The Trailblazers Experience Podcast

EP67 Tash Courtenay Smith : Serial Entrepreneur , Investor & Founder of Biz Kids: Empowering the Next Generation Through Entrepreneurship & Financial Literacy

• Ntola • Season 4 • Episode 67

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EP67 Our next guest is Tash Courtenay Smith Entrepreneur , Investor , Author and Founder of Biz Kids
Unleash the secrets of entrepreneurial success with Tash Courtenay Smith, a former health journalist turned dynamic entrepreneur and founder of Biz Kids. In our latest episode, Tash shares her exhilarating journey from aspiring to join the police force to revolutionizing children's education on TikTok. Her story is filled with pivotal moments that led her to embrace entrepreneurship, offering insights on balancing career ambitions with parenting, and the societal pressures women face in seeking work-life harmony.
Finally, Tash delves into her passion for empowering women in business, discussing initiatives like Meta's She Means Business program and her platform, Tash Talks. We reflect on the evolving narrative around women's roles in leadership and the importance of showcasing female success stories. Tash's journey is a testament to the transformative power of entrepreneurship and personal growth, leaving listeners inspired to redefine success on their own terms.

Chapters
00:12 Intro
01:56 Tash's Early years and starting out!
03:36 Transitioning into Media and Journalism
07:50 Founding Talk to the Press
12:29 The Journey of Building a Business
14:48 Balancing Motherhood and Entrepreneurship
19:25 The Concept Behind BizKids
23:31 The Birth of BizKids
26:01 The Impact of AI on Education
29:06 Navigating Challenges in Entrepreneurship
33:38 Funding Strategies for Entrepreneurs
39:28 Redefining Success in Business
42:02 The Power of Personal Branding
44:23 Embracing Vulnerability and Self-Trust
44:49 Imposter Syndrome and getting out of your head
48:00 Empowering Women Entrepreneurs
53:08 Balancing Ambition and Self-Care
59:59 Childhood Influences on Drive and Ambition
01:01:17 Future Aspirations and Impact
01:01:46 Trailblazer Takeaway Tips
01:05:28 Outro


Find Tash Courtenay Smith
Tash | Inspiration, Education and Connection
Linkedin  Tash Courtenay-Smith | LinkedIn
Instagram  @tash_courtenay
https://www.instagram.com/tash_courtenay
Biz Kids Biz Kids | Britain's youngest entrepreneurial community
Notting Hill Shopping Bag Notting Hill Bag – Notting Hill Bag

Listen : to the audio version Apple Spotify .Amazon Music Google Podcasts
Watch and subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Thetrailblazersexperience
Follow Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thetrailblazersexperience/

The Trailblazers Experience :

Welcome to another episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, a podcast where we have candid conversations with women sharing their career journeys. My next guest is Tash Courtny Smith and she is a badass trailblazer. She's a multifaceted founder, entrepreneur, investor, speaker, author, podcaster, and her latest project is Biz Kids, which is an entrepreneurial platform for kids, I mean on TikTok. So leveraging TikTok for what it should be educational, and not just TikTok dances. Welcome, ash.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Well thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. I feel honoured. Thank you so much for having me.

The Trailblazers Experience :

My goodness, I feel like it's all serendipity. We met at D2C Live and since then I've been following you around. It's like the algorithms just keeps on showing me what's going on with csh in different places.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I never know whether to apologize or not, because we are very, very good at content production and algorithms. So yes but then I do feel sometimes, when people enter my world, it's like I think, oh my god, you're literally not going to get out of it now.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I know it's in, but I always think it's the trade-off. It's either. My friend and I've just started playing golf and for, I think, a period of a month or so, all we had was golf ads on our feeds, golf exercises, golf equipment, and we didn't even type it in, we just talked about it and, of course, that's what's happened. So if I can get Tash and Biz Kids, I think, happy days, oh, thank you. Thank you, it's great to be here. So let's talk about your career, because I've listed all these amazing things that you've done, but we all have to start somewhere, isn't it? There's a climb, there's a journey, there's a story behind it. Talk to me about your I guess not just your entrepreneurial journey, but even going way back from them. Where are you from, what did you study and how did you even get into the career that you're in right now?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, and great, I'm glad we get to go back all the way to them. Because when you read out, as you did in your intro, the things that I do, I do sometimes think gosh, it's quite a lot. And I sort of think, how do you get to that? And I think some of it's a function of age, because I worry sometimes that particularly other women or younger women might look at me and think, oh, you know, I can't do that and it's not like I think I've achieved anywhere near what I'd like to achieve in life. No one's ever happy, are they? Or particularly if you're my type of personality, you're never happy.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

But, I hate for people to compare themselves to me, particularly younger people, because of the fact I think well, I'm 47 years old. Okay, I am old, I am like 47 years old.

The Trailblazers Experience :

You don't look it, girl, you don't look it.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

And it's a function of time. There's a lot of time that's gone by now. You know there's a lot.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So I mean, I was like everyone else. I went to uni. I studied psychology, you know I think I originally yeah psychology and biology. So I come from a science background. You know originally wanted on joining the police force.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I did all sorts of things at school, like go to Hendon, the police training centre, for various experiences, and I was obsessed about joining the police force. But then what actually happened was during uni I became an aerobics instructor. Really because it seemed like, you know, I was working in a bar and you could earn, like I don't know, six or seven pounds an hour in a bar. But you could earn 25 pounds an hour as an aerobics instructor and I was into aerobics. I thought, brilliant, I'll do that. And that then led me into working on health magazines and on national newspapers as a health journalist and then subsequently a mainstream reporter, which was great.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I don't know if you remember back then, but magazines were the thing, right. Everybody loved magazines in the same way as social media is the thing now. You know, monthly and weekly magazines were huge. I remember as a teenager running to the shops on Wednesdays to get just 17 and it being a really big deal. So I started working on glossy magazines and then, and then from there, went through various roles, working my way up the ranks of a magazine until I joined the Daily Mail, first as a health editor and then as a general feature writer on the Daily Mail, and therefore moved into more mainstream reporting, not just reporting around health and beauty, which is where I started my career.

