Why is it essential that women learn about finance?
If you don't understand the mechanics of how to invest, how
to smartly save, how to smartly spend, it is the ultimate form
of repression. That's how I feel.
Financial literacy in women is shockingly low.
There's. Literally no excuse for not
going and doing that education piece.
Men are syndicating deals amongst themselves and we're not
getting in on the action. What?
Would be your advice to any mum who maybe has taken time out for
childcare? They haven't gone back to work
yet, but they've lost their confidence.
Mum is doing so many things. She was the original influencer.
She knows who the best painter, decorator, tradesman is in your
area because she's the one that's employing them.
She also is the matchmaker. She knows who's single.
She does everything, so of course you can run a business
too. Welcome to Hot Girl Finance, a
podcast where we decode the crazy, sexy world of money 1
concept and business at a time. Today's guest understands the
power of money and why women need financial independence.
She helped build one of the biggest dating apps and has now
built the leading platform for connecting mothers.
Peanut. I'm speaking to Michelle
Kennedy. She understands better than
anyone the challenges facing mothers today.
She made the daring jump to leave the corporate world and
take the risk of start up life. She turned her idea into a multi
$1,000,000 venture and today she shares her insights.
And Michelle, I cannot tell you what a joy it is to have you on
Hot Girl Finance. Thank you so much for having me
to. Start with our favorite topic
being Money. What was your first relationship
with Money? My dad is an electrician and so
I always remember him having cash, a lot of cash in hand kind
of work and he would have little roles that he would peel off
notes. And so my first impression of
money was you want to have the role of the notes.
And my second was, how do I get to be the person who holds the
role? Because it wasn't my mom, it was
my dad who had the role of the notes.
And that wasn't say, my mom didn't work.
She worked really hard too. But it was he who had that cash
moment. And I suppose from there you
kind of become a bit obsessed with the notion of cash, which
is really strange now because I'd certainly my kids don't have
it, but that was my first real like awareness of what money is
and feels like and looks like. And did it feel abundant or did
it feel, Oh no, this is hard to come by?
Yeah, it was never abundant. It was like it was hard fought.
There were times actually when my dad was out of work, like
there was big recession, building projects weren't
happening, and my dad was doing like the odd private job.
And there were times when it was really hard, but it didn't feel
like you couldn't earn it. I can't explain that.
It was hard fought, but there was always a way to earn it.
And how do you now see that first impression has influenced
how you work with money now or potentially how you started to
understand and work with money from the moment you could get a
job? So I had a job from 15.
So I worked in a department store on a Thursday, after
school on a Saturday all day. And then at 17, I went to work
with money. I went to work in a bank behind
the counter on Saturday, so it was really important for me to
have my own money. And I knew I wanted that.
And I knew that I wanted to have that feeling of like
independence and choice and I could buy something if I wanted
it. Because so often the answer was
couldn't have it. How does it influence me now?
A work ethic? Like I just know that you have
to work hard to make money. So I just work.
And I suppose it's that like I saw it and so I do it.
So you were the OG in dating app.
Some people tell me who basically created dating apps.
I will always say you and and obviously I think less people
know that because you know, they know what your story of being a
lawyer. They obviously know that you
worked at Badu and then went on to build this humongous network
for women, but you were so OG in the dating app game.
What did that experience teach you being so early on into an
industry and also working for that sort of corporation, like a
very fast growing tech company? Yeah, I do.
You know what? I just loved it.
I still love it. I still get a buzz when I hear
something about dating and dating apps I'm still so
interested in grained in it. I really loved the whole notion
of learning that we can monetize this thing that wasn't really a
physical products. That was amazing for me.
Like when I first joined Badoo the the thought of monetizing a
website was like. And just for people that don't
understand what Badou is, who was Badou and how did you even
find them to begin with? Yeah, So Badou was is an
enormous kind of European focused dating platform.
Think of the era of Plenty of Fish, match.com, eHarmony.
That was the arena, that was the competitive landscape.
And so Badou was a slightly younger, skewing, more fun
platform where basically you would go online and you could
make connections, as we used to call it casual encounters.
So you can make connections. And there were games in it, so
you could see who looks at your profile, you could see who was
rating you in a certain way. Like it was, it was just lots
and lots of complicated gamification.
So you never left? And the founder was a guy called
Andre Andreeve who had founded, I think this was his third
business. So he'd been a serial
entrepreneur, very successful. And Badoo started in Spain, and
when I met him there were 52,000,000 users of this website
I'd never heard of before. Wow.
Unbelievable what an incredible like what was the revenue tuned
to We firstly, we were profitable unheard of.
Most tech companies weren't even making money, let alone being
profitable. It was just sub 100 and 100
million Yeah A. 100 million revenue and we're in 2011.
Exactly ten, 2011 and growing. Just this team of unbelievable
people who were just obsessed with and making it sticky,
making it fun, making it engaging, getting it into
different countries, localizing, translation, all these different
things and it was just so amazing.
It was fast-paced. He was very difficult to work
for. I think he will admit that.
How demanding. I was always on 2:00 AM, I'm on
like you're on. But he's a genius.
I do think that. And I think that, but for him, I
wouldn't be here sitting talking to you.
He changed my life in a way of thinking about products,
thinking about building, thinking about opportunity,
think about money. Actually, he said the first
thing to me when I worked for him was you spend my money like
it's your own. Wow.
Or you don't spend that money. You find the cheapest, you find
the most cost efficient, you find opportunities, you find any
efficiency you can. And that's not to say he wasn't
extravagant. He is an extravagant person.
But in the right setting and in the right moment.
Always at the high, always at the top of up and to the right.
