How To Start Up / Maison Louis Marie

Juliet Fallowfield: [00:00:00] In today's episode of How to Start Up, I'm joined by Marie du Petit Thouars and Matthew Berkson, the founders and partners behind Maison Louis Marie, the Clean Luxury Fragrance house that blends centuries old botanical heritage with modern consciousness. We discuss how they've turned a personal passion project into a global brand while learning to start scale and stayed married along the way.

Marie started her brand and then brought on her husband Matt, a CEO. So we really delve into the guts of what it's like to start a business with your life partner. They share some very funny anecdotes as to what happened with their startup and what happened within their relationship as they grew the business into this amazing success.

They also share fantastic advice for any couple or friendship partnership who are thinking of starting a business together. So keep listening to.

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Juliet Fallowfield: It's really delightful to meet you both. 

 I know we're gonna talk about [00:01:00] everything starting up and staying married. Because you are both life partners and business partners. Before we do that, I'd love it if you could just introduce when you started your beautiful fragrance house.

Marie du Petit Thouars: I started in 13. I was making candles for Christmas for gifts for my friends, and I was always drawn to like. Beautiful luxury candles, but they're very pricey. So you end up not wanting to burn them because you do wanna like,keep them longer? so I decided to like, try to make candles that are really likebeautifully made good quality, but half the price.

And because of my friend kept asking me more and more candles, I was like, why don't I just create a brand? And I dig deep in my DNA and my family history. And it was quite natural and very easy actually to create the brand because it's basically in some ways in my blood. 

 So it was 

Matthew Berkson: business 

Marie du Petit Thouars: a continuation 

Matthew Berkson: [00:02:00] was more of an artistic and A beautiful brand.

Um. Then kind of looking very think we 

Marie du Petit Thouars: what was easy 

Matthew Berkson: I mean, obviously now that 

Marie du Petit Thouars: first fragrances, they were all based on. memories 

Matthew Berkson: were. Um, 

Marie du Petit Thouars: were the number one 

Matthew Berkson: we never kind of got investment early. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: that 

Matthew Berkson: didn't really have a complete plan on 

Marie du Petit Thouars: on a vacation and we learned to make our own 

Matthew Berkson: by step 

Marie du Petit Thouars: was 

Matthew Berkson: kind of built the 

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, isn't your 

Matthew Berkson: Sense of smell is most linked to 

I'm from the world, but 

Juliet Fallowfield: it takes you straight back to somewhere. So for you, you were pulling on your 

Matthew Berkson: beauty insiders,um, with a 

Juliet Fallowfield: did you start the business together from the day one or did Matthew come into the business at some 

Matthew Berkson: um,

Marie du Petit Thouars: no. I started by myself

Matthew Berkson: don't even think I'm asking, uh, 

Juliet Fallowfield: or hadn't met Matthew?

Marie du Petit Thouars: Not yet. We were together, and that's very important actually, it's a good question because we moved in together and Matt had his own company and he really inspired me because he would get up every morning. even if He was sick He was out the door by [00:03:00] seven and back at six, and I was like, wow, that's a really amazing work ethic.

Like it's very inspiring. Like at the time I was doing art and photography and I was like more on an artist's schedule and I was like, maybe that's not the way to do it. So when I started by myself Matt really inspired me. And then. I always told him like, why don't you come and work with me? Why don't you, and he was like, no, no way.

We can't work together. And like, you'd have to like really sell a lot of candles for me to come in. he was like, and then I was 

like, 

how many? And then he was like well, you need to at least sell 10,000 candles a month. I'm like, God, that's gonna take me a while. Anyways. Three years later or two years later, I got pregnant and I was still begging him and he was like, okay, I'll come.

I was pretty much at 10,000 candles a month and that's when he came, he joined in 2016 and we start [00:04:00] working together, but I was very honest. Since the beginning, I didn't want to have battle of like, I created it. I'm the boss. I said to him, you can be the boss. I just wanna be the, creative person.

Like, because 

Juliet Fallowfield: gonna 

ask how you divided and conquered. How did you know what job you wanted to do versus what job your new recruit was gonna do? And obviously I'm gonna ask Matt these questions as well. From his perspective, but Marie, you go first.

