Seep

I can't bl☆☆dy believe it 4 years ago, I attended the annual UKBAA ( UK British Angels Association) conference as an aspiring (small time) angel investor... ... on Wednesday night I was a finalist in the High Growth Female Founder awards (and got runner up 🙌). How'd that happen? 1. First, angel investing gave me a glimpse of the startup eco-system 2. Once I invested in a few, I learned how some of the best founders operated, tested, pivoted and realised I could do the same 3. Then, when I had the seed of a good idea (enter Seep) that I couldn't stop thinking about, I had the confidence to just go for it The UK (and world) needs more angel investors to support founders in their early years. I got so, so much from it in the early years. If you're tempted to find out more about angel investing, I'll link some resources in the comments below 👇 Thank you to Glen Waters (for having me on your table) plus the judges including Christiana Stewart-Lockhart and the ever-encouraging forces that are Roderick Beer and Jenny Tooth OBE. Plus thank you to Jessica Sue Rasmussen DipWSET for encouraging me to apply 🙏 #angelinvesting #femalefounders #startupsuk (pic with Triin Linamagi who won Syndicate of the Year with Sie Ventures 🫶)

Two years ago, we were only selling our sponges online. The problem was that I knew the big volume in this category was in supermarkets but I didn't know how other challenger brands had broken through. "Go to a Bread & Jam Festival" somebody said. But I don't sell bread or jam I thought, my sponges aren't even edible... I did go and I can vouch for the fact that Bread & Jam is THE best place for any challenger grocery brand to learn and meet others. On that day in Jul 2022, this is what changed 👇 🛒I heard retailers speak about what they're looking for and how to get their attention and then put it into practice 🥫I met other brands a few years ahead of me who shared a few tips 👯 I met some great industry connectors who I now go to for great advice ✨ I even met two investors who gave me advice and then invested 💓 I didn't feel quite so alone and felt hugely re-energised. ❓Are you looking for inspiration/ energy/ introductions or just loads of really delicious samples? Well, Bread & Jam 2024 Festival is on the 16th/ 17th July in London and is jam-packed with amazing speakers, opportunities to pitch and meet others in the industry. A link is in the comment below. 📢📢 I'm also speaking on one of the panels about how to partner with wholesalers to drive distribution and open up retail 🙂 Who else is there? #challengerbrands #FMCG #UKgrocery

Want a quick hack to elevate your brand? ... stand next to one of the most beautiful, smart women in the world Karlie Kloss with one of your products 🚀 I was super lucky to meet Karlie as part of the Cartier Women's Initiative event a few weeks ago. She's a supermodel, a presenter of Project Runway, an NYU alum, founder of non-profit Kode With Klossy and now owner of i-D and Life Magazines. She was warm, supportive and open with all of us. Thank you Cartier and Karlie for this extraordinary bit of sparkle 🙏 ✨ #femalefounders #impactentrepreneurs #brandbuilding

Epic fail... One of these pictures is a real photo of one of our loofah farmers that we visited in China a couple of weeks ago. The other image is made using Photo Realistic AI that we tried to create a few weeks before. Can you guess which one? Every couple of months, I suddenly get the fear: 😱 Is our team inefficient because we're not harnessing this? 😱 Are the images we have a bit amateur-ish? And then I remember that people relate to stories, real people, and all of the imperfections that make us human. So, here is Chen from Ningbo (on the left) who has been farming loofah here for 45 years. He found it hilarious that we wanted to see his plants as you can tell from the image and shared his tips for getting a bumper crop (via two sets of translators). On the right is a stereotype of a Chinese farmer growing some weird pumpkin-shaped thing. Has anyone successfully used AI-generated images yet or have any epic fails?

I'm having the most mind-blowing week. I'm in China with Cartier Women's Initiative 2024 (I still can't believe it). I'm sharing this experience with 33 of the most incredible entrepreneurs changing the world - that just happen to be women. Never have I been in such an inspiring room. We've been learning about impact entrepreneurship from Filipe Santos at INSEAD, speaking with journalists from across the world and meeting the huge community that CWI has been building over the past 17 years. This picture sums it up so far, a few of us living our best lives for a week together. All bringing big energy, and huge courage. These are some of their stories Victoria Munguti - building a platform for quick, cost effective cash transfers in East Africa Monika Tomecka, PhD - solving how the world scales biomass production Jessica Long - supporting small retailers in Senegal with tech-enabled, cost effective wholesale Amaia Rodríguez Sola - removing plastic in our oceans working with fishermen and designing beautiful product Ninna Granucci - fermenting food waste into nutritious flour for the food manufacturing industry Isabelle Kamariza - delivering affordable, nutritious food to hospitals and workers in Rwanda Mira N. - creating leather and plastic alternatives from renewable, waste sources for the fashion industry Thank you to all of you for this one off experience, especially to CWI 🥰🙏