#7 People

Time spent: 19 months, 2 weeks
Time to launch: 1 month? lol
$ Invested: 510K

People are the worst.

And people are also the best.
They’re the reason I’m doing all of this.

Question:
Which is more important, Good Ideas or Good People?

It’s a trick question. The answer is that ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas. (Duh)

“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”

I wanted to write this email because Fluff is nothing without the people who make me get out of bed each day. And if your company is the team who work within, then right now my company is a shy, magical, brain, neck, cloud, and ghost. Amongst other things.

This podcast is important. Commandment number two talks about people, and more specifically: Hire like your life depends on it, because it does.

I have a habit of hiring close friends/people I’ve already met. Some would say this is a bad idea, yet I’m sticking by it.

When I look for staff, I like to look for the following:
A good handshake. (My dad taught me that).
A good listener.
Curiosity.
Patience & Persistence.
Awareness.
Initiative (Bothering).
And the ability to have a wine and talk about anything, but not everything.
It helps if they’re happy, too.

This is also the type of friend I look for, so it has only felt natural to work alongside friends — at times. Occasionally I need to switch from being a friend to being a ‘boss’ :/ — and I’m not great at drawing this line — but at the very least I like to think I’m aware of it.

I think a good trait of a leader (of sorts) is managing expectations (including your own). I don’t get angry at mistakes, I get disappointed with dishonesty… or silence. If people talk to me, I will listen.

People (personalities and work ethic) are a gamble. But I always come back to the hiring process: if you hire right from the beginning, difficult conversations shouldn’t be difficult. Or better yet, understanding that the hard thing about hard things is that they’re hard, and going with it, is pretty amazing.

When I started working on Fluff I knew what roles I needed for our first 18 months of business:

Marketing. Someone to be my right hand.
Operations & Customer Service. Someone to stress for me.
Content. Someone to be like magic.

I found these people right in front of me, from my high school, and on Tumblr.

I think everyone needs someone who finishes your sentences and fills in the gaps; who understands your crazy ideas (and makes them better), who cares about your audience and keeps you in check. I spent four months traveling the world with my right hand when we first started working on Fluff. There were times where we both needed our space, and times where I couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving my side. We learned a lot, and now we don’t need to say much — we get each other.

I took a risk on someone to stress for me, to sweat the details and get the things that I struggle to understand done. This someone I hadn’t seen in 10+ years. I knew she had something to prove and I wanted to see her prove it, not to me, but to herself.

And I hired a magic thing because there was not another universe where I wouldn’t.

I learned from my last business that I don’t want to change/dictate the way our staff work — instead I want to understand their differences and encourage them to “do you”. What this has meant is many things like working on the floor, not wearing shoes, needing bread, their dogs, and time to think away from our office. (Me included).

Other things I care about (other than working):
Summer Fridays !
Family lunches.
Whisky tasting sessions.
Visitors.
Dinners. Catch ups.
Finishing at 2, sometimes.
Beanbags.
Having naps.

The other day we edited 10 hours of video footage. We bought popcorn and ate ice cream cake and chocolate to see us through. We laughed a lot. We then discussed our pricing strategy and concluded the meeting by asking a Magic 8 Ball to confirm all our decisions. Seriously.

We’re a small team, and while we haven’t launched yet (there’s sure to be more stressful times) I want to keep work flexible and fun. Because with all this freedom also comes responsibility. There’s no sense of abusing it. Rather we talk about it and reassess it, as often as we can. I hope we get to do these things even if we make it to our goal of however many people and however many sales.

Our core team recently went away for three days for a culture building exercise/weekend where we discussed our personal relationships with makeup/beauty, why we all came to Fluff, our aspirations for the brand, our personal and career goals, and the values of this business. We also went out for dinner and had heaps of wine, and hung out at the beach. It was awesome.

I would suggest any business with a team prioritises something like this. No matter whether you’re 5 months or 5 years in. The discussions we had are helping us finalise our company culture documents for future use/staff hires. They’re something to keep us all accountable. To remember why we started.

In summary, the doc will cover:

-Values (Cliche)
-Personal + Career Development
-Freedom + Responsibility
-High Performance
-Pay
-Communication + Alignment

I started with the Netflix deck on culture, which is amazing, bar some questionable design and copywriting.

I told the girls that I wanted to make them rich and successful, but to do that they needed to make Fluff rich and successful. (I borrowed that line from a clever man named Pitzy, thank you).

Right now Fluff is both a family and a team: we’re so close and yet we’re always aware that we have a goal and that we have to perform. I feel comfortable asking people to do the fun stuff and the shit stuff, and the only way I’ve reconciled this is that I do both the fun stuff and shit stuff too. I think they see that.

Sometimes, and more than likely, people don’t work. Great people can have bad times, and I want to stick with them through these. And I want them to acknowledge that great companies can have bad times, too. I want them to stick with us. Unlimited loyalty, however, does not benefit anyone. I don’t expect my girls to be around forever, in fact, I made them plan their exit. This way I can help them be in whatever position they want in however many years, and I won’t be surprised when/if they choose to pursue another option.

Aside from our core team, I have a bunch of clever people supporting me: accountants, advisors, project managers, designers, writers, investors, etc. Those whose job I could never do. The hours that Love & Money have poured into Fluff do not go unnoticed — we wouldn’t be half the brand we are without this partnership.

There is also my business partner, who I trust more than a partner. He’s been there since Fluff was just an idea; a shitty drawing on a piece of paper, and he’s helped me build what it is today. He’s looked at and edited each email, talked me through every Unexpected Excel Meeting, and patted my head when I’ve needed it most. We clash, we get frustrated, we frown, we laugh, we challenge each other to be better, and we wouldn’t have this any other way.

In 18–24 months’ time, Fluff could be in two very different places: 10 people, or 100+ people strong. I’m ready for either, so long as they’re the right people.

I could never do this all. Asking for help is important. Having people around for the good and the bad even more so. So this email ends with thanks to all the people who’ve helped me. I’d write a list of their names but my memory would fail, I’d leave someone out and feel horrible but then forget quite quickly because my memory would fail me again.

It’s all Fluff anyway.