SARAH NEILL - MYS TYLER
ON BEING A BILLIONAIRE OR GOING BUST.
How do you bounce back after your first business goes under? How do you find the strength to create something new?
Our guest is Sarah Neill. She’s the founder of Mys Tyler, an online shopping and body positivity app which helps women find clothing for their unique shape and size, by connecting them with others who look like them. Sarah came up with the idea after realising that she and her friends were returning most of the clothes they bought online because they simply didn’t fit. Over the last 5 years, Sarah has refined the concept, raised a $1M in pre-seed, and the app’s been downloaded over 80 thousand times across 100 countries.
This wasn’t Sarah’s first rodeo. Her previous business Doodad failed spectacularly, despite the fact it had financial backing, early traction and incredible growth. You won’t believe how it all went down. In this colourful conversation you’ll hear how Sarah managed to recover from her first failure, the impact that being an entrepreneur has taken on her personal life, and why she thinks Mys Tyler will either be a billion-dollar business, or go bust.
You’ll learn:
Why Sarah’s first entrepreneurial venture failed, despite the fact she had funding, traction and revenue
How Sarah managed to personally recover from this big business failure, and the lessons she’s applied to Mys Tyler
The impact that being an entrepreneur has taken on her personal and financial life
The marketing tactics that have played into her success, including using a simple ‘quiz’ lead magnet, and affiliate marketing.
During the fundraising and sales process, how to answer prevention-based questions with promotion-based answers
Why she thinks Mys Tyler will either be a billion-dollar business, or go bust
We hope you enjoyed this conversation – for more podcast action follow us on Instagram @lady.brains, or sign up to our monthly newsletter at www.ladybrains.com
THE BITS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
“Sometimes I’d be chasing him for payments. I’d be like, I have to do payroll. Do I just put my own money into the bank account to pay for it? And he’s like, no, no, no, I’ll get it to you, but then it wouldn’t come. ”
“My team were incredible. We basically turned everything off at the office and walked out the door. We went out, I bought everyone champagne, and we had a toast to the year, from beginning to end. It was absolutely devastating, especially now, 8 years or 10 years on, now knowing how hard it is to have that sort of success in a business. ”
“We launched [the product] as a simple web quiz, which allowed us to validate some of our initial assumptions: one, do women want to find out who they look like, and two, are women willing to provide us with their body data so that we can do that type of matching, and three, is it cost effective to reach women re this product? So, we launched it as a web quiz, and within a few months we had 36,000 women complete it. ”
“Then you have these other meetings where they don’t totally get it necessarily, or honestly, they’re just trying to see you fail. They’re trying to ask you enough questions until they get to a point where you can’t answer the question anymore. Your job is to answer every question, so you feel like a complete failure when you can’t answer a ridiculous one. They can be really, really exhausting. ”
“Over the last two years, I’d think couldn’t pay me millions of dollars to be doing anything else. I love this so much. And then this year, I’m like, oh my gosh, do I go get a job? Is it worth it? Because it is a huge, it’s a huge sacrifice. It’s your life. ”
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