That is absolutely fascinating. I think it's for a lot of
entrepreneurs and founders. They may start their company so
young and actually they miss this learning ground where you
can learn from it. He sounds like a kind of a
brilliant genius in many ways. And how did you notice people
change when he was around? Was it that that it was just
more focused or the day isn't ended until you've completed a
task? Or kind of what leadership
skills were good and which ones actually wouldn't fly in this
time because I guess culture changed so much.
I mean, plenty of things that wouldn't fly.
Now, Andre, he never shouts. He's not a throw your weight
around kind of, in fact, very often you could be working and
he'd be at your shoulder and you didn't know he was there.
Very unnerving, right? And you'd be like, hi, so very
kind of silently watching, observing.
He also made and pushed me to do things that I just frankly
didn't want to do. And I was like, I've been to law
school. I don't want to go out and hawk
your idea of naming Wi-Fi Badoo or whatever it might be.
And he was like, that's the task today, so off you go.
And so from then there was nothing I couldn't do because I
kind of already had to do it. He broke down a lot of things,
so I never felt like I was too good to do anything.
I would do everything. And then gave you the
opportunity to be involved in so much.
Interesting because this I feel was vital the beginning before
peanut started. So when you when did peanut and
the idea of a peanut start when you were in this kind of
training ground as such, and how do you feel at your time at
Purdue influenced Peanut I. Loved what we were doing at
Purdue. It was new everyday.
It was exciting, it was fun, but you're also not getting
opportunities other companies are thinking of because maybe
our brand that wasn't as strong or people didn't resonate with
the brand in the same way. So then you're thinking about
opportunities. What's the next story we have to
tell? What's the next thing we can do?
The opportunity to be in that environment.
It was very fast-paced. Also at the time, we have three
meals a day in the office, so there was food there all the
time. You really truly never had to
leave. There was everything, right?
Everyone becomes your friend, your drinks there on a Friday
night like it's your life and it really does become your life.
On weekends I'm spending them with Andre and his, you know,
friends at his house. And so it is quite all
consuming. And I got pregnant and life
started to become a bit different.
And then I had Finn and I went back to work really quickly
after Finn and how quickly? Four months and which is quickly
for the UK and probably luxurious for the US,
truthfully. But I went back after four
months and everything was different and we started working
on something else and that something else became Bumble.
So that was an opportunity to start building something new all
over again. That was exciting.
What a buzz. Now we're building something new
and we've got new people in and we're like dreaming about what
this is going to be and the narrative and all these other
areas. And yet at night I'm going home
and searching my baby won't sleep and reading like Quora
answers from you know? To read it, yeah.
Right, and I was like, this is crazy because my life is is at
work so exciting and my personal life is like I'm doing something
that I think I wouldn't do for my skin care.
So why am I doing it about my baby?
But I don't know where else to get that kind of connectivity.
And my girlfriend's didn't have babies and, and so it was quite
isolating. So I had the idea of building
something better. But honestly, life's busy.
I was busy. Work was great.
I loved it and I didn't do anything with it.
I just sat on it for ages. And then it got to Finn was like
2 1/2 and I was like, I've just got, it's not going anywhere.
Actually just need to speak to other women like me more, not
less. And it was that year that I was
like, I'm going to go and build something for myself.
And that was the scariest thing I think I've ever done.
Who gave you that confidence to leave a lovely paid job that had
maternity leave, that, you know, had all these, that had all
these benefits to suddenly go work for yourself, which to be
honest, you have no maternity leave because you work for
yourself, because you're in time, especially in this
refundable time of, you know, women's life where you're
juggling lots of plates. So part of it truly was naivety
because the other thing that people don't really talk about
that entrepreneurship is when you're working as someone in a,
in a bigger company, a bigger organization, you have status
and status actually is really important.
Status opens doors, it opens networks, it opens events, it
opens opportunities that all of a sudden when you're a one man
band that doesn't really exist, you have to go at it to make
that happen again. And you cannot underestimate how
hard that is because when you're coming from someone else's
business, there's like a little army behind you.
And ultimately, even if everything went wrong and you're
never going to let it go wrong, but it's like, but it's, it's
still a business that I work for.
Well, it's your thing and your business.
It's so naked because it's just you.
You don't have a little army. The army is you.
And you don't have all the perks and the benefits and you don't
have the same status. You have to rebuild a different
type of status. So the confidence came from
naivety because I didn't appreciate any of that and I
felt that I wasn't going to be able to do the next thing that I
really wanted to do at the do at that point.
And I suppose I got a taste for it.
I saw what we were doing at Bumble.
I was like, yeah, I think I can do that.
And I didn't realise that that was totally different, not the
same thing at all as going out on your own and being like, so
now I need to hire engineers and I've got restrictive covenants
which mean I can't or. So I've got to build a new
network and now I've got to raise money from venture
capital. OK, don't really know those
guys. When you worked with PE, better
do some homework on that. And it was just blind naivety,
which maybe was a good thing because maybe if I'd over
analysed I wouldn't have done it.
So you've built your deck, you've built this idea for
Peanut, which is supporting women, connecting women, and you
go out to raise for the first time in this process.
What do you think are the mistakes you made in it, and
what were your greatest learnings in it?
And then what actually happened? The first mistake is I took the
first introduction that I got was a call.
I had the call and I got a term sheet after a call.
I had no deck. Which is so unheard of.
Ridiculous. And a term sheet for anyone
who's listening is is. Basically, the terms on which
someone's going to invest in your company.
So the amount they're going to give you, which means how much
your company is going to be worth, how much of the company
percentage they're going to take and other things that they
expect. Is there going to be a service
agreement? What else is going to be in
place for this investment to happen?