Marie du Petit Thouars: Matt was always like, he studied business, I studied art, so I always knew that Matt would be amazing for the business and I can just create what I want.

and then he just had to find a way to sell it 

Juliet Fallowfield: This is, by the way, very Chanel of you. This is what Chanel did with the Heim. she was like, I just wanna create, you can do the numbers, just creative.

Marie du Petit Thouars: Yeah. And I always think that in a couple, maybe I'm like old style, but I feel that a man he likes to be like, it's important for him to be the boss, like in some ways, and [00:05:00] I really don't care, 

Juliet Fallowfield: matt, would you agree with that?

Matthew Berkson: I mean, not necessarily But I mean in the situation that we're in, it's not like I'm the total boss. We collaborate on everything even from, you know, even businesses decisions to creative decisions. But, definitely on the creative side I refer to her. Like it does make sense to, you know, fill the CEO role and, be able to kind of. make decisions Obviously we're talking to each other all the time and, you know, everything is kind of run by both of us. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Matt It must have been. I mean, Were you at all apprehensive coming from a loving home personal partnership into a business professional partnership?

Matthew Berkson: in a way it seemed pretty natural to work with Marie. I mean, She's characterizing it like, you know, I didn't want to join. you know, we weren't married at the time, but, you know, we were kind of on our way to getting married. And then with the kid it was more of just like a, putting all your eggs in one basket situation of just like, it's a huge risk to go all-in [00:06:00] on your own company.

 So I wanted make sure that you know. if we did join forces that.

it would work 

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, it's a huge risk bringing a CEO in such a senior hire. It's probably the most senior hire a brand can do, but thenIt must be a blessing and a curse. 'cause you obviously know each other inside out, through and through. You've gone through lots of challenges before.

There must be benefits to that, but also cons. Matt, I wondered if you could give us the pro and the con of working with your life partner. 

I mean, Did you have to do an interview?

Matthew Berkson: No, not at all. Because, you know, I was around watching Marie in the very beginning, so of course I was so familiar with what she was building and kind of in awe of how, you know, well, she did at the beginning. I mean, she had an art studio in Echo Park in kind of the east side of Los Angeles and just built that into her office.

and built the website on her own, figured out how to set up a Shopify account. The brand was too small for a FedEx pickup, so she was lugging packages to FedEx picking and packing orders. So I was seeing it [00:07:00] firsthand and I was just amazed at how she kind of built it from the beginning.

And so like you know she created. such a perfect Foundation right at the beginning. you know, Like it made my job easy in some ways. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Marie, do you think if you weren't about to go on maternity leave, you would've still recruited you?

Marie du Petit Thouars: Oh yeah. I,

 knew exactly like this is the person, like any company would be very happy to have him. So I was like. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it was a good excuse actually that I was pregnant, that I needed help because like he had to come. And when we're saying like the pros and cons like, I mean, we are so different it's like the Yin and the yang, like we have totally different strengths So the combination is perfect because he's really good. for business but Also has a good eye, and then we just like ask questions and like do you like this do that and then we just talk together and we have a lot of respect. for eachother [00:08:00] So we never fight.

Juliet Fallowfield: Really, because I was gonna say, I mean, I don't have a business partner and I'm grateful for it in some ways, but also I look at people who do, and I'm very envious because the amount of support at that senior level would be incredible. But I also know that if it didn't work and they were glitches, it'd be a very different exit or difficult conversation to have 

Marie du Petit Thouars: I think you have to be able to separate little boxes in and the home. And if you can do that, it works really well.

Juliet Fallowfield: Do you compartmentalize so you get home and you like right, we cannot talk about the brand for.

Marie du Petit Thouars: no, we do. Like he always comes back new samples and things like that and I'm like, oh my God, can I do this later? But like, I laugh about it, like it never stops. That's the con,

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, that's any business, isn't it?

Marie du Petit Thouars: You.

