the bossbabe podcast - 109. BTS of My Marriage! How to Balance Ambition in Your Relationship with Natalie & Stephen Ellis

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

We’re joined by special guest, Stephen Ellis, Co-Founder and CEO of Pipeline, former professional gamer, and husband to Natalie Ellis, BossBabe’s CEO. One of the most highly anticipated and requested episodes, we’re taking you behind the scenes into their marriage and what it’s like when two ambitious, goal driven entrepreneurs get married.   If you’re an entrepreneur in a relationship with another entrepreneur, then you know how the pressure of owning your own business and the responsibilities that come with being a CEO can impact your relationship. Tune in to hear Natalie and Stephen’s journey from marrying each other after just 4 months of meeting, to building their own businesses, and moving to Los Angeles.  We’re diving deep into the routines and rituals they’ve put into place to prevent neglect, and how they’ve learned to communicate with each other (because we all know communication is key in any relationship!). Stephen also shares his story of being a professional gamer, landing a corporate role at Facebook to becoming the CEO of his own company. Join us and hear his advice on how to protect your energy, and set your priorities and boundaries so you can be present in your relationship. Links: Get two free months of Skillshare premium membership and receive access to unlimited to over 1000+ classes: www.skillshare.com/bossbabe  Follow: @bossbabe.inc @iamnatalie @snoopeh

One of the things that really helped us a lot maintain a balance is concert like protecting your own energy so that we can actually show up for each other. You start to afford more luxuries over time you become more experienced but you can't really shortcut there is no shortcut you got to go through you got to learn you got fail. You got to go through all of that. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Boss Babe, and your host for today's episode. And today, I'm actually interviewing my husband,

Stephen Ellis. I am constantly getting asked how we both balance being so ambitious and goal-driven. So today, Stephen and I are going to take you behind the scenes into our marriage and talk about what it's like when two entrepreneurs get married. Because let's be real, relationships are hard regardless of what you both do for jobs, right? They take a lot of work. And although Stephen and I have been really good at setting boundaries, that wasn't always the case. And we have our own set of challenges that I want to be really open and transparent with you about. I am not the kind of person that likes to just show my highlight reel.

I think being able to bring you behind the scenes and share what's real for me is really important because I love to see that from other people too. The pressure of owning your own business and the responsibilities that come with that can certainly have an effect on your relationship. I'm sure you're aware of that and have felt it too and it can be quite challenging to balance everything when you're both under a lot of stress. So today we're going to take you through our journey from marrying each other just four months after meeting for the first time to owning our own businesses and moving to LA. We're also going to touch a little bit on routines and rituals that we've put into place to really ensure that we don't neglect our relationship and how we've

learned to communicate with each other because we all know communication is key in any relationship. Stephen is going to take us through his story from being a professional gamer to building a platform of Facebook to now owning his own company. He has such an incredible story. And I don't think I'm biased when I say that. He really, really inspires me. And I think this episode is going to have you feeling the same. So if you're interested in hearing our story and learning how two married entrepreneurs balance it all, then keep listening.

And as always, take a screenshot and share your biggest takeaways and Insta story tag me at iamnatalie at bossfave.inc and then i'm sure steven would love it if you tag him as well let's give him some boss fave love he's at snoopay but it's spelled s-n-o-o-p-e-h that'll all make sense why he has another name when you dive into this episode a boss fave is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going, and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone

to create her own vision of success. Stephen, welcome to the podcast. So glad to be here. I think it was, I don't know, a year in the making that we finally got me on the episode. I know, we've been saying for so long we'll do it. Today's kind of fitting though because we didn't realize until this morning. I mean, it won't be when it airs, but this is three years to the day that we had our first date. Yeah, it is. I actually didn't tell you. I tweeted out that picture today of when I was,

basically, I was hitting on you on Instagram. Yeah, give everyone context. Tell them the story. Yeah, so dating for Steve and Alice back in 2017, I came across Natalie on Bumble, and Natalie didn't get back to my message. I was pretty bummed because she was like, this is a really cool girl.

Like, I really want to meet her. And I decided I was going to stalk her on Instagram and try and find her because she wouldn't get back to me. And I came across you and I slipped into the DMs very casually. And I think my opening was like coffee emoji question mark.

And that was it. And one thing led to another. I was like, okay, let's get some coffee. I'll give you a tour of the Facebook office, which is where I worked. So it wasn't really that cool. And I think you said yes. You were right on.

It was good. Yeah. So for context, I'd actually deleted the app. So if Stephen hadn't have stalked me, then we wouldn't have even met, which is crazy. But also because it was coffee and a tour of Facebook, I genuinely didn't think it was a date. So I only said yes because he he dm'd me and I

was like oh it's interesting he's from Scotland it's really near where I'm from at home like I'll go but I wasn't thinking it was a date at all you were so unimpressed as well the big thing I was like I had this like nice little car in front of any car there's like a Miata so I had this nice little car and I like turned up she's like oh this is your car and I was like super bummed and it wasn't going off that well but fast forward three years and here we are I mean we got married four months after we met so it can't have gone too badly kind of I think it's a great date I actually recommend this and maybe I'll get some flack for this when you're dating as a young guy free dates are the kind of thing to optimize on where you can tell if a girl really

likes you or not at the offset. What do you think of that? I think it's bullshit. It worked. I was not impressed by the free date. I thought we were going for coffee. I think you're full of shit. Please don't write a book about it anyway. So moving on, we could talk about our relationship all day, but I kind of want to talk a little bit about your journey because you actually have an incredibly inspiring story. And then I would love to pivot from there to talk about what it's like for us as two incredibly busy entrepreneurs in a relationship and how we make that work and things that we have so I would love for you to start with your career in the beginning I mean you're a professional gamer how on earth did that even come about yeah so full context i got paid to play