And So what usually happens is they will say your company is
going to be worth X, we're going to take Y and of $1,000,000
round, we will give you half, for example, which means you've
got to go and raise the other half from other investors on
those terms, not on new terms. These guys set the terms.
Well, that happened to me and I was like, maybe I'm really good
at this. It's amazing.
I had that call with him and then I had a call with his
partners after that. Got the term sheet.
It was a beautiful term sheet. It was very vanilla, like
really, very simple. And I was like, wow, I didn't
even really know what I was looking at, to be honest.
I called someone who I knew who had worked in VC and I was like,
can I send you something? And VC venture capital.
So someone who was doing those early stage deals called him and
said can I send you something? We have a look at it.
He looked at it and said great fund, good terms, valuation is
low, but don't worry about it, you haven't got anything yet.
Go and raise the rest. And then it started and I was
like, right, so that was an anomaly.
That's not how it actually is. It turns out it's really hard to
raise money. It's really hard to raise in the
UK or Europe. When I had a term sheet from AUS
Fund, they didn't like the valuation.
They didn't like how little their perception was that they
would get for taking an investment risk on something
which had no product. And it took me another six
months from that to raise the rest of the round.
And I never, ever knew that that's what would happen.
So I had to start building this product off my own capital with
my own money that I'd saved to do it, because I hadn't raised
enough at that point. Wow, how did you get your first
10,000 users? Two things happened when we were
building Peanut. I would ask every woman who I
spoke to to introduce me to another woman.
So by the time I was ready to go, I had a kind of 200 women
that I've spoken to who I could e-mail and say it's ready, can
you go and have a look? So I knew I'd have 200 women to
download this app. And that's kind of what I
thought I needed, like just get that going.
But at the same time, one of the very important things that I had
learned along the way was how important storytelling is and
how important a story that people resonate with is.
And so I done a really big investment in press.
I had spoken to so many journalists to say this is what
I'm building, This is why it matters.
No one wanted to touch it. They were like, yeah, Mom's not
sure, don't know. And 1 journalist at the Evening
Standard was like, oh, that's cool dating.
And now Mom's, yeah, I kind of get it.
And she covered the story. And from that moment my 200
women went to 2000 women went to 5000 women went to 20,000 women
within like 36 hours. Wow.
And it was a. Press viral moment where I was
like, see people actually are interested in mums, but that was
the moment I'd gone for that 200 seeding people who care and it
got like a bigger. Awareness because it's, it's
interesting. We, I was interviewing Georgie
Huddat, the founder of Panzagi, and she was also saying how she
just launched an Instagram account and started selling
these incredible swimsuits. Yeah.
And it is interesting. Like you said, would those
strategies still be replicated now if you were going to start
Peanut today, how do you think you'd build your first 10,000
people? But do you still think press has
that ability? Or even when you look at growth
now, does press still play that lever?
It's so interesting and I think press is different now and I
think you have to think about what we consume now.
So we consume TikTok, for example, like we are consuming
television, it is broadcast and you are sitting there and you
are consuming little snippets. So I think I would think about
storytelling in that framework and how I could do that kind of
storytelling. So how, where are people getting
stories from now and how can I be on that medium would be what
I would do. And whether that's Peanut or
another product, it's always about where is the eyeball in
the audience I want to reach. And at the time 2017, when we
launched Peanut, they were reading press.
They were reading, I don't know, male or Lite.
They were reading those things. That's where they were.
So you have raised a lot of money since that first million.
What do you look back? What do you feel you overspent
on or under invested in? I would say the following things
raise more money than you think you're going to need because
it's going to be more expensive than you think and spend in a
more miserly fashion than you think is appropriate because
you're going to need that money and it's always going to cost
more than you think it's going to cost.
So don't be, you know, excited and overspending every classic
mistake you can think of. I've done it all.
I've hired the execs that have worked at Twitter and Google
because that's what everyone said would be the right move.
So I've fallen in love with the CV rather than the hands on
ability. I have invested and over
invested and been over reliant on performance marketing.
I fed that machine in a way that you know, now when I think about
it, I'm like, can't believe how much I.
Invested there when you say that just you know, for people that
don't understand what performance marketing is
essentially you're feeding Facebook. 30% of all money
raises going back into crazy, right?
So we've all done that. I've done that.
I've kept team members who weren't good enough for longer
than I should have done because of misplaced loyalty and or
gratitude for the time that they were there and or not being able
to face dealing with the issue afterwards.
I built parts of the product which were a fad because I
thought it was the right fad to follow.
Everything you can think of have made all of those mistakes and
the one thing that I wish I could redo is raising more money
earlier and spending it in a far more conservative way.
And then the second big thing, which I think actually is not
the market these days, I think it was very specific to 2017.
I ran Peanut for a very long time with no revenue 00 because
the trend was tech companies don't need revenue, they just
need growth. So that's what I did.
And that was weird. And it was against the Andre
Badou school of thought, by the way, because that wasn't the
business I ran and I worked with him on.
But that was the tech trend and it we turned on revenue much
later than I should have done and the business would be
further along truthfully now had I not have done that and had I
have run the business that I knew how to run from the start.
That is such an interesting point.
And I have made that mistake myself multiple times.
And it really upsets me because even more recently than I care
to admit, right? And it's so hard because I think
that this is where I don't know whether this is a huge
generalization in terms of women and men.
And I do think the trend too, but this idea that we should
give so much free because, you know, we want to support a
community, but actually we have kind of misinterpreted free.
And if someone likes a product then they should be paid for it
because it's really expensive to build and no company can run on.
Teams, There is a difference between having a social
conscience. We both have a social
conscience. I care passionately and deeply
about Peanut, the work we do, the opportunities it creates for
women, that women need a platform to connect, they need
safe spaces. Mums need to be heard.
