From Coffee Van to Tech Innovator Emily Zaborski's Entrepreneurial Journey

0:03 Lucy Kippist: Vendly is disrupting the mobile vendor and events industry by connecting event organizers, mobile vendor businesses, and councils in one simple platform. Vendly automates booking workflows, compliance processes, and operational activities, which saves hours and uplifts the industry as a whole.

0:23 Carrie Kwan: Welcome to today's episode. Meet Emily Zborski, one of the 61% of Australians running a side hustle while working full-time. And in 2018, she launched the Melbourne Coffee Ground, converting a vintage caravan into a mobile coffee and toasty truck, serving events like trail running and mountain biking. And after COVID hit, Emily adapted with weekend pop-ups and downsized to a snazzy ute for smaller events, moving her business then to Perth. Along the way, she launched a popular webinar series and coffee van leasing program to help others enter the industry. Now she's taken things further with Vendorly, a platform to streamline bookings for event vendors and organizers. Welcome, Emily.

1:12 Lucy Kippist: Thank you, Carrie. Thanks for having me.

1:14 Carrie Kwan: Now, we love making business connections, as you know. Please do share with us your 30-second elevator pitch so that we can share it with our business network.

1:24 Lucy Kippist: Thanks. So as you mentioned, Vendorly simplifies mobile vendor management by connecting event organizers, mobile vendor businesses, and councils in one simple platform. Through technology, Vendorly automates booking workflows, compliance processes, and operational activities, which saves hours and uplifts the industry as a whole.

1:46 Carrie Kwan: Now, it's a fascinating, I think, um, I, I want to take it a little bit step back in terms of, uh, how the concept has evolved, because I think, like with all good business ideas, that's what we've got to remind ourselves, that it does evolve, right? You've, you've started with actually doing, you know, having your own coffee business, vending business, then you've actually moved it into, you know, morphed it into something that it is today, which is the Vendorly. And you've mentioned lots of things around— it takes a lot to run one of these businesses, and you want to kind of share that knowledge, right? You've done it, you've been through the, you know, at the, at the sort of, um, at the coalface, and now you're actually passing on that knowledge so that more people can be enabled to do that business. So yeah, talk us a little bit about how that sort of evolution has happened.

2:41 Lucy Kippist: Yeah, that's right. So from my own experiences as a mobile coffee vendor, being able to manage your bookings and inquiries and all the various jobs that you're trying to get is incredibly difficult. And it's one of those industries that lots of people enter, but unfortunately, there isn't a huge amount of support, you know, knowledge articles and technology to enable this industry as well. Which means unfortunately, that lots of people enter the industry, and there's quite a high churn, with people leaving quite soon after they join and potentially putting a lot of money up front to realize their passion, which is quite often serving food or making different products that they want to sell at markets or different events. So what I have found is that there was a gap in the market for technology that actually supported this industry in particular. And one of the biggest problems that I hear about from other mobile vendors is the ability to— Mm-hmm. Manage your bookings and all those inquiries that you're getting. If you've ever tried to book a food truck or a coffee van as an event organizer, you'll know that it's an extremely complex and frustrating process currently. Mostly it relies on Facebook groups or Google searches, which are not efficient. It often means that you're not getting the right vendor for the job. And quite often there's unreliability as well in those processes. Mm-hmm. So, I felt like there was a real need for a technology solution that was able to automate and provide more reliability for everyone involved.

4:26 Carrie Kwan: Yeah, I love that. And that's a big, a really nice segue into my question, which was around how does your business actually help? Who are you helping? How does it help?