video games full time for four and a half years and i was studying university small tinkin scotland studying university doing computer science and i told my my mom that i was going to drop out of university move to south korea and play video games for a living for no money i wasn't even getting paid when I first decided to do this. And she thought I was absolutely batshit insane. Couldn't believe it that our son was just going to go to the other end of the world and play video games. Found it very difficult to explain to anyone back home that that's what he was going to do. But I did it. And it was one of the most incredible journeys. Like it's such an amazing chapter in my life. I ended up competing at a

tournament in South Korea and we actually were able to play in some incredibly epic venues. One of the places that we competed at was the Korean War Memorial, which if I could just take you there for a second, you can imagine this national war museum. We're playing outside in front of a crowd of 10,000 people and we're competing for the national championship in Korea at the time. And there's so many events like that that we've had over the years. I actually competed in over 40 countries and got to meet so many incredible, amazing people throughout that. We competed in the Staples Center. I competed in South Africa.

I lived in Germany for a year, competed all over China. It was an absolutely phenomenal journey. And I think one thing that a lot of people face is like a stigma associated with gaming. And this is one of the things that I always thought when I was growing up as a kid, typically a gamer in his mom's basement eating a bag of Cheetos. That was the kind of stereotypical gamer. And I really sought to fight that narrative and try and legitimize competitive gaming. And it's called esports, for those of you who don't know. And that was a big part of my career growing up in my early 20s,

was carrying that flag and making sure that gaming was not treated as this kind of waste of time or waste of space. It gave me so many opportunities to meet so many incredible people all over the world and compete in stages in front of millions. I had no idea that you competed in over 40 countries. That's pretty badass. It's pretty badass. Now we know. Okay, so this story sounds pretty linear and easy, but obviously I know you and I know that's not the case. And to just drop out of university is not an easy decision at all. I mean, you're already there.

Like there's a part of your mind, which must have been like, why don't I just complete another year and just get this done? And then I've got a degree. So what was that really like? I was the first in my family to ever go to university. So I had this, a lot of expectation and pride that my family had in me. It was like, wow, you're going to be the first in our family to go to university. Like kind of flaunted, like, you know, this is the golden child that's going to university. And at that time, I was 19 when I was at university, and my dad was fighting cancer for two years. And it was a really difficult period.

I was just on the cusp of starting to compete a little bit, like not professionally to where I was like traveling all over the world, but I was competing online and getting some success on the internet. And one time I came home from university and my dad was upstairs and he was fighting an infection, which he was screaming at top of his lungs. If you hear like a grown man scream at the top of his lungs, it's his son. And you come in, you're like, holy shit, this is bad. I rushed upstairs and I'm like, wow, he, you know, there's something wrong with him. And he was fighting this infection, chemotherapy from cancer and was fighting this infection and I was like

shit why was I at university I don't care about university why am I there he's here dying and I'm like at university what's the point and that was a kind of catalyst for me to re-evaluate like what's important part of me used as an excuse I'll be honest like at the time when I was there I was like I'm just gonna be home with him more and it means I can also play video games more but I didn't risk like the situation where I was away at university no one else was home and he had a situation like that again fast forwarding a little bit I was starting to compete and I went to this tournament in China and I was there we got third in the world the first time I'd ever been to Asia it was incredible I was blown away by the culture shock because a small town kid in Scotland going to Asia was like, well, what is this? This is weird. You know, there's 20 lanes of traffic and like armies to cross the road

and like all this stuff. And I came back and I just couldn't wait to tell my dad what happened and how cool it was. That day that I got back, he was still working every day, even though he's fighting cancer. And I was going to tell him that night, but he was in bed already because he's working the next day. And I was like, whatever, I'll see him tomorrow. He went out to work and I got a call from my mom that afternoon saying, hey, your dad's in hospital. You know, it's one of the routine things that happens. Anyone who's had a parent or a family member go through something like that will go to hospital quite a lot. I was like, cool. She's asked, don't want to go there. Don't want to go see him at the hospital. And I was like, you're cool. Just come pick me up on the way home from work. She's asked, don't want to go there. Don't want to go see him at the hospital. And I was like, you're cool.

Just come pick me up on the way home from work. She came home from work, picked me up. And then we went into the hospital. I went and he was getting put under for an endoscopy, which is where they just go check out your throat. It was coughing up blood. It happened before. And I went and I seen him.

And I just couldn't wait to tell him about China. I was like, I can't wait to let you know about this. And he was going under to do the endoscopy and he never woke up. And that was like the biggest catalyst in my life to go, I need to do what I'm passionate about, what I care about. And even though I was going to pay no money at all, I was like, I'm going to do this. And I went out and then competed professionally for four and a half years and was one of the best gamers in the world. Firstly, thank you for opening up about that and being so honest, because i think a lot of people listening can probably relate in some way but also i think one of the things i admire about you is you've really never lost

that sense of why am i doing any of this you really know what your priorities are and you've carried that through and i think sometimes it can be pretty easy to get a level of success and continue to chase goals and dreams and neglect the things that really matter to you. And I think that's one thing you've done really well. I appreciate that. Thanks, babe. Welcome. No problem. Okay, so fast forward, you started playing games professionally. You were incredibly good at it.

For anyone interested, there's actually a Netflix documentary, which you're in, and it talks a lot about that. What's it called again? It is League of Legends Origins. And it's a story of one of the most incredible game companies of all time and how they built one of the largest sports, actually the third most popular sport in America that they've built through video games. So if you're curious and you're like, what the f*** is this all about? I highly recommend checking out League of Legends Origins on Netflix.