I care about that so much. But it is not a charitable
foundation and even charities raise money and that's the
truth. So there is a cost to having my
incredible team. There is a cost to the product
looking as it does the functionality, the servers, all
of that has a cost. And that doesn't mean giving it
away for free. And I think that we did
misunderstand something to do with that social conscience, but
we also really lent into this trend of tech companies always
sort it out. And when the tide changes and
all of a sudden it's time for that company not just to make
revenue, by the way, to be profitable.
The pressure is extraordinary, 100%.
If you do have a social conscience, I think you're
battling against this totally. And actually, the more people
I've met recently who have tiny apps, but they just turned on
monetization from day one, but they're so they're not stressed.
I think to myself, all these, you know, all these, you include
it, you've built these incredibly huge social missions
and put yourself under so much stress in order to serve your
customer so much. That's it.
We care so much. I care so much.
And I I deeply, deeply care about what the result of what we
do is like. But for Peanut, what do those
women do? Where do they go?
How do they find support? How wait, all of those things
care. It's what makes me get up every
day. But equally there that has
value. And in order for us to value
ourselves and the work we do, we have to be able to monetize
that. And what I think I should have
said at that point, and I wish pretty much daily I'd have said
is actually, I know how I'm going to monetize.
So I'm going to do it now because I always knew.
So there was, it wasn't something that I needed to
figure out. I always had the answer.
So that's hard so. What would you say in the three
moments that changed Peanut? I guess 1 is that Evening
Standard article that suddenly got your first 10,000 and then
the last, you know, I guess you know, since you've been running
Peanut, what would you say the other two moments that happened
that changed the game in some, in some way, shape or form?
So the second one was also pretty early on.
It was like 6 months into Peanut and Apple featured us at WWDC,
which is like the big worldwide Developer Conference.
And Tim Cook was on stage with a little bobbing head of me
because the App Store just changed and it was now going to
be a Meet the Developer series. And that for me was it's
incredible for the team because we built a product that Apple
recognised. It's not like I had millions of
users, I had 10s of thousands of users.
But they saw the work and they recognised it.
And I have to say, when you get validation from a partner like
an Apple, it is an extraordinary feeling because you're like,
wow, they know what I do. They know us based in that
little office down there and that was quite game changing in
many ways. Actually I think it got me my
term sheet for my next round based on inbound engagement.
I think it really validated the team to make them really
energizing and go harder and it meant, OK, we're off.
It wasn't just proof of concept anymore like we're going.
So I think that was really important.
And then the third really like game changing was ATV show,
which is called Sex Life on Netflix.
And there was a woman who was interviewing for a role.
The woman is talking about being on Facebook and the woman who's
interviewing her is like, oh, you're hilarious.
You remind me of my mum. Have you heard of Peanut and my
like? Everything on my like Instagram,
my WhatsApp was popping off. Everyone was like.
Oh my God, they're referencing. Peanut on sex life.
I was like, what's sex life? Like I didn't even know what it
was. Everyone's messaging me and I
get the clip and I was like, we did it.
Because I remember when one of the absolute targets for the
Bumble days was we want Bumble to be dropped into everyday.
Like I want to see it on ATV show.
I want to see it in a movie. And when it happened to Peanut,
I was like, we've done it, we've got the thing, we got the name
check on the Netflix show. I didn't know about it, They
didn't ask me. It's not like I pitched for it.
It just happened as that must be a reference to like a cool mum
thing. And that for me was like, we did
it. What an amazing, amazing moment,
especially for that to be organic and amazing.
Such validation for all your work.
You've created a cultural movement of mothers being
recognized, and this brings me nicely into the real work of
Peanut, which is you have supported women and mothers in a
time where they are mostly ignored and and experiencing new
problems for the first time. Having met all these women that
you have looked after for all these years, what has surprised
you most about what they've said, and why does it keep you
focused on this mission like it's not complete yet?
Some things have happened since 2017 when we launched, which
have been incredibly positive. We now talk about fertility, we
now talk about people's journeys, we talk about baby
loss, we talk about endometriosis, PCOS.
There has been a change in what we now consider to be an
acceptable conversation, and that didn't exist in 2017.
I could barely get people to talk about motherhood, let alone
anything that in the lead up to or as part of.
So that has been immensely positive.
And yet we are not supporting mothers in the way that they
need to be supported and yet our expectation of them is higher
than ever before. So I remember very clearly
diligently reading, leaning and I was leaning in so hard.
I was like, there's no, I'm not getting any help.
But there is nothing here for me.
Childcare doesn't work, it's too expensive, I can't afford it.
I can't do what I need to do. Had to call my mum.
My mum had to live with us Monday to Thursday and I would
have Finn on a Friday. That's amazing that I had that
opportunity. What about people who don't?
What do you do? You don't have your mom who can
come and like dedicate her life to that.
Childcare doesn't work. And yet societally, I was told
lean in and you can have it all. You can have the career.
You can be at the top of your game.
So I did all of the things to sacrifice to get to that.
And then the sacrifice became even greater because it was
like, do I work or do I have my baby?
Or do I do both? And how do I do both?
And so that has not changed probably.
And that is still a conversation happening every single day on
Peanut. And that to me is so challenging
because it's happening in the US, it's happening in the UK,
it's happening in Australia. We do not have the solution for
how to marry up, the impact of expectations of women
contributing economically and the fact that we have to raise
children too. I think from my research, it's
maybe cited the number one reasons people don't want kids
is because of the financial burden they bring.
And do you feel that it is just, it's just so expensive or do you
think any part of it is we now also want to give our children a
better life that we that the fear of potentially not giving
them a better life actually is the fear of it and, and means we
don't want to have kids. What an amazing question.