You just always have to like have respect and In life you treat people with respect and if you don't like something, you say it in a nice way and then you work like to make it good. But we've always had the same [00:09:00] space, even in furniture or like vacation, so it's very easy. And work together because on the page and yet the is really just like you have to bring it home 

Juliet Fallowfield: But then a problem shared is a problem halved, and I bring it home and I got no one to tell. I'm just like, oh, I'll just carry on problem solving on my own. So that's why I go to coworking offices because I think I've got community support there and I a problem, shared problem through comrades. Someone said right at the beginning of my business six years ago, said, as long as you're fine with like dreaming about clients, thinking about 'em in the shower, when you're gonna run, you're gonna be fine. You're never gonna switch off. And I'd always had good work ethic and I, you know, always tried and worked really hard for these amazing brands.

I had some fantastic training from, but I did. Switch off and you could potentially also 20 years ago, leave it in the office. Whereas today, we are also connected for you guys. is there any practical advice you'd give other couples thinking of going into business together [00:10:00] as to how to draw that boundary and how to kind of protect both relationships?

Matthew Berkson: I, you have to beep at kind of the room in a, I mean, you know. certain times in the evening, obviously, you know, like I'm constantly thinking about the brand, but like, you know, you just have to understand when, to kind of leave it alone or leave it for the next day or, talk about it later. So, I mean, you, just have to be very respectful and, sense, kind of like the appropriate times to kind of deal with certain things.

you know, Which I've always tried to do, but you know, sometimes, yeah. Because Marie works not in our office. So it's like we're talking a lot throughout the day about the company, but then obviously when we see each other in the evenings, there's, you know, it's hard because like, we're both tired yet you know, I'll have to bring home samples or there'll be creative decisions to be made.

And, you know, certain times it's just like, you know, we'll just leave it for the next day. Other times, you know, it'll make sense to kind of deal with it in the evening.

Juliet Fallowfield: That's interesting. So you've put a physical boundary in place that you are [00:11:00] not in a shared office space.

Marie du Petit Thouars: And I think that really helped me a lot actually because when we started, we were in the same room. And that was kind of like a little hard. I'm someone who really liked my own time and to be alone. And then in the second office I had my own office and I thought that was amazing because I had my space.

And I think it's very important that you have your own space. But then when the pandemic hit. I stayed home and I never went back to the office after because I realised how much I love it.  I think way more clearer quicker because I don't have the noise. We always have our office next to the warehouse, so there's the employees, there's everything going on.

Now I'm just like, at home, it's quiet. So that was a good discovery.

Soyes, and for us too, becauseit's like, yeah, we work together, but Matt lives in the morning and comes back at night, know, like

Juliet Fallowfield: Miss each other a bit [00:12:00] like you're not physically in the same space creating.

Marie du Petit Thouars: Exactly. Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I think it's so difficult, isn't it, when work can be all consuming to know what to do first and when and how have you divided? I mean, It sounds fairly obvious that if one of you has a business background and one of you's creative, you've divided those.

But given that any founder is also it, HR, payroll, culture, community, social, there's so many other things outside of your actual day job that you have to do. Did you do some work around that in terms of dividing those extra roles? Or was the business at a stage where you had other people doing those things?

Marie du Petit Thouars: Uh, in the beginning, like I think Matt, he took over the production and the sales, and I did the accounting, the inventory, and the creativity. And then I think one day I called and I said, Matt. I don't account and inventory anymore. Like it's too much, I think.

Juliet Fallowfield: There's nothing like dampening your creativity by looking at a [00:13:00] spreadsheet, I

imagine. it was like so hard because I was like, inventory spreadsheet, go from one to the other and then worry, like that's what's cool with Mac. It's like you don't wanna do something, you don't have to okay, we'll find you someone. Don't worry. And I was so scared that someone.

 Yeah, it's interesting you say that it's hard, isn't it? Letting go because when you've done everything yourself to then and proven you can do it yourself, you are able, exhausted, and especially if you're raising a family as well, you've got other things that need you at home. You can't work till midnight every night.

How did you learn to let go?

Marie du Petit Thouars: I just had to trust that someone else was gonna do it. Do.

Marie du Petit Thouars: And then you have to learn also to understand that sometimes they can make mistakes, but the mistakes are gonna be fixed. And then we met Alessandro, he came in too, and he's amazing because he was working for the accounting company, [00:14:00] but he was it, he was just like. Fast. Like when you had the question, he knew he was not like, you know, sometimes people talk for four minutes to say two things.

 and we, hired him too, and he was a great hire too. Right, Matt? so, and then we got someone for the sales

and as you're growing, you are recruiting.

