The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 152: The Top 4 Most Successful Stories From Women in Business!

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

This moment is a compilation of some of the most successful women to ever appear on The Diary Of A CEO, discussing the biggest hurdles that women have to overcome on the road to success. Karen Brady CBE, former managing director of Birmingham City F.C tells how on her first away game, it wasn’t believed that she could have a place in the boardroom and was mistaken for a player's wife or partner. Ever since, she has been driven to show the importance of true equality of treatment for people. Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, says that one of the key reasons for Bumble’s success in a crowded dating app market was that it aimed at women and what they wanted, compared to all the other apps which ignored women to focus on male customers. Trinny Woodall, CEO of Trinny London, says that by starting a successful business in mid life, it proves that age is just a number and that energy alongside trusting yourself and your ideas is everything. Finally, Reshma Saujani, CEO of Girls Who Code, believes women have been sold the propaganda that they aren’t good or smart enough, and are left doubting their own abilities. Instead, she says that women have to say no and believe that they are deserving of success now. Listen to the full episodes here- Karen- https://g2ul0.app.link/qtWXktE5LHb Whitney- https://g2ul0.app.link/r3nkxZv5LHb Trinny- https://g2ul0.app.link/irHxG1y5LHb Reshma- https://g2ul0.app.link/8EC3scH5LHb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Karen- https://www.instagram.com/karren_brady_official/ Whitney- https://www.instagram.com/whitney/ Trinny- https://www.instagram.com/trinnywoodall/ Reshma- https://www.instagram.com/reshmasaujani/

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. But I think it kind of brings me on to a wider point about and as you say the reason why you're in saudi is this battle that i know you've had through your career with men kind of underestimating you or sexism which i guess started when you first got the job at birmingham yeah i mean i remember my first um away game i think it was watford and i turned up and I said oh hi could you tell me where the

boardroom is and this little old boy little steward on the desk he went oh director's wives over there and I said it's interesting but where where is the boardroom and he said dear you don't understand the director's wives go in the ladies room and I said no I don't think it's you understands I am the managing director so I want to know where the boardroom is and this little boy put his little glasses on he went oh yes he said yes you're that woman stay here and I'll find out what to do with you because there were no other women in football so there was never a woman in the boardroom and women weren't you know weren't welcome in in boardrooms because it was meant to be the place where the directors all met and of course they were all men and I remember thinking that it was the very first

door I'd kicked down and I was determined that I would keep that door open as wide and as long as possible to get as many other women through as possible and that is something I've spent my last 30 years doing it's really important to me it's really important important that there is a sense of equality and equal pay and equal respect for everything that you do, regardless of where you're from, what sex you are, what your beliefs are, how you look, where you're educated. Equality is very important to me. Why do you think it's so important to you in particular? I think because, look, at 23, I was given the challenge and chance of a lifetime. And I took that. And I knew that that started with someone having trust

in me. And I knew that there were so many talented people out there that didn't have someone that had that trust in them. And I wanted to be that person going back to the question which I kind of took us off on a tangent away from um about why you think Bumble won um or was successful was able to break through into that very small category of dating apps or your dating sites where there's really only like a handful of real players why I know, you know, I have to say something. I know that the other dating apps, because I was sometimes

in the room, tried to launch dating apps of themselves. So they took their existing network, they tried to launch a new dating app into it and it didn't work.

Yeah. I've seen it happen over and over again. I know Michelle. Yeah, she's great. She's one of the people I used to work with when we were doing

the marketing at Purdue. Oh, really? Yeah. I think what she's done is awesome. Yeah, I's great. She's one of the people I used to work with when we were doing the marketing at Purdue. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think what she's done is awesome. Yeah, I love Peanut. It's great. But I know it's not easy and I know it's not chance

and I know it's not luck because I've seen, I can't tell you at Social Chain, how many times we had dating apps come to us and say, can you do our marketing? Maybe 200 times? There's 5,000 dating apps in the app store. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's almost impossible to start a new one because of the

network effects and all of those things. It's impossible. Impossible. So why you? How you? How? Every other dating product until Bumble had been solving for the wrong side of the coin. They've been thinking about men. That's all. They woke up in the morning and thought about how to make a dating app good for guys. And they had it backwards. Why are you solving for men when this is all about what women need and what women want. No one was asking women, you think women want to get abused on the internet?

