the bossbabe podcast - 178. Building a Dental Empire, Motherhood + Raising Capital with Brittany Stewart of Burst Oral Care
Episode Date: August 10, 2021How do you know if you have a multi-million dollar idea? For BURST founder, Brittany Stewart, it was the moment when raving fans flocked her booth at – you guessed it – a dental convention. B...ut it never would have happened without Brittany being willing to take some risks to reach her audacious goals. From working with business legends like Kylie Jenner to growing in the thousands of percentage points since the company’s founding – Brittany Stewart is breaking down every step of her journey since her business’s inception. And the crazy part is: she got started just FOUR years ago. If you have an idea for a business and are wondering how to get it off the ground, or if you’re trying to figure out how to scale your business the right way – this episode is for you. Listen now! Links: Join The Société - bossbabe.com/joinsociete Soul CBD - mysoulcbd.com/bossbabe Use code BOSSBABE15 at checkout for 15% off Olive & June - oliveandjune.com/bossbabe Use code BOSSBABE at checkout for 20% off your first Mani System Follow: BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie: @iamnatalie Danielle: @daniellecanty Brittany Stewart: @brittany_burst Burst Oral care: @burstoralcare
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Like when I talk to people, I ask them all the time, what is success to you?
Like if you knock this out of the park in your own mind, like what is that?
And everybody's answer is very, very different.
But they have to be like true to themselves because this does sit on your shoulders as an entrepreneur.
Like you have to, you could be in like your darkest moment, like oh, what are we going to do with this?
Or how, like how are we going to get over this?
And you have to find that answer like from within you and and like grind through it
buckle up my friends because this is a good one. Me and Danielle are together again in LA. You
really think that I had never left which is great. I'm obsessed. I'm so glad you're here. I feel like
did you actually move to Austin or not? Listen I did but I can't stay away for too long. Today's
episode is one of my favorites to date. It was so, so incredible.
We are introducing you to Brittany Stewart.
She is a co-founder of Burst Oral Care.
And this is a startup with a mission
to make sonic oral care affordable
and available to everyone.
Not to mention the most incredible witty branding.
Like you need to get on their website
if you haven't seen it already.
On top of scaling this incredible company
that has scaled so big so
quickly she also still works as a venture advisor for the Dirdik machine so she has a ton of
experience across multiple industries and business models. Yeah I'm a massive fan of Brittany because
what I love most about her is she is so real and you're going to hear in this podcast how she opens
up about what it's been like to grow a business, like the real behind the scenes, like her mission. She didn't just want to help,
you know, the company, but she also wanted to help other women. And they actually pioneered
an amazing ambassador program, which is really cool. But on the other side of that,
she also shares about what it's like being a mom and being an entrepreneur and sharing her story
around when she found out she's pregnant and how she dealt with that with VC companies and I feel like these are the types of conversations that a lot of
women aren't having so just bringing her on and just having this very very open conversation around
what it's like how you might need help to really grow your business and be a mom at the same time
like I love Brittany for keeping it real yeah the conversations that really light me up the most are listen you can have it
all just probably not at the same time and being able to talk to women you know with multiple
different types of ambition doing multiple things at the same time and being really real about what
that looks like and giving actionable advice which I definitely took away from this episode
totally I feel like people are listening to this they going to be so inspired. Like I know I was
like, hang on a minute. How do I start a business? I mean, she's done some pretty cool things. I know
that they did work. I mean, I mean, we even touched on the Kardashians, didn't we? Like
talking around what it was like to work with Kris Jenner and then going on with Khloe Kardashian.
And just like that insight, I feel like everyone listening to this is gonna be like, wow, I want a business, let's go.
Yeah, exactly.
So if you are thinking about starting a business
or you have a business that you're ready to scale,
I will remind you,
if you haven't heard it enough times already,
the society is open for enrollment
and we want to see you inside.
We rolled up our sleeves
and we built an entirely new custom platform
that is designed for you with
all of the education you need to start and scale a business as well as a place that you can keep
track of your goals and connect with other women just like you so there's really no excuse for
doing this doing it alone and doing it off of google and trying to figure out as you go along
learn from people who've been there done it it, and got multiple t-shirts.
So if you're interested, what you're going to do is head to bossbabe.com forward slash join society.
That's bossbabe.com forward slash join society.
Enter your information, come say hi, introduce yourself.
And I'm telling you, you are going to be off to the races with so many women cheering and supporting you
yeah totally and for those who need it we're going to put the link in the show notes and so you know
society is about s-o-c-i-e-t-e we're french you know if you didn't know already we're just fancy
we're just bougie like that yeah exactly okay guys see you in there a boss babe 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. Welcome to the Boss Babe Podcast, the place that 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 Daniela Canty,
co-host of today's show with Nasty Ellis and we are joined by Brittany Stewart.
Hello everybody. That was a very professional intro for me wasn't it? So professional. I know,
I'm just getting better and better. Ladies and gentlemen, you'll find out the network coming
soon. Absolutely not, I'm way too much on my plate right now. Anyway, Brittany,
so excited to have you here. I have like a million questions that I want to ask you. For anyone that
is unfamiliar with who you are and what you do, will you give them a little bit of an intro?
Sure. I am the co-founder and president of Burst Oral Care. We are a subscription oral care brand
brought to you by your most trusted dental professionals. So dentists and hygienists help us make all of our products and then they recommend them to you.
I love it. When did you start the company? 2017. 2017. And it's 2021 now. How much have you grown?
Um, a lot, uh, in the thousands of percentage points. Yeah. Wow. It feels like in four years you have built the most incredible
empire and that's a very short amount of time. So I'm imagining it's been a big roller coaster
and I want to get into all of it. Yeah. Do you remember the point in which you started to feel
like the business had momentum and was about to take off? Honestly, I know this is a
cheeky answer, but it's really from day one. Okay. So we launched at a dental convention. So we did
something very different than what other direct-to-consumer companies do, which is they
kind of make a product and then they test ads in the marketplace and then they see if there's a fit.
We were going to build our own channel, which was our ambassador channel. These are dentists
and hygienists who recommend our products.
And so we launched at a dental show in Chicago.
And at that time, so Hamish was my co-founder and really kind of like my best friend.
We really didn't have very much of a budget.
We sent the goods to my mom and dad's house who live in Chicago
and made my dad drive us to the convention because we could save like $600 doing that.
And we split a booth $600 doing that.
