Entrepreneur, influencer, speaker and activist Grace Beverley takes time out of her packed schedule to chat about the creator economy, the landscape of entrepreneurship, and how she shaped a business model driven by empowerment, engagement and personality.
Expect a progressive discussion of everything from the gender pay gap and what it takes to be a strong businesswoman, to the power of social media and how being an innovator in sustainable fitness has helped her gain a following of more than three million.
Panellists: Grace Beverley and Daniella Draper
Top 5 Takeaways
Jewellery designer Daniella Draper and entrepreneur Grace Beverley outlined some key points about women gaining funding and the impact it has on female business owners in the future.
- UK female founders receive 2% of total capital venture funding. As a woman joining her two male co-founders into her AI-powered business ‘Retrograde’, Grace’s chances of raising funding were decreased by 85%.
- “Fast fashion is not something I can stand by or support. I searched for more sustainable activewear which inspired my business TALA that I aimed to make more inclusive and affordable than the options already out there.”
- “What makes TALA so special is the care and focus put on problem-solving for women. It is so important for the target customer to be in the design room.
- “Representation is incredibly important; as a business, we want to solve as many problems as we can for as many people as we can.”
- “Self-care is productive, it helps you get where you need to be. But sometimes self-care isn’t relaxing in the bath with a candle, it can be applying for that job you want or reaching that deadline you need.”
Further reading
Related Books:
Time’s Up – Patricia Lenkov
Underrepresented ethnic and racial groups make up 40 percent of the US population but just 12.5 percent of board directors. Sadly, this is not a statistic from a bygone era. This is 2021.
Recently, various protests and movements have called attention to the lack of equality in the United States. And while much progress has been made, it’s become clear that more can be done, both in our communities and in the workplace.
With Time’s Up, executive recruiter Patricia Lenkov shines a light on an issue that’s plagued corporations for years-the “pale, male, and stale boardroom.” Supported with an abundance of research, she shows how women and minorities are consistently underrepresented on executive teams. Consumers and employees are demanding boards who can represent them, and organizations that fail to adapt could be left in the dust. But this isn’t just a recent push spurred on by the #MeToo movement. Diverse boards have actually been proven to make better decisions and lead to increased company performance.
So what are you waiting for? Time’s up.
Available here
No Filter – Sarah Frier
In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released a photo-sharing app called Instagram, with one simple but irresistible feature: it would make anything you captured look more beautiful. The cofounders cultivated a community of photographers and artisans around the app, and it quickly went mainstream. In less than two years, it caught Facebook’s attention: Mark Zuckerberg bought the company for a historic $1 billion when Instagram had only thirteen employees.
That might have been the end of a classic success story. But the cofounders stayed on, trying to maintain Instagram’s beauty, brand, and cachet, considering their app a separate company within the social networking giant. They urged their employees to make changes only when necessary, resisting Facebook’s grow-at-all-costs philosophy in favor of a strategy that highlighted creativity and celebrity. Just as Instagram was about to reach a billion users, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg—once supportive of the founders’ autonomy—began to feel threatened by Instagram’s success.
Frier draws on unprecedented access—from the founders of Instagram, as well as employees, executives, and competitors; Anna Wintour of Vogue; Kris Jenner of the Kardashian-Jenner empire; and a plethora of influencers worldwide—to show how Instagram has fundamentally changed the way we show, eat, travel, and communicate, all while fighting to preserve the values which contributed to the company’s success. “Deeply reported and beautifully written” (Nick Bilton, Vanity Fair), No Filter examines how Instagram’s dominance acts as lens into our society today, highlighting our fraught relationship with technology, our desire for perfection, and the battle within tech for its most valuable commodity: our attention.
Available here
Related Podcasts:
How I Built This – Guy Wraz
Guy Raz interviews the world’s best-known entrepreneurs to learn how they built their iconic brands. In each episode, founders reveal deep, intimate moments of doubt and failure, and share insights on their eventual success. How I Built This is a master-class on innovation, creativity, leadership and how to navigate challenges of all kinds.
Available here
Start Up – Gimlet
A series about what it’s really like to start a business. Created by Gimlet Media, it is also about Gimlet Media and was created in real-time as the founders started their company and learned what it takes to be entrepreneurs. The documentary style will hold your attention, and the look into the beginnings of what went on to be a hugely prosperous venture will remind you why you’re in business yourself. More recent seasons have focused on other companies, and every story is compelling.
Available here
Working Hard, Hardly Working – Grace Beverley
In this top-charting podcast series, entrepreneur Grace Beverley breaks away from the conventional business podcast rhetoric – immersing us in the extraordinary journeys of people from all walks of life who have achieved remarkable success in unique fields. From housing campaigners to investors and sex experts, no avenue is off limits. Each conversation brings new lessons and stories that will inspire you to consider what ‘success’ really means to you and how you can achieve it.
Grace and her guests open up about the life lessons they wish they had known earlier, sharing insights from their entrepreneurial endeavours, offering advice on health and wellbeing, shedding light on pressing social issues, and being frank about the things that didn’t go quite right.
Think of it as a school of life. You’ll come away from each episode with actionable advice to help you achieve balance, success, and fulfilment whether you’re working hard, or hardly working.
Available here
Further help:
Watch:
