, and still people paying a lot of money for prompts. If you just go into ChatGPT or your LLM of choice, be it Claude or something else- Yeah

[00:10:13] and you just say, "Ask me 20 questions that you need to know about me so that you can become trained as my digital twin," and then you can literally slow it down and re-prompt and say, "Ask me one at a time. I'll tell you when I'm finished." And then the other three things that are really important, I think, which, you know, people who are using it every day will know this, but the words "act as," you can get it to act as anything on the entire planet as soon as you use that.

[00:10:40] And then you can, um... So what I've done is I've built- My ideal boardroom of people. So then I say, "Okay, now I want to look at stacking expertise." So then I'll go act as a CFO, act as a, you know, a brand consultant, act as a marketing director, and then I get it to challenge all the different biases and all the different contradictory opinions, just like I would have if I had a boardroom of advisors because the CFO is gonna say, "No, you can't spend that," and the marketing person's gonna say, "But I wanna spend that."

[00:11:13] So there's, there's lots of things that you could do to really get it to help you in quite extraordinary ways.

[00:11:20] Yeah. It's, it's amazing. All right. Just taking a little turn here and back to, obviously we are a money podcast, you mentioned before, you know, you've had businesses, there's been some money mistakes made.

[00:11:34] What are maybe one or two that you, um, wanna share that maybe you look back at them now and you go, "It was a mistake, but it's actually made me richer in the long run"?

[00:11:45] So I have made so many money mistakes- ... it's not funny.

[00:11:49] So have I.

[00:11:51] A few of the biggest ones are definitely when I launched Collective Hub in 2013, and I think this is a really important lesson for anyone listening, is that we don't know what we don't know till we're there, and I had this huge vision to start this magazine, and it's very well documented that I went into a highly saturated industry knowing nothing about it.

[00:12:12] It took off in a really big way. As I said, the print magazine was in 37 physical countries- Wow ... within 18 months, and I had an email from the office of Anna Wintour saying, "Anna wants to meet you and find out what you're doing," and like crazy, crazy- Wow An absolute growth like nothing I've ever experienced.

[00:12:31] However, what comes with that is I wasn't intimate with my data, and I hear this, as I'm sure you do, time and time and time again. A lot of people start something, and they don't worry too much about their systems and processes and understanding, you know, all of their numbers. And what I realized was, as things start flying, and I start going, "Well, let's do this, and let's do this," and, you know, and I remember proudly saying, "We've got 17 different revenue streams."

[00:12:59] But once you grow... You know, I, before I launched Collective Hub, I had a business with a couple of million dollars turnover. Suddenly I had tens of millions of dollars, and I'm a great founder. I'm not a great CEO, and I didn't have the right data-orientated person running alongside me saying no more than yes.

[00:13:18] And so, so that became a real problem, like a massive problem. So whilst I had a huge brand, and, uh, on the outside, everyone was saying, "This is amazing," on the inside, it was untenable and unsustainable, and I was hemorrhaging cash. And I literally had-- I got to a point where I was walking into the office every day, and my CFO, my chief financial officer, was saying, "We need another 100 grand."

[00:13:44] And I was like, "What?" And every day I was dialing for dollars, and that is the biggest mistake we can make in business, is that when you're having to do things out of desperation, it's not a good business at all. So the best thing I did, which was excruciatingly difficult, was I had the courage to close it in order to go, "Okay, well, if I know what my purpose is, which is igniting human potential, I need to close this.

[00:14:09] I need to start again. I need to get really intimate with my data and understand my numbers and make much better informed decisions, and then I can build it again," which is what I've done. You know, we really need to be very, very careful about this. When you've got that much going on, there's a lot of money going out.

[00:14:27] It looks like there's a lot of money coming in, but if you don't understand it, it's very easy for it to unravel very, very quickly.

[00:14:34] Absolutely, and I think, um, as well for women who maybe are on that, starting off on a smaller scale, you just gotta know your numbers. You've gotta be intimate with your numbers.