Juliet Fallowfield: little by little. Yeah. Because you're on Sephora and Goop. Right? You are not a startup anymore. You are very significantly present in the market.

Marie du Petit Thouars: you know what I think was really helpful is that when the pandemic hit, you had to start working on Zoom and we were able to find amazing people in any kind of like jobs. And work with them through Zoom and you meet with them once or twice a week and it's amazing right, Matt? It's so efficient.

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. A lot of our employees, 'cause I think now we have 20 people on our team. We do run our own warehouse, so a lot of that is in our warehouse. But like [00:15:00] Marie said, we, in the past kind of three to four years, we've added a CFO. Who's Alessandro? Alice is our head of ops and then masse the head of sales.

So yeah, we have a very strong team and some are remote, some are in office. But yeah, it's Kind of like Marie, it's like in some ways almost, I think, easier for everyone not to be in the same office in a way. Because especially you find really good people that you can trust, I mean, you don't need to be in the office with them.

Juliet Fallowfield: trust is everything.

Matthew Berkson: yeah, I just think it's, you know, better for everyone in a way.

Juliet Fallowfield: It's interesting. There's a big debate around this because we having had years and years of experience under our belts, know what we're doing and how to work, and my colleague Francesca came to me straight out of university, incredible recruit and amazing person to work with. we do hybrids, so we see each other once or twice a week, but predominantly working remotely for her personality and the way she works that really suits her.

But I know there's other people that have come and joined the team that they need people all the [00:16:00] time. And I'm at a point in my career and it's my business where I'm like, I don't want to be needed by somebody all the time. I just wanna get my head down and do it my way. And you could argue that's quite a selfish approach. But then if I'm gonna work this hard, I'm gonna do it the way I want. And that's the autonomy you get yourself when you start a business. But I think it's the type of work that you do and how you work at work. But Francesca and I debated this last week. She said I wouldn't have. Anything had I done it all remotely, because you as a youngster have to absorb quite a lot of skills by osmosis, by being around people.

The fat AI founder came on the podcast a couple of months ago and he said, we just don't recruit anyone under 30 anymore because AI's replaced them. I was like, but what about your pipeline? What's gonna happen in eight years when you trying to recruit the next 30-year-old to be the senior hire? It's a really interesting one.

Have you kind of skewed it to say it's completely up to you if you come in or stay at home? On what they prefer or have you sort of insisted that some, obviously the warehouse, you need people in the warehouse,

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, I'm pretty old school. Like I love going into the office. I mean, I, occasionally if I have to [00:17:00] work from home I'll, but like, I just work best in an

Marie du Petit Thouars: He setting. 

to work from home.

Juliet Fallowfield: but Yeah. yourself at Yeah. But I mean, like you said, I think. You know, Early on in our careers, I mean, I was, working in an office, you know, was an assistant to an executive for years and, learned so much.

Matthew Berkson: And you know, that kind of the early days of, being in an office learning the politics, learning how to deal with people was key. So , yeah, I think you need that experience early on. You know, As you grow in your career and you know, become more senior. Yeah, I think it's less important, although, you know, there needs to be a lot of communication within your company too.

So there is a trade off to not everyone being in the office you know, certain roles. Yeah. Like they just definitely 

Marie du Petit Thouars: Also 

like they more like our age. From another generation, so they obviously don't need to be around people, I guess 

Juliet Fallowfield: Have your sort of junior hires requested more [00:18:00] FaceTime with you guys, or are they getting enough that they need to do their roles?

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, I mean, most of our junior hires will be in the office because it just works better 

Marie du Petit Thouars: and we remember someone requested not wanting to come every day. We, them, it's gonna work. You really have to come every day to learn how Like the ropes,

Juliet Fallowfield: Well also. The work they're likely doing is more office based work. If it's, I mean, my background's in PR and I used to run down to reception with all the send outs. The journalists, you physically have to do that. that was my job. And I work with a lot of jewelers as well as fragrance designers and they have to sit at a bench and make jewelry.