So you were gaming, and was it you were 23 when you decided to retire from gaming? I was an old man I needed to hang up the headset and the mouse and you know retire. What inspired that because I'm curious I mean you had no doubt thousands of fans like watching you like you were idolized at what you do no doubt dating was the easiest thing in the world like you had it all that any 23-year-old guy would want. So what was it that made you want to trade all of that in? So I think I want to put it in perspective. When you're competing at the top of any field,

even if it's playing video games for a living, it sounds super easy, right? It's like, oh, wow, like they make it look so easy. But I can promise that it is not in any capacity, especially when it's competitive in things like sports. I was competing against 100 million players every single month. I had to be the best player in the world, top 100. I was practicing seven days a week, 12 hours a day.

It was relentless. I did that for four years. So I think for me, I was realizing I'm at the top. Where's this going? What can I do next in my career? Where can I make an impact? And really drawing a lot of inspiration from some folks in traditional sports. But I had a lot of great mentors around me that I got to just ask, like, you know, what should I be thinking about what's next? And that's when I decided, like, I'm feeling pretty burnt out. I've traveled so much in this four year period. If you can imagine,

I was on an international flight every two weeks to a month and we were competing nonstop. And I was just like, I'm pretty burnt out. I've got a lot of great things going for me right now. I want to go to the next step. And the biggest thing that I was passionate about was how the industry worked. I wanted to get involved in the behind the scenes, less in front of the scenes. Even though I had plenty of opportunities in front of the scenes, I was like, I want to help build this industry and I want to play a major role in that and that kind of begun my journey after being pro what was it like turning down big opportunities that would have helped you I mean would have catapulted you into celebrity status what was it like to turn those down to go work

behind the scenes it was hard I had some really incredible opportunities and it's so funny because I look at myself today and like things that I think when things are too easy and you're like, you're handy, these incredible opportunities, you're like, that's just coming too easy to me. I've worked so hard for everything that I've done. This is too easy. I'm going to say no to that because I didn't go through some suffering first before I can get to the other side and get that reward. At the time, I got some really incredible things. You know, One of the roles that I got offered was being like the Anthony Bourdain of gaming, traveling the world, eating food, and experiencing gaming through their culture,

or experience their culture through gaming. Incredibly cool opportunity. But I was like, no, that's way too easy. I can't do that. I turned that down in various other things. And I really wanted to fast track my understanding of the business world. And that's why I threw myself into a startup that was funding. I wore multiple hats and I just went on this aggressive pursuit of growth in areas that I hadn't got to do when I was actually competing professionally so that I could understand the space. So you did the startup and then you ended up actually going and working at Facebook, which resulted in you having a massive impact there. And like being in a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, like talk a little bit about that, because that was pretty epic. Yeah, it was a pretty stressful time, not going to lie.

I remember. Yeah, San Francisco. So when I was at the startup, I got approached by Facebook to run their esports division, which is their competitive gaming division. And at first I was like, cool, this is flattering, but I don't want to work at a big company. Fuck that. I've had so much autonomy for seven years. I don't want to work at any of these companies.

And then it kind of like settled. You know what I mean? I was like, well, what would it be like to work at one of these big companies? And I spoke to a bunch of mentors and I reflected on like, okay, there's different companies that are in the space. Using all the energy that I have and passion I have for the space, I can join one of these companies and make an impact on the industry as a whole. Even more outsized than I had done in my career, I was like, I can really, if I can get one of these bigger companies to give a shit about the space that I care so much about, there's a lot of room for

impact on my industry. I considered the different ones, you know, Google, the Amazons, Facebooks. And Facebook, I spoke with a lot of mentors and friends, was the one that stood out the most. And honestly, getting in there was super humbling. You know, it's a bunch of absolutely kick-ass rock stars in each of their different fields and roles. And getting to work with them was incredible. I actually remember going in and I was like, I don't think we should just do esports. I think we should do way more than just esports. We should like put gaming all up and really taking ownership over that strategy when I joined. And that led to me kind of being the internal evangelist for gaming at the company. And fast forward a little bit, got to pitch to Zuck.

Casually just calling him Zuck over here. No big deal. Yeah. Well, Mark Zuck, I got a pitch to him. And frame like the thing that I've been working on for a year and a half has got some traction. And I think there's a massive impact that we can have on the world. And I framed that to him. And it was a super cool opportunity.

It was so funny because we'd been working for a long time. And I'd been in different like threads and things like that. And we worked for a long time for this moment. And this was really like our chance to level up and go to the next stage so like a lot of pressure you know I mean busting your ass for a year and a half I was like I'm gonna work out super hard I'm gonna go to the gym and like if I usually do like three sets I'm gonna do four sets and I was like I'm gonna bust my ass so I do the four sets in the morning with my trainer and then I messed up my neck oh my god I forgot about this yeah trainer and I messed up my neck. Oh, my God. I forgot about this.

Yeah. So I messed up my neck and I proper tweaked it. So I actually couldn't turn right anymore. So I don't know if you've ever seen like a picture of what Zuck's office looks like, but it's like this kind of square glass like dome thing. And there's all these different executives and people in the room. Like it's a big strategy pitch, right? It's like a massive, you know, billion dollar initiative type thing.

And I made sure when I went in, I was like saying hello and all that stuff. And I made sure that I sat right in the corner because I couldn't actually turn my head to the right. So I needed like a full on, you know, view like that so that I could see what's going on. And yeah, it was super cool. It was really intense. And you remember this, like the amount of like all-nighters and weekends and things that were pulling at the time, but incredibly rewarding.