Are we self selecting because we think that actually we can't
deliver more than we would like to?
Maybe maybe also part of that is maybe we can't even deliver what
we had right. There's another element to it.
It's not even I can't give you better, maybe I can't give you
the equivalent. And there is a value that we
have placed as a society on certain status, which is not to
do with happiness and health. And actually, if you think back
to generations before us, what was valued actually was happy,
healthy kids. Well, that the rest will figure
itself out. But now we're in a situation
where school is childcare. So you've got a massive gap
between having the child and getting them into schooling
where you can have that childcare solution.
School actually not being childcare because school is
about education and learning but needing this wrap around care.
So you have breakfast clubs and you have two time clubs so that
parents can work and where and the impact of that on health and
happiness of child and parent is extraordinary.
So I do think that people do have an element of fear and self
selection and yet motherhood is wonderful and joyous and we
don't talk about that part. So I think that there is so much
that we could be doing to support and acknowledge
childcare and child rearing that would mean that women feel
confident going into it, that I can do this and I'm going to be
supported. What can we do?
I don't have children yet. What can we have?
People who are listening may have children, but what do you
think from your perspective we can do on a personal finance
level that could potentially release some of this burden, and
I know a lot of it, the responsibility lies in
government and policy, but from a personal perspective, what are
your thoughts I. Find it hard because we already
carry a lot, we're already doing a lot, We carry a lot of
responsibility. We already have pressure around
home ownership. That pressure, by the way, is
not the same in European countries.
The obsession that we have with home, home ownership here is not
the same. So we already have that
pressure. We also have cost of living and
we have all these other elements.
And then for me to sit here and say, and by the way, the other
thing you could be doing is saving a bit of money so that
you've got a childcare solution, I think is really difficult.
I think that what I can say is the times at which I really felt
like things were moving easier or in a way that I felt
confident about my childcare situation, as well as being able
to work, were times when I was totally, totally honest about
what I needed with the people around me.
And so saying to my mom, I love you so much.
I if I'm going to go back and work, I need your help and just
saying it. And that's not an easy
conversation either. You know, she's older, she had
made like that's a hard thing, but being able to say that was
something speaking to other women to say, listen, I'm going
to do this childcare solution. Do you want a pool resource?
I'm thinking actually about resourcing my personal life,
like I resource my business. If I can't afford that, I can
afford it as part of a shared opportunity.
Maybe I can't share that office. I can't have that office on my
own. But if you want to come and
share with me and our friend wants to come and share the
office with me, all of a sudden that's affordable.
Well, actually, can I apply that same logic to childcare?
Can we child's, you know, can we call resource for childcare
solutions? Is there an after school club
that they won't run? But if enough of us all come
together and say we need that club, they'll run it for us.
So it's just trying to think about resourcing personal life
like I do my business life has helped.
And are you noticing that happening a lot on Peanut
saying, OK, I live in NW one, we're in London, I'm filming
this. Who's around to potentially
share a nanny? Totally, particularly in the US,
the US audience on Peanut do a lot of very innovative.
Do you want a nanny share? Do you want to like share
babysitting? How are you guys thinking about
it? And I think that that is
necessity. They have gone back to work so
early. The cost of childcare is
exorbitant. Plus this is your child.
You want to have good, reliable, caring, nurturing childcare.
And so, yeah, we see that a lot, particularly in the US.
And that is such a, because I obviously always thought Peanut
is about, you know, bringing moms together because, you know,
especially during pregnancy, like, oh God, have you got this
symptom? Have you got this symptom?
But this idea that you can create these financial networks
where you can share this cost feels an enormous weight off
people's shoulders. It's such an important thing.
How are you finding people who are even on your wavelength that
you could do that with? Like, where is that conversation
happening if not on peanut? And that is a really, really
important point. What are we doing societally to
empower women to have these conversations about?
Actually, I do want to go back to work.
I worked hard for my career. I want to return, but the
current like situation doesn't support that.
Can we pull resource? And I mean, thank God it's
happening on Peanut. What?
Cost do you think is often people think children need X and
actually you think honestly you don't need to waste your money
with that? The most important thing for me
actually is giving them the opportunity to be engaged in
activities and around people who they can have fun and learn
from. And that is something that even
if money was really tight when I was growing up, but I said to my
mum, I want to go to ballet and she was like, we're going to
find the money for you to go to ballet, you know, and it was
that kind of thing. And so giving them those
opportunities, it doesn't have to be something every night, but
an opportunity to do something. It makes us well-rounded, it
makes us interesting, it makes us care about things.
It breaks down barriers. Like there's no reason a girl
from Peterborough should be going to ballet.
But I loved it. And now, you know, I want my
daughter to do it. And so it's it's just about like
it democratizes access to things that you consider to be not
accessible to you. But you saw someone once in a
Tutu and thought, yeah, kind of want to do that.
So that I think is really important.
And I don't regret it. And I do it for the kids.
How do you stay skilled as a young mom if you're taking time
out to do your own childcare? Because, it said, I read that
five years after the birth of your first child, mother's
monthly earnings are on average 42% lower than in the year
before the birth. Yeah.
AI has changed so much in the last year, so if I had taken the
last year out of work, I think I'd be very struggling right now
because so much of my work now is using different AI tools.
How do you, what is your, what is your advice to women to kind
of stay just a little bit potentially connected or how do
you, I guess not feel you've been locked out the employment
market during motherhood? So I think that part of where we
find ourselves locked out is there are lots of contributing
factors, but one of them is the pension gap.
As soon as you are not in the workplace, you are not making
contributions to your pension. So actually not only is your
salary lower, but what you are able to access at a later point
in your life is dramatically reduced as well.