And we split a booth with another dental brand. And we had only launched the iOS version of our ambassador app. And so we didn't, you know, we had never done anything before. It was like
literally our first day of business. And we were mobbed in our booth. There's just no other way to
describe what happened. So one hygienist walked by and was like, well, what's this about? And then she went and got a friend and they went and got another friend. And these
conventions are like 12 hours long. And Hamish and I couldn't even take a bathroom break. Like
we couldn't physically get out of our booth because the queue was so long to get in and see
what this burst thing was about. So we said to ourselves, like, you know, maybe maybe 25 people will will be interested in this.
And like 500 ambassadors signed up like on the spot that weekend.
And in this sort of excitement and fervor that we got from these ambassadors, and they are primarily women to this day 99 of our ambassadors are women and this joy that it sparked we i remember we we were at the hyatt uh off of like um michigan
avenue in chicago and remember we were down in the lobby just like having a drink afterwards like
almost like your lids blow back and we were both right we have these cheesy terrible t-shirts that
we wear that have like horrible dental puns like Like what did the floss say to toothbrush? Don't worry, I've got your plaque. And we're sitting at the bar and
people are coming up to us like, well, what's this toothbrush thing about? We're like, oh God,
we just need one second to ourselves. And we just, we'd never experienced anything so special
in our lives. And, and honestly, from that moment forward, there were so many milestones along the
way that we were like, okay okay we thought this was amazing and
then this happened and this happened and so it was like really the universe putting a lot of
things in your path where you where you felt reinforced about what you were doing I love that
I just want to double down on something because we have a lot of listeners who are like just starting
their entrepreneurial journey and a lot of them are like okay how do I even know if it's a good
idea and I'm just curious like you went to that convention you talk around like you went in with like okay I'm going to get 25 ambassadors but end up with
500 you talk about queues like you know people queuing up why what was so different about you
guys compared to other people and did you know that that thing was different like did you create
the business off the back of knowing something was different about you so we knew that the product
was different and better so Hamish my partner has only ever developed oral care products his whole life. And so he had seen this
gap in the marketplace and he had been using dentists and hygienists to help us get to our
prototype version of the brush. And the moment that I knew that the product was different,
better and special was, you know, he came to America to really try and bring this. He was
looking for a co-founder and like mutual friends introduced us.
And so he gives me the toothbrush and I'm like, kind of, yeah, yeah, whatever.
And I'm using the brush.
And then I go see the dentist who is married to one of my college best friends.
So Dr. Sean yells at me like every time I go to see him.
He's like, what are you doing?
Like, you need to floss.
Like, what's happening?
And Sean asked me if I had gone to get my teeth cleaned before I went to see him so that I wouldn't
yell at him. And I was like, no, I'm just using this electric toothbrush prototype that this guy
Hamish gave me. And he's like, is it really that good? He's like, your gums are so healthy.
Like, Brittany, this is a really good product. Can I have one? And I think that was like another
sort of moment where Hamish and I were kind of getting to know each other, figuring out if there
could be a great, you know, you will be closer with your co-founder than you are with anybody
on earth. You'll spend more time with them. You guys get that, right? And you need your family
to support that because what you're doing is hard. The odds are stacked against you. And so we spent
a long time getting to know each other, but I think that was the moment. So we, we arrived at the convention with some, some feedback, you know, we probably about
a hundred hygienists on Facebook group that we made that were giving us feedback, you know,
talking to us about, uh, price points, uh, everything that we needed to think about,
you know, our, our early app prototype, they gave us feedback, they tested it for us.
So we came with the knowledge that like, we knew our product was good. We knew our app was good. But we could not have anticipated. And I think the other X factor is in our industry,
there's a lot of stodginess. So you go to these conventions and it does feel like people are
there like almost under duress. And Hamish and I show up in these like bright purple t-shirts.
We had two other people with us, like hygienists that we had convinced to come, to come
work for us. And so the four of us worked that booth. And I think all of us were really kind of
engaging, fun people. And that was just different. And people wanted a little bit of that different.
And so understanding the business model, when you talk about ambassadors,
you would recruit ambassadors who would then sell product like into the dentist? So our ambassador program is that
one, you have to be certified in the dental profession. And so we verify that with like
your licensing number. And then as a birth ambassador, you recommend product. So we basically
looked at everything we liked about MLMs and everything we didn't like. So what didn't we
like? We didn't like the idea of anybody being out of pocket and their money. We didn't like any idea of someone being above or below
somebody else. Like these were not things for us, but we loved the community that a lot of
direct selling or multi-level companies offer people. We loved the ability to give your thoughts
and feedback. And so as an ambassador, really you're kind of a marketing professional for me.
And I compensate you for posting on Facebook, going to a trade show, successfully recommending to a patient.
And all of this goes into like sort of a point system we call crowns.
And we pay that out weekly.
And it is really meaningful income for these women.
And their only obligation on the onset is they try the toothbrush.
Okay.
And they get to try it for $20.
And if they don't like it, I give them their money back.
Wow.
And if they do like it and they recommend it to one person,
I give them their money back.
So either way, they get their money back.
But it was our way of protecting ourselves from people just walking up
and grabbing free product that we couldn't really afford to give.
Yeah.
So that was like our barrier of seriousness.
And it's been this incredibly meaningful part of these women's lives.
I can see that. Just the ability for someone to earn money on top of what they're already doing
is a total game changer.
It's why so many women we know have side hustles.
Totally.
So I feel comfortable sharing this.
Our median ambassador income is about $10,000 a year.
Wow.
So for people in dentistry, right, that's a very, I don't want to, um, there is no
career progression, right? If you graduate as a dentist, you're a dentist until you retire. If
you graduate as a hygienist, you're a hygienist until you retire. So it's a meaningful additional
sum, right? It's a car payment in your groceries. It's your kid's college fund. And actually they
spend a lot of time sharing with us what they do with that money. And it's probably my favorite thing in the whole business.
And have you had anyone, I'm sure you have, but anyone that just completely excels and crushes it?
Yes.
I want to know about those women.
Okay, so our number one ambassador year one made $90,000.
Wow.
And she made a YouTube video about how to brush your teeth.
Good for her.
And then at the end, she put her coupon code.
How is social media?
And she is not a social media superstar.
She is a dental hygienist in Clearwater, Florida.
And she just invested in a really good ring light.
Wow.
And taught herself.
I don't even know what the name of the software is to, like, to edit a video.
But that's what she taught herself.
She was just resourceful.
She was totally resourceful.
And she saw this opportunity, right?
Here's this new thing.
