00:00 Introduction

So Alyce, welcome to the show. Very happy to have you on. We’ve got lots of things to talk about tonight. I’m so excited to hear about all the things that have been happening in your world. But just to give some context, just in case anyone doesn’t know you. Well, I think that’s doubtful. I think it’s a fair assumption. Or maybe, why don’t we talk about your first business, The Daily Edited, which I know you’ve just exited just very recently. So maybe talk a little bit about how that came about and just sort of summarise what it was and then where you are right now.

00:30 How The Daily Edited started as a side hustle

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I met Steve Grace when I was a lawyer at Deutsch Miller. And interestingly the business, The Daily Edited, was a side hustle to my career as a lawyer. It was a hobby business. It was at first a clothing line that, you know, didn’t go anywhere commercially. And then I had the idea to create some accessories that I needed when I was promoted. You know, thinking that I’d be invited to all these meetings with people like Steve Grace and I need to get business cards out of a business card holder and have a nice compendium to get my notebook out.

I went into market and I was like, I can’t really find anything that I can afford. It was either Officeworks, which is not stylish, or Louis Vuitton, which I couldn’t afford even though I thought I was doing okay as a lawyer. So in came the accessories range.

01:20 Teaching herself to monogram and the Instagram explosion

I love personalisation and I’ve always loved it. I got my first personalised Louis Vuitton bag, how ironic, from my gay uncle when I was 16 years old. And I was like, it would be really cool if we can personalise these for people. So got a basic monogram machine, you know, looked up on videos on YouTube, worked out how to monogram, didn’t do a really good job of it, but put that product up on Instagram and it just blew up.

And then within the course of a year the business just blew up, this pivot into accessories and fashion accessories really worked, and I resigned from my job as a lawyer in June 2015. Worked for one of Steve’s friends, Paul Miller. You were actually involved in the sale of my first business. Exactly, I was there, yes.

02:20 Growing to $30 million with stores in three countries

So that was 2015. The business grew really rapidly. It went up to a $30 million turnover business within three years. Stores across Australia, a retail partnership with David Jones, with concession stores in Westfield Sydney, down in Melbourne in Chadstone, and a store in New York at one point, a couple of stores in Singapore.

So the business was mainly online with retail, and the product range grew from anything from a personalised phone cover through to personalised luggage. So it was quite, in the end, because it was a lot, right? Like 1,200 SKUs towards the end. So quite a large range.

12:30 The hardest period: the exit and media scrutiny

Out of all the things that you’ve done since you stopped being a lawyer, what do you reckon has been the hardest thing? Was it taking the step to go, was it building it, was it exiting, or is it now when you’re not sure where you’re going to go?

Probably the exit. We all know that that exit was, you know, not as nice as it could have been. Never are. That was probably the hardest time in my life. The media got wind of what was happening and it was awful. Nothing I go through will be as hard as that.

It really put a lot of things into perspective. Like who’s important in your life, who believes in you, how hard things can get. That was pretty hard. And so everything now is like easy. If someone says something to me I’m like, that doesn’t touch the sides.

15:20 Office of Alyce Tran and the portfolio brand vision

What I loved about The Daily Edited was the creative direction and the creative strategy around how to grow up that business, and then building a team to assist me with growing that vision. I’d love to have a portfolio of brands. How people plug into Office of Alyce Tran, I haven’t really structurally worked out. I’m sure Paul Miller will help me. It’s a document.

But I’d love to be able to assist with creative direction, assist with strategy, and find the shortcuts for all of these brands that I may have equity in, or that I control wholly, or whatever it is.

I don’t want to sound like a tool, but why I’m extremely investable is because I am able to do both sides. And I have realised that is very rare, only now. But it’s been great because people have allowed me to do that. I’ve been able to become my full self. I’ve completed it.

20:00 Calculated transitions, not big risks

The number one interview question that people ask is, how did you leave your job as a lawyer? And I’m like, it wasn’t like that. It was a transition. Things are sort of built up to a level that are viable before I sidestep. I think the way people are seeing it is like I’m taking all these big risks, but I don’t feel that I am, because it’s calculated. It’s already there.