4:35 Lucy Kippist: Yes, it's a great question. We're one of those interesting businesses that has a few different customer segments that all benefit from Vendly. So, the way I like to describe it is it's a bit of a trifecta. On the one hand, we've got the mobile vendor businesses. So, this ranges from, you know, food trucks, coffee vans, all the way to face painters, could be portaloo hires. We've just had a photo booth come onto the platform too. So, any vendor business that is going to an event or is mobile, that's who we service. And the way that the platform helps them is that firstly, it allows them to be connected to jobs, meaning that there's more leads, and also potentially better jobs, because the event organizers that are coming to our platform are also verified and credible. So in that sense, there's better jobs and higher potential for profit. Mm-hmm. There's also just that streamlining aspect. So instead of having to face multiple inquiries, the vendors on our platform just receive a booking request on the days when they're actually available, which saves them plenty of time. And the processes are all really streamlined and automated, as well as all of their bookings being in one central calendar so they can refer back to it. As well as the booking element, we have a number of other activities that have been— and functions that have been streamlined through the platform. So we'll be implementing some operational type functions like stock calculators and reminders, all that sort of thing for the vendors. Now, as you can imagine, for an event organizer, there's a few different benefits for event organizers. Not only do we help them find vendors, which can be very difficult if you're an event organizer who's like a volunteer for a footy club or a school, you don't know where to look a lot of the time. So we help provide that actual ability to find a mobile vendor and not only find one, but find one that suits your event, that is reliable and credible, and also is within your— Um. Your local area, because we, we like to support local. So we just provide that ability for event organizers to find what they need really quickly and connect the right vendors and event organizers. The other aspect is that streamlining of the processes, so being able to really quickly inquire and get a response in a quick time frame as well, uh, as well as being able to send notifications and manage your vendors leading up to the event as well. So as you can imagine, for an event organizer with multiple events, multiple vendors, like a festival manager, they would be able to use our system to manage a whole suite of vendors and make it really streamlined for them. At the moment, we have heard from event organizers that they're spending between 2 to 4 hours per vendor. Per vendor. To find them, book them, and manage them leading up to the event. So, we would be streamlining that down from, you know, up to 4 hours all the way down to about 10 minutes to book and then manage them throughout the whole process. And finally, we've provided value for councils. So, councils at the moment have to do a number of compliance-related activities with mobile vendors, especially when you think about food trucks and the environmental health aspect. So we've brought a whole bunch of governance and compliance processes into our platform. All things like public liability documents, council registration, all of that is stored on our platform, meaning that councils can refer back to this and see who's operating in their local area and making sure that they have all the right permits and all the right checks and balances.

8:36 Carrie Kwan: Wow, that's an ecosystem of help. Love it. And Emily, as you were talking, I, I don't know, I was looking at you, Lucy, when she said, as you can imagine, event organizers.

8:47 Emily Zaborski: Yeah.

8:48 Carrie Kwan: Because we've just finished delivering Be Empowered, which is our 6th Be Empowered, 6th annual conference. And well, yeah, Lucy, like who wouldn't want 4 hours back for every vendor that you—

9:02 Emily Zaborski: I was just thinking that. I was like, wow, how amazing that someone sat there and calculated the time that would take someone. Yeah, it's such an inspired idea, Emily, and I'm sure you've gotten amazing feedback from it already, but 100%. Event managers need all the support they can possibly get.

9:23 Carrie Kwan: So, you know, let's talk about time, that 4 hours. What have you done to boost your productivity?

9:29 Lucy Kippist: It has been difficult to adapt to having both the corporate sort of lifestyle as well as the startup lifestyle. They are very different, but what I have found is trying trying to set a schedule and a routine has been really important. So I've been very fortunate to have great support from my colleagues in my corporate job, and I've been able to set a schedule that works with my startup life as well. So being able to kind of say, these are my corporate hours, and switching off from that at the end of the day and kind of taking that hat off and putting the vendorly hat on has allowed me to kind of just maintain focus and therefore productivity in those two elements of my life. Uh, so I think that for me, just having the set hours and the set routine is really, really important. I think I would struggle if I was trying to do both at the same time, whereas I don't feel like I'm doing both at the same time because I've set certain hours of the week that are for one job, certain hours of the week that are for another job. And I just tried to be quite strict with that and turn off notifications for Vendolee when I'm at work and then turn them on when I finish work at 4 o'clock.

10:48 Carrie Kwan: Thanks for sharing that. And we're always in that sort of pursuit of how to do more with less or optimize, you know, that output. The outcomes. So speaking of optimizing, and I know that AI has been on the mind of, in some capacity, of a lot of our business owners at the moment because we are always seeking how to get more productivity or how to get more time. What role has AI played in your business and how are you feeling about it?