[00:14:45] You do. And, uh, a- and for anyone starting out, because everything is proportionate, right? I remember when I started. I started my business in October 2001. I don't remember if it was an invoice that I owed or someone owed me, but I do remember the number was $80. So it wasn't a lot, right?

[00:15:01] Yeah.

[00:15:01] But I remember at the time, I remember the feeling, going, "Oh, God."

[00:15:06] And it's just like the same feeling, but now it's, like, in increments of $80,000.

[00:15:12] Yeah. So,

[00:15:12] but it's the same kind of thing.

[00:15:14] Yeah.

[00:15:14] So what I learnt early on, and I think this is probably one of the most important lessons, is to reverse engineer the worst case scenario. So where I always go now, very quickly in my mind's eye, whenever I'm taking a risk or deciding to spend money, I always go to, very quickly, I don't stay there too long, but what is the worst thing that can happen?

[00:15:34] Yeah. And then I kind of go back to present day and I go, "Okay, how do I mitigate that risk?" Mm-hmm. And how do I make sure I've got the right people in my corner so that if something happens, I can quickly go, "Okay, I'll go back, I'll go back, I'll go back." And so a lot of people say to me now, "Oh my God, you take so many risks."

[00:15:53] And it's probably because it's a learned muscle. Yeah. And you don't start with the magnitude- Yeah. ... of what you're doing now, but I started with freaking out over $80 and then freaking out over, you know, probably $800 and then $8,000. And now, now very little scares me-

[00:16:12] Yeah ...

[00:16:12] because I've made so many mistakes.

[00:16:14] I know quickly, okay, if that happens, I need to pull on this lever, or I need to do this. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think it's an important thing to say whenever we're doing anything, it's like, how much are you prepared to lis- a, a risk, and how much are you prepared to lose? And I always think now, "Okay, how do I future-proof my business?

[00:16:33] And if I place a bet here, then, you know, is it gonna... What's the effort versus reward? And if that bet doesn't pay off, what can I do over here that's gonna quickly make that back?" So because we have to, you know, in order to move forward- Yeah ... we do have to make a certain level of risks and back ourselves.

[00:16:51] Yeah. But I just, um, I make sure that they're very data-driven risks.

[00:16:54] Yeah. That's, um, a tick. I am doing a big data overhaul at the moment with, um, an, a consultant, so I'm glad, I'm glad we're having this conversation. And that was your a mistake, a financial mistake. I'd love to know, like, what was something you did in your finances that was not a mistake, that you're like, "Thank God I did that.

[00:17:17] I'm so happy I made that decision." Apart from maybe putting the business on hold, is there something else, an investment or an asset?

[00:17:26] Yes, yes, many things. One is I started investing in property years- Nice ... years and years ago. I mean, it's more difficult now. I bought, um, four properties fairly early on in my career between 2007 and 2010, and it was a very different time then.

[00:17:45] It was when you could buy really cleverly and, you know, have a lot of equity in that property, and then the bank would lend you against the equity. And I was making way less than I am now, and I was like, "Wow, this is really cool." Um, now it's obviously much more difficult because of the serviceability and things, but that helped me in very good stead early on to have those investment properties.

[00:18:08] Yeah. The other thing I would say is now there's not a day that goes by where I don't look at data. So I've got a lot of different spreadsheets set up where I'm looking at my

[00:18:18] cashflow, you know, my P&Ls. I'm- Checking off on a daily basis where are we sitting in the month, uh, on, you know, our projections versus actuals. So I think it's only because I've nearly lost everything- Yeah ... that I'm now, am really looking all of the time. So I think if, you know, if people can set up just really simple, you know, spreadsheets.

[00:18:41] I mean, that one just sits in an Excel spreadsheet that, you know, is loaded in from Xero and, you know, or whatever, whatever. But I just have those baseline numbers that I look at every single day. The other thing which is really clever that I do use AI for now is that, you know, these large language models are basically so brilliant at looking at, you know, large levels of data, and they're making really informed decisions.