No one has sort of captured the number one YouTube space on this.
And I'm going to make a YouTube video.
So she was our number one that year in that first full calendar year.
And the people who have really taken this and run with it in whatever way,
like we have another woman who likes to go to like local fairs, like state fairs,
and she's super cute, wears her purple T-shirt, and she crushes.
Wow.
And so we have people who are earning full-time or, you know, multiple years worth of full-time salaries as ambassadors.
But, you know, I always am very cautious.
Like I don't want anyone to think that for everybody, this is going to replace their
full-time job.
But if you do a decent job where you see eight patients a day for four days a week, you could
have this really meaningful source of income that just
requires you to recommend something you actually believe in. And we also do clinical, um, clinical
research on all of our products. So like you as a medical professional feel really confident,
like our brush removes up to 10 times more plaque than a manual toothbrush and it's safe and
effective. And we did a double dual blind study in two different sites to make sure that we followed the same sort of
methods and protocols of like the highest standards so that you know like, hey, this is my
medical Hippocratic oath and I'm recommending something that I really believe in. Yeah. I love
that so much. Tell me about working with Chloe Kardashian. Chloe was a tremendous success for our business.
So what I will say is anybody who's followed our brand knows that we have done
tons of influencer content. We think of them as like it's sort of a different kind of ambassador.
And whether it's agents at CAA or WME uta you know we've kind of worked with them all
the kardashian jenner clan are our professionals to the core and we
we felt chloe was right for our brand and the reasons we liked chloe were that
she was of an age of our same you you know, she and I are just about the same
age and she has this brand of vulnerability. So we've built our whole ambassador community about
being vulnerable, right? Here's the safe space where you can talk about anything, our Facebook
group. And we felt that the way that Chloe emoted herself to the world where she's very open about
the things that she goes through and she's very
personable and she's very kind and also very very beautiful and um in a family of very beautiful
people and so she was always our first choice for our first like big dog influencer and so when we
when we spoke to her her camp they were authentic fans of our brand. And so that felt
like a really good fit. And they were fans of what we were doing for other women and, and how much
this sort of support and additional income meant. And so at the time, one of our hygienists or
actually many of our hygienists had come up with this idea of show how effective our brush was,
which is you take a, like a corn cob and you cover it in coffee grinds and you brush it to show how effective our bristles are.
And it's kind of like this.
It's so weird that you can't not watch it.
Yeah, I kind of want to watch that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just weird enough.
But it's also really compelling because it's effective, right?
And so you show them cleaning with a manual toothbrush than our brush.
And the side of the corn cob that's ours is squeaky clean.
And the side with the other brush is not. And're like now imagine if that was your mouth so we got chloe to do that corn test in a hot pink bathrobe at the beverly hills hotel and she posted
that video on her instagram right about black friday maybe the day before, but just let's call it Black Friday,
you know, hot zone for all e-commerce businesses. What year? 2018. And we were launching a new
product. It was our rose gold edition of the brush. So she felt like the perfect match for
that. She has this rose gold brush, corn cob. And if you guys are familiar with the Beverly Hills
Hotel, it's like just such old Hollywood. It's got like green palm tree, wallpaper print on the wall and it's pink carpets. It's just like everything that you would want in
your rose gold dreams. So she posts this video and we also, you know, posted on our accounts.
And at that time, you know, we had really only focused on our ambassador channel. We had been
growing dentists, we've been growing hygienists and then anybody that they were recommending. And within a 30-day time span,
we just about doubled the size of our company. So from like Black Friday to Christmas, that was a
very busy, and our team wasn't very big yet. And I remember being online at like midnight with our
dev team deploying things like the deal for the next day for Cyber Monday. And Hamish and I almost just tag-teaming being at work for 24 hours to get through it
because, you know, the thing about being successful is that if you're failing, it's hard.
If you're being successful, it's even more hard.
Yeah.
Because there's so much to be done.
And so she was a tremendous success.
And so I would say, like, my wisdom from that is we weren't very big then, right?
We were, like, no one had heard of Burst Oral Care in July of 2018.
At that point in time, we weren't even a year old.
And we shot our shot.
We asked.
And I think that people think of, and this has been my wisdom from all of the influence we have like
with you know an extreme amount of fame they're still human beings who want to do things that
they believe in yeah and what we do is authentically good and they want to be part of that and so if
you think that you've got something amazing shoot your shot how much did you have riding on that
were you like oh my goodness this has to work okay we spent a
lot of money yeah that's what i'm thinking i'm like you put a lot of x in that basket was that
was it a risk 100 you have no idea if it's going to work um but no guarantee no guarantees because
you know you talk to people who've done influencer stuff and sometimes and even over our time like
we've done stuff and it's hit we've paid people a lot of money and it's not hit.
You really got to be thoughtful about does this, even if this fails,
would I be proud of what this person brings to a brand awareness?
Would I be proud of what I've done here?
And we felt really proud of it because it's not just what you're paying someone to do.
It's the inventory to back it up.
Yeah, the planning.
It's like, okay okay if we're gonna have
chloe post this we need to increase that inventory so we need to put money there like the website
can't crash otherwise it was a waste of money yeah your website's gotta work fulfill this and
get angry customers asking for refunds right yeah the website's gotta work uh the inventory's gotta
be in the country if you're producing overseas or it's gotta be in the country if you're producing overseas, or it's got to be in your warehouse if you're domestic.
And also, you know, you've got a board.
You know, I'm a funded company, right?
So what comes with that is you have a board of directors.
Like, they take a seat.
You meet with them quarterly.
And you answer for what you've done each quarter.
And you hope that you aren't in for a rough conversation right so you know we had
been like this is our pony we're backing it and they're like okay that could have been a rough
conversation and then you know your January board meeting where you review your q4 you know I was
like oh who's for the champagne that's all I have to share with you here yeah like my work here is done no more questions please no
and then you realize you're like okay well then how are you going to beat that quarter yeah yeah
thanks that yeah we're not just like enjoy this moment for a second can I have eight minutes
of bragging and then we'll have like a real conversation oh I would have 100 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
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so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped
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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 go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's
kajabi.com slash boss babe okay so another question on that how does one even get in touch with the kardashian
jenna camp i feel like that alone is i wouldn't know where to start they just do you just google
it like with her glasses on oh my god first of all chris is uh um someone's like on our vision
board at burst as you know she is uh one of the most successful business people on the
planet bar none we need to add we firstly we need a vision board secondly we need to put chris on it
thank you for that we don't have a vision board why do we not have a vision board for people we
want to attract well yeah with chris on let's do it it's amazing how much if you do those things
where you just sort of like dream it you can't you can't have anything you didn't dream about
first and we do a lot of that we're like like, how would it be amazing? Like, uh, we have something big coming with kids
in Q4 and we had like put our, like our dream kids property and then it happened and like,
we're very excited for it. But, uh, if we hadn't dreamt it, we wouldn't have it. So I think that
there's, there's a little bit of that where you, you really have to articulate what you want in order to get it.
