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.

03:50 Making every product she wanted and the 1,200-SKU range

So it was a fantastic business because I made everything that I wanted to. I left no stone unturned. You know, the last set of products that I put into design and production were like a comb with a cover, reusable straws, a reusable coffee cup, like all these things that I felt like I needed and hadn’t been fully accessorised yet by someone.

And I’d always wanted to exit that business. I never thought that I was going to have that forever. I was building it towards an exit, whether it was a strategic partner or a PE or whatever it was. And it ended up that my co-founder wanted to be the buyer of that business. So she purchased the business from me, and here we are now. And that deal was done three weeks ago. So we’re hot off the press.

05:10 Selling to her co-founder and exiting the business

So hot. And I haven’t actually done much press because I need to decompress from the whole thing. Really exciting time for me. And I was, I have been, to be honest, scared of becoming irrelevant. Or scared of like losing my touch. Really? Yeah, that surprises me. Totally. And so, I didn’t know when that deal would be finalised, so in my fear of not having anything to do, I said yes to everything.

06:20 Starting In The Roundhouse with a school friend

In 2018, 2019, a friend from school from Adelaide came to me and she was like, I want to do a homewares brand. And I was like, dude, I have no time for that. Like, I’ve got, hello, do you not see on Instagram with this other business? Oh no, please do it with me. And I’m like, oh, no.

Then I actually did feel there was a gap in the market for beautifully designed tableware that had a fashion aspect to them. So I said to my friend Brook, fine, I’ll help you. Like, I won’t do a lot of heavy lifting. How did that work? You have to be not doing, I do everything. She’s got two children under two.

Anyway, so it’s a tabletop homewares brand called In The Roundhouse which has gone really well. Stocked in David Jones nationally, working on a big deal in the US which is very exciting, had a call with them today.

08:10 Setting strict product parameters and resisting personalisation

I’ve given myself parameters. Only on the table, nothing else. Only if it’s on the table and it has to be made out of a ceramic. And I’m allowing myself to do some napery and cutlery, but I won’t go glassware because I feel like there are tons of people doing that. And I won’t do candles. There are too many candles. There are way too many candles. But everything else, no cushions either.

People keep saying that to me, they think that’s where I’m going to take the brand. And I’m like, I’m resisting, because it’s so easy, because I have all that expertise in how to create these workflows around personalisation. And it’s very tempting. So we want to just drop, from factory into warehouse to customer, really simplified the process.

09:30 The emotional transition from one business to another

How have you found that transition? Because I sold to my business partner as well and it is a very emotional thing which you don’t realise. Have you found the transition from one business to another, which is not, it’s not the same at all? It’s like you’re starting again. Yeah.

Do you find you feel like you don’t know stuff? No. There’s certain things where you’re like, Jesus. And you know you’ve been paid out and stuff and you’re like, great, cool. It makes it a lot easier this second time around because you’re not working with nothing. You’ve got contacts, it’s, you know, all of that stuff.

But then the other day I had to set up my own printer because I haven’t bought a PA or anyone in yet. I don’t really know what my workflow is right. Second time around, went to JB Hi-Fi, got a printer, took it home, turned it on, and it just sort of connects to Wi-Fi and your laptop. It’s a lot easier than it was five or six years ago. And also they’re only $99 now.

11:20 RewardStyle and helping grow an affiliate platform in Australia

Even during my time at TDE we were using this thing called RewardStyle. It’s an influencer marketing platform. It’s a two-sided piece of technology that brings brands and influencers together. Not a marketplace, it’s an affiliate marketing platform. They reached out to one of my friends to see if she wanted to start that business up in Australia.

So it’s huge in America, they’ve got 500 employees, the platform does like $10 billion in sales in America. It’s a well-established business but they want to roll out globally. So now I’m helping them with their strategy on how to grow out their presence in Australia, which brands to work with, how to onboard the influencers. That kind of thing, which is exciting.

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.

14:20 Consulting for friends: Michael Lo Sordo and Steve Cordony

You announce on social media that you’ve exited the business, and then all of a sudden all of your friends want some consulting. And for the first time in a long time I actually have time to give to them, and it will only be a finite window because I’ll obviously build up other businesses.

So I have allowed myself to consult with a few of my friends. One of them is a fashion designer, Michael Lo Sordo, who had his presentation as a part of Fashion Week last night. Sort of helping him over the last couple of weeks. And another friend of mine, Steve Cordony, who is big in interiors, he’s a big interior stylist on Instagram. He’s the editor at large at Belle. Sort of helping him work out what his strategy is on essentially leveraging the profile that he’s created, which has been super interesting.

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.

17:20 The blue-sky dream: a lifestyle brand roll-up that lists

Ideally, I know this is crazy and this is the blue-sky dream: it’s a roll-up of lifestyle brands that then lists. The closest example to it is BWX with the pharmaceutical brands. That was a fantastic roll-up and that’s inspirational for me.

It’s a family office with mentoring, with creativity, all sort of brought into one. And then you’re going to go out. So if anyone’s out there with a creative brand who wants your help, they’re all going to come calling at you now because you’ve just thrown it out there.

I have actually had some interesting businesses come to me where I’ve bought their product, they know I like it because it’s featured in shoots at my house. And I’m looking at things. Because why not? If I can help, great. I didn’t know what I was doing with The Daily Edited and it worked out okay.

18:40 Imposter syndrome and why entrepreneurs make themselves

Imposter syndrome comes up a lot on this show. And I think everybody has that. I’m on my fourth business, I still have no idea what I’m doing in my own head. I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. And I think people always feel like that, and then other times you feel like you do. I think that’s just normal human behaviour.

Did you just push through it? Obviously I have no fear or something because someone has said to me, your risk appetite is so high, you’re just like yeah I’ll just do it. I just don’t think I have time to dwell on things because I am so busy that I just want to get things done. And as a result of getting so many things done I just keep pushing forward.

Someone asked me about entrepreneurs the other day, whether they were born or made. And I think entrepreneurs make themselves through their own experiences. Their confidence grows, which is where you’re at now, right? I don’t think you’re necessarily taking big risks. I think you’re making decisions based on things that you know, having experienced what you’ve experienced.

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.

21:50 What comes next and closing thoughts

It’s such an exciting time for you. I’m really fascinated to see how the Office of Alyce Tran develops. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit freaky, but I’m sure through sheer determination and working really hard that something will happen.

Well that tends to be the one consistent answer you get out of everyone that comes on this: determination and working really hard. There’s no other way around it. And even though now you’ve got a profile and all this experience behind you, it’s still going to be just as hard.

Well, I’m so glad that you came on. I really am. I’ve been wanting to just catch up with you for ages anyway. It’s nice to hear what you’re actually doing as well. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. I wish you so much with this, and the OAT, I really like that. Good luck with it all. And we’ll look forward to seeing what happens.