11:23 Lucy Kippist: It's an interesting one. I think it's definitely a buzzword at the moment and whilst it's so important for businesses to leverage AI where relevant for their business, I think it can also create a lot of noise at the moment. So I'm in that phase of, we've just launched our first version of Vendorly and we're trying to get the product out the door. We're trying to get, thank you, trying to get—

11:49 Carrie Kwan: Congratulations.

11:50 Lucy Kippist: —customers and going through that test and learn phase, putting iterations into the platform as we go. So in that sense, even though there's a lot of AI that I can go out and explore, I don't want to use it as a distraction right now. But I'm very conscious that it's something I need to be thinking about. And my development team are also, you know, we often talk about what AI functionality we can build into the platform to make it that, you know, give us that leading edge over competitors as well. So I think that we want to make sure AI becomes part of our platform in the future. But I don't want to get too distracted with it right now, especially considering it's evolving. There's a lot of— I don't want to say fearmongering, but in some aspects, I hear a lot of AI is going to completely change this and AI is going to take away these jobs and going to do that. And— One of the best things I heard recently is AI is not going to take away your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might.

13:03 Carrie Kwan: Hmm.

13:03 Lucy Kippist: And that's where I try to focus my thinking. So I do keep it in the back of my mind is I need to make sure I know how to use certain tools, but I don't want to try and learn every single thing because there's so much out there.

13:17 Carrie Kwan: Yeah, and that's a great approach. I think, with all technology, it's actually just using it, trying it out, you know, exploring how you can actually use it in your day-to-day activities. And I know that, you know, from using— Yeah, not to be daunted by it, but actually just kind of being familiar with it and testing it out and seeing what it's capable of is definitely, you know, that approach to AI because I think it will be a game changer in some areas of the business. Even if you don't use it in your actual services or products, it will still help, like other AI-driven tools will probably help you become more productive and give you, you know, frameworks. But I love that quote too. So thanks for sharing your thoughts on AI at the moment.

14:15 Emily Zaborski: Yeah. Yeah, I love that quote too. I haven't heard that spin on it, I love it. Now Emily, I know that you've really just started your journey in terms of launching, but you know, we, our community is really focused on those first 2 years of business and even women considering it at this stage. Given as Carrie mentioned in the intro, I think, yeah, apparently the stat is 61% of um, entrepreneurs in Australia are actually side hustle— side hustlers like yourself. What's one thing that you perhaps wish you knew before you'd started this journey? Now you're at this point down the road.

14:57 Lucy Kippist: It's about being realistic about how long things take. So I have been thinking and designing Venderly for over 2 years now, We know technology takes a long time to build. Actually, we've only been in development for about 4 or 5 months, but the design, finding the right platform to use, finding the right developer, finding all of that stuff takes time. So I think having like stretch targets is really important. Having goals and milestones is really important. Mm-hmm. But also being realistic about the time that it takes to do things. Because when I first started, you know, I had very lofty aspirations of when I wanted to launch. And if you don't hit those milestones, it can become quite disheartening. So I think for me, if I were to go back, I would just say to myself, just to be a bit more practical about the timeframes. And therefore don't beat myself up if things take longer than expected. But that also means being able to plan financially for certain timeframes as well. You know, don't expect to turn it on and have hundreds of users unless you've already got a backlog of, you know, people willing, ready to sign up, which is always a great approach. But if you don't, just remember it takes, sales take time.

16:21 Emily Zaborski: That's really terrific advice. And I wonder too, I mean, knowing that, like having been told that by someone who's done it before is excellent. And I wonder if there's something else, is there another piece of research that you can do to be able to find out what a realistic target is, do you think?