[00:19:06] So I can feed through spreadsheets from the, from the last 10 years, and it will analyze very quickly where the gaps are, where I'm leaving money on the table, where margins could be sharper. So, you know, it is extraordinary when you're feeding through data and it's able to give you really great informed insights that you might not necessarily recognize otherwise.

[00:19:28] I could go on. The other one I'll just finish on is now I really have set myself up to future-proof. One thing I talk about a lot is that, you know, if you have your own business, that you should look at what is your intellectual property, and then so many people just think about, "Well, I'm just gonna, you know, do one thing," and that's where it sits.

[00:19:48] But now I kind of go, "Well, once you've got it once, you can slice and dice it across multiple things."

[00:19:53] Yeah.

[00:19:54] I kind of future-proof going, well, if I'm writing a book on purpose, uh, you know, that's, um, a $30 product that, you know, it might sell 30,000 copies or whatever, then that's one way that I can reach a large audience.

[00:20:08] But I can turn that same intellectual property into a one-hour keynote and charge- Yeah ... $12,000. Yeah. Or I can talk about it in a podcast, or I could create an online course. So I've really taken one piece of intellectual property and sliced and diced it across multiple revenue streams- Yeah ... so that if something like COVID happens or anything else that is unforsaken or, you know, unpredictable in this crazy world now, you know, for me, I was doing a lot of speaking back then.

[00:20:37] Suddenly the rug was pulled out, and that entire revenue stream went. So then I was able to do a lot of books and online classes. Yeah. So that's absolutely what I've done, is I believe in being where people want you, on a platform they want you, at a time they want you, at a price point they want you.

[00:20:55] Totally. So that's what I've learned, um, to really kind of future-proof myself as much as possible.

[00:21:01] Yeah. Fantastic. Oh my God, I'm loving this. Just one or two more questions, 'cause I know we're almost at time, but I'm like, I could listen all day. So we've got quite a few listeners, they're working corporate jobs, but they have a dream to start a business.

[00:21:18] If they had $5,000, I would love to know what would you do today to start again? With $5,000

[00:21:28] Amazing. And Mollie, I love that question more than practically anything, because so many people, I think when you have money at your disposal, it's sometimes seems easier. Yeah. But actually, having less money when you're starting is so good, because it makes you think really differently and laterally.

[00:21:49] Mm. So the first thing I would do is, and I've got so many people who work in corporates, and they want a side hustle, like they wanna do their own thing. Exactly. I would jump into ChatGPT, I would... Or your LLM of choice, because... And I would say, um, "Ask me everything you need to know about what I've done to date."

[00:22:08] So we want backward information, because it's very good at joining the dots and creating things that you might not even see. So if you put everything in there, it might extrapolate and go, uh, like, and then once you've put as much in there as possible so you're kind of training it, then you go, "Looking at everything that you see in there, act as a business strategist and tell me what you think I could be really great at, and also layer that with where is there a gap in the market at the moment?"

[00:22:37] And it will be extraordinary. It might go, "Oh my God, well, you're a really great communicator, and you've worked in this, this, and this, and so this would be great. And by the way, there's a gap in the market here." And particularly when you're working on your own as a solopreneur or in corporate for someone else, it can be quite isolating.

[00:22:54] So if you run that exercise, you might be like, "Oh, this is cool. I hadn't even thought about that." Then for, I am very big on not spending money at all. Yeah. Obviously, if we are creating a product, you know, we may need to spend some money on prototyping. Yeah. But you can also always sell the vaporware. So you can, you know, put it out to the market and go, "Hey, I'm, you know, I'm really interested in being a blah blah blah or putting out this widget.

[00:23:22] You know, would you be interested?" And you can pop that out on social media or anywhere, and only when there's interest is when I go to the next level and I'm like, "Amazing. What would you pay for this?" And I do- Yeah ... all of that before you spend a cent. Mm-hmm. And then once there's some genuine interest and you know there's a market and people want to pay, then you can start to play.