So there are all these different things that happen whilst we are
not stepping out of work because you know, we don't fancy working
anymore. We're actually stepping out and
working harder that than anyone who is in their kind of nine to
five, so to speak, because it is all consuming and it is like a
level of expectation. So I think that acknowledging
that that difference is not just the promotions that men who are
an equivalent level will continue to receive and we're
not receiving, it's also those future contributions that we're
not getting. And that is a really big problem
actually societally because what are we doing with those women
when they hit retirement age and they don't have the pensions in
terms of then how do I make sure that I stay in or keep connected
or don't feel like I'm going to be out of work by the time I'm
ready to re emerge? I think that.
There are two different answers to it, and part of that will be
necessity. Some women will have to return
to work. We have no choice.
We have to go back. And therefore you have to see it
as any other part of your life. You're going to eat the right
food, you're going to get 10,000 steps in, and you're going to
make sure that you understand whether it's reading the news or
staying in touch with something to really like through
necessity. And then another part, perhaps
it's more of a luxury, but it does exist.
And we see it where something happens in motherhood, which is
creativity becomes unlocked and you start to feel that you see
the world slightly differently and you have ideas and you can
see things through a different lens and you feel creative
again. And that is also an opportunity
to start building and evolving and educating a different part
of yourself in order to be able to re enter the workforce, but
in a different way perhaps. So I think that there are two
different paths. Both are important actually.
Again, societally, we need both, but we really need to support
those women who have stepped out to perform an essential part of
childcare in order to make sure that we don't suffer from brain
drain as a society. We're going to lose all these
brilliant women and they're not going to re enter the workforce.
What's the travesty? I absolutely love that point of
motherhood being a creative unlock because I think on social
media you can look at all, you know, the mothers being very
honest and they're very stressed with young kids.
But I feel I don't see that narrative enough going hard on a
minute. Children have given me back time
to think for myself and actually do a complete pivot.
We Jake about it at home, but like I'm the CEO at home, I am
the CEO. I'm making the decision,
decisions about who's going where, when.
Like I like where we're investing our time.
Are we doing that this term, whatever it is?
Like. A different part of your brain,
like from an organizational perspective, switched on.
But now I'm also thinking about. I wonder how I can explain this
issue to my daughter, who's 6. How can I get down into that?
So then you're creative and you start thinking about things and
how to get on her level. Or she teaches me things because
she sees something in a way. And I'm like, wow, that's
amazing. Or my son came up with an
amazing idea the other day and I was like, Finn, wow.
So it's just about it unlocks something else in you.
And we must not be shy about seeing what the amazing joyous
moments of motherhood are, because otherwise I think women
do self select out. And there is a news cycle where
we talk a lot about all of the difficulties and it's much
harder to share the positive news.
And there are so many. Positives.
I don't have the stat with me right now, but I know more often
than most successful entrepreneurs are ones that have
had kids and actually set up their business later on in the
life. They're not the 24 year old
founder. Look at what we have to do.
It's a time management. You're being resourceful.
You know, we we have like really limited resource on our
finances, but we'll make it happen.
Also, it is that thing of need something doing ask a busy
person like mum is doing so many things.
She was the original influencer. She knows who the best painter,
decorator, like tradesman is in the in your area because she's
the one that's employing them. She also is the matchmaker.
She knows who's single. Like she was everything and
we've forgotten how integral that is and we've forgotten a
little bit somewhere along the line that that is worthy of like
complete plaudit and and almost worship.
She does everything. So of course you can run a
business too. What would be your advice to any
man who maybe has taken time out for childcare?
They haven't gone back to work yet and they've lost their
confidence. The confidence gab is is real.
I've seen it, I, I work with women where I've seen it on many
occasions. I think I wish I had just the
confidence of a very average man.
I think that actually confidence comes from an empowerment of
education. So resourcing yourself, doing
the reading, doing the research, feeling that you don't need to
know it, but knowing that you've done that part gives you
confidence and networks. You know what gives me
confidence? Other women, brilliant women who
tell me, yeah, you've got this. You're amazing.
I loved when you did that. I walked in here and you told me
three things about me that you loved.
And I was like, you know, and it makes you feel amazing because I
don't really care what other people like the genpop thing,
but I do care what other brilliant women think about me.
And so surrounding yourself with those networks is really
important and it makes you feel scene and it makes you feel
relevant. And that's really important.
And it doesn't matter where you find that network, but if you
can have that, I think that's really important.
So I would say like tooling myself with education and then
tooling myself with support network friends.
Before I worked for Andre, I worked for an entrepreneur.
He was incredible. And he said to me, the first
million is your hardest to make, and after that everything's
going. What he was trying to say is
like that getting that first push is the hardest bit.
And then after that, you kind of understand what the triggers are
and what the moments are. And I don't know if I agree with
him on all of that, but I do think that the most important
lesson is everyone is constantly reflecting on their own
financial position and success. So him to even say that to me
randomly, you know, the first millions are hardest and after
that you'll be fine, means that that's kind of constantly his
self evaluation. And I think that as a result, I
am constantly self evaluating. If like, where did I want to be?
Where do I want to be? What are the things I need to do
to get there? It was a very long way of saying
constantly thinking about my financial health and position is
the most important lesson because the times that I didn't
think about it other times or where I was a bit like this.
Where I just. Felt young and not caring are
opportunities that I missed or mistakes that I made.
So I'm constantly trying to be aware.
I'm conscious of it. Are you an investor?
Are you an? Are you a saver?
I'm an investor because I get excited I and you know, you can
invest in variety of things and whether it's stocks or whatever,
but all investing companies or whatever you might be.