The Trailblazers Experience :

And did you at that point? So obviously you finish your studies and you get into the world of media. What was your first impression? It was amazing.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I mean you know it's quite hard to get into the world of media. It was quite things have changed. Back then you really had to do work experience, so to some extent you know what people talked about in terms of elitism in the media because of you know, essentially you needed parents who would cover you to do this work experience period was true, I think I did five months of work experience taking incredibly seriously because I just loved magazines. I was absolutely thrilled to have a role in a magazine and you know, seeing how I've worked on monthly magazines and weekly magazines and seeing how they're all put together and all the things we used to do and all the things we used to see and like the place that we used to go, I mean, as soon as I got into that world I was, I just loved it. So I wanted to do work experience for as long as possible until I got a job and you know it was. It was brilliant.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I really really enjoyed it yeah, and to your point about it's interesting. I was listening to a um an interview with rory sutherland, who I just think I could listen to him all day in terms of he has a very good way of distilling, marketing science through storytelling and giving clear examples, and he was talking about how the problem now is it is is a big problem is the students are being encouraged to study and then they haven't acquired any work experience at all and they're struggling in work environments. So you have this dilemma where they would just, rather than work 100% remote, but if you're working 100% remote, you can't actually learn. You don't get the lessons of the nuances of dealing with people. You don't get the lessons of the nuances of dealing with people, and actually those who started off with work experience have actually come further in their career, but they've got all these different buckets that they can pull into. That's helping their career in a way.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Certainly I know that work experience on blogsy magazines was incredibly competitive because everybody wanted to do it and it was paramount to be in the office. I used to get the train to London every day and the way I progressed from being a work and some people would do work experience for a year or longer you know they were really it was really difficult to get an actual job. The way I progressed was by just listening to everybody and looking out for anybody who wanted anything done and as soon as I heard someone wants a cup of tea, someone needs to send back the clothes, the clothes in the fashion cupboard, I was like I'll do that, I'll do that. And and when?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

When I did get a job on a magazine, um, obviously I was thrilled. But they said, you know, they had noted that I had been taking so much initiative during that work experience period and you can't do that if you're working remotely because you don't have the contact. These were things that I heard across the office, like someone on the other side of the room would be saying, oh, you know, I've got to do this. So context was really important for me in terms of getting a job in a very competitive arena, which was monthly magazine at the time.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, so you then went to the Daily Mail and then moved to talk to the press, which is basically the business you founded. Yeah, and I founded that when I was 27. How did you even do that then, girl?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Well, I mean I. There's this very famous story in a book called the e-myth, which is all about how entrepreneurs tend to create businesses out of things they know.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So if you're a baker, you'll start your own bakery yes so I was a journalist at the Daily Mail and I could see that as a newspaper. You know, we were buying lots of stories from a number of sources and those would be freelance journalists and media, regional media, press agencies they're called and we'd be originating stories ourselves. So I was a writer, so I was very much in the space of the daily news stories. I call people who you know. You understand once you've read the e-myth. I was a journalist so I decided to set up a journalism business. I just sort of thought, you know, I wanted to be a great journalist and I could see that there were so many people You've got to remember. It was a different time. These publications had so much power and I sort of thought well, to get to be one of the top here at the Daily Mail, I will have to be here for 20 years you know, it's going to be.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

That's the type of work career it was, so I thought I'll set up my own press agency. The reason I came up with a press agency is because those were the businesses that were selling content into us and I thought, well, if I can get some, provide stories. You know I was very used to dealing with members of the public. I used to. The types of stories I specialized in were what what we used to describe as long, emotional. They would typically involve families who'd been coming to the news because of a terrible tragedy, and I used to be sent to these houses and they would typically be caught up in some massive thing in the news. But the only reason you're caught up in something in the news is because something's gone terribly wrong usually. So I thought well, I know I'm very good at dealing with families and ordinary people in the news, so if I can set up a press agency and source this type of content, then I'll be able to place it and have a small business, and that's really how it started. What I did differently and that led to everything else in my career is at the time, most press agencies were operating based on regions. So if you lived in Bedfordshire. You'd set up a press agency in Bedfordshire.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I had built a website to showcase my portfolio as a freelance journalist and everybody had thought I mean this was 2007. Everybody thought my simple portfolio website was the absolute bee's knees. They were like, how have you done this? This is amazing. Oh, my goodness, you've got an email that's got your name like Natasha, natasha Courtney Smith. It was seen as very pioneering, which I'm not sure I mean. Obviously it doesn't seem that way at all today. So I thought what if I set up another website so that people who have stories can find me? Because by this point I'd learned a bit about websites and I'd learned about SEO and I thought, at least you know, at very least it will mean maybe I'll get the occasional person who wants to share their story with the media contacting me. So I set up a website and I spent about nine months going through a book called Get Into Bed With Google Fifty five things you need to do to rank your website top of Google, or something like that. I did all fifty five. It was incredibly difficult because a lot of it's very technical and I really didn't have the technical experience, but anyway I managed to get through probably all 55 of them and my website started ranking top of Google.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

At the same time, there was a rise in general Googling amongst members of the public. So when press arrived on their doorstep, instead know just accepting what the journalists would say, they would turn to their computer and go to google. This again was 2008. Yeah, it was. There, was, there, was, you know, a definite, and that, in my website, was seen as very pioneering in its time because I was suddenly sourcing stories from the internet.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I wasn't operating based on a geographical boundary. Some of the other geographical press agencies were very cross because they were like hang on, we look after Bedfordshire. Was this internet agency suddenly able to take stories from Bedfordshire? But all of that was just made up rules, you know, no press agency has a boundary. Nobody can own a county. It was kind of ridiculous really. A county, it was kind of ridiculous really suddenly found myself a position where I had a website and it was delivering story after story after story after story, day after day after day.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So I was able to employ a team, um, starting with interns, and I trained them all to help manage these stories and place them, and from there I was able to grow out a um, I mean it's called story brokering, which is securing people deals, you know, for the stories they're trying to place.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

We also secured, you know, to ensure they earn as much as possible, the stories covered in the right way. We would be placing their stories into mainstream news, national newspapers, into book deals, onto television, into monthly magazines, into weekly magazines. So really, I built a fantastic lead generation machine with that website, talk to the Press, and it still generates stories today. I mean, I sold it in 2014 to SWNS Media Group and that was my first exit. It still generates stories to this day. It still ranks top of Google. I mean, everybody tried to set up in competition with me from the sun and the mirror, but Talk to the Press has always held steady and I believe it's because in 2007, I did this book called 55 Things to Do you know to rank top of Google and I think they gave it an extremely good foundation.

The Trailblazers Experience :

So basically the fundamentals I was talking to someone the other day about consistency is when you're building a business or product or a service, they're those first few years of building the consistency Build, build, build, build, build before it then accelerates into and that's what you did, isn't it at the beginning? And also, do you think it's also right time, right place, right moment, type of thing?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Oh, definitely, absolutely. I think there's always two ways to tell that story and I'm aware of both. One, I could say well, I was incredibly foresightful and digitally disruptive. The other is look, I wasn't that good at finding stories by myself. I set up a website, I followed the instructions in this book and I was in the right there, at the right place at the right time, because I was the first person to launch an online press agency and to do such rigorous SEO work at the same time, which really protected me and protected that website. For you know, we're nearly 15 years on and that work has still left that website in an incredibly good position.