And I think sometimes it's a simple set.
So getting in touch.
I'm trying to remember.
It was either we were using a PR agency at the time that Chloe was working with as well.
Got it.
And so there's like this mutual connection.
I think we had gifted our brushes to them because they gift, you know, sort of like group gifting all the
things at the PR agency. So I'm near certain it was, you know, a connection made by our PR agency
that we were using at the time. Got it. Yeah. I always think about that. I'm like, wow, that alone
is so overwhelming. Like how would you even, and so was then Chris the one that was like executing
on contracts and stuff? I think we negotiated with Chris, but they have like...
Were you just not starstruck the entire time?
How did you cope with that?
Because you have a job to do, right?
And most of it is like over email.
Still.
Still.
And they have a lawyer who is a tremendously good lawyer.
Yeah, I bet.
He's no joke.
It's almost like...
I enjoy the art of negotiation.
So like when I have like an equal opponent on the other side of the table,
I actually like find myself like almost like I'm having too much fun with this.
Wait, you two are like peas in a pod.
A little negotiation.
I do too.
A little legal battle.
Just a little like, you know, again, you don't ask, you don't get.
It's the worst thing.
I feel like a lot of people are afraid to ask for something,
but the worst thing the other side of the table could just be like, is it a no?
No is not a bad thing to have.
It's not the worst.
If you didn't get any no's, you have not asked for enough.
Yeah, exactly.
If they say yes first time, you went in too high.
Yes.
Or like you didn't ask for enough.
And so I think that that's like a big thing.
So I would say that, you know, they're very busy people.
They're very successful people.
So like much of like what you do is, um, it's, is over email and, and they're thorough and
they're thoughtful and you know, they're not, it's not scary.
It's just like, this is either going to be a fit or it's not.
Does this work for both sides?
I love that.
And I think a lot of people talk shit on the Kardashians.
They have no talent, X, Y, Z.
They are a group of the most intelligent,
I mean, Kardashian-Jenner's,
a group of the most intelligent businesswomen.
I don't know if you've seen,
have you seen the Kylie documentary on YouTube yet?
I have not.
Okay, so it just came out a couple of days ago
and she's doing a whole relaunch with her company.
And so they did did they brought in this
filmmaking team to make like this mini youtube documentary and it really shows the dynamic
between her and chris and really talking about the business and how they've grown it and chris being
so much in the driving seat as well and it's they are really smart women chris is one of the
best business people i've ever interacted with you know and like a little
background right we're we're we're venture-backed by Goldman Sachs Volition Capital two of like the
biggest names in finance and I'm telling you there is she is on par with anybody that I've
ever dealt with in any room any realm so you know so let's talk about that a second why did you
decide to raise like what did you
literally have this idea like raise in the get-go or I knew it from the start yes uh and that was
something that was a very uh specific conversation I had with Hamish that you cannot do an inventory
based business with high growth in a market where you're competing against incumbents who who
basically you know you are dominated by a few brands in oral
care and not have capital. And what do you think you gain by raising and what do you think you give
up by the sacrifices you make? Hey guys, we are just interrupting this episode to tell you about
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uh so like emotional and business terms sure so what you gain is um we're really lucky volition
and goldman sachs are you hear these horror stories uh these are not my that's not my life
it's not my experience. It's not my
experience. So we also have a group of three angels, Todd, uh, Brian and Michael, who were
really our first check. And they're like this, like wildly intelligent, older brother types for
us. And, and they're very successful in their own right. And they, and they, you know, in areas where
maybe we feel like lacking, they are, they're able to support us. And so what you get is the
ability to go after what you're going after to with almost no limit. And that's a pretty big
upside. And you, again, you're competing against these very, very large brands. Like you go into
Walmart, you go into Target, you go into Walgreens and there are brands that you know, and I'm
basically saying, Hey, this toothbrush that you bought your whole life, mine's better.
And I'm fighting that.
And it's a difficult fight.
And so you get that.
You get this wisdom from these people who funded other brands.
And they know where things went wrong and where things went right.
And they make sure they're giving you that wisdom.
They have relationships.
They have the ability to connect you to other people like
I remember so right after Larry who's our board member from Volition funded us uh I said you know
if you've got anybody who can just like give me that proverbial wisdom I would I would love to
talk to him and uh so he connected me to they were the the first and I think largest funder
in Chewy.com which is one of the largest e-commerce exits in history. And it's a wildly successful business. So within a week, I'm talking to Ryan who started
Chewy.com. And I think Ryan is now the CEO of GameStop, which I find to be just really interesting.
And Ryan just nails Hamish and I with just wisdom after wisdom from somebody who grew his business at a meteoric rate.
I mean, I think they are in the billions in revenue and they're less than 10 years old as a business, right?
That is wild.
Right.
So, you know, within a week of getting funding from Larry, I'm talking to Ryan and I'm getting all this wisdom about, you know, manage your supplier contracts, like cashflow is king. And, and so
these are the kinds of things that they give you. What you give up is this isn't your toy that you
just get to play with and do whatever you want with it anymore. You are, you are accountable
to somebody. You took a, you took a lot of money from other people and you are responsible for that
money. Um, what you think is a good job and what they think is a good job
might be very different things. You know, you might feel like, oh, I just crushed it with Chloe,
right? And they're like, okay, what's next quarter's plan? Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. I'll
let you know. And so these things, but on the whole, my experience has been, it has been way
more to the positive.
But I think a few things that are a little different about me, I am probably more financially
savvy than a lot of entrepreneurs.
I understand what it means to give up ownership.
I felt very comfortable pushing back on valuation to make sure that Hamish and I, you know,
we're both on the board and we have the ability to really kind of control
the day-to-day operations of the business.
And so I think that there was an information gap
that a lot of founders have
because they're just like, oh, money, great.
And they don't question like,
is this the right check from the right person?
Are these the right terms?