You know, Facebook's a $500 billion market cap company and I got them to mobilize over an initiative that I deeply cared about. And with an incredibly kick-ass team, like I definitely didn't do it alone. We had a rockstar team with us, or I'm not there anymore, but the team is creating opportunities for thousands

and thousands of creators to build a business on the platform. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know. Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth

as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so you had this amazing job at facebook where breakfast lunch dinner catered gym everything it was great for us and at one point you decided you wanted to start your own business. It was right after we'd moved to LA. What inspired that? It takes a lot to turn away from a really good corporate job

to go all in and start from the bottom, which is essentially what you were doing. You'd had this career that was going up and to the right and you just decided, you know what? I'm going to take a pause and figure out what I really want to do. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It wasn't an easy decision. Yeah, I also want to do. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It wasn't an easy decision. Yeah, I also want to emphasize like Facebook was an incredibly good company.

I have a lot of love for everything, the people there. Everything was taken care of. There's a thing called like the Facebook 15 where there's so much food and abundance of food that you put on 15 pounds within your first year of being there. That actually happened to me. It's an incredible place to work and they take care of you so well. The rationale for me was I was doing so well, career was growing. I was, you know, making a lot of impact. I was being

recognized for it. I was like, I'm starting to coast a little bit. You know, there's challenges, like there's a lot of work to do, but I'm just getting paid a really beefy salary and I'm not like learning a ton anymore. It's anxiety. The minute, like, I don't know, everyone gets this. I don't know, maybe it's a certain group of people. I was like not growing fast enough. And that's the thing that I index on most highly is I need to be doing whatever is going to cause me to grow the most. And it kind of comes back to that point where like, I wouldn't take that amazing job where I travel the world, because I didn't feel like I was going to grow fast enough doing that. So and working at Facebook

is like, okay, what's the fastest way I can grow next? And actually, one of the catalysts for it was Boss Babe was on fire. You know, you were crushing it with the company. And I was like, you're having all these like growth challenges, good challenges, but it was like a pain in the ass to manage all this growth. And I was like, I want to help. I can help. Let's get into that then, because that didn't work very well. So to set some context context Stephen decided he was going to leave Facebook and spend a few months figuring out what his purpose was and what his business was going to be about he didn't have the idea but I think you kind of knew right if you stayed at Facebook it was not a question of if I was going to just when yeah I was like ripcord I'm

out of here I'm gonna go do this yeah And that's obviously a luxury that we had because I was obviously working and like you'd been saving. And so it's not a luxury that everyone has, but you with, you know, feeling like you couldn't actually get clarity on what that path was if you were still at Facebook, because it was pretty demanding and challenging. So this is what happened. Boss Babe was running events around the world at this point. Became an event director yeah we had an event in new york and then straight to london and so i said steven well if you're quitting your job and i'm being the breadwinner then you're going to be helping me with boss babe and he was like

yeah i can do this i can totally do this i'll be the event manager i'll help you run the event it was a shit show and we'll probably never work together ever again because of it it wasn't that the event was a shit show. Oh no, that was great. Yeah, just to be clear for everyone listening, I was actually quite good at running the event. Oh, you're a Virgo. You're incredible at running.

You were so organized. You were amazing. Yeah, but I'd never ran an event before. Anyways, it was a pretty big initiative for the company at the time. But holy shit, for anyone out there that's worked with their significant other, it's not easy. And like kudos to you if you're killing it and crushing it. We did it for a couple of months, but it's so interesting. I think the way that it works is if it's both of your baby together, that's like an ideal outcome. But if it's someone else's baby

and they're the kind of boss and the CEO of it and you're trying to come in and help, that's not a recipe for success. Well, let's just clarify. You just didn't like me being your boss. That's what I'm trying to say in a roundabout way is exactly what I'm trying to say. So no, that was a big thing.

I mean, I love that. Like Boss Be Mission, super cool. I'm so behind the company. And anytime I can help, I'm like all for it but is this going to be the two three five year rest of our life like plan and I was like okay what's the exit strategy where I can kind of move out here and it was actually really cool because I got to get and be involved quite early in the big growth spike that you had which was you know bringing on new folks on the team getting an office down in LA and being a part of that was really incredible, but it was not going to be the long-term plan. Yeah. Okay. So

you figured out what you wanted to do when you started a company and have you been going a year now? Not even a year. Not even a year. And you've done incredibly and casually won Forbes 30 under 30 for what you're doing in the space. So do you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing now? What pipeline is? Yeah, so most importantly, I've spent so much time in gaming video and in the content creator space for the last decade. I myself was one and then I started working at Facebook and was building a platform for content creators. And over that time, I've seen so many common problems like with the industry and the way in which the different companies and platforms and the creators face these different problems and challenges. And I was like, we can do this a lot better, but I think the

incentives are misaligned for the different stakeholders in this space. And I really wanted to set out to build a platform that would help content creators when they needed it most, which is when they were just starting out. A lot of folks in the industry right now help content creators when they're much larger. They'll get agents and things like that. They'll help them when they're at the top 1% or top 10%. I really wanted to build a platform that would help people just before they were starting or when they were right in those early days to make sure they didn't give up, to make sure that they avoided all the mistakes I made. An example, I had my face on a mouse pad that was being sold in Southeast Asia for five years and I seen no money for it. And

that was just some stupid mistake that I made when I was 19 at the time. And they could avoid all these mistakes and learn from experience that content creators that have been in the business for the last five, 10 years have been in and share that with them. So Pipeline is a platform that's aimed at helping creators turn their passion into a career through a lot of educational tools, a lot of mentorship. We run events. We work with different partners, non-endemic and endemic in the space to really help lower the barrier to entry and give you a better shot. And it's incredible the fact that you've been going for less than a year and you've welcomed thousands of students through and really have seen a big transformation in their progress as well. Do you feel like you're definitely like living your mission now? Absolutely. It's so funny. What I'm doing now