The Trailblazers Experience :

And that's something to be proud of, isn't it? Because normally, when you exit or sell a business, all you're hearing is it deteriorating and not being the same, etc. And it's still there. It's still thriving. At what point, ash because I ask this question a lot is you start a business? It's just you. At what point do you actually know that you have a business and you have to now hire people, staff, have contracts, et cetera? When was that realization? For some people, when it's a product or a service, it's when they have all those deliveries that they have to pack and it's filling up their mom's bedroom or living room. What was it?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

yeah, well for me, we've talked to the press. It was the fact that I then was pregnant with my son. So I launched my website and you know, I was a journalist, so I knew how to get publicity. So I got myself onto bb Breakfast, which resulted in I mean I don't know how many hundreds of stories coming through the website. Pretty much at the same time I found out I was pregnant with my son, who's now 16.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So I thought I've, basically and I was terrified right, I thought, my God, when I have a baby, I'm not going to be able to think straight, I'm going to be a different person.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Thought, my god, when I have a baby, I'm gonna lose, I'm not gonna be able to think straight, I'm gonna be a different person. You know what's gonna happen. Um, so I thought, right, I need to get this business into a place because I'm going to become a different person, which actually didn't happen to me at all, but I think that's the way I felt at that time. So that's why I employed my first person, because as an assistant you know, it's just assistant to Tash like it wasn't a particularly glamorous role, like god knows if I even got the employment contracts right, to be to be honest, I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that this website was delivering stories and I was going to get to have a baby and I didn't know what I was going to be like on the other side of having a baby and I was very proud of what I created and I wanted to protect it.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, and I think it's interesting, isn't it when you are pregnant? Or there's a big thing being pregnant, it's a big thing happening in your life, isn't it? You're bringing life into the world.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

It's huge, it's absolutely huge. Yeah, and everyone has a different reaction. You just don, you just don't know.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Exactly exactly. And some people say, oh, I've got more energy, now I'm more creative, I can go 100 miles an hour. Then you hear the stories saying well, I couldn't remember anything and I used to be meeting.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

You don't have brain fog.

The Trailblazers Experience :

You're like oh my days, what's going on? And I think I was very you know, I think if you read national news, because it's quite negative, so I was very critical, would always be. Yeah, I really was quite fearful of being pregnant when I became pregnant but when we live in an amazing time, isn't that where we can change the narrative? I mean, you've had children, you've run multiple businesses, I've raised two amazing children and I'm, you know, doing what I'm doing now. So it's yeah, you can, you can do it all. It is possible.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yes, it is, although it doesn't always feel like that every day, that's for sure.

The Trailblazers Experience :

No, I realized Tash with being a parent is I had to. I could set goals, but I had to realize that they could all not happen at the same time and I would have to sacrifice. You always have to sacrifice something to get to the same time and I would have to sacrifice. You always have to sacrifice something to get to the next level, and it's being comfortable with that at that moment in time.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

And I think I mean this is the whole. I mean, with the constant debate at the Daily Mail at the time I was there was, you know, the concept of having it all and particularly, can she have it all? This was a mass media topic, you know. Know, in the early 2000s there was even various books written called having it all and that concept was massive, you know. I think for us women at the time we're in our 20s it was a big. It was a big thing. We, I remember discussing it with my friends can she have it all? Should we want to have it all? Is it okay to have, like, going around the houses on it? I mean, I don't think I know the answers to that 20 years on. So I think at times you feel like, well, you're managing to have quite a lot of it, and other times you're like, oh God, I think I'm messing the whole thing up.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I think that's it, and everyone's story is different and it's your perspective or your view of what you did. How it worked might not work for someone else.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I know, I know, and it really takes, I think, you to get older and past the stage of having young children to even understand that. I think when you have young children, it's a very stressful time. You'll really look, particularly at first. I don't know if you were like this, but I certainly looked around other mothers and compared myself constantly. I was always worrying oh my God, everyone's got it right, apart from me. Why am I so ambitious? What's wrong with me? You know? Why can't I just relax? And you know, I tore myself in knots for probably about the first 10 years, to be honest, in terms of that balance, and now it just doesn't seem to matter so much anymore. I guess it's because the kids are a bit older and everyone's a bit more chill and everyone realizes. You know, there isn't there isn't such a thing as perfection, and certainly not on an ongoing, indefinite basis.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, definitely. I think I just become more chill. My boys are 19 and 17 and I'm just like I'm so happy that I did it then, because I've got friends who are now going through the whole IVF and I was like I don't think I could do it at this age. No, yeah, so launching that business has led to you know, you've launched and exited multiple businesses and we could literally spend three or four hours talking about that from digital businesses, dgc, live, etc. And I really want to talk about BizKids, because that's your latest venture. Let's hold and fast forward. How did you come up with that particular concept and fast forward?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

how did you come up with that particular concept? Well, bizkids started with another business I had called the Notting Hill Shopping Bag, which is a souvenir tote bag sold in Portobello Road. I launched that 15 years ago and it was related to talk to the press. Our offices were in Portobello Road and I always wanted to be, you know, in Notting Hill. I'm a cliche. I'd watch the movie I loved, I lived in West London, I liked the carnival anyway, so I got these offices in Portobello Road. I thought, my god, I'm so cool anyway. I being in Portobello Road, I then realized all these people who visit Portobello Road weren't didn't really weren't getting what they wanted, which is, they were there for the same reason. I was there because it was a very special place. So I launched this tote bag called the Notting Hill Shopping Bag. I launched that during the time I had talked to the press around about 2009. And I started wholesaling this bag up and down Portobello Road.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Now, that business I learned a huge amount from, because it was a very simple, product-based business. I also learned how woefully and illiquid I was to deal with change and newness, so I had to go around on foot talking to people. Now, in Portobello Road you've got an extremely diverse set of people running market stores and running shops. Many of them have to stand outside in the freezing cold all day long and have been doing that for decades, if not generations. So I had to go around saying would people like to stock my bag? The fuss I made about this was a disgrace. Like I talked myself out of it for three days solid. I was so scared. And then once I got into Portobello bearing in mind my office was there anyway and I started going around. Obviously I got.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Some people said yes and some people said no well, they're also very hard negotiators, the people, people who trade on Portobello Road.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