16:39 Lucy Kippist: Yeah, I think so. I think as with any startup, and if anyone's thinking of starting a business, I recommend reading the Lean Startup methodology. It's very much the approach that a lot of startup founders use that I've met. And I think part of that is making sure that you are going out and speaking to your customers from day one, from inception, you know, being able to understand the pain points, not just what you think are the pain points, but genuinely what are people's frustrations, challenges, and will they pay for it? Because if you're able to validate a bunch of the assumptions that you've made, then you are much more likely to be a bit more accurate in your timeframes and your, your plan when you come to execute the plan. So that, I think that for me would be the advice, or that, that would be the, the approach would be to make sure that you're going out and validating your assumptions. It's a, Very easy thing to say, a harder thing to do. Another quote that I love is that, "What people say and what people do are two different things." And you will hear a lot of positive feedback, a lot of validation from people when you first start because most people want to tell you it's a great thing that you're doing. But what they do behind closed doors and actually getting their credit card out is another thing entirely. So I think, Yeah, being able to get some legitimate validation, uh, pre-sales is fantastic. If that's the way your business model works where you can do pre-sales, then you've got that, um, you know, day one customer.

18:22 Carrie Kwan: It's that willingness to pay, isn't it? Like, they want it, they want everything, but when it actually comes to paying, it's just— it's, it's— and especially with a new business, a new offering, it's hard to find where that price point could be. So pricing is, yeah, a very fascinating area. And I will, can I just say to share that Eric, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is actually one of my favorite books to the point where I actually have a photo of my baby and the book together. Sorry, I just wanna be really on point with moms and co. Yeah. And I've got a photo that I took with my baby at the time. So it was my digital baby and my real-life baby side by side.

19:17 Emily Zaborski: You should dig that photo out.

19:20 Carrie Kwan: Well, as you were talking, I was.

19:22 Lucy Kippist: Oh, you were?

19:24 Carrie Kwan: I don't know if you can see that.

19:26 Lucy Kippist: Well, yes, I can.

19:27 Emily Zaborski: Love a good book recommendation with a baby as a plus.

19:32 Lucy Kippist: Yeah.

19:34 Emily Zaborski: That's awesome. Emily, how would you describe your first business milestone? I was going to say, should we assume when you launched, but it might not be that. Like, what, what's your, what's your business, your major business milestone at this point, do you think?

19:49 Lucy Kippist: I thought it would be our first paying subscriber who just came in in the last month, which was great. However, I feel like personally the biggest milestone that has has not only been a big business milestone, but it's also been a big personal milestone, has been when we've launched what we call the MLP, not the MVP, which is the minimum lovable product. Because, you know, once you can have a minimum viable product, what you really want is something that people are willing to sign up for, use, and to some extent love. It may not be perfect from day one, but— Mm-hmm. Minimum Lovable Product is what we are calling it and what we've launched in the last month as well. So I think for me, that's been the biggest milestone because I have been, as I said, I've been just designing and describing this to people for over 2 years. And, you know, whenever I go into pitches or conversations with potential investors, it's always been quite conceptual, maybe based off, prototypes or things that I have drawn on a whiteboard. But being able to sit down and actually demonstrate the platform and showcase what I've spent the last 2 years building with various people is— that's probably been the biggest achievement for me, both personally and for the business, because now we have people signing up and actually testing it and using it and getting value out of it.

21:20 Emily Zaborski: Love that. Love it, love it, love it. And off the back of that, I have a question about, you've mentioned a couple of times there that you've been talking about this for 2 years. Like, how do you maintain that momentum? Because that's not a short period of time. I know it's not a lot, like, you know, it's not like a decade, but this is something you're really passionate about. How do you keep that fire going?

21:43 Lucy Kippist: That's a good question because honestly, I say 2 years, but it's probably been, longer. I, I started my coffee van business in 2018, so I'd say since then, since I realized that there was a problem in this industry, I've been thinking about how to solve it. Uh, but for the last 2 years has been where I've gone, yeah, right, let's, let's think about a tech solution. And that has iterated over the last 2 years as well. So I would say the way that I've kept momentum has been, um, You know, I'm coming out with all the quotes today, but they say, "Don't be obsessed with the solution, be obsessed with the problem." So, the way you maintain momentum is being obsessed with the problem. So, you know that the solution might change, the platform will change, even the business model may change, but just being obsessed with the problem and pushing through to find a way to solve for that. I think at some point it becomes bigger than something that you're just creating, you know, to test it. It becomes about the customers that you are serving. So I've spoken to, you know, I'd say over 100 vendors now, probably over 50 event organizers and multiple members of council as well. And so at some point it becomes about, their pains and what I want to then create for them and the industry that I want to change entirely. So I think that's how you maintain momentum is it's not just about the idea that you have, it's about the actual problems that you're trying to solve and keeping them front of mind.

