What I wish I knew before I started up

Emma: Welcome everyone to our first ever UTS Startups Festival! 

So we're on day three of the Festival but day two of our talks. 

We're kicking off with a whole bunch of lightning talks and we are so 

grateful, really lucky to have Lana Hopkins join us. 

She doesn't need an introduction. You all know who she is because you're here 

to hear from her but one thing that you might 

not have known, especially if you missed the first bit. 

She studied at UTS. She studied a Bachelor of Business majoring in International Business and 

Marketing, graduating in 2004, has had a stellar career both outside 

and inside the startup world I think you were 

working as an advertising executive at News Limited before you launched Mon 

Purse in 2014, is that right? That's exactly right, Emma. You do 

research really well. And we've only got a good 20-ish minutes 

with Lana. We'll pop a quick poll up because I want to see exactly where 

you guys are all from and what brings you here. It will only take 20 seconds for 

that so if you could do it super quickly that'd be great 

and then we are going to go as quickly as possible 

into some questions that I've captured from our UTS startups community, 

reached out to our community of over 750 members 

in over 350 startups. You've really crammed in 

multiple startup lives into one startup life, 

if that makes sense and she's now working on 

a new startup. She might be able to give us a little taster 

but you might have to stay tuned for the big launch details 

on that one. All right so we've got lots of 

results coming through, do we Lourdes?  

  

Lourdes: It's actually paused for two seconds. Let 

me just relaunch this.  

  

Emma: Okay perfect thank you and we'll keep it 

up just for um 15 more seconds. That would be 

fantastic. 

That's okay if it doesn't stay too long because 

I will jump into some questions to maybe help some of those startup 

founders who are here. 

If you follow the journey and I 

think you would have struggled to miss the 

incredible growth of Mon Purse, 

and how you marketed and reached your audience and grew 

quite quickly. Can you share any like tips and tricks of how you went about 

the growth and marketing particularly of Mon Purse? 

  

Lana: I think Emma first of all, thank you for having me it's such an honour obviously 

to join you today and the rest of our UTS community so 

I'm honoured and humbled to have had the opportunity. It's a wonderful question 

that you asked I think that it's something that I hear quite frequently 

and for me what's really quite interesting about this conversation, 

is that it's always been less about thinking about the marketing and 

the growth and whatnot, it was always about creating a viable proposition 

that was genuinely going to resonate with the cohort, 

or you know with our target audience and what that means more specifically 

is, really thinking about what is the consumer problem, 

how is the consumer thinking about things, what are some of the sociological 

dynamics that are relevant and so specifically if 

you think about the year 2014 what was obvious is that there was an 

opportunity to democratise e-commerce and there was also an 

opportunity to democratise the way that we position brands in front 

of the HENRY cohort. Who is the canary cohort that's the High Earners Not Rich 

Yet. It's a psychographic rather than a 

demographic. I'm a big believer in psychographic because I think 

we all change and mould and form and evolve throughout the journey of our 

lives. But what was effectively missing is the 

ability to purchase something that was high quality, made in Europe but also had 

an element that was personal to you and you 

only. More important than that though was how 

do you think about taking out all of the points of friction 

that are involved in terms of the actual purchasing approach by process 

and so for us it was obvious that, aside from being 

a millennial founding team, it was obvious that it had to be 

digital first and that's sort of how we've grown up that's how we 

position things. But the other thing that was also 

actually really interesting is that people often talk about the storytelling 

in the PR components and whatnot and whilst that was extraordinarily 

important, what is also really incredibly 

important not to forget is that it was really about delivering 

on this consumer promise because if you think about consumer brands 

that launched before 2007, you would have never had a situation where 

you knew who the founder was or you knew who the CEO was 

or you were connected with their specific plight and pain points. 

This was about offering people the opportunity to see themselves 

in that brand. How do you mirror your personality, how do you mirror 

what you believe in your value change in the startups and in the brands that 

you support. And there was recently an article that I 

read and I sort of laughed out loud to myself, 

which spoke about the fact that religion 

was on the decline in many, many Western countries, 

however brands were taking that position that typically came from, you 

know the institutions or religious institutions that people would follow 

because people were so closely aligned from a personal value perspective. 