They can't do that on a bus or on a beach or wherever, working remotely. So it is a really interesting. Debate, but talking of boundaries that obviously you've set the boundary with yourselves and you know how you both prefer to work at work, and that's trickled down in the culture as well. Are there any other systems or habits that you've created to help you [00:19:00] both in your partnerships?

Matthew Berkson: for some reason we have a magical relationship where we, you know, we just like naturally, I don't think.

Juliet Fallowfield: Do you mind me asking how long you were together before you went into business together?

Marie du Petit Thouars: Oh, we were long time together. Because I think we dated for five years and then got married in 

Matthew Berkson: have the worst.

Marie du Petit Thouars: He has the worst. He only says six months for everything. Oh, it was six months ago. So we got married in 2000 and. Six years, and then he came on the seventh year. So we knew each other for seven years.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, so you knew each other pretty well by that stage.

Yeah. And I think I went there this I lovedPeople listening, if they're thinking about going to partnership even with a friend or partnerships, full stop, what sort of questions should they ask each other before signing a business agreement with each other?

Marie du Petit Thouars: Well, I think they have to respect each other very much and look [00:20:00] at the work ethic, because to me, what striked me with Matt was the work ethic. Like it, yeah, it's everything. And also like. we're good combo. I'm the bad cop. He's the good cop. Yeah. I always call him Reza, like he's always so nice and like,is, 

Juliet Fallowfield: he's in the office and you are at home? 

Marie du Petit Thouars: don't know because they're very impressive, Matt, at the office. So the employees would always ask me first. I was to always say yes.

Juliet Fallowfield: So, yeah, if they're going into a partnership together, you think, know their trust or how much they trust and look at the work ethic, is there sort of anything they should do like. Train for a marathon together or something like a draft version before they actually jump in.

Marie du Petit Thouars: I think they need to go with the gaps. And there's this one little thing who bothers them? They shouldn't go into business with each other.

Juliet Fallowfield: Matt, would you agree with [00:21:00] that?

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's hard like if you are having to kind of like formalize a business relationship with your partner, I think it's like already gonna be a problem. like there you just have so many like unwritten I don't know. maybe we just take for granted.I mean you probably do need to sit down and Goals are because, you know, I could see maybe that being a point of friction and not that it, 

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah, the what does success look like because people have very different ideas. I found out with friends, actually,they've put their idea of success onto me. It's like. Surely you must want to employ 20 people in scale. It's like, no, that's not a thing for me. I'm actually really happy being a smaller company now.

It's just interesting what other people want to put upon you, and you have to kind of question where it's coming from, but if it's your partner or your business partner, having that frank conversation.

Marie du Petit Thouars: I think also you need to have the same way of like, it's not ethics, but how you live your life. 

Juliet Fallowfield: values.

Marie du Petit Thouars: yeah, exactly. You need to have the same values because for [00:22:00] example Matt, before he joined, he had another company with another partner who was really amazing and so much fun, but they was so different.

And I don't think Matt would come sometimes and be like, oh man. I could see like, yeah, they're not going in the same direction, and I think you have the value and.

Juliet Fallowfield: We got B Corp certified because We knew we liked B Corp's values, and obviously nothing's perfect, but it was a stamp of approval that anyone coming into the business would understand very quickly where we stood on our values and what we would expect of them as well. And same goes for clients, suppliers, everything.

And I'm sure you're not very well versed in this too, 

So I know that the DNA is really obviously personal with your heritage, but it's, you've got a very strong environmental consciousness with it as well.

Is that something that you look for your employees when you bring people into the business, what their values are?

Matthew Berkson: It's definitely important to have kind of be aligned [00:23:00] on the values and you know, it's a very easy. Or, part of the business, the environmental kind of angle that we have and what we do in that world. Of course everyone really likes that as part of the business. And yeah, it's always kind of been important to us, I think, because, being a brand. in so many ways you're contributing to the problem. And I mean, especially in beauty, it's been so, you know, what they call greenwashing just focusing on like, recyclability of products and, but you're still creating like thousands of products and putting them into this world.

When we were super small, you know, that's the best we could do is focus on recyclability. And then once we grew we were able to kind of join a lot of really cool nonprofit organizations and actually kind of like put our money where our mouth is and help kind of fund they were doing.

