Ep 36-She Had Her Idea Stolen at 19 - And Came Back to Raise VC With Zero Network. Here's How Lamees Butt Did It.

But before we do that, I always like to ask my guests, what is something that you know now that you wish you would have known earlier in your career?

That nobody is smarter than you, and I wish I believed in myself more when I was younger.

And it's a really hard thing to say now, and I'm sure if anyone is listening and whether they're in the early phases of their career, or they're a few years in even, and they're sitting in rooms with much more senior people, and it sounds like they are adding much more value, but you might have this idea in your head, or you might have this opinion, something that actually it doesn't feel quite right.

I wish I'd learned to use my voice earlier and felt really confident about using it because I've seen and noticed that in years, the years that we live in now...

For example, I've literally just seen a post on LinkedIn about ASOS.

ASOS have just implemented a kind of a, a styling tool using AI, and this styling tool, it, you can speak to the AI assistant and then it, it will aggregate an outfit for you.

And I remember pitching this to my CEO probably about six years ago, and bear in mind, like we'll get into it, but my first company was in the fash tech space, and so I'd always kind of had this affiliation with kind of fashion technology and what it could do from a discovery standpoint.

But we were pivoting as a business, and we were trying to unlock new categories, and I said to him, "You know, we haven't tapped into the fashion category." I spent two weekends building out the business plan, kind of got an MVP of a product together, pitched it, and it was just like, "No, I don't really think the market's big enough." And it's just mad because I, you know, I now look at it, I'm like, well, perhaps timing wasn't right, but the point being, I really wish I had more conviction at an earlier age for the ideas and the execution that I, I knew I had.

Yeah.

It sounds like the Clueless, they did a swap as well.

I absolutely love it.

And it does sound, though, like you did actually share your thoughts, built an MVP, and like brought that to senior leadership, which I think is already something to be really, really proud of, 'cause there's a lot of people, myself included, who are not even doing that, quite honestly.

'Cause it's just a bit scary, and especially when you're in a room where everyone seems honestly more gray-haired, wiser, senior, whatever, often more men as well, like let's be real there, it just feels like all of them know what they're doing, and it is more and more difficult, I think, to actually share your opinion and your thoughts.

Even though, especially if you are a little bit more junior, you actually have such a huge advantage that you understand a part of the market that these people will not.

So it's such a shame to not use that to your advantage.

Totally, and another example, I was actually listening to Emma Grieder's podcast recently, and she had a guest on.

And I don't know if any of you guys will be familiar with Bethany Frankel, but Bethany Frankel is a very successful entrepreneur.

She had multiple businesses many years ago, but she's kind of pivoted away from building her own brand into now essentially taking equity of other people's brands and being almost like the just add Bethany influencer machine.

So she presents the products.

She's very, very big on TikTok.

What's interesting about her is that she's in her 50s.

She's in her 50s, but she's playing in a playground with 15-year-olds, and what I loved about the thing that she was saying was her unique perspective is that she is that bridge between this demographic over here, those kind of 15-year-olds who are native with digital video mobile, and then you've got these gray-haired brands over here who are trying to future-proof themselves, and she's like, "Look, come to me, you know, I can help." So she's found her niche.

Um, I love what you've said about, you know, especially the younger generation, there's such an opportunity here.

We're going through the biggest reset we've ever seen since the Industrial Revolution.

This is your moment.