And Hamish and I said no to a lot of people
who did not feel like a great fit for us. i always love the quote like not all money is equal like
check for a hundred thousand from this person and check from a hundred thousand from this other
person and actually you have to really weigh up what else they bring into the table what's the
personality like and you know whenever you're taking on money i think they say you know a lot
you know there's a
lot been a lot of media that's like we glorified it put a lot of glamour on it and it's reality
is you're taking money from someone and they're gonna want to return they're not just giving it
away and like you know oh that's it just be done with it they're also very smart and powerful
someone's yeah you know they are they are not to be taken lightly as human beings because this is their profession and they're good at it.
And they will get rid of you if you aren't serious about it in return because they will have that ability to do that if you aren't performing because they've given you money.
And so I don't, you know, people always ask me, like, should I raise capital?
Should I not?
I think the answer is, well, what's right for you?
I wanted to do it.
I was into it.
I wanted, like, sort of my shoot for the moon opportunity in life.
And I knew that it was going to be capital intensive.
But I knew I was never going to be happy unless I went for that.
That may not be the journey for everyone.
You know, it's intense.
It demands a lot of you.
And maybe people want more balance in their lives.
And I think that that's okay.
Yeah.
You just need to know, like, say, what balance you want going into it.
Like, when I talk to people, I ask them all the time, like, well, what is success to you?
Like, if you knocked this out of the park in your own mind, like, what is that?
And everybody's answer is very, very different.
But they have to be, like, true to themselves because this does sit on your shoulders as an entrepreneur.
Like, you have to, you could be in, like, your darkest moment.
Like, oh, what are we going to do with this?
Or how, like, how are we going to get over this?
And you have to find that answer, like, from within you and, like, grind through it.
Do you feel supported by them as investors?
Or is it very much just answering to them?
And can you go to them with problems?
Oh, 100%.
I was
actually on the phone with one of them on the way here thinking through an issue and I can call any
one of them at any time and again it goes back to you if you can command respect you get respect
right so I take them very seriously and I take our board meetings very seriously and I come
extremely prepared and I if there's a good result
we talk about that and and why that happened if there's something that's a bad result or not ideal
we talk about that and what we're going to do about it so there's never this feeling that like
Brittany only tells me the good things Brittany tells me everything so that we can all be successful
and I think they give me a lot of credibility as a founder that uh that there's not an intellectual
deficiency where they're like I don't if she's good enough to do this.
It's, you know, I'll just give you a really great example.
Most of e-commerce right now is going through a really hard time with their social media advertising.
There was an update to iOS 14.
We've spoken about it.
Yeah.
Great update.
So the question is, well, what are you going to do about it, right?
Because if it's a portion of your growth and your revenue, how should we think about this at this moment in time?
And what's our strategy in the face of this?
And I feel really comfortable having a conversation with, whether it's Allison at Goldman or Larry at Volition or Michael, Brian, or Todd.
Hey, guys, like, here's what we had planned for the month.
But not only is it I, but, you know, we all maintain,
they have other portfolio companies.
We maintain a nice network of other entrepreneurs.
Everyone's facing this.
Everyone seems to be down on what they would have hoped to be.
Their ROAS is off.
Do we want to bullishly push through that and do it anyway?
Do we want to like kind of cut back until we see this sort of all level out?
Because it's got to level out because Facebook's whole entire business is built on it.
Their whole model is built on advertising.
But the ability to really think through the implications of your decisions today
without feeling like it's an incrimination is another benefit of having them as investors.
And so I picked people with a lot of experience
in in in various areas so like Brian is is a consumer products like kind of expert uh and
sort of at the publicly traded level Volition's e-commerce experience was really interesting to
me Goldman's had a very interesting portfolio lately so I picked people who like actually if
they had something to say it was like based in information.
And so you and Hamish are co-founders.
Hamish is CEO and you're president.
Can you tell me a little bit about how that dynamic works and how your roles differ?
Yeah, I mean, I guess you just each have to pick a title and go with it. And really, I mean, it's you two against the world, right?
So I think we both work on the things we gravitate towards.
So I'm very much like an ops and finance person.
And so I like the idea of like, how are we going to make this work and managing the money side of things?
Hamish is, I would say, like a product genius. So he is really leading the R&D and development of all the products side of things. Hamish is, I would say like a product genius. So he is really
leading the R and D and development of all of the products in our business. We both sort of step
into the world of marketing, uh, whether it's like our really, you know, how do we want to be
perceived in the world? Our brand, we're both the face of this ambassador program. You know,
it's very much sort of like tagging in, tagging out. Um, and, and so I, I
think a lot of times he will, he will take a lot of the lead on a lot of creative things because
that is what brings him joy and he's good at it. And what brings me joy equally is like I shaved
10% off of our fulfillment costs because I've changed our packaging. And now you've got another million dollars that you can spend on marketing because I did that, right?
And so I think that I have a lot of joy in that.
But we also have a lot of joy when we put our heads together and think about maybe big picture things.
Like, you know, we did this Call of Duty partnership last year where we did a limited edition of the brush and it benefited,
um, uh, veterans finding meaningful employment, uh, after they were deployed. And we had a really fun time working on the camo patterns together for the brush. And like we, you know, how scaled
in and scaled out. And so we kind of finally got to the, this is the pattern. And so we do,
I think we really vibe off of each other
creatively. But the, but the reality is that a lot of times, you know, when we were young,
we would be, so we've never had an office for our business. That's been another big,
very important. Wow. It's fully remote since day one. Wow. We always felt that women were the most
underutilized part of the workforce and being, forcing them into offices was a way to keep that going.
You know, a lot of our staff are women with children or single mothers,
and it's as simple as, like, I don't have to leave here.
Like, my child care situation just doesn't really work for that.
Like, I take my kid to school, and and i pick them up and that's at seven and
at 2 30 i'm brilliant i'm amazing at my job uh but i need this break at seven and at 2 30 and
and they are the most amazing productive like i'll take my team of moms over your team of like
young single urbanites all day every day what they do in a day would like put most people to shame.
We feel the same about the moms on our team. When they're out working, they have so much time.
And the dads too. So we have, I mean, I'm not naysaying the males on our team. It's just,
it's sort of the idea started with the working mother.
And how many people are at the company?
So full time, we are at, in the sixties. And then we probably have, because we do a lot of outsourcing, probably like 200 people who work at agencies, but we're there at count full time, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
And so we, you know, we used to live on each other's computer screens.
Like he would be, and I would be in like the upper right-hand corner in Zoom or FaceTime.