[00:23:45] Again, I'm very big on not spending money. I'm looking at, which is what my book Money and Mindfulness was all about, I'm looking at who are those like-minded, non-competing partners that already have your audience?

[00:23:59] Mm.

[00:24:00] Yeah. So that you don't need to go and spend money on meta ads or money on whatever it is.

[00:24:05] You go, "Who can become my channel partner?" So here's my idea, whether it be a product or service, I've tested that there's a bit of a market. Now, who already owns my customer, and what can I do with them? What can I trade? So that they can start to promote me. Mm-hmm. So you actually, unless it's a product that's gonna cost a lot of money, in which case try and pre-sell it before you make it-

[00:24:28] Yeah

[00:24:29] you don't really have to spend a lot of money, and I think this is where people get it wrong. Don't spend money until you know there's a market- Yeah ... or, you know, you understand what your margins are. Yeah. You know, if you're producing something, MOQ, so minimum order quantities, minimal- Yeah ... viable product, minimal, minimal, minimal.

[00:24:47] Yeah. And I think sometimes people go, "Oh, but I've got an idea. I wanna do the logo. I'm buying the URL," and it's like, hold up, let's make sure someone wants it first before you create it. Awesome. And then just my final question I have, you have a beautiful son, and I've just recently become a first-time mom, which has been a wild journey.

[00:25:12] I would love to know any big lessons your son has taught you, uh, so far

[00:25:20] All day, every day. And I know you said that you had had my beautiful friend and surrogate, Sarah- Oh,

[00:25:26] divine Sarah. We love Sarah at Ladies Finance Club.

[00:25:30] Yeah, she's just so fabulous. So she carried Hugo, and I don't know if you know this, but I have another baby arriving on the 10th of December, a little girl.

[00:25:39] Oh my gosh. Um- Congratulations ...

[00:25:43] with another beautiful surrogate. So there's more than one way to do things. That's a whole- Yeah ... other conversation. Yeah. Um, Hugo, every single day, teaches me about what's important. Um, you know, because I think having been an overachiever, I love business. I just love business, so, you know, that became my identity and my purpose really for so many years.

[00:26:06] And now I just look at him, and I look through his eyes, and I'm like, "This is extraordinary." He just sees things everywhere, and he's also asking all the time the questions that actually held me in the best stead for being an entrepreneur. Every day I notice how much he says, "Why, Mommy? How, Mommy?" And that I love, that curiosity, and I think what I would say is for all of us, never lose that.

[00:26:35] That is the thing in business that has held me in the greatest stead, and just watching him, "How, Mommy? Why, Mommy? But why, Mommy?" Um, it's just beautiful, and it is the greatest gift I have ever had in my entire life. So strap in, Molly. It is amazing. Oh. Honest, it just gets... People used to say to me, "It gets better and better," and I was like, "How can it get better?

[00:26:59] It's so good." But it, it does get better and better, and it's also the hardest thing you'll ever do.

[00:27:05] Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm loving it. It's just a wild ride, and you don't know what you don't know when it comes to it. Um, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, being so beautiful and generous with your answers.

[00:27:20] We really appreciate it. And just one more time, Lisa, where can people go to find out about the new business?

[00:27:27] Oh, yeah, so if you just jump onto Collective Hub, but I think we're giving all of your listeners a free 30-day trial. Oh,

[00:27:34] wow.

[00:27:35] Jump on there. Thank you. So do you wanna pop that in the show notes? Um- Yeah, of course

[00:27:39] everybody go in there for free and watch the lives and have a play around and take whatever they need. So yeah, so we would love to do that, so we'll give you a bespoke link for your beautiful community. Amazing. We'll pop that in the show notes. Thank you so much,

[00:27:51] Lisa.

[00:27:52] Thank you. Thanks, Molly.

 

 

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