23:24 Carrie Kwan: And congratulations too, Emily, like just listening to your story and what you've had to get to, to do to get to the MLP. And, you know, over that course, you do see that that passion is there for you and that you know very clearly, um, that this is a problem that needs to be solved, uh, and that's what you're obsessing over. Um, so you mentioned that you had spoken to investors before, so I'm keen to understand, how did you actually approach getting investment for your business at the different stages that you've been through? Because, you know, it is challenging starting up. Um, you've already mentioned one strategy that you've used, which is actually you had your, you know, had it as a side hustle, right? So you're still earning income through your main hustle. Uh, but yeah, could you, could you, could you share a little bit, a little bit about how you funded the business over the years?

24:23 Lucy Kippist: Yeah, definitely. So probably 3 3-step approach for me. One is I'm a massive fan of a hybrid corporate-startup life for as long as, as you can. I think that, as you say, being able to have some sort of income whilst you are in the early stages of building your business or your company is really important. It takes that pressure off. It takes the pressure off your family, your relationships as well. So if that's something that is available to people, I would recommend that in a heartbeat. So that's one way that I funded it. You know, I haven't paid myself in my startup, but I have had an income from my corporate job, which has been great. Now, I did go down to a part-time arrangement at work so that I could do a bit of that hybrid, and that has worked for me for, for the last year and a half. Now, the second thing that I did, and I'm sure everyone, what everyone should be doing if they're not doing, is looking at all the grants that are out there. So there are a number of grants that the government pays for, as well as a number of female founder grants that are out there. I was very fortunate to access a WA-based grant, which is called the Innovation Booster Grant. And that gave me a small, a small portion of funding to use for building the MVP or MLP. And that was difficult to get. It took me a long time. I actually got rejected the first round and then I had to go back and refine the ask, refine the submission, and then got accepted the second time. So I've leveraged those two aspects of funding The third is actually, well, what I did is I used my profits from my coffee van to invest in the tech platform in Venderly. And just a couple months ago, I sold my coffee van so I could fully invest in the platform as well. So in that way, I've kind of leveraged a previous side hustle to build and iterate on this new venture. So that's how I've done it. There is one other way that I think is really great, and I had the opportunity to access investor funding as well this year through an accelerator program that I was part of. So I applied for and was accepted into an accelerator program, and at the end of the accelerator program, they offered a number of startups investor funding, and that was, that was a great way for the investors to actually get to know the startup founders, their businesses, problems that they are solving for, and then invest in the ones that they think have potential going forward. It's a lot easier to get in with the investors when you're part of a program or an accelerator like that, rather than just coming in cold and asking for money.

27:24 Carrie Kwan: Some great advice there. Thank you for sharing all the different ways that you've actually pursued funding options because I think there is a gap in awareness, like understanding what we have available to us. So that's super helpful. Thank you for sharing that, Emily. You know, whilst we're doing this, whilst we're venturing, we're obviously exposing ourselves to things that are unknown factors, things that might be considered risk. So we love asking our community what's their relationship with risk. Does it impact the way you do business and how would you describe, you know, your comfort with risk and how you approach it?

