Appodjaye production.
It's a mystery what we're talking about. We have no idear. Our podcast producer is taken control.
I'm gonna ask you the hard hitting questions that I think people want to know, but it's gonna make you really uncomfortable.
Oh my gosh.
Wow. Okay, please do it, okay.
Question number one, how lucrative is social media? And which is the best money making platform for you?
It's YouTube?
For me, it's Snapchat. Yeah, Instagram is more paid sponsorships.
Would you say though, that your Instagram sponsorships pay more though than Snapchat?
Yes, but a lot of brand's book a package that's Snapchat and Instagram. Okay, but like week to week, I make money off Snapchat just for being on there. You make money from YouTube videos for just creating videos.
And I get paid more for my sponsorships on YouTube too, because it only longer yees that needs to gree in them and they're there forever, Whereas like a story's gone in twenty four.
And snapchats only just started paying creators and there's only one hundred and fifty of us Australia wide that are getting paid. And in America you have to have over fifty thousand subscribers to get on the Creative Fund.
How much money do you make for.
Just those platforms, not including like love Elesros and Grow and Glow and stuff like that, like six figures plus.
Yeah, definitely through covid, my influencer work was just making more than my businesses.
Yeah, that's carried my business through hard times.
Yeah.
I once got offered a lot of money. I think it was like fifteen thousand dollars to promote this big dial doo or really and I've said it before, but I don't like big hard. It was this huge, like hard, big dildo and they wanted like a YouTube video an exclusive one Instagram. And back then too, I just wasn't very open with my sexuality in my sex life, and
I was just like nope. But yeah, it's definitely a huge industry now, so there's definitely a lot of money to be made, but it ebbs and flows, hey, like sometimes it's not really there. And then podcasting, I mean we didn't make any money last year. We paid we paid for Yeah, we just had no idea about sponsorships or anything like that. This year will earn money for being on podcasts, which is pretty cool.
So would you say you're welcome, by the way, would you say, Katie and Jay, would you say you could make aside from your other brands, if you just did social media only, you could make it very comfortable.
Yes, we could easily live off the online money very comfortably. For sure.
Has there been a particularly stressful situation where you've gone, let's just pack it all in and do a nine to five God?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So many times.
Can you think of an example?
Just highly stressful times, like financially trying to hold everything together. And I think especially with having love Ellis Rose, there's just so much output and you work so hard for it. There's so much involved, even in the back end that people wouldn't really probably think about social media, don't know, or maybe sometimes the trolls when I'm just like fuck it, I'm over hearing shit.
But when you put all that investment for that stock, when you were just going to do your own decbs, that was a big time for you.
Yeah, that was hundreds of thousands of dollars that we invested in that when it was right before like everything started to really shift with the RBA rate rises and we were like, oh my gosh, and everything with COVID got delayed, so it was meant to come like a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there, all turned up at once. We had hundreds of thousand dollars of stock that we had to move and we're like, oh my gosh. So yeah, it was a stressful time
for sure, But that is business. And I think sometimes people think, you know, you're making this money, you're doing these things, but like, fuck, there's a lot of risk involved, and you know, you never know how long everything's gonna last for and just enjoy and be grateful for the seasons that you're in, and.
You're always putting back into the business. Like you get an amazing launch, and then your next two collections, the down payment's due, and then the full payment's due, and then the shipping. It's I feel like you're always putting back in and people don't realize that. But yeah, there's definitely been times where I've just gone, this is just too hard. I've just not made out for this. And I've always said it and I'll still say it now. I would not be running a business if I didn't
have the support of my husband. I'm not made to run a business by myself. I don't think I have not putting myself down, but I just don't think I have the mental capacity and the knowledge and the skill set that he does. We work really well together because we've both got such strengths and weaknesses. But I had
a business partner for Baseline. They had their own, hugely successful streetwear brand, and then when they sold and I had a new business partner, we bought our share off them, and that was a lot of money to buy that out, and then we also had to pay for the next six months worth of stock, so it was just so much money in and up.
It was just such a huge risk.
I remember Steve sitting down and just be like, I will support you with everything you want to do, but are you are one hundred percent sure you are all in because we are going all in, baby, and you need to be fully committed. And I was like, yes, I mean, like, let's do it. Nothing else I want to do. I'm prepared for the risk. But it's so scary. And that's why I always say owning a business is not for the faint hearted. It's not for people that
are not risk takers. You have to be risk taken to be an entrepreneur, you can't have certainty as your highest need.
Yeah, and we can take those big risks sometimes flop.
And a lot of people thrive, Like Steve not so much now he's gotten older with children, but before that, I feel like he would thrive on the uncertainty. Certainty was like the last of his priorities. He would thrive and like get off on the uncertainty of like risking and our business. Over the years, it's done really, really well, so we have been able to take some big risk But for me growing up, certainty was a high need of mine. My mum's got a very scarcity mindset around money.
So I feel like I'm nicely balanced now and so is Steve. But yeah, you have to be quite a risk taker and be prepared for real high highs and really low lows.
Yeah.
Have any of those risks been so extreme that you potentially could have lost everything?
Oh?
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Yep. And it's so scary. And then I also like the embarrassment and shame that when you share everything online, Like, how do you explain that to your audience? Yeah, when I have those moments where I'm like, fuck, this could flop or this could not do well. How do you explain that to your audience? It's really scary, and you're putting this once again, putting yourself out there to share it all. It's fucking scary.
Hey, it's hard for people to tell, like their friends and family when they're going through hard times.
Yeah, let alone.
Like and people don't talk about this, so it's not normalized. No one talks about the hard times and the stress and even just cash flow. I never hear anyone talk about cash flong business.