is things that I've tried to do in the past, just not at the same scale. When I was coming up as a player, I always wanted to help the next person. And I would go out of my way to like, if they were struggling through something or trying to work through something, I'd DM them and just give them a few things like here and there. And then when I was actually playing competitively, I was like, oh, we got to change these like player contracts because they're shit and players are going to get exploited. So like I worked with one of my best friends to like reinvent player contracts for all the esports pros and that's used by thousands today. But I really wanted to come up with something that was more scalable and I could help in

the space that I care about. And that's what Pipeline is. It's truly a skilled platform that's aimed at helping tens of thousands, millions of creators do what they're passionate about. And so, I mean, I kind of know this because I'm living it and I live with you, but how are you finding the journey of entrepreneurship? Oh, it's fun.

It's so good. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the rollercoaster is very real. What do you mean by that? When I say the rollercoaster is very real, I mean, you can wake up a little like tired, but then you're like, I'm'm gonna seize the day and you're gonna go to the gym you'll be pumped when you go to the gym then you get back home you start your

nine o'clock meeting you're like fired up because you've set your team off in the right way then 11 o'clock hits and there's a fire and you're like like the world's gonna be ending right now and then you can have come out of that funk by about three o'clock and then something happens again at five o'clock you're like shit that needs to be done by tomorrow and then your wife's coming home and you want to be like the best husband for your wife and you're like i'm just so f***ing like the day was crazy yeah the entrepreneurship roller coaster is real because everything's your responsibility like if something breaks if something's not running like there's you're so emotionally invested in it and also you're the one

that's making decisions and making it work you're the one paying people and so it's very very real there's a lot of responsibility and i think i definitely don't think you got that before you were in it like you would see me experiencing it and i think you could never really understand there would be days where i'd come home just crying and so steven's the most chilled laid-back person ever there was times when it was really interesting, because I'm working at Facebook, and Facebook's obviously a very established company. They have different budgets and things like that.

And I'm talking about how, like, I got approved so little budget compared to this other team. And Natalie's, like, thinking about, she's a startup, and she's like, okay, can I put on this event? Should I not put on this event? And I'm like, I only got a couple of million dollars for this event. This team got, you know, like way more money. And she's like, fuck you. Like, it was so funny. I didn't really appreciate that at the time. And now I definitely do. When you're building a company, you know, I'm worried about can this mom

put it on the table next month? Like, can I continue to pay? That's the kind of things that you're thinking about. You've got a bigger team that's growing. pay that's the kind of things that you're thinking about you've got a bigger team that's growing and that's a lot of pressure that I've never had before yeah it's definitely a different experience but I will say all right I hope you enjoyed the episode so far stay tuned as we share a bit of info about who supported this episode this episode is brought to you by Skillshare now if you've been following me for a while, you know how much I love taking an online course, especially during a time when we've all been indoors more than usual. I've been loving learning a new skill set or deepening an existing passion. That's why I use Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people. Members get unlimited access to thousands of amazing classes

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at skillshare.com forward slash boss babe. And we're back let's jump straight into today's episode. So for me if I'm speaking honestly I was pretty nervous for you to leave your job and go into entrepreneurship because I had not dated an entrepreneur before and I'd not been in that kind of relationship I'd always been the one doing my thing and I was I was the one doing the risky thing and not that Boss Babe is a risk anymore we're a pretty established company and so I feel secure in that but also I just hadn't had that and so for two entrepreneurs I was just really nervous and I didn't know if it was going to be too much stress if we wouldn't work well together if we're both working from home what that would be and it definitely does

have its challenges but one thing that I really appreciate is how much freedom it gives both of us where we can decide to take the afternoon off together we can make appointments work at any time in a day we can take vacation time whenever we want there's no limit and so that's one thing that I've definitely appreciated about this transition yeah and I echo that the freedom the fact that like during the day we can or you can because you're better than I am but like you know make us some lunch and I can clean up and then we can like go a brief walk for five minutes with Nala. That's, that kind of thing would never happen if I was in a 95 corporate job. And I think those little moments are not to be forgotten in the midst of all the

crazy is that we actually have that opportunity to spend time together, which is super cool. Our schedules are definitely a little different, but it's super cool that we have that fluidness to it where I need some more support. Can you help me right now? And it's like you can drop things and reprioritize things because you don't have pressure from someone else. There is always pressure. You're always like, you know, technically working for someone, but you have that ability to say no to something else

to make sure that you're taking care of each other, which I think is, you know, really special. I do think that's really special. And I do love that we can, although we're not good at working together, we actually can help each other a lot. I'm gonna take some credit for the marketing of Pipeline and it's year one.

And I love that I was able to come in and really support you with that. And you've supported me so much with leadership and team and so many different things. And I think that's been really nice and it still continues to be like, we'll just put time in each other's calendar to do like a coaching session or something,

which has been really helpful. yeah one thing that i think people might be surprised is that we actually have our personal asana that like oh yeah for vacation that we're planning like because we're trying to we're one we're just have to be super organized in your running company but we also want to make sure we're carving out time for each other so we started an asana to make sure that we like for a vacation or like we've got like an upcoming retreat is that we actually plan it make sure it happens that's one thing that's been super helpful it's just like the organization like to get shit done yeah i mean you're a virgo i'm a capricorn so of course we're going to be incredibly organized but yeah we have an asana where basically we sit down at the beginning of

a year and we map out our team goals and then we break that down into quarterly goals you'll know i love quarterly goals phosphate planner we break them down in quarterly goals and then we set like our ideal vacations and like you say time map out when that's going to happen and it's really great and then we just install that new app copilot which helps us manage all of our finances and our investments and everything those copilot just did well with that ad they're they need to talk to us or something. I know, but all of these little tools I actually find really helpful and we do schedule things on each other's calendars, which might seem rigid to some people, but the thing is, if you don't schedule it and you're busy, it sometimes might not happen.