28:07 Lucy Kippist: Yes, I love this question. Obviously, for me, working for an insurance company, it does play on my mind that I need to make sure insurance, make sure risk is assessed when I move into my startup as well. For me, it's about mitigating the risk as much as possible. So, I've already talked about making sure that all the assumptions that you have are validated with your customers. So, gathering as much intel in the early days, assessing the market conditions, understanding all the facts and who the key players are in the game, understanding your competitors as much as possible, all of that goes into mitigating or downsizing the risk, or at least understanding the risk that you're taking. So for me, I think that I have a strong understanding of risk, and I'm not someone who's going to, you know, put all my eggs in one basket. I'm going to make sure that I'm covering as much of that risk and managing it as much as possible. At some point in a startup, you do have to back yourself and say, I truly believe in what I am doing. And I think that if you're incredibly passionate about a problem that you're solving for, as I said, be obsessed with the problem, there is no risk in that sense because the risk of not doing it is even higher. And I always like to think, you know, if not me, then who? Like, someone's got to solve this problem. Yeah. I've been very fortunate in the position that I'm in to be able to— I have the domain expertise as a mobile vendor. I have access to a number of programs and support here in WA. I have a very supportive husband and family. So I think, if not me, then who? So in that sense, I think you've got to look at your own circumstances and the level of risk that you're taking for yourself personally as well. But if you feel that there is the right support around you, it's the right time, and the market conditions are suitable for the solution that you have, then I think it's worth pursuing. I will say there is definitely the, the element of getting clouded by your own judgment sometimes. There's that sunk cost fallacy where Mm-hmm. You know, I've spent 2 years doing this, so it's hard to walk away if it's not something that is worth pursuing. So I think you have to be ready to walk away if you— if the risk— if it's too high risk or if the opportunity is not there anymore. So you've got to try and look at things a bit objectively. And for me, the way that I do that is by gaining support from mentors and people who have more of an objective outlook. potentially than I do as well.

31:12 Carrie Kwan: Such sage advice there. And, uh, you know, absolutely, that's a hard— the last one that you mentioned is a really hard one, but one that every small business, microbusiness founder has to tackle at some point. Um, and I love your solution, which is to surround yourself with people who've, you know, trod that path before. You know, you know that you're not alone and there are people out there that you can actually bounce off, you know, all the considerations that you're having at that point in time and then hopefully give you a way forward and the confidence to proceed with that. So, thank you, Emily, so inspiring. We see you, we see you in lots of different spaces, networking events, Mums Co events, startup events. You really do put in that, you know, effort. Thank you. So I guess that's one of the, I'm alluding to, but visibility is that core challenge that we have. Can you share some wins that you've had in this area of business and, you know, what's worked for you to get visibility for your business?

32:16 Lucy Kippist: I think that obviously being active and participating in events and online events is really important. Being visible on LinkedIn is also very important. Because the group of people that I'm surrounded by in the investor circle and the startup circle, they primarily operate on LinkedIn. So kind of building your personal brand through LinkedIn is something that I am trying more and more to do and get that, that kind of authenticity, but also credibility that you're like a subject matter expert in this field. I think some of the wins that I've had has been around not just giving, but take— sorry, not just taking, but giving as well. So obviously, there's the, the LinkedIn startup investor side of things. But more importantly, I want to be visible with my customers and with the industry that I operate in. So with the event organizers and the vendors and the councils, I want to make sure that I'm considered an expert in the field in, in that space. So for me, I run, I run these monthly webinars. A lot of this is something, it used to be free, I'm now charging for it, but I offer a lot of free advice as well. And if someone needs one-on-one support, I make sure that I can help them as much as possible, as well as volunteering for event industry type activities, and just making sure that whenever there's someone that is needed, I can be there to kind of fill that gap.

33:51 Emily Zaborski: The next one is really about, is about technology. So we talked briefly about AI before, but is there a tool that you really can't live without yourself at home and in business?

34:05 Lucy Kippist: This is gonna be really boring, but I'm a massive Excel fan. So I use Excel for a lot of my financial planning and, it just keeps me on track. I love Excel. And I also use a lot of, I think as many people do, I try to use Canva to just make sure that any social stuff that I'm putting out there is designed fairly well. Although I will say it's not my favorite tool. I'm not very good at it. So I use it because I have to, not because I want to.

34:43 Emily Zaborski: Okay.