I think too, just, you know, being a newer brand, it just feels more natural to us. to Earth and help them. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: Also, you know, when you say about the higher, do want them to be like that. I see that the younger [00:24:00] generation is like that.

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, yeah, they're looking for brands that they can put their values and effort

Marie du Petit Thouars: Yeah, it's, it's crazy how like my nieces, they came over like the recycling, like not wanting to buy things with plastic. Like in some ways they're even more educated than we're

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh God. Yeah.

Marie du Petit Thouars: So I think, yeah, it's it's not that we, them, they employee.

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah, it is incredible and I love it. The next generation who. I learned so much from them and they challenge me back. And I wouldn't have dreamed to have done that in when I was 23, 25 or something like that, saying to my boss like, I disagree. And I think it's phenomenal because it's just adding more value to us, our clients, our output, everything.

And so for the brand, obviously you've achieved so much already, but what is exciting for you going forward with the brand?

Matthew Berkson: I think one of the most exciting parts, or you know, fun parts for us is as we've grown, through kind of the middle period, I think. It was definitely harder for us because we were like [00:25:00] really just kind of fighting it out with other brands. We kind of entered a lot of different like, you know, bigger retailer landscapes and the competition you know, it's really intense in beauty, especially fragrance especially coming outta COVID.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I think in the last few years we've really kind of like. Found our way more and we opened up our first store last year. I think we're gonna plan on opening up our second store this year. huge.

Matthew Berkson: we've just kind of had a renewed kind of like feeling that, we can kind of like fulfill our own destiny.

When I think before you know, we, felt much more reliant upon kind of like distributors and retail partners. And we're just realizing that like, you know, through our own channels, our DTC business and even Amazon and, and opening up our own stores, we're really starting to create our own ecosystem, which is just super exciting and fun.

Juliet Fallowfield: It's just something also that you can control and not in a negative way, but it's your ethos, it's your values, it's, you know, you can use the materials that you want. [00:26:00] And I completely appreciate this 'cause one of our PR clients is Mattia premier. I dunno if you're familiar with those guys. They just had a, a minority uming investment in 2 24.

They opened San Paris and we're opening their London store next month. And to see this brand You can feel it, you can smell it, you can touch it, and it'll be top to toe then. Whereas you go into Selfridges and Liberty in Harvey, Nicks, and it's beautiful, and I had this at Chanel as well, but it's a disconnect and the customer won't get all of the rich quite literal, raw materials that you can get when you design your own store.

So that's huge. Congratulations. And something that we do with every episode is we have a question from our previous guest for our next guest, and this beautiful interior designer Sophie Patterson in London had a question for you guys about when do you know it's right to bring on a senior hire, which is quite interesting from what you've said.

We've got some brilliant heads of within the team, and the fact that Marie recruited Matt to be the CEO. When now in your business, do you know it's right to bring on that next senior hire? Because they're expensive [00:27:00] and it can go wrong. It's not plain sailing recruitment. In fact, I think it's the hardest part,

I think like, it's when is like when we feel the company is ready and we need it and we can't keep doing it anymore. Like all the times that we hired the say hi, it's was not drowning, but it was like too much work. And then who? We were very lucky because all the people we hired, we knew them working with them for other companies, like they were working for companies we were working with.

Marie du Petit Thouars: And then when they left, we sna them because we really liked them. So we had already worked with them. We very lucky. Very lucky for that 

Juliet Fallowfield: I'd argue it's not luck. You work really hard. You did the hours, you had the experience, and then you had the foresight to think, right. I say it was very strategic. I always challenge people when they say luck because it actually, when

you look at it, it's hard work. There's no luck about starting and [00:28:00] growing a business.

Marie du Petit Thouars: But I think like when you work with other companies it's, interesting because you work with 20 people, but you always see that person you really like and you would wanna have with you, that's when you know it's the right person.

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, I've got goosebumps because between my jobs in New York, Sydney, and London as people I'm still in touch with and I just know at some point. Matt, what would you say to that?

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, I mean I think brewery's totally right about that. sometimes, it's like the universe kind of like will kind of slowly put someone in your orbit and like the timing is perfect. And I think as a small company, we're just so used to kind of taking on a lot, and then our team as well.

