Grit and Hustle Over Glitz and Glamour with Kate Morris, Founder of Adore Beauty [S1.E5]

This is the quintessential heroic founding tale. In 2001, with online retail in its infancy, Kate with just $12,000 of borrowed money in her back pocket, set out with a mission of empowering women to make better beauty decisions. At this point, everything was against her. No experience, no money, no brands wanting to join her platform. Fast forward 20 years and Adore Beauty will this year have over $100 million in revenue, 14,000 products across 200 of the world’s biggest beauty brands and over 160 employees. That is not to say that it was always smooth sailing. As you’ll hear, this story is one of pure resilience, belief, grit and hustle. Its a real founder’s story warts and all. Not much glitz, not much glamour. Until perhaps recently, 19 years after starting, Kate and her business partner finally realised some kind of financial rewards, selling 60% of the business to a private equity fund. Kate is incredibly passionate about empowering more female founders and makes some pertinent points in regard to how and why the investment community needs to lift its game in supporting them.  Above all else, this interview reminds us all,  that in the world of entrepreneurship, anything is possible. Sound quality disclaimer: This episode was recorded on the road and the sound quality is perhaps not up to the standard that we had hoped for. The good news - there are so many nuggets of gold, it is worth putting up with.