It's unbelievable, and there were people from all over the world, but there were also children working in Portobello Road, the children of various storeholders. There was a little boy called Chase who was 12. And I was making a massive fuss about going out and talking to these market traders and shop owners, and Chase was standing on a stall, Remember? He was selling beauty products, counting money and talking to customers, looking them in the eye, talking to them about the qualities of this product, and I thought, my goodness, whatever I needed to learn, I have not learned, like as a 12 year old boy doing this, and I'm 31 at this point, and what a fuss I'm making. That's where the idea for Biz Kids came from. I decided then wouldn't it be great to be able to find a way to work with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, who I was working with on the Notting Hill Shopping Bag, and to bring children from the Notting Hill schools the state schools, of which there's many into Portobello to learn these vital life skills? And in my head I used to call it something like the Portobello Road Market Scheme or some sort of very uninspiring scheme, but this was vital. What chase was able to do with at 12 was so much more impressive than what I was able to do that I felt that I wished I'd learned that and how much, how much easier it would have been for me to launch this business if I had these skills. So so that's where the idea of Biz Kids came from, which was, you know, 2009. And I didn't really do anything about it. Life carries on. I'm running my business the Notting Hill shopping bag has become a successful business in its own right, but I always had in my mind that I felt there were lots of things that I wish I'd learned at school that I hadn't learned. Now, as time went on, you know, with the rise of AI I mean, that's more risky, but all the kind of, you know, the rise of the smartphone I more and more started thinking about the gap between what we learn in school and you know the fact that, and you know, I looked at it and I just thought, you know, like everyone, my business was decimated in COVID. You know, I had staff on the job retention scheme I had. It was. It was awful as it was for all business owners and I and I was like I can't teach the national curriculum at the same time, like what on earth. So I thought I'll do half an hour and I'll teach that stuff. That I saw, that I that Chase knew I'll teach entrepreneurship, I'll teach financial literacy for half an hour a day and that's it. And that's where Biz Kids started.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I originally ran it in lockdown with my two children, my brothers, my nephew and my best friend's daughter. Within a few weeks, word had spread and I had around 300 children doing lessons every day for lockdown, which was about I remember we did 38 lessons. It must be 38 days during the week. And then during that period, you know, I think I started it and called it Tasha's business school or something ridiculous, and then called it Biz Kids and we got on quite lots of lockdown projects. We got on television, we got on BBC news and that's really. That's really where it started in terms of formalizing the sentiment I had into education.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Since then, I put it into an online platform and left it because COVID ended the day job starts again, but parents still found it and signed their children up to watch the replay, so I could still get. Occasionally I get the notifications. You know somebody's joined biz kids. It was like free forever and you know I don't know what would have happened with it, apart from the fact that the school started going on strike again last year, and that really just again. And ai had launched. As soon as ai, as soon as chat, gpt came out and all the ai tools that launched, seemingly immediately afterwards, I again thought, my goodness, this now really changes things, like in terms of what my own children are learning at school. What's the point? You know, everything has changed with AI.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I think you've just really hit the nail on the head in terms of.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I think, for certain subject areas. So if it's medical, engineering, technical, then you need to go to the right institutions, etc. Etc and learn all of that. People in the world, globally, who are not all going to become doctors, engineers, scientists, et cetera. What are the other skills that everybody else can learn? And financial literacy, I mean.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I remember the first time someone was talking to me about interest rates when I was 19. I was like what is that? Why do I have to build my credit? Why is that important when you want to buy a house down the line and you sort of think also about investments? And when you do start a business, how do you build wealth? And all these things are so important. And the fact that you hit the nail on the head to actually say do you know what I actually want to teach the skills that will help them in the next few years is formidable. Interestingly enough, china, who actually have Douyin, which we know as TikTok their algorithms are much education-based. Education-based it's. It's really geared towards how much time do the children spend on the platform? Obviously businesses are using it to promote products etc. And then here the algorithm is geared to towards tiktok dances and trends and viral things, but also for businesses. We've heard the stories of someone saying I launched my product on TikTok and now my business has grown 10x and that's how I launched my business. It's brilliant.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

It's amazing. It's been my experience on TikTok. Yeah, you know, when I relaunched BizKids this year, there were two sort of primary reasons. I think one is that I'd always felt well, there was probably loads this year. There were two sort of primary reasons. I think one is that I'd always felt well, there was probably loads. You know, I definitely had always felt like, oh, I did amazing work in lockdown and what a shame that it's just been parked right so it wasn't, like you know, I wasn't distressed, like you know.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

You know, when you know you've done something good right, you're like that was good. I was, I was doing something good there. And then, you know, the rise of TikTok was another factor. So, you know, we met through the D2C Live community and in that my role was really to spearhead, you know, innovation and next channel for the brands 4,500 brands that are members of that community or within that community and I was really alarmed about TikTok and the impact it would have on e-commerce. Now, it was quite early and you know, I think a lot more and more brands are coming around for this now, but it was quite early in that time and I thought, well, I can't just go on about what to do on TikTok if I don't know. I've always been quite a literal person, like if I'm going to bang on about something it'll be helpful if I knew it.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, so I thought I'll get on TikTok with Biz Kids because it's good, and with my Notting Hill shopping bags as well. I'll get on there, and then I will be able to at least be talking from a place of experience. At least I'm on the platform, I'm using it and I'll learn it from the inside out. I'll get myself the front line and I'll learn it from the inside out.

The Trailblazers Experience :

But to your point is, with any new social media platform which has been the case in even businesses where I've worked before I've just immersed myself and gone on the platform as well. So I started on Instagram with my fitness page because I wanted to learn about Instagram and the algorithms and how it works and the reels, because there's no educational place you can go to to learn about it when you're working in a brand, and similar with podcasting. I think brands are investing in building their community and brand, etc. I started the podcast to learn about podcasting and how it can be used as a social channel social media channel as well for a brand and not just a business. So to your point, that's one of the that's already a nugget we're sharing out there. Any new platform, whether it's internet in the heyday, instagram, tiktok immerse yourself in it.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Absolutely, and I think it's really important to not just talk in theory, particularly with these platforms, and everyone's experience on the platform, then, is different. So my experience with BizKids is quite different to the experience that some of the brands that I do consultancy for have, but there's still learnings and you still understand that someone has demonstrated, you know, success on a platform and those learnings can be applied.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, so you talked about the reason why you started the platform was to increase entrepreneurial and business financial literacy and learn about the things that you wish you would have known, because obviously you'd started businesses, exited businesses. What are some of the challenges that you faced? If you want to name one or two that you have learned from now that you wish, in hindsight you could have had that nugget or treasure of information to support you challenges in business yeah.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I mean the good thing is I have quite a short memory, is in like, I tend to only think about you know what. What's happening in the last few weeks, you know, then, but I mean, god, I have had. I mean, I haven't had any like disastrous moments in business, but I've certainly had all the moments of imposter syndrome you know, fear that the business is about to not work for one one reason or another, ranging from god knows what to something massive in the economy, like anything. You know I've obviously had all the expected challenges with people and managing a company and managing a growing team, and disappointments. You know things that don't happen, that you think are going to happen, or you really want to happen, or people letting you down, people, you know, saying one thing and meaning another.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I mean everything and this is all normal and you know, as I understand it, pretty standard stuff I've had. I'm not going to lift them all off. I've had, uh, you know, legal challenges, for instance. You know when you're running a business that's selling stories, you have to be really careful around that media. You know, like just getting all of that right. So I suppose, overall, it's just that these things, kind of the things it's a cliche, but the things you worry about are not normally the things that then end up happening.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So I always try and remember that and normally these things feel worse than they actually are. So, for instance, I remember when my very first team member left me and told the press so she left after about I can't remember about two years and I was devastated. I literally was nearly in tears. You may leave me and I just I can't believe it. Um, yeah, it's about 17 years ago now, but I literally was in tears. And then you know, you always have people who you think are great and then you know people don't stay in companies forever and they leave. And I have learned that normally that's okay, like actually it opens space for something new or something different. Yeah, so I don't look back. You know, over the years I've employed god, 100, 150 people. I don't look back now and with any of them and think, you know, like I think it was, that was good and they did a great job. You only get that experience in time.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, I think there's a maturity that comes with embracing every chapter, whether it's your career or your entrepreneurial journey.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Or your personal life, I mean your chapters in your life, and it's incredibly hard to do that. It really is incredibly hard to do that, I think. And I think to think that you can do it when you're younger, I mean I think to think that you can do it when you're younger, I mean I certainly couldn't and didn't. I used to get myself so stressed about certain things that you know really weren't worth getting stressed about, at school, exactly, and you find that you're just over time more chilled.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I look back as well and I just I remember I was at a store opening this was years ago for a business I was working for. I was just so stressed for the wrong reasons, I think in hindsight. And now I am happy that we have a generation that cares about their work-life balance and will say actually no, what Questioning the status quo, whereas before we were like, oh my God if we say something we might lose our jobs.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I mean at the mail. You know, I thought nothing of getting up at five in the morning to write a story for that next day's paper or doing two stories in a day, even if it put me under inordinate pressure. But I just I don't think that's how people operate now in their 20s. They're not prepared to do that, and that's. You know. Much as we might think, well, that's not what we did. I think they've got a better balance.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Exactly yeah. They're fighting for the things that matter to them. I think it's finding that balance, isn't it yeah?