And it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, but really having your priorities in order. Both of us, I mean, take last night, for example, I went up into Stephen's room and I was like, hey, what time are you going to be working till? And you said to me, well, I can, there's always more work I can be doing. So let's agree on a time. And that's the thing. And I think it's also the same if you're in a corporate job, but especially when you have your own business, there's no limit to the amount of, you can always find something to do. But I think we've gotten really good with setting our boundaries. and that's something I think you've taught me a lot about I think you're really good at carving a time protecting your energy and it's something

I'm not so good at that I'm learning a lot from you on like you're just a badass at you see getting knowing when to say no I need my time that's something I'm getting better and better but learning a lot I just love the sound of the word no. Yeah. Yeah, so like some of the habits, rituals we have, we could share some of them. One of them is that we eat dinner together pretty much every single night. It would be rare for us not to when we cook. And a cook meal.

Yeah, it's a cook meal every night. Yeah. Which I think is a tradition we can have brought from home because I know a lot of friends that don't necessarily cook in every night. But one of the things is just our upbringing, right's like family dinner is a thing so just wanted to make sure that we're actually having that and I think it's one of the most special times to get to reflect and like be present with each other. Is another ritual watching tv? Is that another ritual that we can talk about? I mean maybe like I definitely try and schedule no meetings after 6 p.m because I love to come home for six and cook so that we can sit down for dinner at 7. We went through a phase of playing board games after dinner which is great or we watch

Netflix and just spend time together but our phones are away and we're not on phones emails or if we are we're giving each other shit for it and putting each other's phone away. I love that our evenings are really sacred. We typically go up to bed at like 9. if not earlier god we're entertaining even earlier right now i know but i think it's important like otherwise if you leave it so late you're going to bed you're so exhausted you don't want to chat you don't have sex you don't spend time together you're just falling asleep right away and like when are you making that sacred relationship time or like waking up early and actually having that time together oh that's one we're talking about rituals which is like you know the kind of things we do i still feel like it's important to bring up

is sleep that was one of the biggest things that we learn with each other is how can two human beings sleep at the exact same time wake up the exact same time and i feel like if there's any couples listening that live together they will absolutely understand we're talking about where it's like the husband wants to go to bed later or the the wife wants to go better later whatever it is that was one of the biggest things for us that we had to adapt to and it's actually why i got a vibrating watch which is birthday by the way for my birthday guys if you're listening and you have a significant other that's complaining about the time that you get up get a vibrating watch yeah you're so polite this stevens this is ste's polite way of saying that we

nearly got divorced because i don't like to get less than eight hours sleep he doesn't need eight hours sleep and so he kept waking me up and we couldn't find a compromise so we got that vibrating watch which has been a game changer best investment and we've lately been waking up and meditating together and been doing some pretty hefty like 45 minute sessions which has actually been incredible and really putting us in such a great state and also is a really good way of spending time together and a nice energy as well yeah no it's really nice i think one thing i'd also touch on that as a couple i've realized we've put a lot of importance on is the personal time and personal development time which has been really critical for us is like when you talk about two entrepreneurs

being in a relationship and like, you know, maintaining that balance, I think any couple really is making sure that you create time for yourself within the relationship. It's something you're really good at. You will like organize vacation with your friends or I'll go play games with my buddies or spend time with them at lunch or things like that. And I think that's one of the things that really helped us a lot. Maint is concert like protecting our own energy so that we can actually show up for each other that's a really really good point i think we do that really well another thing that we do is pretty much spend every weekend together saturdays and sundays and we're not on phones we're not working like it's definitely uncommon for us to work on weekends

yep and we really try and get outdoors, spend time together, actually like do quality things together, which is, it's been a kind of something that we've done from like the moment that we met, I think. Yeah, I think one of the things we're like celebrating, like all the things we're really good at. I don't know why it kind of went that way, but. No, I just want us to talk about maybe like habits and rituals that we found that do really well. Yeah, I would say routine is the king is like having an established routine is really key one of the things that i found out as a guy that was really helpful in a relationship was like knowing how i feel what a surprise yeah

which i am like growing up as a kid growing up as a guy i was like you know whatever i'm like i don't like this whatever i don't think about how I felt. I was just like, this is stupid. This sucks. I'm going to go somewhere else right now. And one of the biggest evolutions I've had in the last few years is how do I feel? Like, do I like this? Do I not like this?