It's hard.
It's so hard to understand and manage and forecast, like, it's really stressful. But I don't ever hear any business owners talk about that because I think it's the one thing most people really struggle with.
But yeah, there's definitely been times over the years. We've been in.
Business for over fifteen years now, there's definitely been moments where I'm like, fuck, yeah, this is it.
And have you had anything that you've launched or something that you've done that has been a face and potentially lost your money.
Yes, I started this bracelet brand that I had. We had an idea, so we went to Taronggazoo and I was like how annoying is it like trying to watch the kids blah blah blah. Somebody went missing, like we need to like write our number or something on them. Then we're like, what if it gets rubbed off? We just had a pence. We made bracelets with like phone numbers, so it's kind of an id bracelet when you go to it. When you go to certain places, launched it. Fucking trolls went off.
And you even't actually told me this story because I kind of assumed, but you're really emotional, so I just didn't bring it.
Up because I thought it was a cool idea. I think it's genius, but what actually happened.
People were like, what if it falls apart and my kid chokes? This is so fucking stupid. Blah blah blah. I could go make one of these for a dollar. There was so much outside noise and it got me. I was like, shut the whole fucking thing down. I paid for all the stuff I had been doing, like I redonne all the photo shoes, organized the whole thing, and I could not handle the trolls with that one.
That night, I bawled and I was like, remember, I'm like I'm just shutting it down before it even and you know, every business starts off somewhere and over the year you get better, you improve, you change things. But it was like I was just so fucking slammed, and there was so much outside noise, and I was like, this is not worth my mental health.
Cyon. You know what broke my heart with that was when I was crying to Steve.
Actually that night you went online made you cry now, but you went on and you were like, oh, you've won, and I was like so angry.
I'm getting so much.
I was like so angry that they had won because you I thought this side team was great and I'd seen the work that you put in. I just hate if outside noise fucking Karen's like.
Do get the better of us?
Because we work so hard on everything that we do and put so much money and time and sacrifice so much. And that night you launched to be like an hour or too late. They won or it was like no, And even Steve's like, oh, I wish you didn't even go on and say that, because they get what they want and now they're feeding off that, you know, they go into the forums. And I was so like upset and I was like, you fuck is I didn't and
just so protective as her best friend. I was like, you fuckers like and it was nothing that I could do. Like you know when you're get in that warrior like protector kind of energy. I feel that with you online because I know how hard it can be. And I was so upset and that was never in a place at the time you were going through it. I was going through it, and I was like and that's why I never even bought it up again, because I was just like, this is just too much. But I was
really angry at the time. Now the emotions coming up, I'm.
Actually annoyed looking back at myself because I had really good ideas for the future and how I wanted to but anyway, I was just like, yeah, not worth it.
We opened a cafe and we went into partnership with another couple and we invested all the money in. We didn't have the time to run the cafe, but we invested all the money into the cafe and they were to run it and it was all fifty to fifty split share and one of the owners who was like the main chef and organized that, she literally decided one day she's not going to turn up and go to work anymore. It was too much for her, so she left, like all our staff, all these customers, everything to run,
and just never came back. And we were like, you can't just walk out on a business, but we couldn't contact her, and her partner was like obviously really apologetic. He came in and tried to sort it out and everything, but very quickly we had to close it down and we lost a lot of money. And I felt so embarrassed that this had failed. But it wasn't my forte. I never wanted to work in the cafe. I had my gym, I had other things going on, and I didn't have the skill set to even run a cafe.
But it was just like so much went into it and it was closed down pretty quickly afterwards. And was
so disappointed in how that worked out. But it was just so many lessons and that like if you go into business with someone, you really have to know them so well, know their strength, know their weaknesses, talk about worst case scenarios, discuss so many finances, and I think we just jumped into it like with too much excitement and like, oh fuck, what's the worst that can happen, and it just felt so good at the time, but not really knowing them well enough, and obviously she had
her own stuff going on, and like, you know, looking back, have so much compassion for whatever was happening for her, and we want to know what it's like when you're overwhelmed. So it's fine, I don't hold any anger or guilt, but the time.
It was like fuck.
And then I had to jump online and explain all of this. I felt like it just landed back on me because no one looks at who's behind the business. They just look at the face of and it was like, ash, she's cleaned in cafe. So I definitely think that was probably my biggest family in business. But when it comes to products and things, most things that I've done have done really, really well, and I'm really proud of that.
Have you ever had moments of going last month was great?
But fuck?
Look at this month? Oh yeah, all the time?
The first quarter of every year, yeah, well yeah every time, and every time, even Steve this year, we're talking about it and I'm like he was stressing about something. We were just discussing something, and I'm like, this even's every year.
It's always the first quarter. And he's doing this online course and there's thousands of other business owners that do this course and they all talk together in this forum, and he's like ninety five percent of them all in this community chat just talking about how hard it is
right now. Yeah, every single business owner is struggling and sales a lot, and you're coming off the back end of Black Friday and Christmas sales and Boxing Day sales and everyone's gone on holidays and spent all their money.
So that jan February is just really quiet.
But we don't is living too so high.
But you do see it pick up in quarter two. Quarter three is amazing. Yeah, in quarter four it was like okay, but around that Black Friday is what a lot of businesses base like their whole business around. Now they plan it out and that's like the biggest one where they make so much money.
But yeah, the first quarter, I.
Feel is just every year I feel like I like no, and then you're.
Like, oh, I forgot what this is like.
Yeah, last year, Steve and I like put different things in place for Hideaway, particularly to help support that harder period.