Think again. Like find me a woman that enjoys being harassed on a dating app, not one. But for some reason, that problem didn't strike anyone as a problem. So it's not that hard to say, wait a second, this is a double-sided marketplace. This product can't survive without women, yet we're exploiting and degrading women on a lot of these products, not naming any names. What? And so for me, it was all about taking that

original concept of Merci, a kind space for women, a safe space for women. And to Andre's push, got to give him some credit for being so interested in dating, right? I was so turned off of dating. I wanted nothing to do with dating. When Andre was like, oh, let's do a dating, come be my CMO. I was like, first of all, I'm not for hire. I'm starting my own company. I must be founder and CEO of whatever I do next. I cannot work for someone. I have to be my CMO. So first of all, I'm not for hire. I'm starting my own company. I must be founder and CEO of whatever I do next. I cannot work for someone. I just, I have to be my own boss. And, um, you know, I got to give him a lot of credit because he trusted that. And he said, okay, do whatever you want to do. But it just, my one stipulation is it has to be in dating because I know dating

and I want to get behind a dating product. So when I was sitting there, you know, we were, we had kind of agreed to, okay, we're going to do this dating app. What's it going to be? What about Merci? I want it to be Merci. I want it to be about women and I want to be women only. I want safety and kindness and accountability. There's no internet spaces for women. Nothing's been built for women. We have to do this for women. And then it kind of just all clicked. And I sat there and within literally minutes, it all just wrote itself. I said, wait a second. I know the problem. Women don't go first. Men do. Men message as many women as they can. Women are getting inundated. They never respond. The lack of response is causing a rejection and the rejection is triggering

an aggression. And that aggression is now translating into harassment. And this is why women are being abused on the dating apps, because if only they would go first, the man wouldn't feel rejected. They'd feel empowered. It would totally calibrate this whole experience. And I said, okay, great. I know what we're going to do. Women have to talk first on this product and they only have 24 hours to do it. I knew nobody else could conceptualize the way I would explain it. So I was like, thanks, Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage. And men can send one extend on time of day to capture their attention if they want to. Now we have to also call out something. This was back in 2014 in a very heterosexual oriented dating app experience. The landscape has evolved. We have to be inclusive to

all. And so of course we are. And of course we are currently, as we speak, spending countless time and putting all of our heart and soul into how to make the experience better for non-binary, for the trans community, for anybody that identifies as a woman as well. And so that's a big portion of the future, but that was really how I would say we became successful because of two things. Women, making sure that we were solving for women's real problems on the internet. Marketing to women. So when I went back to those sororities and fraternities, instead of going in with whatever we had gone in at Tinder, I went in with things for women. I went in with items women wanted, cute yellow cookies. Like I understood that we are going to build a cute brand, not a sexy brand.

And that's what set us apart. I wanted it to feel warm and cozy and inviting and soft and feminine and safe. And that's the beginning and still the current through line of Bumble. You know, starting a business like that at 53, a lot of people have a, like a stigma or a stereotype that you can't start a business in midlife. You know, you shouldn't be doing that at that point or that, you know, you won't be able to raise,

you know, all of those kinds of stigmas around starting a business in midlife. Crap. Crap, yeah. Total crap. I started a business at 16 called, what was my first business? Bose Unlimited. When I was at school, I sold hair bows.

I know. And then I started a business at 53. So it's like, there's no other way to put it, that age is a number. It is just a fucking number. And you can either mention that number endlessly or you can look at what energy do you have at that moment in time to execute on your dream. That's all you need.

Energy. All you need. Well, you need a lot. But you know, you need to feel that. You need energy, passion, drive, relentlessness, perseverance, resilience. Pick yourself up and just get fucking on with it. You need all of those things, but you need the energy so that you jump out of bed in the morning and you are on it. Did it take time for you to cultivate that in the past after Johnny had passed? Because I did already two before and for that I did 18-hour days for two and a half years. It's

in me that. I've been a grafter for quite a long time. You'd been mulling this idea for many, many, many years and then you finally put it into action I heard you say I started pitching in 2014 and it took me three years to launch yeah I'd say pitching 2013 I think and what were you pitching I was pitching what was the elevator pitch the elevator pitch was to create portable, cream-based, personalised makeup for women, 35 plus. And how was that pitch received? I did 48 pitches before one person fit. I must have sent 300 emails.