So I think for us, it was really about being true to ourselves in terms of what 

it was that we were building so this is the social mission, 

and also democratizing access to such a product which was typically confined to 

a much more, I guess there was a lot more barriers to entry to 

you know receiving something like what we were building. So it was a matter of 

being at the right place at the part time and 

playing to the sociological factors which were very prevalent then also. 

  

Emma: You make it sound so easy. I'm not quite sure that it is that easy 

but what was 

of the business or just broadly your whole 

time within one person what was the most 

difficult thing? I think, look they always say hindsight's sort of a 

perfect science right and so and so that's very, very 

helpful. I think the most difficult thing is always the unknown-unknowns right? So 

the biggest challenge that any startup has early on is to get to the unknown- 

unknowns as quickly as possible. Be that technology constraints or be 

that your access to market or be that really 

understanding and collecting enough data about 

your cohort, right? To be able to do something meaningful with it like what 

problems are you constantly solving. There was a bunch of unknown- 

unknowns and for me, I think it was navigating those. 

That was then potentially further complicated by 

a decision that I made early on with regards to 

a partnership or an alliance per se, which probably in hindsight, I 

would have reconsidered but that was the decision that I made at 

the time. I think what I learned the most out of that 

experience is, the single most important thing that a lot of senior executives 

know but younger startup founders often 

rush in, is I think the most important thing is judgment 

and you have to make wise decisions every single day, every single month and 

every single week about the short term decisions that 

you're making and also the longer term strategic ones. 

What you do on the daily has the ability to impact things further down the line 

in a very significant way. So I think it's important to be cognisant to 

stop, to think, to evaluate and to look at all of the options in front of you 

before you jump into something that might appear on the surface to be 

the most convenient option.  

  

Emma: It's actually a really interesting point 

about your judgment and I'd love to hear from your perspective, 

how much do you 

decision versus follow your gut which you've built up based on your years of 

experience and learnings. Where do you balance the two?  

  

Lana: The truthful answer to that would be, I think it's a combination of the truth 

my gut at the time was telling me that I 

was making a couple of I suppose wrong decisions but I still 

decided to ignore that and go along with what seemed 

as the easiest pathway or the easiest option at that point in time. 

So I think you can never underestimate your gut. 

It's really interesting because we were in a zoom call the other day 

with one of my partners in California and 

one of our development team members and we were discussing the potential 

partnership opportunity that we were considering entering. 

I flagged over the weekend a gut feeling that I had about one of the 

potential partners and it turns out that my co-founder had the same feeling about 

that as well. So you can never underestimate your gut 

feeling. I think you've got knowledge what's right and what's wrong 

but I don't think that can also be your sole decision maker. I think it's about 

balancing the two and trying to understand what other 

support networks do you have around you in the form of, for example, right now, we 

have a very highly experienced technical advisor to 

our business but he also happens to be a very, sort 

of, value-aligned individual that I have 

known for many years, who has watched my journey and who have 

seen what's transpired in that time. And so it's 

important to also align on a value basis I think as well. 

  

Emma: Great, so you alluded to California but I don't know that many founders that 

have worked in so many different cities and ecosystems for their startups. 

So let me see if I've missed any. London, New York, 

LA, Sydney, Austin. Six and did I miss any? 

  

Lana: San Francisco. 

  

Emma: So what sort of guided your decision about which market or which startup 

ecosystem was right at which time? 

  

Lana: So Emma, you're asking very great questions today. 

I think there's a couple of separate and different things. So for us, 

it was when we were building Mon Purse in my mind. 

It was obvious that we were building a global brand so we were going to be 

effectively selling to everybody from day one. 

Remember we're digital first and so what that ultimately 

meant for us is Australia is one of the best test markets 

in the world particularly for the HENRY cohort. 

We started to see early validation that our methodology was working both 

from an online and a bricks and mortar partnership 

perspective very early on. And what that allowed us 

to understand is that in order to establish a footprint and establish 

visibility in global markets it was important to have that 

established in London and New York which was where we were also seeing 

a lot of interest, based on the data that we were 

receiving, of potential new customers coming 

through as well. So that's what led the decision for us 

to spend a lot of time between New York and London, which you alluded to 

previously. That was very much driven by the data 

that was coming to us on the basis of new enquiries and 

interested people wanting to have access to the products in those markets. 

But we also knew that for us, we were treating the physical footprint 

certainly in my mind, as a marketing spend. It was all about creating a 

showroom that would allow people to be able to go 

in touch feel and actually realize that we are a 

living breathing ecosystem. We're real we exist. 