And then being able to communicate that. And that's still a work in progress is like effectively communicating. But that's one of the things that I would say I'm most proud of is our ability to improve communication between each other and being super conscious about that but it's always a work in progress yeah that's true and we definitely don't need to just talk about the things we do well because I think one of the things that we perhaps don't do so well is we're both incredibly passionate people and I think in a relationship that can lead to a lot of fire and there's definitely no absence of fire in our relationship. Nope, that's definitely being so like,

we're kind of alpha founders and that helps us a lot in business but when you're both coming together and you're like, we got to do this, we got to do that, we got to do this. I'm like the taskmaster is the biggest thing. I always want to make sure we've got a task going on and Natalie's got ideas, you know, at the the wazoo she has so many different ideas constantly oh my god this sums us up in one

i am full of ideas but then i just don't like to do all the work for them i like to delegate them and i get paralyzed by the fact that we have like i gotta go into execution mode like the scots get done like how am i gonna get this done i've got you know two hours the cure this is basically mine and Danielle's relationship summed up too though she always says I leave her holding the baby which is probably an accurate demonstration of um us getting a dog yeah but it's making me think about what it's like when we get a baby yeah it's become literal at that point let's talk about babies what are we thinking I feel on the spot right now. I would say daughter, two years. You can't plan if you're going to have a daughter or a son. It just is whatever you get. I put it out there, right? That's the thing you talk about, like putting energy. I'm saying I'm

putting a daughter out there in two years. Two years. Yeah. That means I would have to get pregnant in just over a year. Better get to work. Yeah, hear first on the podcast i love that okay so i would love to ask you what is one misconception you think that people might have about me obviously you know me better than anyone else so what is one misconception maybe people listening or seeing me on instagram might have about me so you have an account with a couple million followers you create more content than most people could dream of making in a month in like a week and that would indicate that you're very extroverted and kind of out there and constantly in front of everyone but there's nothing you love more than being your pjs with some bark thins cuddled up in like a dimly lit room watching

netflix like you would much rather that night than being out on stage and like doing all that thing I think so one of the big misconceptions would be you're more of an introvert than an extrovert yeah that's actually so true so if anyone's interested like go to a lot of social events I do all of those things but I actually and whilst I love it and I can be really social I don't gain energy from that and I'll come home and like you see me I'm so depleted and like really need to spend time completely alone yep absolutely you definitely but you're really good at it that's the thing you're really good at setting boundaries and saying that I need my time and that's with me it's with friends it's with business it's everything you're just really good at saying

I need a boundary and I think you know some people can maybe get offended by that or feel like can put off by that but it's incredibly important for you to do the work that you do is creating those boundaries yeah so for any ambitious couples that are listening what advice would you give them for being able to really balance relationship and business because I do think we actually have gotten really good at that I think we've both gone through phases you especially when you were at Facebook and me when I was really in hustle mode I think we have gone through phases where we've actually really neglected the relationship and we haven't spent much time together and full disclosure this was a big reason that we moved from San Francisco to LA

because I was working from home. We didn't have an in-person team at the time and Stephen was constantly working or traveling. And I just felt so lonely. I didn't have community around me and I needed to be around people and I really needed my friends. I needed that and we moved to LA.

And I think also in that move, we just learned to stop prioritizing work and actually start prioritizing our relationship above everything else yeah it's one of the big epiphanies when you get married or when you're in a serious relationship you think of yourself as a unit like as a team and I think going a little deeper than that and like truly understanding that you're a team and everything you're doing is together to a common goal that was one of the most powerful shifts for me and realizing that so you really really ask yourself, like, are you truly like, I think anything we're doing is for the team above all else, like, make sure you're really internalizing that. Because for me, the young

guy had a lot of success. I, you know, travel the world was all about me for many years. And switching into being a serious relationship being married. That was a shift for me. A four month shift. It was a four month shift. Yeah, I was a shift for me. A four-month shift. It was a four-month shift. Yeah, I thought I was hot shit. And then suddenly, like, it's not just about me anymore. And I was like, wow. So I think that was one of the big shifts for me was realizing we're truly a team and

that everything's got to do with the team. The other is learning to listen and learning to know how you feel and communicate that is a big one for me that I think has been really helpful as a guy I kind of ignore how I feel and just kind of comes out in different ways but really tuning in and listening to how I feel and then giving myself the time to process that is a big one whether that's like at the gym or whether it's meditating or whether it's like doing a retreat whatever it is for you it's just taking that time what else is really good what do you think well just speaking about the team thing and we're definitely bringing people in behind the scenes here but in the beginning

yeah we met and we were married four months later and I'm sure in another podcast we'll get into the details of that but we decided to move very fast I think when you know you know and we got married over here we don't have any family here all of our family's back in the UK so we got married here and then we flew over to the UK and we did like a dinner just to celebrate with them but we never really had like a big wedding and we kept it pretty private between the two of us I changed my name but I didn't change it on social for a really long time and then we started to kind of just settle into married life we didn't move in together till we were married so we took a pretty big risk we didn't know if this was even going to work out we hadn't lived together we barely knew each other but we very early on I think what kind of describes the kind of people that we are we're very like

let's jump in to move fast and hopefully don't break things yeah and like if we're going to be in we're going to be all in and we did all of that and we just decided like this feels right it feels like we are soulmates and it feels like we just reconnected. Like that day that I thought we weren't on a date. It definitely wasn't romantic but I did feel really connected to you. I didn't felt like I just met you. And so we moved fast. We moved in together.

Right after getting married we booked a call with a financial advisor. You were really pushy about this for us to combine all of our bank accounts everything so that we would have nothing individually which I was so nervous about I remember having lots of resistance there in the beginning and it was a big conversation and we decided no let's do it let's not think about you and I let's not think about your paycheck and my paycheck but let's think about the team and what we're building and our common goals and so we've combined everything from four months knowing each other. We put all of our savings,

all of our bank accounts, everything together. And we've continued to live that way. And I think that's been really powerful. And I know it's not for everyone. Yeah, I think it's hard. There's no roadmap for being partners. And it's actually asking two people to bring their lives together

and spend so much time with each other is really hard and like unreasonable thing to do and it takes a lot of work and i think um the sooner you realize is a lot of work and you put in the work to make it be successful that's when you get the rewards and it's so funny we were having this conversation the other week which was you know we put so much work into our businesses. Are we putting that work into our relationship? Because if we're not, we don't deserve, you know, the results that we have in our relationship. And I think it's really important perspectives just to give yourself that reflection is like, are you really putting in the work to your relationship? If you really are truly thinking