What kind of negative feedback did you get? Oh, I had lots. I had, you don't have enough followers. Fine. I had like, I think 50,000 followers. I had your two old startup business. I had who's going to really run the business. Classic. Oh, that's a nice one. I love that one. You live in this Neverland. It's not like it's never going to happen, but it's never going to happen. But you don't put words to either. You sit like this place.

And I had that feeling. I thought, are people ever going to get it? But I thought, I'm never going to give up. So they both sat side by side, really strongly. Why didn't you give up?

Because I knew it was a fucking good idea and I knew it would work. I just had to find the right people who would get it. But everyone's telling you no. Everyone's telling you to. I don't care. Everyone's telling me no. I know. And I know enough and I believe in myself enough to know I right people who would get it. But everyone's telling you no, everyone's telling you to... I don't care if everyone's telling me no, I know.

And I know enough and I believe in myself enough to know, I know it's a good idea. I just know it. I just got to find somebody who has the vision to understand it. How do you know it though? Because I know women. As you look forward at your mission and your future and what you hope to achieve

in the next chapter of your life, what is that tangibly? If I had to measure success, if I was to say that all the things you write about, the change you write about in this book, if I was to measure it and say it was successful, what would the world look like? That we have true equality, you know,

that little girls can be everything and anything, honestly. You know, that they can be president or prime minister, that they can launch a company, you know, and get seed funding, that they can be a scientist, that they can literally, or they can be a stay-at-home mom, that they can be whoever and whatever that they want stay-at-home mom, that they can be whoever and whatever that they want. And I think my hope for mothers is that they too don't see their biggest dreams die on the vine, that they don't live a life of regret and envy and should have

been, would have been because they let things happen to them rather than change things. That we live in a world where we respect and we dignify women and girls. We're not there yet. You know, we're so far from being there in many ways. And I think part of it again is because of the things that we've sold women, that we've basically told women that the problem is you.

Think about all the books that women read, Confidence Code, I gotta learn how to do a power pose. I gotta lean in. All of it is about women thinking that you're wrong. The amount of times that women come to me and say, I have imposter syndrome. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. They didn't let you in.

You're in there because you are the best. But now you're made to feel like you snuck through the back door. And so what I am saying in many ways is really radical. And it's very deeply seated in us. And it's not just, it's women, it's people of color, it's poor people, anybody who is not, who has really had to do grit, perseverance,

found themselves in rooms that people don't look like them. We're still asking ourselves, do I belong here? Should I be here? And we're constantly being fed information, book, podcast, movies that tell ourselves that we just have to change one more thing about ourselves, that we have to fix one more thing. And it's just simply not true.

I always say that I feel so lucky that through the work that I've done, I've been able to be in almost every single powerful room. I've probably met every single powerful person in the world. And I used to be that girl at Yale Law School in my constitutional law class going like this. And a few years ago, I got asked to give a speech at Bill Gates' summit.

And the slot that they had given me was between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And it was the only speech that anyone was giving. It was a summit of Fortune 100 CEOs. You can imagine who was in the room. And I remember them saying, you know, this is a really hard speaking slot, Rashma, because most people are really intimidated because Bill and Warren are sitting in the front row

and it can be a little scary. And I remember as I was sitting there in the backstage, they had given me 10 minutes to speak. I remember thinking, man, I wish they gave me 12 because I really had some more stuff to say. And then I remember thinking, how did I become, how did I become this woman when I used to be that girl? And I remember thinking, yeah,

it's because I've been in every single powerful room. I've met every single CEO, every president, every prime minister. And when I meet them, I'm met every single CEO, every president, every prime minister. And when I meet them, I'm like, you? You're running what? Me and my girls, we can run circles around you. And I realized that it's never been

about whether we're qualified, whether we're prepared, whether we're ready, that we've really never really dissected all of the undeserved, unearned privilege that so many people have. And that we have literally bought and been fed, you know, basically this propaganda that we're not good enough, that we're not smart enough, that we don't belong. And the real resistance in this moment is saying no more. I'm not reading those books. I'm not taking those courses. I'm not taking that class. I'm not buying into that bullshit. I'm here and I can lead too.