We're not just an online, an online store. 

And so effectively, that drives that initial decision. 

A lot of the time that I later spent in San Francisco 

was more related to the technology development aspect for 

Mon Purse because if you remember, the original proposition 

was around the WebGL PBR, which is physics-based rendering in simple terms, 

3D bag builder which we developed and which was proprietary 

at the time of launch. And so a lot of our talent in research, initial research 

was done there as well. Austin is much more recent and that was 

a sort of a scoping trip that I went on this year for another ops 

space. And you did ask me what that was and 

what that's effectively all about. And what I say today is that it's a 

real-time immersive brand experience that we're building, the 

spatial brand experience. I think for me if I sort of combine 

everything that I've learned over the years and what I've been most 

passionate about, is how do you bring those brand experiences to life. 

Fantastic and so we've heard that digital first 

but then you did have a physical footprint 

that was perhaps less transactional from your typical retail mindset 

and that was a way to establish a strong relationship with your customers in a 

real place in real time.  

  

Emma: Did you, 

and I'm pointing to Monica's question. Thank you for adding 

that in. 

Did influencer marketing come into play, if at all? 

  

Lana: Absolutely! So obviously, and I think it's important to think, to be cognisant of 

the timelines right. So in 2014 when you were first starting 

out, the landscape was considerably different 

to what it is today. Influences were quite a novel thing 

but for us it was always about striking organic partnerships, 

be that with wholesalers or with 

influencers obviously. One of the very first things that we did is we partnered 

with a young and upcoming influencer at 

the time called Margaret Zhang, as she was rising and gaining popularity 

for her very specific angle on brand building, and we sort of married 

her up with more of the mainstream 

commercial talent Jodi Gordon, who's famous for her role in Neighbours 

and then Home and Away, and what was produced off the back of 

that, was something that was quite unique. It was styled in a way that 

the world hadn't really seen Jodi in before because it was a very different angle. 

Jodi was also the face or the ambassador of Myer and we had partnered 

with Myer at the time, which was a really wonderful, wonderful 

partnership for us at the time. And I'm incredibly grateful for it 

because they played such a big part in really championing this Australian story. 

In particular, their CEO at the time was really wonderful. 

And so long story short, I think when you sort of think about partnership 

whether it is in 2014 or today, it's about what's 

organic and what's unique and what's going to get people talking, right? 

I think oftentimes you see a lot of sort of influencer campaigns without a 

real underlying core proposition. So it all comes down to what are your 

brand's values, what do you stand for, what's your most, like what's going to 

set you aside from everybody else? Because ultimately in addition to 

democratising the e-comms space and creating a voice and sort of 

lowering the barrier to entry. We've always been quite conscious about 

the sustainability aspects as well and the original MP model centred 

around on-demand production and we didn't quite 

get to where we wanted to go but we learned a lot of really valuable lessons 

along the way in terms of what it would take to make 

that dream a reality. How do you really play an active part, a 

core part in reducing the effects 

that manufacturing can quite often have on the environment. 

So that was one of our core underlining goals. 

  

Emma: So once you have a true understanding of your own values 

as a company and as a founder, and then you 

have found a partner, be it an influencer or some other business partnership, 

what tips would you give for how to reach out and. 

  

Lana: Sorry Emma, you just literally paused there for a second. You said what tips 

would I give to…  

  

Emma: To be able to reach out to that partner 

once you've identified someone that shares the values of your company? 

  

Lana: So I think this is such a wonderful question and I think it really 

does come down to, it depends, I mean sometimes you can meet 

these people by luck. You do need to attend 

industry events because you will meet people at industry events so I think 

they say your network is your net worth and I really, 

genuinely to this day, really believe in that you have to put yourself out there 

but also, you have to show them what the value proposition is for them 

so that it's a two-way street. How do you think about 

how do you position something in a way that makes sense for the other party too. 

I think quite often people sort of say, "Hey, let's partner. Let's do this that and 

the other," without considering what the benefit 

would be to the other side. To think about 

a) how do you network more effectively and seek those people 

out organically in an organic setting and 2) 

how do you actually give them something and get them excited about 

wanting to build this with you together.  

  

Emma: I've just seen the time. I could talk to 

you about this stuff for hours I hope everyone is finding it really, 

really helpful. I've got a couple more questions from the community 

and one that I love because I think quite often 

you learn by doing, you learn by things that didn't quite work out. 