And like nine hours a day, we were in every together then as you grow and grow and grow you spend less
and less time together and I think that's probably been one of the hardest parts it's like one of our
favorite things about doing this business is working with each other and our success has like
pulled us apart that he's got to do this seven hours of meetings and I have to do this seven
and maybe if we get an hour at the same meeting in a day, that would be fine. But that's probably been the hardest part for us.
Yeah.
That's really similar to mine and Danielle's roles.
And like when we were first starting, we're Googling, what is that role versus that role?
And what we realized is there is no job description.
It's what you both gravitate towards, what you enjoy.
You divide and conquer.
You pick a title.
And it constantly evolves.
Like just yesterday, we were having conversation
where danielle was saying i actually want to do more of this stuff and i was like well i want to
like go of this part and take on this part and it's like great well we can do that we can rewrite
it and we can like always be tag teaming um i'm really curious when you mentioned that remote
team because you obviously have such a long large. Is there anything specific you've implemented in the company
that you think has really supported the virtual work and culture?
So we're really fun with our Slack and really intentional.
So we do town halls like once a month, like what's going on at Burst.
So department heads are like, here's what you can expect in development.
Here's what you can expect in product.
Here's what you can expect in marketing. Here's what you can expect in product. Here's what you can expect in marketing.
So everyone always knows what's going on.
We have a channel called Burst Bytes.
And anytime somebody is like launching something, premiering something, debuting something, they give this rundown in Burst Bytes.
And it's almost like a Twitter feed that like, here's what's new.
We just launched this deal for children's toothbrushes.
I love that.
And so everyone, and it's your job to know what happened on burst bites
you can't be like i didn't know that if it was on burst bites like you need to know it
so i like that you know that expectation yeah i'm right i don't want to hear that you didn't
know that we were having a special on bundles for children's toothbrushes this month it was
yeah how often do you do the first bites anytime something happens right so it's
it's this it's this live feed so like as I was pulling up, Jeanette and my team let everybody know that we've launched a new email campaign for people whose credit cards have expired.
Got it.
Here's a link to the three emails that they're going to get.
Everyone should be aware of that.
Do we have one of these?
We should have a credit card expiration automation.
Oh, we do have that.
And so we recently re-jugged it, like made it, you know.
I love that.
That's the situation.
Yeah.
And so we also have made time to have in-person event type things.
Okay.
So when we are going to a dental show, we say, you know, whoever's local, let's do that.
We, you know, before COVID, we had BurstCon, which was like our big annual party for our top ambassadors and all of our employees. And it has been historically a really good time.
I love that.
So we did New Orleans for the first year, Savannah for the second year. And then this
year we're doing employees only because we're still having some COVID and liability issues. So
we're doing Scottsdale, Arizona in September.
Sounds like a really fun company that you're building.
It is. Hamish and I like to have a good time yeah like I don't want to underestimate that like
we work very hard but like we also like to play yeah you've got to enjoy it at the same time right
it's like otherwise you feel like oh I'm gonna be happy or I'm gonna enjoy my life when I've
exited this company and I've even missed half your life like yeah I think that money isn't the
punchline for Hamish and I right so like I think a lot of people are living for this, like, big fat payday at the end of the rainbow.
Yeah, that's my, I have to do that.
That's my imperative.
I took venture capital.
But along the way, we wanted to build something that had real value in people's lives.
I mean, everyone's, you know, I'm in a lot of people's bathrooms.
I'm the first thing they do in the morning.
You breathe the other day at night.
And I'm the last thing you do at night.
And it's an intimate thing.
Yeah.
So you shared that you started the business in 2017.
And you actually have a nine-month-old.
So I'm very curious how this fit into the plan of starting a business, raising, and then having a baby.
So there was no plan for the
baby right he just uh he had a plan yeah he had a plan to exist baby knew what he was doing yeah
so I got pregnant in January of last year and so like you know you don't really tell anybody that
you're pregnant until you're 12 weeks along because, you know, one in four women will have a miscarriage in that, in that time period. So if you think about that timeline,
right, I would have been telling people that I'm pregnant, uh, like March 13th, which is like the
day that COVID was shut, shutting down the whole country. And I remember I was in late stage
diligence with Goldman Sachs at the time.
And I felt like I really had this sort of moral dilemma, which is, you know, this business needs this money in order to continue to achieve its goals.
But like, I felt kind of crummy to not say something to them.
And so I did.
I said, you know, before you you give like they had signed the documents
and we're gonna like fund me and I said before you do that I I want you to know this I don't
I don't think it's a credible threat to the business anyway I am extraordinarily prepared
for this um but it felt like I should tell you and I don't know and I don't know if I made the
right like I didn't do I wouldn't take this as wisdom to do it.
There's arguments on both sides.
I can literally see that.
I made the decision that was right for me.
I felt, so I'm also another sort of unique thread
of our business is that all of our venture capital
has been sourced by women.
So Mary Kate was the partner at Volition
who called me to talk about Burst.
And Alison at Goldman was who called me to talk about Burst. at Goldman, uh, was who called me to talk about
burst. And so it's really interesting that my journey from a venture capital has been a female
led journey, which you will never hear from people much, much less through multiple rounds.
So I felt like I had developed this like real relationship with Allison over the time of
diligence. Cause the first time I had talked to her was at Christmas of the, of the year prior.
And it felt like not only was I wanting her to be on my board
and my advocate, I felt like I was, you know, this is someone I could see myself having relationship
with for the rest of my life. How might she feel if she felt like I was like trying to get one over
on her. So for me, I really, that decision was about Allison and my relationship with her is
that I wanted it to be a relationship of truth and friendship. And she was so thankful that I was just like so direct with her.
And so I did all of last year.
I mean, we had amazing results for the business.
We closed our Series C.
And I did it all alone and pregnant.
And that was not what I would have thought my starting a family journey looked like.
But then you talk to other women who are successful, who have their kids and it's just like, there is no good time. Yep. The time is when the,
the two blue lines. Yeah. That's the time. That's the time. Now that's your time. You figure it out.
And so it has been, it's been an adjustment, right? There, you find new ways of doing things
that you used to do, but you, I don't know, I felt this extraordinary clarity.
Like once I knew I was like for certain pregnant and like felt safe that it would continue to be a pregnancy.
And it was like right as we got funded.
And I had this like almost like tunnel vision clarity of purpose.
Like I've got two things to do this year.
I got to grow this business and grow this baby.
And everything else is nonsense and garbage.