The Trailblazers Experience :

absolutely what's an actual deadline and really can't it wait until tomorrow, type thing. Yeah, now you have built businesses, exited businesses. I want to talk about funding, because we have entrepreneurs who are listening and are at that stage where I think there are two questions they ask themselves do they actually need funding? And two, if they do, how is the experience of securing funding? Or actually, should they just continue and be bootstrapped? How have your experiences been for the different businesses? Have you been lucky that they've been self-funded or has it been? I'm actually taking investment.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

A great question, and what timing, natalia. So all of my businesses have been bootstrapped but I am now raising investment for BizKids and that despite being 47, me being 47 and have had all these businesses is a function of the opportunity of BizKids, the responsibility of BizKids and the potential impact it can have. So my I have always bootstrapped businesses. I suppose in the beginning I didn't know about funding. You know, being straight, I just didn't know about it. I hadn't come across it. I just presumed you sort of earn as much money as you could and paid yourself whatever you could live on and then reinvested the rest a pretty straightforward, common sense approach. And I did did that with, and I would always also try and spend company profits beyond what I'd taken myself on creating something new. So talk to the press as a business paid for the development of the Notting Hill shopping bag from its profit. So I took my salary. And then because I was always thinking, well, what are the options with these profits? Pay corporation tax, or take them out and pay income tax, or put them in a pension I'm not doing that, it's boring, this is in my 20s and 30s or create something new. So I always had this concept of using my profits create something new, and I've done that in all the businesses, so I was always able to create a business out of a business, create something new out of the profits, and actually D2C Live created BizKids out of its profits. So that exact same process went on.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I am now fundraising for Biz and then sorry before I go into that in D2C Live and in the world of e-commerce.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Now we're in a different world where nearly everybody is funded and all the tech businesses that we were working with as partners are certainly funded. So in that process and we had a whole section of D&C Live in that community which was about pitching and fundraising, raising investment, exits and M&A and that's because both myself and my business partner in digital had sold businesses, so it became something we were known for. So that was a huge learning curve in terms of seeing businesses that were making losses but carrying value and then able to get through to value in the end, being part of a journey of driving huge value into a number of brands through the work we did and then realizing that their investment in things like an agency partner had really paid off. You know, it really opened my mind and I also learned so much more about. I met so many more funded entrepreneurs and a huge number of VC funds and investors. So with BizKids, I am now raising investment for the very first time. So amazing.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I know, and it's because you know, bizkids is scalable, it can have global impact. You know it's also a big. There's a huge number of children across the UK watching BizKids. It's a very hard to reach audience. So in this instance for me it feels like the right thing to do to raise funds because of the impact Biz Kids is having, how to accelerate that impact and how to grow it globally. But, that said, biz Kids is at a very early stage. You know we have this huge social audience we've built and this huge measurable impact of all these children, but we are really, I would say, in the very early stages of revenue generation and commercialization. So it's great. I mean there's a lot of people interested in investing in basic, because a lot of people feel extremely passionately about the education system yeah, yeah, and I like how you've summarized it.

The Trailblazers Experience :

It's really good just to reiterate that message for entrepreneurs that actually your first goal is to generate revenue and be profitable and if you can do that, don't let anyone convince you that you need further investment and give away a percentage of your business. If you are revenue generating and profitable and you're able to, as you've done, before taking your profits and saying these are the three things I could do, I either will reinvest and grow the business and or reinvest and build new businesses. I think that should we. There is a danger of watching social media about oh, this business now is 10x investment and et cetera, et cetera the unicorns.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, I mean, that type of narrative is very of the moment, the moment, you know, and I just think, because I've been in this for so long and normally in quite public facing roles with with quite a lot of a personal brand presence across whatever business I've done- I do think this whole narrative now of the of you know everything's and it was like this in dc live, you know, everyone was trying to build a brand that was worth 100 million.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

That was like almost like the default position, as though having a brand that's doing 10 million in revenue isn't a huge success. You know, I, I do think it's, um, it's gone quite extreme, and the way I reconcile that in my mind is just think well, let everyone get on with what they want to do in their very different ways like that's'm a writer judge right, that's kind of what I

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

thought they can get on with that and I'll get on with this. But I don't like it when people feel that they're not successful because their business is, say, turning over you know 800,000 pounds and doing 150 grand in profit or whatever. I mean that is a success, right? Exactly? Yeah, you're doing some figures, you know, and and actually to give you a context, you know, when Talk to the Press, which I sold, and Talk to the Press was able to create from its profits, the Notting Hill shopping bag, it gave me, you know, a very big media platform. We never did more than £500,000 in revenue and I thought I was incredibly successful. So, you know, and I was able to fit it.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, it's carried on as its own entity for 10 years. Since you know, these are successes.