on like, I want to be with this person for the rest of my life, because I would really encourage that the earlier you do that, the better. And finances, yeah, that's one way of where we were like all in together. But it's just just philosophically are you really truly all in with this person yeah I love that so I just want to bring it back to kind of your journey so you obviously left Facebook you started Pipeline and you've done incredibly well in the past year what are some challenges that you've had in being an entrepreneur and learning all of the things completely from scratch so a big gap for me was digital marketing a lot of pipelines early days was very focused on digital marketing it's still a big part of what

we do and i didn't have a lot of expertise there so i had me luckily i did i had one of the best digital marketers in the world which is great but i definitely had a lot to learn there and that was super frustrating I did eventually build the part where I was like no this is good I'm learning so I was like happy with it but those early early days was like this is so I'm getting so frustrated because I felt useless and stupid the other thing that was hard was we decided to bootstrap and not raise money which I think most people don't raise money but where I come from Silicon Valley it was like raising money is the way you do it well not where you come from but what you're right yeah yeah no one's raising money in Scotland I feel like in my career at least I was like okay people raise that's what they do and you know go big or go home and we made the decision not to raise money and go straight

ahead and build into a business and that was hard because I've been used to a level of resources that I didn't have access to and that was a lot to work with and learn. Because then you're putting out stuff and you're like, might not be super proud of that stuff. But it's like, you can't go spend $500,000 on getting a video production made. And I was like, I'm comparing myself to these people that were doing that my peers. And I'm like, that's annoying. And I think that was one of the hard things to adjust to is getting okay with I might not be 100% proud of what I'm putting out. It's not like the finished product, but I need to get it out there and I need to consistently doing that. And it'll get better and better over time. And we'll get more resources and things like that. Cause I look back to what we did on

the first day and I look back to where we are now, 10 months later. And I'm like, holy shit, like how far we've come in just a small amount of time, but it's hard to get over that. That was hard. The other thing is when you're having a bad day, nothing will get done. That was something that I realized is like the company will almost, not totally because you've got a kick-ass team, but progress and like actual growth. The minute you sulk or come down a little bit growth dies and that was quite a cold realization for me was like okay I'm gonna funk this week I gotta get out of that or the company's just not gonna grow and that was a very good lesson for me that I learned because when you obviously when you're at Facebook just because you're having a bad day there's like you know a thousand other people

that are working on that same problem and growing it but when you're an entrepreneur your company lives or dies by your ability to grow it I love that you touch on that and problem and growing it. But when you're an entrepreneur, your company lizard dies by your ability to grow it. I love that you touch on that. And when people ask me my advice for business, I always say it's a game of energy management. Like you have to be so good at managing your energy because if your energy is low and you're in a bad mood, you are going to get nothing done. And, you know, it's never going to slow down there's always more you can be doing there's always something going on and so it's a game of how can you charge your battery how can you manage your energy how can you get on top of your emotions so that actually you are running your business in an effective way so in the beginning you mentioned you would be training

seven days a week 12 hours a day which I think is incredible and for a lot of people listening they might hear us talk about boundaries they might hear this balance we have between relationship and business and it all sounds great but you did say in the beginning there was this phase of complete hustle it was seven days a week it was 12 hours a day and I know I went through something similar with my business in the beginning and I think it's very easy now for us to talk about boundaries it's easy for us to talk about balance but I often think in the beginning stages of getting your career off the ground or getting your business off the ground it's not a luxury that you have and I really love that I think one of the big reasons that we met and kind of our relationship developed so quickly was because

we're from the same place back home and we grew up very very similarly and I don't think we would be where we are had we not worked our asses off to get where we are and I think that's a really important message to put out there because it can look way easier on the outside but if you think about really where you came from and where you are now it's taken a lot of work yeah I mean full disclosure my I grew up as a working class kid in Scotland and my combined household family income was $30,000. You know, like it's just stark contrast to where we are now. And I think for many people, you should really realize that you're a product of your environment

and that is going to change the circumstances in which you have to approach whatever you do. And don't use it as an excuse. If you use an excuse, no one cares, really. It's ultimately your responsibility. Your life is your responsibility. If you are not as fortunate that you're not born into like a wealthy family and you have to hustle your ass off to grow and get to where you want to be, that's the answer. Go hustle your ass off and do it. You start to afford more luxuries over time, you become more experienced, but you can't really shortcut. There is no shortcut. You got to go

through it. You got to learn. You got to fail, you got to go through all of that. And I think one thing you touched on was just the energy side of things is try not get too high and try not get too low. You know, with your energy, try and just stay in the middle. And it's sometimes you might feel like you're not celebrating something crazy that happened. But actually, it's kind of better if you can just kind of maintain your energy in the middle a little bit, especially if you're in it for the long haul. I agree. Well, this has been amazing. I've loved interviewing you.

Likewise, babe. How have I been? You've been great. You were quite soft. I expected it to be harsher. I'm not sweating right now. I feel pretty comfortable. It's great.

This morning, I walked into Stephen's room. I was like, by the way, today, I'm going to give you so much shit on the podcast. Like, be prepared. But I didn't. No, you didn't. You were good, babe. Love it. love it thanks well thanks for being on here you're absolutely welcome where can everyone find you pimp yourself out snoopy not with a y though it's s n o o p e h on pretty much every platform and what about pipeline pipeline is pipeline.gg you want to check it out love Love it. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more, and please leave us a

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