 It's not like we're forced to have to hire anyone and it's more about finding the right person than having someone fill some role that like I have a vision for. like it'll all make sense in my head once that person kind of like appears. Um.

Juliet Fallowfield: And when they work out, it feels like such a luxury. Like how did we ever cope without them?

Matthew Berkson: [00:29:00] No, 

Marie du Petit Thouars: a luxury. 

to have them.

Yeah, the right person in the yeah, at the right time. My God.

yeah. it's not just an employee, it's, someone very precious. Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah. Very true. And what would your question be for the next guest? It could be anything around entrepreneurship.

Matthew Berkson: I think of something, I wrote it down. It was what is something you deliberately chose not to do as you've grown?

Juliet Fallowfield: Love this.

Matthew Berkson: I think that's like a very interesting question. Because especially as like a creative brand or just a brand in general is just like knowing, when to say no and really sticking to your guns and stuff like that. So I just find that to be an interesting kind all deal.

Juliet Fallowfield: Someone said to me, do one thing and do it really well, and don't try and walk into a room and tell a client you can solve 20 problems for them. And it's really hard because when you get a taste for entrepreneurship or starting a business or being proactive and creative, you're hungry for it. You enjoy it.

I've done that. And what else could I do? and I've got another podcast I really want to do, [00:30:00] really wanna do. And I was like, no, I'm gonna allow myself six months. And if I still really, it's like gonna back to shop to buy something. I still wanna do it in six months, I'm allowed to do it because it's more time.

Right. But yeah, the decision's not to do. They're probably more powerful, aren't they? Can I ask you, Marie, is there a deliberate decision that you've made that to not do something well, presumably not go back to the office after COVID?

Marie du Petit Thouars: think all time, there's a lot of things I don't wanna do.

Juliet Fallowfield: I love.

Marie du Petit Thouars: Yeah. It's it's more,

Matthew Berkson: good kind of like,

 it's tough because you know, of course as you're growing, you kind of try to have to say yes to a lot of things, but then you kind of realize that really important to say no 

Juliet Fallowfield: I get so, so, crossed. 

With my diary and I look and I get to my week and I'm like, who the hell booked all this in? Oh me, two weeks ago? And I get crossed with my previous self. And so I try and protect my future self by saying no to things. And it's more, I've moved to a new place, I'm [00:31:00] making new friends, and my weekends I'm going on walks to people and I'm finding who my new could immunity are.

But it takes a lot of time and effort. And sometimes like, no, just say no, you don't need to 

do enough. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: you'll feel way better.

Juliet Fallowfield: Right. I'm gonna message you and I, I'm English though, Marie. It's really hard to say no to people. Normally, terribly sorry, but I'm really sorry, but sorry.

Marie du Petit Thouars: Can do it.

Juliet Fallowfield: Okay, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna let you know and I master this, although I have to say my year in Australia, I got quite good. I think it's a different communication tactic. You a bit more Frank and blunt, and I love that you can just say what you think and especially working in the states, 

you can and, and it,

Marie du Petit Thouars: In Australia for one year.

Juliet Fallowfield: uh, no, six years.

I was in New for one year and then Australia for six years.

 yeah, Sydney, beautiful. 

Yeah, it's a gorgeous quality of

life. But yeah, we, they have 

so sunshine. They're high as kites on the sunshine and the healthy living.

Marie du Petit Thouars: yes,

Juliet Fallowfield: You come to England's, I [00:32:00] know you get the tube to work, you're underground 

Marie du Petit Thouars: in September. Darkness 

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: and. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I would argue in the summer, England's amazing because you get such long, long, long, long, long days. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: But

You know what I loved? I'm a runner and I run in the parks. You have beautiful parks. Oh my God. 

Gorgeous. That like morning, like 

Juliet Fallowfield: The myths. Yeah. 

Marie du Petit Thouars: Park. It was gorgeous. Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, next time you come try and do a run down the Thames because that you get to tick off all the tourist sites without having to go anywhere inside and it's flat, which.

Marie du Petit Thouars: I'll faster.

Juliet Fallowfield: Thank you so much.

Matthew Berkson: Yeah, it was super fun. Thank you.

[00:33:00]