The Trailblazers Experience :

That's true, that's true and I think that's it. I have the conversations, even with my kids, about what successful businesses look like, like within our little village. I'll say do you know that business over there that's worth this much? They're, you know, they're an entrepreneur, they're able to go on holiday, they have their homes and they're profitable. So it's just putting context, isn't it?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

as what success looks like yeah, no, I think my one of the reasons and this is will be more the case for women, but success is not always, you know, a purely financial thing I wanted to have a career, and the reason I wanted to I could see I couldn't have kids and be in a corporate environment like the Daily Mail was just too non-conducive to flexibility, and so for me it was about okay, I want to work and have a great business that earns me, you know, gives me professional pride, but I don't want to ever be more than a mile away. I used to have this thing, an obsession about staying within a mile radius of my house and the nursery, because that was my way of coping with the juggle and I thought, at least, if I'm near, I'll never have. You know, you get those god-awful calls from the nursery, yeah, you know, and you get them all the time and they make your blood run cold yeah, and.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I thought, well, at least if I never leave this mile run run radius, I will. I will always be able to get there really fast. Imagine having to commute across London. I couldn't have done it, it would have stressed me out too much. So that was a measure of success for me as well, was I can be flexible and always be near my children, even if I am working.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I'm physically there. That was your why, isn't it your why? And your so what? For being maybe ambitious?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

in that area as well. Yes, it was my compromise. It's like I am ambitious. Sorry, guys, but at least I made my mark down the road.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Do you know? What comes through all of this is you've got an entrepreneurial spirit, you're very positive, you've got a great character and I think that's helped with you building businesses and your network, because we all talk about, from a business perspective, building brand and your network. Because we all talk about, from a business perspective, building brand and community, but also building your personal brand and your community within a network to grow. Talk to me about how you've built connections and your networking strategy. Like what's your strategy? Tash?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I think it's a bit advanced to think I have a strategy. I mean to zoom out. I have always so. When we built Talk to the Press, okay, which was an online business bit advanced to think I have a strategy. I mean to zoom out. I have always so. When they built Talk to the Press, okay, which was an online business, I used to think, okay, I need.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I always had it in my head that people in America knew what they were doing more than people in the UK, so I used to follow various American digital marketing people. This was back in 2007. I used to go on and take a plane every now and then again to go to a conference. These were the likes of people like Derek Halpern, you know early digital marketing gurus, who were always talking about personal branding. Because I had a profile, because I'd been a national newspaper journalist and I'd done some TV, I thought, well, I should definitely build my personal brand. Now I've had varying. I've had huge times when I've done a lot of personal branding work and other times when it's fallen by the radar, but I definitely the power of personal.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I've written a book. In 2016, I wrote my second book called stand out online, which is always about, which is about personal branding. So I'm a massive advocate of the power of a personal brand, which I think actually um, you know, there's all sorts of benefits to it. But it also helps networking, because sometimes it's not possible to be in touch with everybody all the time. Think about the number of people who'll be in the d2c live community. There'd be no way I'd be physically capable of handling that many relationships were it not for having an aspect of me that was delivered by a personal brand, ie content videos standing on stage at d2c live. So the one thing I think I have been quite strategic about, albeit with varying degrees of success, is personal branding, and I've consistently done that since 2007.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

In Talk to the Press, the very early digital marketing techniques that I used to build that business were the SEO, the book about Google, pay-per-click Google advertising, lead generation generation, email marketing and personal branding. Most journalists were hiding behind a kind of you know, I mean, people don't like journalists, okay, especially tabloid newspaper journalists. They just don't like them. And I knew that you'd go to an event. You say, hi, I'm from the daily mail. People be like oh god, you know, get away from me, go away. So I knew people and I thought well, but I also knew that I was a nice person.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

So I thought all I need to do is put my do a video. I, you know, I, I it was again considered quite forward think I had a video made put myself on it. Say, when you contact, talk to the press, this organization is led by oh sorry, my phone's just ringing. Yeah, this all right. All right, you know, when you talk, contact, talk to the press, this organization is led by Tash. I am the trusted face and I will look after you. And that really helped. And then I had to trust myself that I would look after families, because I always had looked after families and I've carried that through, you know, always putting myself on things in one way or another, even though I do think some people must think, bloody hell, what's she up to now?

The Trailblazers Experience :

because sometimes it's like oscillates around a bit it's a lot about putting yourself out there, isn't it?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

sometimes I really don't feel like it. You know, sometimes, like everybody else, I'll be thinking things aren't going right. You know I'm I'm not pretty enough, like you know. All those thoughts, like you know, my clothes aren't right. Who am I to think that I should have an opinion, every single thought that I hopefully it's not just me who has these thoughts, everyone has too but all of these thoughts I have then and I would have now do try and just get my content out anyway as much as I can and hope yeah, it's like why it's out now? I never then. And I would have now do try and just get my content out anyway as much as I can and hope.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, it's like right, it's out now. I never watch it.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I never look back at it because I always think how embarrassing. Although when you look, when I look back, what I found this is an interesting, this might be interesting for people. If I put content out and look at it on the day, I'll think my god, you know, you look awful. Yeah, what do you want about it? When I look at it a month later, I'll be like it was a great piece of content. You really shared some great advice there. So there's something about.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I'm the same Tash, so I um, I built my website, my personal brand website, because my friend said if you want to establish yourself as a speaker, consultant etc. You need something that people can type in your name and they can find a platform. Now it's work in progress. I'm open to your critique, tash, afterwards, but the most exciting part I liked about it was uploading interviews. I'd done before and you're right, the ones I did years ago where I was like, oh my god, I, I was actually pretty good at this, so I did a good job what was it then that immediately you would have a negative view, because I this is definitely me, and me, it's like my immediate negative view is like, oh, no, terrible.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

And then time goes by, you're like, oh, that was really good, like what is it about our brains that would allow that to happen, and is that something we can stop? And I do not have the answers, because I still, you know, if I look at something on the day, like when you look at a photo of yourself right after someone's taken it you're always I'm always like, oh, that's not a very good photo exactly a year later you're like that was a great photo, yeah yeah.

The Trailblazers Experience :

So I think there's a lot to be said about you have to put yourself out there to build your personal brand. But also personal brand I heard this on the diary of a ceo podcast is the personal brand, is what are people saying about you when you're not in the room? The whispers you know, you know, I know I don't know.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, I don't know, but those are the wh. Yeah, I don't know.