I am someone who likes the gratification of seeing like the
success. So I would say that I've taken
lots of risks on investments, some ill advised perhaps, but I
I get that passion like get excited.
To have risk appetite. Risk appetite comes after the
first million, as Paul would say, like that, like you, you
don't before that you don't have any risk appetite.
You can't afford to Saving is something really interesting
that that I was always a saver squirrel.
I used to call it the squirrel account.
I still got the squirrel account, right.
So you just like tuck things over and try and forget that
it's there and it's that rainy day like squirrel account.
But now I think I want money to work harder for me than just
sitting and tucking it away. And that's why I want to take
the investment risk because the reward is greater.
And that is something that I've learned over time.
And who's taught you about? That a bit trial and error and a
bit kind of seeing things where I've had money just sitting
there and it's not really doing anything, which over time means
that it's actually worth. Less.
It sounds such a simple point, but honestly I didn't even think
about that it that much. I'd have money in the bank that
was essentially dying on me. That's why I wasn't doing
anything. Because you're not, it's not
working for you, right? And, and so that for me is
something that you can't really understand.
You've got to think about it in terms of whatever it is that you
care about, whatever is the thing that you want.
OK, so I really like, I don't know, clothes.
I do actually really like clothes.
And I'm not trying to be like, frivolous.
And now it's a woman talking about money and she like I do.
That's the thing that I like. And I like to invest in them and
I love them. And it makes me like hyper.
And if I could buy that Elia jacket two years ago with the
money I had in my savings, but today I can't buy it, that's
because the money hasn't grown with the market, right?
And and it because it's not working for you.
And that's a problem. And that's a problem if you want
to buy a house or a car, whatever The thing is that
you're trying to get. And that's how you have to think
about it. So that's not to say that you
shouldn't be prudent with where you're putting your money, and
you should only take risk where you can afford to lose it.
Do you actively teach yourself about the stock market and
invest? In listen, it's really hard to
all of a sudden go from not having an awareness to then
zoning in. And I'm a lawyer and you know,
we actually do deals where it can impact what, you know,
someone's share price or whatever it might be.
And so yes, I think it's an important thing.
There is literally no reason that we all can't be reading and
understand. You can go to your best friend
chat and ask her to explain like a 5 year old what this certain,
you know, movement, what's a bear market?
And she's going to give you an answer, which is probably better
than I can give you right now. So there's literally no excuse
for not going and doing that education piece.
And yes, we all should be doing it.
Financial literacy in women is shockingly low.
Yeah, in there's 30% economists compared to 70% male economists.
Only 17% of the CFO in the CFO's in the top Fortune 500 companies
are winning. Why is it essential that women
learn about finance? If you don't understand the
mechanics of how to invest, how to smartly save, how to smartly
spend, it is the ultimate form of repression.
That's how I feel. And I feel like in the same way,
we were never really told how to network properly, in the same
way that we were never really told how to build a business.
But instinctively we had to do these things.
Just because it feels uncomfortable doesn't mean you
don't need to know it. You have to go and understand
it. 20 years ago we weren't talking about our gynaecological
health and now we are. You have to be.
As confident and comfortable talking about your gut health,
your Ghana health as your financial health, it is so
important to not understand. It will be the thing that
unpicks you from being able to have the life that you are
wanting to have building for. And there is a reason we didn't
know. We didn't.
We didn't hold the pen, we couldn't write the check, we
couldn't open the account. And now we can.
But we didn't do that bit in between to catch up with
understanding what that means. And now all of the tools are
there, and all of the information is there to make
sure that you can do it. That was I I'm so inspired.
That was so well, perfectly, perfectly put.
Do you talk about finance with your friends?
Because I think this is also another thing where I turn up to
these men dinners and then making each other rich and
they're telling each other, oh, May, I've got this great deal.
And then I turn up to my girl dinners and I love them both.
But we get we don't get stuck. So I enjoy the conversation, but
we talk about, Oh my gosh, no way did he break up?
Like, you know, have you just broken up with him?
We go into emotional matters. We go into what our heart is
feeling, which don't get me wrong, is very important because
men's mental health is struggling because they're not
having these conversations. But I think to myself, gosh,
women's bank accounts are really struggling because we are not
actively talking about finance with our friends.
Is that an experience you see or do you feel that you do talk
about finance with your friends? Honestly, it's so frustrating.
Men are syndicating deals amongst themselves, they're
sharing deals amongst themselves and we're not getting in on the
action so that they know that the founder of a big fintech
company based in Sweden is doing a secondary before he does his
exit and they're in on the deal. I want to be in on the deal, but
I'm not in on the deal. And we should all be angry about
not being in on the deal. And we should be like banging on
the door to say, let me in because I add value to or I can
write a cheque. And so surrounding yourself with
the right people on that is so important.
I have a friend who is an investor who he's pretty good at
bringing me in on deals. And but it's a he and he will do
it when he thinks he can and he will like reference me and I'm
grateful for it. And you know what I do, I try
and like bring the women in too. I'm like muscling in to be like,
she's great too. So it is a real problem that we
are not getting the deal flow because they keep it there.
Another form of repression. If you want to know the truth.
In my view, the conversations that we're having, yes, it is
hard because we do want to talk about emotional and real life
and we want to talk about those things, but we also want to talk
about ideas and what we've read and what we're like.
That is who we are. We're multifaceted and sometimes
I think it's just a lot of like nervousness of sounding dumb.
But have you ever, has your friend ever asked you a
question? You thought they were dumb?
No, my girlfriend's asked me things and I'm like, oh, I
actually don't know, let's find out.
I've never thought oh God you're stupid for not knowing that or
if I have known the answer and they haven't loved it.