And I've never been,
I've never felt so free in my life to just be like, no, was it, is it one or is it two? Is it
growing this baby? Is this growing this business? Oh, nope. Can't do it. Like I just never felt so
comfortable in the know of whatever it is that anyone was asking me for my entire life. Cause
I had two things to do and I was going to do them. And it almost felt like
this clarity of, of, of life that I had never had before. I think you kind of wonder,
when am I going to do this? It all felt so clear to me. And I think it was reflected in
my baby's a very chill baby and we had a really good 2020. I mean, we, we did well. Uh, and we had a really good 2020 I mean we we did well uh and we I did the two things I was
supposed to do and was there a hard um kind of balance of being pregnant and did you have any
sickness or were you tired while also trying to show up to all these meetings I didn't have the
tiredness as much as the sickness and again it goes back to having like these relationships and
so if you think about the time leading up to this, like, you know, I'm like this
eat, sleep, breathe, ride or die co-founder. And I think every employee we have knows that
like there isn't a minute of the day that I'm not working. So there, there was, there's
nothing but support. And I just had a few mornings of just real, really bad morning
sickness. And so like I have this regroup with
Jose, who's my chief of staff and Hamish. And I say, Hey guys, this is what I'm detecting
from like seven 30 to eight 30 feels like the time that if I'm going to be throwing up,
that's when I'm going to be throwing up. Yeah. So we shifted my whole day back an hour. There
will be no calls before eight 30 and my whole day shifted back an hour and just so I wouldn't feel like oh god
like I have to like be on this call but maybe I'm sick I had like a good solid four months of
morning sickness oh um and you just like you're sick and then you're fine yeah and then the
tiredness kind of same thing I think it was the all the other things I would do with my time the
answer was just no like I'm done working I am going to sleep now
yeah it could be 6 p.m or 9 p.m or whatever but no one is allowed to want anything from me right
now and I was really okay with that level of selfishness like I hear you I get that you need
me I don't have anything to give you yeah I love hearing that and I also just love how open and
willing you are to share the journey because I feel like you don't hear it often enough like as I think about starting family I'm looking for those
examples and like the realness I'm like no one's telling me how they did this and I'm worried I
think it's just again dialogue and plan so like Hamish I mean I'm so lucky he's he's the godfather
of my son like he is he is like family to me and so in his mind like a family member's having a bit like what are we going to do
here and and and I was no less productive I would say I was even more productive because I was just
so focused. Do you feel like it gave you more purpose? 100% and I felt this sort of also the
burden of like I gotta show the world that all this crazy stuff you hear about women, like,
you know, having a baby or being pregnant, like you're wrong and you're an idiot. And I'm going
to show you. And so actually I never, I never announced that I, I never, I wasn't on social
media. Most people didn't know I was pregnant. And I made that very conscious decision that my
pregnancy wasn't going to be part of the dialogue. it yeah it's going to be the topic that you were going into no it's almost like an afterthought like oh yeah and
I'm pregnant yeah yeah yeah no we beat last quarter by 100% but yeah and I'm pregnant and yeah and so
question on that because you you mentioned you've got a chief of staff um and we've also talked and
you mentioned you have support at child care support what kind of support do you have around you that you feel really supports you and being able to be focused in whatever you're
doing at the time I think I think you need good child care and anyone who's going to tell you
otherwise is a liar right like babies that small require constant attention like Like you just, you can't. And so I have a nanny, I had a night nurse,
right? So what is the make or break for a lot of women is sleep. Yeah. And so I was due in October,
which is like Q4 city, which is where we do 50% of our revenue. Um, and I knew that like being
sleep deprived, wasn't going to work. So that, you know, it's, it's an expense.
It's a tremendous expense, right?
It's kind of an investment.
It's 100% was an investment.
Um, we needed me in Q4.
Like, so, you know, I took like two weeks to like kind of be offline, but then I was
like back online.
And so the night nurse was really key for me in that there's a really big difference
between getting two hours of sleep at night and four hours I can do it on four I cannot do it on
two yeah and so like having that person who could do it was just the little stuff like he you know
if he would have a cluster feed in the night I wouldn't have to get out of bed she'd just
hand them to me so I could feed but you're still waking up though right you're kind of dead you're
like I
remember there was definitely like feedings where my eyes were closed and she's just holding the
baby to me and I'm like um so that's easier than getting getting out of bed and if you think about
the time to get out of bed to change a diaper and also like you don't know what you're doing
yeah and and here's this expert who's like that's a hunger cry that you know and so and your baby's
safe you're probably not lying in bed so. And your baby's safe.
You're probably not lying in bed, like worried about your baby.
Yeah.
Like basically paying someone so that I can sleep.
Yeah.
And that was the right choice for me.
Again, some people have family who can do that for them.
But remember, we were in the middle of a pandemic.
Yeah.
No one was vaccinated.
My parents are older um that that wasn't didn't feel like an appropriate ask to versus like a nurse who quarantined for three weeks before she came and was at and stayed at my
home you know so I had a night nurse I had a day nanny I have a nanny now who's phenomenal her
name's Megan I know she'll listen to this and be really excited. Yay, hi, Megan. And Megan cares about my kid like I care about my kid, right?
Like, she'll text me throughout the day, like, hey, that poop looked really great.
Like, you know, these are the things you talk about.
And so this great support group.
My husband's phenomenal, too.
Like, he is, like, a fair share kind of dad.
Yeah.
And, you know, just, like, the little things of, things of okay like I'll do all the bottles
dishes or you know what I mean like especially in those early days like whatever you needed
so there is this adjustment period but you it's it's like being this it's like being the CEO of
a business and this business is the baby right you got a new set of employees it's like a new
department in your business oh my god wait that's such a way of thinking yeah that's so interesting
and so I love that I'm not here that's how I thought about it right which is that he's got
needs those needs need to be met here's the time that I you know and I would take a you know because
I work from home I don't want to give him a hug and a kiss I'll go and get a snack give him a hug
and a kiss and like yeah sort of feeling my presence there when they're really little they
sleep a lot yeah and now he's at this phase right where like the day is so planned like i wake up we do the feeding um
we go get a coffee and i walk the dog and he's in the stroller and then the nanny gets there and i
get to work and then he naps usually from like 9 to 11 or 9 to 10 30 then he's got his wake window
then there's another nap then uh an hour after that i, the nanny's gone and I'm on mom duty.
And so I'll be mom from like 4 to 7.
Yeah.
Then he goes to bed.
And then I get back to work.
Yeah.
And then maybe I go to bed at like 10.