34:44 Lucy Kippist: I think that, yeah, things like Excel and Outlook, I just live by because that's how I manage, currently manage all my interactions with people. Obviously Venderly, I can't live without Venderly. And some of the tools that we are using in Venderly, which are absolutely crucial to our business, is a low-code platform called Bubble. And a tech platform called SendGrid, which allows us to do all those notifications and emails out to our customers. So I think those two tools are things that are crucial to the business. We can't live without those right now. I'm sure at some point we'll do a big tech transformation, but for now, those are the ones that we rely on. But for me personally, Excel and at home with, with my partner, we have a shared calendar. So I think that's one way you— we spoke earlier about productivity, and one of the ways that I'm able to be productive is by having really good communication with my partner so that our time is effectively managed. And, you know, we're about to have a baby, so I'm sure that's going to get even harder. So having a shared calendar where we both know what's coming up for the week, if one of us is scheduled a dinner with someone, then it's in the calendar and we're aware of that. That also, I think, saves our relationship when it comes to, you know, understanding each other's time and needs as well. So, shared calendars. Oh, I love that. So practical, so practical.

36:22 Emily Zaborski: And I know even among our Mums Co team, that shared family calendar is, it's everything.

36:29 Carrie Kwan: You are already ahead of the game.

36:31 Emily Zaborski: Yeah.

36:32 Carrie Kwan: I'll just tell you that right now as a family. I cannot get my husband to use that shared calendar. Drives me— I have to like write everything out on the physical calendar on the fridge. Can you please use the shared calendar? It's much easier. You're winning, and congratulations. Super excited.

36:51 Emily Zaborski: Thank you.

36:51 Lucy Kippist: Yes.

36:52 Emily Zaborski: Thanks. You've mentioned your husband a few times, so I'm assuming, I'm gonna assume he's in this group, but you know, the co in Our Mums and Co refers to the people in our lives, our clients, our family members, our spouses, everybody who supports us in our business. Who is, do you think, your number one confident for the business and support?

37:16 Lucy Kippist: Certainly from an emotional perspective, it would be my husband. I do lean on him a lot for just being able to offload, unfortunately for him, but I think for the business itself, I try not to put too much of that on him. I think, to be honest, I think it's quite important to keep them a little bit separate, uh, just to make sure that we have that balance between work and family as well. So, um, for me, for business, I would confide in other startup founders. Uh, so I've got a great group of founders that I have met and that I work with in my, coworking space and through the accelerator programs that I've been a part of. Uh, and then I've also been able to access one or two really cool mentors that I lean on quite heavily as well. So I think other startup founders and mentors are just fantastic for being able to get that support in your business. And then obviously having that support back at home with your family. Mm-hmm. And friends is really important from an emotional and kind of mental perspective as well.

38:30 Emily Zaborski: How can we best support you over the next few months? I mean, I know you've got an exciting new arrival, so you're probably taking a little bit of a well-deserved breather on the business front, but is there something we can do to support you as you enter into this new phase of blending motherhood and ambition?

38:50 Lucy Kippist: Yes, I think the best way that anyone can help me and Vendalee right now is to spread the word. We are all about growth and trying to get people using the platform, get the feedback. I truly believe in the value that it's providing, and we need to just get the word out there. So if you know anyone with a mobile vendor business who wants to streamline the way that they work and, you know, increase their job leads and potentially their profits, that's one way you can help us is to get them onto Vendaly, get them using it. And if you're someone who ever needs to book a mobile vendor, you know where to come. It's www.vendaly.com. That's V-E-N-D-A-L-Y. And you can message or email info@vendaly.com if you have any specific requests as well.

39:42 Carrie Kwan: Amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining us on Mumbition today. If you'd like to find out a bit more about Emily Zborski, you can connect and find her on our Mums Co membership directory. We hope today's story has inspired you, and we'd love to help support you on your own business journey in 2025. At Mums Co, we help women in business start and give them the community to grow. Our 3 tiers of membership provide strategic guidance, access to deep networks, and opportunities to be more visible. So head over to mumsandco.com.au for more details or to book a one-to-one call with our experts today. If you've enjoyed this podcast, make sure you let us know. We love hearing any reviews and feedback, and it really does help women in business to find us so that we can support their business journey too.

40:33 Lucy Kippist: I am the one. The silver lining just woke up inside me.