Everyone loves like showing off about what they know, so why
wouldn't you let them? So don't let your fear of
looking stupid mean that you don't ask the questions that you
need to know the answers to in order to get the deals.
And I think there's also links to that very important point you
just mentioned being how important networking is, because
networking and finances feel so much more intertwined that we
think they do. Because, you know, to a point,
you learn about the deals if you have the network.
Now you were born into no network by the sounds of it, and
you created your network. How it sounds such a kind of
cringey question in a way, because that this idea of
networking immediately makes our spine crawl.
Yes. And it's so embarrassing.
And yeah, I know you have. Built an incredible professional
and friendship network. I did it really late.
I didn't know. I didn't know we had to have a
network. I didn't know what was.
So I certainly had no value to place on it because I didn't
know, didn't understand that actually that person that I met
five years ago might be the person that writes me a term
sheet or whatever it might be. I didn't know and I cannot
stress to you enough, start today.
Start now. Any person that you meet in your
life. It's not like I make it sound
like mercurial and it's not that any person show an interest in
who they are, what they do, because you just don't know when
that might be relevant to you in your future.
And if you can introduce people, be helpful to people, they'll
pay it forward. They'll remember and just not
being a taker and giving will reward you.
So start today, start now. I wish I'd have started so long
ago. Think about networks please.
It's the most important thing. So to the future, yeah.
How does Peanut and how do you think about this AI boom?
First thing to say is for anyone who feels like mystified on AI
and just want to demystify, we've been using it for years,
right? It just wasn't called AI in the
way that we think about it now. And OK, it wasn't chat and it
wasn't Gemini and it wasn't Grog, but it was, we were using
it. Whether that is because we were
creating predictive models and things.
There were versions of it for moderation.
If you used a dating app, a social network, Peanut, you've
used AI. It's been in there in the
background doing something. So now there's an evolution,
something's changed, and we've got more opportunities.
I think for us, the biggest opportunity is the fact that you
can ask Chat or Gemini anything and she'll give you the answer.
Love that. But how do you know that she's
not hallucinating? How do you know that she's
giving you the right answer? How do you know you can trust
that answer, particularly in the world of your child or your
fertile health or anything to do with you?
And so, Peanut, next year, we'll be bringing you the opportunity
to validate all of your answers through the community because
the part that is missing from AIAI is incredible, but the
validation from real experience is missing.
And so we give you the opportunity to ask the question
to get that quick answer, but then to validate it with
millions of women who are at that same point who can say
correct, agree, disagree. Here's the nuance, because it's
that contextual that is missing to AI and that's coming next
year. Wow, that is unbelievably
exciting because I've already experienced use cases of going
online, asking questions and getting such crazy answers
right. And when you're in that
vulnerable state, especially when you're pregnant, you've got
no idea what to believe, what not to believe in it you're up
at night going through these crazy chat forums.
I'm obsessed with this. This is what you need.
You need to have. So you might, you've got a baby
that won't sleep. Maybe the baby's got colic
reflux, whatever it is, you've asked the AI what the what the,
what the problem is and what the solution might be.
And are you going to leave it there?
You're going to trust that or are you actually going to ask
women who, how they're living it, knowing who can share their
experience. So it's about authenticating and
validating. One particular psychologist that
goes on a lot of podcasts and I know that she distresses a lot
of women about her very strong views on women essentially not
going back to work. And to your point, it's
absolutely unfeasible for most women not to go back to work.
And so all she's doing is just creating a lot of guilt and not
with not really much positive outcome because it's really
archaic what she's sharing. And I feel that I've heard
stories of then Chachi Petit or these other AIAI platforms are
validating these crazy viewpoints that are making women
feel even worse. The truth of the matter is
anyone who is making a judgement on what you decide to do from a
motherhood, parenting, work relationship perspective is not
a voice that you need in like singing in your choir.
The only voices you need are people who support.
They might ask questions. But who are supporting and
giving, offering their own personal experience as an
example of this is how I made it work.
This is what worked for me. This was my experience.
Because we're humans. We want to know what other
people's lived experiences. I don't really just need to
understand this is what you're telling me is the answer.
I don't need that. What I need is what did you do?
How did you cope with it? How did you get through that?
Is it normal? Did I experience the same thing
you did? And that's really the there is a
brilliant part of AI, but the part that really needs
development. And where I see our role is
making sure that it's authenticated by real lived
experience of real women. God.
I'll be using that. That is absolutely fantastic.
So our final round is splurge or save.
Yes, Rimowa suitcases. Got 1 so splurge.
Salmon sperm facials save. Airpods save.
I like the wire at home. LED masks save.
Taxi or tube taxi? Birkin bag splurge astrology
readings Oh splurge Daily matcha save.
Most. Valuable phone subscription at
the moment because I have quite bad insomnia.
It's This American Life. I like to listen to all the
podcasts, like the Extra Bits, because I'm obsessive about
those things. Stocks or savings?
Stocks renting or buying? Depends on the circumstance for
me. Currently buying.
Best book. The art of War.
Why? A friend of ours gave it to me
and you open it and there'll be a quote in there and you apply
it to basically where you are in your life right now.
It's it's actually phenomenal. So you'll read something and
you're like, oh, contextualises things.
It's quite, it's quite profound. It's good.
Most inspiring entrepreneur you've ever met?
I'm going to say Andre because he changed my life.
The real secret to success is. The people you surround yourself
with. My first paycheck was.
From John Lewis. Thank you so much for being on
Hot Girl Finance. You are a complete inspiration.
Thank you so much and I cannot wait for Peanut in this new
iteration of AI to be helping so many more women release the
girl, find other people that feel the same and can give
advice. And thank you so much for what
you do for women globally. Thank you.
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