Got it.
It's like every minute of your day is planned at this phase.
And, you know, the first six months are hard.
And then month six got easier.
Then month seven got easier.
But it's like you're just regimented.
Yeah.
And you and your husband are both incredibly successful individually.
So you're both crushing it.
How did that dynamic change where you're like, I'm growing a baby or I'm breastfeeding baby.
I'm also running a company.
Your husband's doing that.
Did you have to change dynamics to make sure you had space for each other? Was there times where you're like, you know what? We don't
have space for each other. How did that work? I mean, I think there's just been hard moments,
especially I think a lot of people don't talk about the postpartum emotional issues that you
have. Yeah. And it's really weird. It's like you're, you're two people, right? Business,
Brittany, I don't have emotions about my business.
I'm not in love with my business, right?
And so, like, I've never had emotional issues at work because it's like.
You're rational.
It's just, is this going to make us money?
No, then let's not do it.
Is this going to be fun?
Yes, then let's do it.
But then you have these emotional things kind of going on.
And really, you know, very honestly, my husband was the brunt of
those. And I think he would find himself in conversations where he was like,
I don't know what's happening. What's she talking about? I feel very nervous at this moment.
So I think this readjusting to this new identity, which is mom and dad. You've got to give each other space to be imperfect.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, we had moments where we didn't do a good enough job of doing that.
Like, where he can't possibly fathom what I'm going through, right?
Like, there's, like, hormones in your body and this overwhelming feeling of love
and that you should be doing everything yourself.
And breastfeeding is, like, a full contact Olympic sport too.
Like you've got to eat all the time.
And my kid's big.
Like he's like 100 percentile high in weight and he ate like a hundred.
It's like 40 hours a week or something you spend breastfeeding.
It's like a full-time job.
It felt like, I mean, I would, and so when I was still breastfeeding,
like when they have their night feedings, right, you go to bed and then four hours later they're up.
And you're feeding them.
Oh, my God.
And then four hours later they're up.
And you're feeding them and you're up and almost like setting an alarm.
And then even if you're not feeding and you let the night nurse do it and then you're pumping because you've got to keep your milk up.
And so that's like this time commitment. commitment so I'd say that in some ways we're the least romantic we've ever been but in other ways
we're the most because there's also this sort of like this like we created something together and
it's so powerful but our romance like is in different ways right like on Saturday night so
we we don't have a nanny this week because her her husband tested positive for COVID right so
we're kind of like tag teaming it we had plans to go on a date Saturday night and instead we like made dinner and ate on these little trays and we watched
this uh Apple TV plus show trying which is so cute you guys should watch it but like I don't know I
felt so romantic in this moment like our baby's asleep and we're just kind of commuting on the
couch and so like it just it takes we took we've been together for a long time 15 years and so we
were together for a really long time before we had a baby.
And so we've done all the things.
Yeah.
Like, trust me, like all the things.
And maybe even a victory lap on the things.
So we aren't like, oh, God, if only I could have done this.
Like, that's not kind of where we're at.
Yeah.
We spent a long time doing the things.
I love that.
And so I have a final question for you
because what you've accomplished
and the team you've grown,
everything is so incredible.
We were kind of chatting about this
before the podcast.
I'm really curious what lessons
you've learned in leadership,
leading a team,
things that have worked really well for you.
Okay, I think a couple um i never i always i open every conflict with a
question instead of a an accusation if you will oh what's an example of that example yeah
can you explain to me what happened here it's a really great starting point because you're not attacking somebody, which you're not going to get anywhere, right?
So in opening up with, can you explain to me what went on here?
You're probably going to get a better understanding of where this misstep came from.
And you're going to actually get information that you can use to do something, whether it's improve a person or improve a process.
And if you don't come from a place of blame to start with,
you get a lot more honesty, I would say.
Got it.
I think that's a big one.
Two, I'm not like an angry person.
Like even like when I'm mad, it's like a very cold mad.
So when I, even if I feel like I could get frustrated I don't and I think that that has
reinforced this very strong trust bond with with people who work with me so that when I
when it is time to tell them something that maybe they don't want to hear they know that I would
never say something to them that was not true. Like there's like a very strong trust, especially like everybody who's like a manager and executive,
that I come from a real place of honesty.
And even if you ask me something really hard
and even if it's awkward to tell you the truth about it, I will.
And so I think being someone who does what you say you're going to do
and always answers people from a place of truth gives you this credibility as a leader that you can't use the power tools all the time.
There's this famous book from Harvard Business Review on managing yourself where the author's like, you know, if you have to take your power tools out all the time, they're going to melt down.
It's just much easier to lead with like soft power which is
like it's what i expect from myself and this is what i expect from you and if you can't rise to
that then we've got to yeah to think about something else and then i think i think you
also learn a lot from your missteps like can't make i always say to hamish like you can't make
an apple and orange people are who they are and you cannot change that, whatever that means.
And so you have to think about what are they capable of within the boundaries of who they are as a person.
And you can't make them someone different or something different.
So I think that we've had some missteps where we've tried that to make someone do a role that they're not right for
or expect them to grow past where they're at in their own growth curve so i think that's another one um and also i guess the last one is
just like if you're really feeling something strongly you're almost always right you'll you'll
find a million ways to not believe yourself yeah we find millions of ways not to believe ourselves
until we're like we can't ignore this feeling anymore and then as soon as we act on it we're like oh funny we've done that six months ago no exactly like i think you you i don't to be the naysayer
you almost like have this like voice of doubt but really there's a reason you feel that way
you're not you're not where you're at and done what you've done without having learned something
and so like you're you're like your lizard brain is a pattern recognizing something that is not feeling good to you yeah and you don't you don't even need a reason because guess what
like if you're the boss you can just say no and like you don't have to remember that i have to
remember it all the time we're like i forget i'm the boss or just that like hey i don't want to do
that yeah and that's okay and i actually don't have to explain that to anybody. Yeah. Oh, we could do with this.
No, with a full stop.
No, with no explanation.
No period.
No period.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
I think this is one of my favorite interviews
that we've ever done on the podcast actually.
Yeah, that's so good.
Yeah, I really appreciate your openness
and vulnerability and willingness
to like really go there
and maybe talk about things
other people aren't talking about. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Love it. This is amazing. Thank you.
Where can everyone find you? Where can you buy that? Um, burstoralcare.com is, uh, is where
you will find all things burst. And then my Instagram is Brittany underscore burst.
Love it. Thank you. Bye.