Most Replayed Moment: A Guilt-Free Way to Handle Work and Life
Nicola Kilner, Co-Founder and CEO of DECIEM, discusses building a disruptive beauty brand, the unique startup culture, and evolving leadership skills. She emphasizes adapting work-life balance and leveraging self-awareness and kindness in leadership.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Value of Corporate Experience Before Entrepreneurship
Key Skills Gained from Corporate Buying Role
Meeting Brandon and the Genesis of Deciem
The 'Focus is Overrated' Philosophy at Deciem
Downsides of the Multi-Brand Strategy
Hiring Strategy for Early-Stage Startups
Co-Founder Dynamics and Complementary Personalities
Brandon's Vision of Building a Work Family
Creating a Dedicated, 'Cult-Like' Company Culture
The Evolving Concept of Work-Life Balance
Balancing 'Family Culture' with High Performance
Nicola's Self-Perception as CEO and Leadership Evolution
Importance of Self-Awareness and Delegation
5 Key Concepts
'Focus is Overrated' Philosophy
The idea, embraced by Deciem, that doing multiple things at once (e.g., 10 brands) can be beneficial for a startup by creating an in-house ecosystem, allowing for cheaper and quicker experimentation, and increasing chances of finding a successful product.
Launch and Love
A saying at Boots emphasizing that getting a product listed is only the first step; the real challenge is driving consumer demand and ensuring the product is picked off the shelf and loved by customers.
Kindness vs. Niceness
Kindness is defined as having the intention to help someone, even if it means having a difficult conversation (e.g., about performance), whereas niceness can be superficial and avoid necessary truths.
Startup Agility
The ability of a small, early-stage company to quickly change decisions, adapt directions, and iterate on ideas, which is crucial for innovation but becomes more challenging as an organization grows.
Personalized Work-Life Balance
The understanding that there is no universal 'right' balance; it is highly personal and changes at different stages of life, with the most important factor being individual happiness and fulfillment.
7 Questions Answered
Nicola Kilner suggests that a few years in a corporate environment, like her placement years at Boots, can be more valuable than university for learning business operations, identifying organizational drawbacks, and understanding consumer goods.
Doing multiple brands at once can allow a startup to build an in-house ecosystem (manufacturing, comms), leverage shared resources more efficiently, and quickly test various ideas to see what gains traction, enabling cheap and fast failure.
Once one brand becomes significantly successful (like The Ordinary), it tends to monopolize resources and attention, pushing other brands aside, especially when teams are facing high workloads, making it difficult to give dedicated focus to each.
It often arises naturally from shared passion, fun activities outside of work, and a sense of collective purpose, where team members feel like a family and are deeply invested in the mission.
The concept of work-life balance is highly personal and evolves; what is balanced and fulfilling in one's twenties (e.g., intense startup work) may not be suitable when caring for family or facing other life challenges.
A family culture should foster belonging, safety, and love, but true kindness also means having honest, sometimes difficult, conversations about performance to help individuals grow and ensure the team's overall success.
Self-awareness is crucial for a CEO to identify their strengths and weaknesses, delegate effectively, and bring in talent to cover areas where they are not strong, fostering authenticity and better organizational performance.
10 Actionable Insights
1. Gain Corporate Experience First
Work in a corporate environment for a few years before entrepreneurship to learn best practices, identify drawbacks of large organizations, and understand different departments like supply chain, finance, and legal.
2. Embrace ‘Focus is Overrated’ (Initially)
For early-stage consumer brands, doing multiple things at once (like 10 brands) can create an ecosystem, allow for in-house services (manufacturing, comms), and enable cheap, quick failure and iteration until something gains traction.
3. Hire for Raw Potential, Not Just Experience
In a startup, hiring people straight out of university or college can bring fresh perspectives, prevent preconditioned ideas, and foster innovative thinking, as they approach challenges with a practical viewpoint.
4. Cultivate a ‘Family’ Culture (with Boundaries)
Build a work environment where people feel a deep sense of belonging, care, and mutual support, similar to a family, but understand that kindness also means having tough conversations about performance for the team’s overall health.
5. Prioritize Fun in Team Building
Incorporate fun activities outside of work, like weekend trips or social outings, as these foster deeper relationships, spark creativity, and contribute significantly to a dedicated, ‘cult-like’ company culture.
6. Be Agile and Adapt Quickly in Startups
In early stages, be prepared for rapid changes in direction and decision-making; this agility is crucial for innovation and quick iteration, though it becomes harder with scale.
7. Be Prepared to Wear Every Hat
In a startup, everyone, including founders, must be willing to perform any task needed, from production line work to packing boxes, to ensure operations run smoothly and orders are fulfilled.
8. Define Your Own Work-Life Balance
Recognize that the ‘right’ work-life balance is personal and changes throughout different life stages; prioritize happiness and adapt your work intensity to your current circumstances and personal needs.
9. Lead with Self-Awareness
Understand and openly acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Delegate tasks in areas where you are not strong and bring in talented people to fill those gaps, fostering authenticity and effective team performance.
10. Practice Kindness, Not Just Niceness
Being truly kind in a professional setting means having difficult conversations about performance or role suitability if it helps an individual grow or benefits the team, rather than avoiding discomfort by being merely ’nice’.
7 Key Quotes
Focus is overrated.
Nicola Kilner
Launch and love, because actually it's one thing to get a listing of Boots. It's another thing for your product to actually be picked and taken off the shelf.
Nicola Kilner
You've got to scale from a cult.
Host
You can like complain about your parents, but if anyone else says a bad word about your parents, you're like, no, like even if they're saying the same thing you've said. And Desiem's like that.
Nicola Kilner
Kindness sometimes is mistaken for weakness. And also I think there's a conflict between the words being kind and being nice.
Nicola Kilner
Being nice is kind, but can be superficial... If someone's not performing at work, it's not necessarily a nice thing to have that conversation with them. But it is the kind thing.
Nicola Kilner
Anyone who thinks they're the expert at everything, they're not.
Nicola Kilner