The Trailblazers Experience :

But those are the whispers. That's what gets the recommendations or people coming back for more and people say, actually D2C Live is really great or actually let's get on Tash Talks I think that's where, over time, it comes across. And just advocating even for women, which we're going to talk about now women empowerment and leadership. You are a strong advocate for women's entrepreneurs and how do you see your role through initiatives like Tash Talks and Meta, she Means Business. Talk to me about that and how that's helped you in moving the needle, paying it forward.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, I mean. My first real experience of working with women at scale and seeing the kind of challenges that women might face in entrepreneurship was via Meta's she Means Business program and after I'd sold Talk to the Press. You know, I'd sold an online business and I'd written a book called the Million Dollar Blog, which was a bestseller. It was, I don't know, 2016 or 2015. Sheryl Sandberg had launched this she Means Business initiative, which they wanted to roll out in the UK, and they were looking for ambassadors founding ambassadors for it, and I got asked to be one of those founding ambassadors. I didn't know that much about I knew a bit about Facebook at the time, but I was much more steeped in Google, seo and email marketing the technique that taught the press and obviously it was a huge honor to be asked to be on that program and between the trainers we started off with about eight trainers and ended up with about 25. We trained over 100,000 women across the UK in how to use Facebook and Instagram to grow their business, and that was where I started to realize that what I had thought was just I don't know what I thought it was. Don't know what I thought it was. You know the things I was doing that made talk to the press, ranked off of Google. The going to America to learn all this. You know what's what? The futuristic digital marketing stuff, personal branding that's when I learned that there was a vocabulary around the skills I had, that, if I could, that people really needed, because we were going around the UK and meeting all these women and I could really see they didn't have digital marketing skills. They weren't using platforms in the way I was they.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

By that point I think I'd already been deep in platforms for eight or nine years. It's a long time to be running websites and digital businesses and lead and I thought everybody knew this stuff and then I realized they didn't. I think when you start helping people in that way, you only have to do something really small and someone else is like, wow, that's really going to change things and you think, oh, my God, that's amazing. So that's really where it all started. I mean Tash Talks. I think you know. So Tash Talks is my show on Sky 186. I know it's on Sky guys Check it out.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

In fact, the third series has just been commissioned. My sponsors Recharge the subscription app. Uh, sponsoring and that. And that's really about hearing from successful women. I do think sometimes the narrative is well, on my linkedin echo chamber it can be quite like oh, women find it really hard to raise. It can get quite like oh, my god, you know what are we all going to do? This is really hard for women and you know, I find that when I read LinkedIn and what I try and do with Tash Talks is just tell the different stories of women and where they've got to and they're all pretty successful. You know, we've had the founders of brands like Elemis on there and that's great and I just more want to not dwell too much on the challenges.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

That's not to say the challenges aren't real, like you know. I think I think they are real and you know I used to never think of myself, I used to never think of myself by gender.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I do think there's reason to think, to consider your gender, you know, in life, because I think it does have an impact yeah, I think it's, um, one of those things where so I'm the oldest of and I'm the first born, and he always said you will. So he said you have to fight twice as hard because you're Black and because you're a woman, but that does not mean you don't belong in the circles, in the rooms that you want to get into, and as long as you have that front of mind, you can do anything. That's the mindset you should have. Take every challenge as an opportunity. If a door closes, bulldoze it through others, and it's what your podcast and your talks are doing, and what we're trying to do here is to say, of course there will be challenges. That is life, no matter what you look like.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Obviously, some people have. I think if you've got generational wealth and someone who's, there are a few stepping stones that give you a head start. It's just a fact. However, you can do anything and I am a firm believer. Your phone. There are people who are starting businesses by going on social media, highlighting, highlighting. The more we highlight and amplify great things that are happening to women in business across multiple categories, then we're showing the different faces of what good looks like.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I think it's this right really, and that's exactly what I tried to do on tash talks and you know I suppose I'd always I it was when I was at the mail and in mainstream news. There was a real rhetoric around women and this concept of having it all, which was more about the practical reality of juggling, you know, household responsibilities with ambition, with children, with aging parents and that being a feminine role. That rhetoric has moved on now, because now it's more about it's. No one really questions whether a woman can juggle, for that they just thought. It's just thought. Well, they can right, they can do, they can manage that juggle somehow.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Obviously a lot of us will be at times, you know, desperately clinging on by our fingernails yeah now it's more about opportunity for women in terms of okay, we have this huge cohort of professional women who are able to juggle and now they're not able to fundraise. They're not able to fundraise as easily, they're not able to get certain opportunity, they're underrepresented on board. So the the story's moved on to some degree, but the fact that women face challenges is an ongoing situation.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yeah, Now I'm going to use the dirty word work-life balance.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, I mean, this was the whole story of my life at the Daily Mail. We used to talk about it all the time well for me.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I'm just curious to understand. You've won so many hats entrepreneur, investor, speaker, author, mother, friend, confidant, the list goes on. How do you find time for you and what do you do for yourself to unwind and just take care of tash?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I don't think I do. I think I'm hopeless at it. I think I'm hopeless at it. To be honest, I'm, I'm, you know, I'll go through phases where I'll do more exercise or less, and I actually seem to. I've always been quite work obsessed, and then it's, you know, then obviously I'm juggling the kids I think I'm really bad at even knowing what I'd want to do left to my own devices. You know, I think that's an area that's got to be improved. It's actually, you know, on my mind daily that this is all fine, but I have to get a better balance.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

And also, I think the other thing that's interesting is, sometimes you ask yourself, like what's the motivation? You know, I feel that I'm someone who's and you're probably the same from having spent time with you, has drive at my core, and it doesn't even matter where I get to in life, I still have this drive. And I think sometimes you have to this is way easier said than done you do have to say to yourself, like that's all very well, but like why, where is this coming from? Where's it originating from? Because I could easily lead a much, much more relaxed life than I do. Really, you know, and I'm sure loads of people could and and then I have to remind myself. If I'm choosing not to, then I need to accept my personality as it is.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

For a long time I really wrestled with being driven. I used to say to people I believed I was cursed by drive because I was so unable to relax that I used to say I've got. You know, there's something in me and it's. It's not a blessing, right? This is a curse if I look at people who might lead different lifestyles and more chilled lives. So I have no answer than that to that. I'm afraid Tola other than I'm going work in progress it's an ongoing work in progress.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Yeah, and I haven't got it. I don't think I've got it right, although I do think it varies over time, and it's really important to not be like oh, I've worked too hard this year and act like that's what you've always done, because you know there's other times when things are different yeah, but also a lot of it is you're.

