Anna and Cait founded lady brains in 2017 with the goal of creating a community of like-minded women who want to turn their dreams of starting a brand and business into reality. The pair now run a top rated podcast and mentor program to support other female small business owners in their goals and share their years of knowledge in brand building.
Tell us about lady-brains.
lady-brains is a platform dedicated to helping founders (and their businesses) grow. We believe that the existing narrative around entrepreneurship – that to be successful, we must grind ourselves into the ground – is outdated and we’re here to rewrite it.
We know that pouring every waking second of your life into work doesn’t result in a healthy business. We know that if you don’t invest time in yourself and grow as a founder, then nothing (not your bottom line, customer base, team, nor your fulfilment) will grow at all.
Our work, therefore, explores the question: how can we build better businesses and be better founders, to live better lives?
We do this through our podcast; one of Australia’s top entrepreneurship shows. We chat with each other about what a new way forward for founders could look like, and we interview some of the world’s best, including Jo Horgan from MECCA, Sarah Munro from Sarah & Sebastian, artist CJ Hendry, and Silicon Valley trailblazer Sarah Friar.
We also support our community through online programs, including our mentor program The Brains Trust, and our flagship online course for almost-founders, Base Camp (launching mid-2022).
Tell us about your career and background.
We’ve been best friends since our first day of high school! Back in year seven, we bonded immediately over our shared love of performance and the arts. We were both in all the choirs, plays and musicals.
CAITLIN:
After school, I studied a double degree at Monash University in Business (Marketing) and Arts (Media & Communications) before jet setting overseas to explore the dizzying lifestyle of Miami, Florida. After spending a few years studying, interning, and working in the creative arts and publishing industry in the US, I came back home and undertook further study at the University of Melbourne, nabbing a professional certificate in Positive Psychology. At the age of 25, I fused what I’d learnt from my two degrees and started my own marketing coaching and consulting business, helping women in the wellbeing and positive psychology space build multiple six-figure online businesses.
ANNA:
I studied at the University of Melbourne, completing a double degree in Arts (Psychology & Politics) & Commerce (Management). After uni, I landed a graduate role with Japanese retailer UNIQLO and packed up shop to move overseas to Singapore and Tokyo. My role was to help launch the brand into the Australian market, and I spent six months overseas learning everything there was to know about the brand, product, customer and business. The breadth of this role was incredible, as it gave me a holistic understanding of how a global business operated. Next came my dream job at MECCA, where I worked to develop the vision for the beauty ‘store of the future’. I spearheaded cutting-edge Concept Development projects, managed large cross-functional teams, and mined the globe for the most magnificent innovations in retail. A lot of my time at MECCA was spent travelling overseas, working in places like Paris, New York City, and Los Angeles.
We started lady-brains on the side while we were both doing our own thing, but after two years we decided to take the leap into lady-brains full-time and have not looked back.
What inspired you to start lady-brains?
Our friendship had always been built off a shared entrepreneurial spirit. We loved throwing business ideas around and even started working on a few in our mid-twenties. Many of these ideas died on the cutting room floor: a bike sharing service, a divorcee dating app and resource hub (we were 21 and single at the time), and a bamboo sweat towel brand never made it to market (some might say this was for the best).
In 2017, we decided to run a supper-club for our other entrepreneurial friends, where we’d bring women together over good food and great wine to chat about business and life. Our goal was to meet new people, make new friends, and be inspired by other people’s creative projects.
The response from that first dinner was so incredible that we decided to run another, asking everyone to bring a friend along. Each month, the supper-club grew and grew by referral and application until we were booking out entire venues for our community. A few months in we realised that perhaps this was a bigger opportunity than we’d previously thought, and we gave our dinner series a name: lady-brains.
A year and a half after running that first dinner, we launched a podcast and landed a big contract with Australia’s largest media network. Since then, we’ve been the official podcast partner of Afterpay Australian Fashion Week and evolved the business to include mentorship and education. It’s been a wild ride!
Describe a typical workday for you.
No two days are the same as a business owner, however, at lady-brains we structure each week so we’re as efficient as possible.
We usually ease into the week on Monday, going for a walk together in the morning to chat about what we did on the weekend, as well as what’s on for the business this week.
Tuesday is our meeting day, where we’re on lots of calls, chatting with brands about partnership opportunities, or meeting with our team of contractors including our graphic designer, developer, podcast producer, or copywriter. We like to batch our meetings on one day so that the rest of the week is free for deeper work.
Wednesday is writing day, and no phone calls or meetings are allowed. We spend the day writing copy for emails, blog posts, social media or our podcast, as well as content for new online programs that are in development.
Thursdays are dedicated to our podcast, and you can usually find us in our podcast studio in Richmond or dialling into a virtual podcast studio using our recording kit at home.
Friday is for catching up on all the bits and pieces that didn’t get done during the week before we clock off at 3pm. This year, one of our goals is to be able to take Fridays off and work a 4-day week, but we’re not quite there yet.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
After spending 4+ years building lady-brains and interviewing over 80 founders on our podcast show, we have a lot of advice when it comes to starting a business.
The first is to find a passion outside of work. Start a hobby that has nothing to do with your business, something that brings you pleasure and joy and that helps you get into a state of flow. Balance is hard to find when you’re starting a business but having a creative hobby that you love will help you to switch off.
Block out time in the diary to respond to emails, Slack, and be on social media. Filtering through your inbox or scrolling on social is a distraction from doing the work that really matters. Remember, an email inbox is simply a to-do list that someone else has written for you.
Have a proper workspace setup. Your workspace impacts your productivity, creativity, and mood. Building a business is hard work, especially for those doing it alone, and it’s important to have the right tools and equipment to make your life as easy as possible. Our favourite thing about our home office is our Brother INKvestment printing setup. It’s quick and efficient and comes with a year’s worth of ink. The best thing about it is the mobile app that allows us to print directly from our phone. Along with the practical setup, we make sure that our office space is tidy, light and bright at all times, as this helps us stay focused.
Stay curious. Read lots, listen lots, learn lots. When you start out there’s a lot you don’t know, so be curious with your customers to understand what makes them tick. Be curious with your suppliers to understand how you can design partnerships that work for you both. Be curious with your team, to understand how you can better support them. Be curious with yourself, to understand how you can improve as a founder, leader, and human.
What’s next for you and lady-brains?
We have a lot of exciting things in the pipeline this year. We’re gearing up to launch our flagship online program for almost-founders, called Base Camp. It’s a 10-module self-paced course for people who want to build brands with solid foundations, without wasting time, energy, or cash. We’ve mined every episode of our podcast, extracting all the brilliant insights from our guests, and peppered these throughout the practical course content. This project is almost two years in development, and we can’t wait for it to be out in the world.
Outside of work, we’re looking forward to (hopefully) doing some travel this year. For us, travel inspires new ideas and fuels our creativity, and we can’t wait to get back out into the world and see what else we can dream up.