Do you have any regrets or things that didn't 

go right or the way you had planned? I know you mentioned the partnerships one, 

which you could go into more or something else. 

What sort of didn't work that you really learned from? 

  

Lana: I think Emma this is probably one of the best questions. 

To answer your question part one, so do I have any regrets? 

Absolutely not. I think that you learn more from your failures than 

you do from your success and when things are going so well for us 

in the beginning, I think you become complacent and you take it for 

granted. And I think what's important is not 

to lose your humility along the way. I think that needs to be 

you're guiding north star. Some of the best and most incredible people I've met 

throughout the course of their career history, they've always been 

incredibly humble and helpful and so that's the single most important thing. 

So regrets? No. Could I have done things differently? 

Absolutely. I think that the single most important thing to do and I sort of 

alluded to that previously, is when you're building your core team 

around you, be that influencers, be that 

your team members, be that it's particularly your board or 

investors and what have you, make sure that you are 

incredibly selective in who you align yourself with 

and ask yourself the question of do we have the same 

moral values? Is our north star the same, and what I mean by north 

star was does the end game look the same for us? 

People often talk about all roads lead to Rome 

but how do you get there? What are you prepared to do along the way? 

And for me, what was incredibly important all along, was to build something that 

put the consumer first and really celebrated 

the consumer experience, was absolutely always 

digitally first, yes, with some physical footprints but 

it was part of the marketing line rather than anything else, and 

constantly be innovating and iterating because I think that 

the key most important thing is to keep pushing 

the barriers further, and to consider the data points in front of you but also, 

take a sociological barometer. So what's the current market attitude? 

What are people thinking about? What matters to people? 

A successful brand is one that speaks to people in a way that they wish to be 

spoken to and absolutely meets everything they 

they set out to deliver. So I think for me, things like making sure trust pilot 

and making sure things like all the other 

feedback mechanisms about your company are incredibly positive. 

Those things matter because modern brands more than ever 

rely on their consumers to drive their growth. 

  

Emma: I'll see if I can squeeze in two more quick questions we've only got a couple 

minutes to go. The first is what is the proudest moment 

from your startup career?  

  

Lana: Gosh, it's definitely a tough one. I 

think the proudest moment would be, 

we had a really, really, really interesting. There was a number. There was 

a couple. I think you never 

celebrate your first million dollar day but I just remember 

the entire team running into the office. They were so excited. There was 

just this 

unbelievable level of emotion that was coming 

through, which was really beautiful. And they were super excited and I 

think the lesson for me was instead of getting involved in that and 

getting excited about it as you should and celebrate every milestone. 

In my head I was already thinking, "Okay what's next, on to the next, on to the 

next. So in hindsight that was probably one of 

my most proud, proud moments The other has been in my 

recent history, which is the ability to bring together 

a really aligned, value-aligned and beautiful team together who are building 

something with me, which is actually 

really beautiful because I think you are the product of the people 

around you and you need to enjoy and celebrate every single day 

even though there will be tough moments.  

  

Emma: I love it. So exciting. And the last 

little piece of advice I'd love to hear from you 

is either what is the best advice that you've been given 

or what's one piece of advice that everyone watching here 

can take with them on their startup journey? 

  

Lana: So somebody who's become a really good friend of mine and who 

is a friend of the startup community. I actually did a panel with him last week 

finding that he was a moderator, he's a gentleman called David Shane, 

who is a partner at OneVentures. At the beginning 

and I must say he's one of the most humble and kind people that I've come 

across not to mention very successful but he 

cautioned me against some of the early decisions that I 

alluded to previously and he asked me to read a book, 

which if everybody has a pen and paper or a laptop or iPad or what have you, 

called The Hard Thing About The Hard Things by Ben Horowitz from Andreessen 

Horowitz which is one of the top venture capital firms 

in the US. He talks to me specifically about 

surrounding yourself with the absolute best superstars who 

were going to help you build something and that was incredible. And he spoke 

about that because you sort of said you will never be the best at 

everything, but you will be the product of the people around you. And 

that was advice that I didn't necessarily take 

or pay close enough attention to early on 

but I believe that that's the thing that I'm trying to focus a lot more now 

  

Emma: Oh thank you so much Lana! We absolutely love you. We're so grateful to 

have you join us today.