The Trailblazers Experience :

You're doing things that are passionate. I think, especially with biz kids, this is like a passion you're giving back and maybe that doesn't feel like work in a way, of course, now you're raising investments and so on, but maybe that doesn't feel like work to you. But you asked a very interesting question, because I always think about it for myself is where does my drive come from? And I know where it's rooted, what the foundation is. It's different things we went through as a family and I said I never, ever, ever, want to be in that position again, and I'm the oldest. I have to lead by example. So there are lots of underlying things that are sort of like the catalyst. But is there anything in your childhood where you thought there's something that?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

sparked that. I mean for sure. I grew up in very unusual circumstances. My parents, we lived in an enormous house and my parents ran a business. But the house was the business and you know our grand hall was the reception. There were desks and phones everywhere. So we lived in a tiny portion of this enormous house and everyone would have thought, my God, she lives in a frightfully large house. I used to think, my god, we live in this tiny, like little thing over here. Yeah, we live in the cupboard and everything else was offices. So I grew up inside a business. My parents ran this business. It was a. It was a consulting and training business, the ministry of defense, you know. Every morning we had cars would arrive at the car park would fill up. So I think that was a very unusual childhood to be growing up inside a business. My domestic setting was yeah yeah.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Secondly, my father died when I was, when I was 15, and I think I've since done a lot of work with the child bereavement child bereavement UK, helping children who've lost a parent, and at that time in 1992, nobody you know obviously, how people are affected emotionally is much more known about now than it was then. Through the work I've done with children who've lost a parent and the training I've had to go through in order to do that work, I now know that the fear that happens to a child when they lose a parent which is what happened to me, and you know my dad was the leader of that business. He was, you know, definitely seen as the main provider it was. It was absolutely terrifying, to be honest, you know, in all sorts of ways. But there's no doubt that losing my father at that age has has, you know, defined everything much as though I didn't want it to and I always thought I knew.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

When I lost my father, I knew, I thought, oh god, this is not great, right, I'm only 15 and my dad died like this cannot be good. Um, and I thought but I won't let it, I won't let it define me, I won't carry this for my life. In actual fact, to some extent it has defined, I think, me and I have carried that in my life and I'm sure it plays into, yeah, yeah, why I would feel so motivated. Because, a bit like you, where you're saying these things will not happen to me, whatever you'd experience. It's like it was such a fright. It was as well as incredibly upsetting and all those other things, but the fear was immense, the fear it defines the direction you uh, take in in in your life.

The Trailblazers Experience :

so my, my story is my dad was very successful from an entrepreneur perspective and then we just hit really hard times and I remember saying to myself I never, ever want to be an entrepreneur. I want to work for someone where I have a steady paycheck, et cetera, et cetera. But now the more entrepreneurs I meet now even advising entrepreneurs or advising businesses how to expand into new markets I've just realized I am my father's child. I am the entrepreneur that I was in the end and I always wanted to and he listens to the podcast. I always wanted to make sure that his sacrifices and everything he went through was not in vain. That's like that's my drive, basically.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

yeah, yeah, I think these things you know various I, some of my friends, you know families that were similar, like successful business people. They lost money, you know they. They have been greatly affected by that. If that happens in your childhood or teenage years or even in your early 20s, these things it shouldn't be, their significance shouldn't be underestimated. I don't think yeah, definitely.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Thank you, tash, for being vulnerable and and sharing. That's what makes us human, isn't it?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I think um sharing those experiences yeah, and you know, it took me about 30 years to even be able to talk about my fact. My father, yeah, I can imagine for long time I used to pretend he was still alive. People would say, where do your parents live? And I'd be like my parents are out there Because you don't want to put a damper on the conversation. You don't want to have that conversation as well. You don't want to have that conversation, an awkward one. And then they're sorry and you're like, oh my God.

The Trailblazers Experience :

So I mean long to be able to even be able to talk about it. It was really through the work I did with the younger children who'd lost their area I learned to talk about it next, for tash.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

You know what's where. Do you see? What are your future ambitions, visions, what's going on? Well, I mean, I am. I work with a number of brands and tech companies, some of which I have shareholdings in, which is fantastic, and I want to continue to deliver know great impact into those businesses. For Biz Kids I, you know I want it to be a global platform teaching children these skills. I think it's going to go on quite a journey. Everything needs enhancing. It's been done on a shoestring. It's been done a couple of hours on a Monday. Everything about it needs enhancing and improvement. We've had tremendous impact and I know there's children I mean there's hundreds of children across the UK who are now understanding they can take £20 and turn it into £200 through following our simple business models and that's a real life empowering lesson for them and I very much hope that BizKids is able to achieve that sort of potential. I'm back in the beginning of a business again. I mean. The good news is I've been here before.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Yes, exactly, just a different chapter. A different chapter, isn't it? No, we'll definitely put it in the show notes so people can find Biz Kids and share it. It was just really good. So, last but not least, we end the podcast where we ask our guests to leave three trailblazer takeaway tips to share with the audience. What would they be?

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

three trailblazer takeaway tips. Okay, tip number one is definitely that the things you are worrying about are probably not going to be the things that actually happen. So it might happen in one way or another, but it's guaranteed not to happen the way the worry storyline is playing out in your head. If that does happen and I half of these tips are for myself because, like everyone else, you go through these, you go if that does happen, then I think it's really important to remember that these things are passing. They're not life defining.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

If you are like me and you are very driven and always done well at school and you know being a good girl, it can be really destabilizing it to not be perfect. Okay, you know I come from a family where if you don't get top marks, you're basically in trouble. So I very much carry that as a burden of needing to be affectionate and get everything right. That has caused as a burden of needing to be affectionate, get everything right. That has caused me a lot of stress over my life, having that as my rhetoric and taking it on me, and I've come to realize that it really is not like that. You know the person I used to most worry about thinking I'd done something wrong was my mother. It transpires no matter what I do my mother thinks I'm brilliant, so I've got no idea what I was worrying about at all.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

It's all illogical. It's all illogical. So my second tip is you mustn't let small or moments or passing things define you which is very hard to do, can do it and to not worry too much about what other people are saying. You know, when I go around talking to people, even about these kids, which is, you know, having a tremendously positive impact there'll always be someone who says oh, you know, you could do this, you could do that, or what about this and what about that? Always just take it as information and interest. I used to get very defensive when people used to say Tash, have you thought about doing this or not with me? This would be all the businesses. I'd always be very defensive I don't know, it's actually really interesting, it's really interesting to hear what people are saying.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

You don't have to listen, and I say this to my daughter. She was saying about something and this person said I said you don't have to either listen or react. Just listen, just look at and decide if it's something that might have some relevance.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I love that Not every action deserves a reaction, just soak it in, yeah.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Just soak it in and normally there's something in it and it's more about controlling your inner state. Or I find it about controlling my inner state and not getting either defensive or feeling criticized and just thinking, okay, interesting, just say the word interesting after something everybody you know in your head.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I do that, I say interesting.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

I see, yeah, interesting, and then think about it. But don't let it kind of lead to an emotional reaction.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Exactly.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Tash, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. I've been at the time. You're slowing by.

The Trailblazers Experience :

I know I was saying it's just two girls having a chat. You know that everybody else is going to listen to. I'd love to thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing your story. You need to be proud of yourself and everything that you've achieved and giving back, paying it forward, whether it's for women, businesses now, for kids, the next generation. It's really a testament to you as as a person and your character and your personality, and I'm so glad that our paths have and we've made this happen. So thank you so much.

Tash Courtenay-Smith:

Thank you so much for having me on.

The Trailblazers Experience :

Thank you so much for having me on well, that has been the trailblazer experience podcast For the audience. Please tell another woman about the podcast and remember to do the usual follow, share and subscribe Until next time. Bye, that was amazing.