#18 - Leah Hutcheon CEO & Founder at Appointedd talks about Graft, empathy and staying in your lane

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of No Rocketships. I'm Jamie Hancock, your host. I just forgot what I was going to say then. And now that my guess to is terrified is with me, I thought I'd get her to introduce herself. I'm not terrified. I'm super cool Jamie, you know this. I'm totally terrified. Hi, thank you so much for having me, Mr. Hancock. My name is Leah Hutchin and I'm the founder and CEO of Appuinteed. And we are a platform that started solving the big problem about appointment scheduling in retail. And we've powered millions of bookings over the years. But we came to the realization recently that a booking isn't a kind of logistics problem. It's a declared purchase intent. We are leaning massively into the intent side of things and looking at how we help retailers make the most of turning booked intent, which is our lovely new trademarked thing, turning that into and kind of the signal of future demand and future purchase. So we're having a lot of funding that with some of the world's best retailers. Beautiful add over, but that was very good. Well, thank you. You asked me to introduce myself. I'm going to make it. Perfect. And actually, reality is you're only on here because I talked about made with intent recently and you decided that you'd have to. You can't talk about David and all of his beautiful intent stuff without talking about pointed and all of our beautiful intent stuff. And actually, we are looking at some beautiful intent babies together. So, and that's all. And look, it's true, right? You book your book to get, I don't know, a facial or whatever. You're going to spend some on money. I mean, you are, you are a higher intent person. No question. Absolutely. And not only just that, you're going to tell the brand like why you're having that facial and you're going to give them all of that ahead of time. You know, we have like moments of beautiful truth and beautiful connection. Seven days ahead of that facial. So we know, you know, Sarah is coming into the night's bridge store at 3pm next Saturday and she's having a facial because she's going to a wedding and she's got dry skin and she's not sure if it's hormonal or whatever. You know, and that is a little drop of magic seven days ahead of time and then you can kind of curate and educate and peak in trust. And yeah, all of that wonderful stuff that retailers do in the customer journey. Right. Right. Now, our three questions today. Well, I could have asked you loads of things actually because we know each other reasonably well and we have a shared love of various things. 80s pop, desert island discs, all of those things. So I've tried to fight away from those and have a proper conversation. So we're going to talk about one being a founder and kind of the rocket ship versus hard graft version of life. We're going to talk about winter pivot and winter stay on course. You've already sort of referenced it really, I suppose. And then the idea of, and I've just forgotten, the idea of an empathy, right? So you're a very funny empathetic, warm person. And I sort of feel like I am too. And I just wonder, does he get us anywhere? Anyway, we'll come to that at the end. Right. So first thing, talk to me about grafts and momentum and the rocket ship. You're a CEO, founder of a startup SaaS business. So, you know, there is a lot of hard work in there by default and by, yeah, definition. I think like we undoubtedly say my, my first inclination is we have never been right place, right time, done it. It's all graft, but you then think about it and you're like, yeah, there's definitely luck along the way, isn't there? None of us would be here. You know, the odds are so stacked against any startup, scale up existing. So yeah, without a doubt, there has been some luck. And I think the hard work creates the momentum and you get that kind of nice flywheel effect. But yeah, for me, it has always been about. So I'm a solo founder. I started appointed when I was made redundant from, I was a magazine editor of a gorgeous glossy magazine. So life was good. I was like just nosy around beautiful houses and going for massages. And yeah, all of this wonderful stuff. And then made redundant, rug pulled out from under me, told I could keep the company cart all the end of the week. And that was that. But I've had the idea for appointed just from a point of view of how do customers connect with brands and how to brands really understand that connection. But I'm a non-tech founder. And so I came at it from like, actually probably, you know, blissfully naive about what that journey would look like. And it has been such hard work. And you know, if I'd have known ahead of time, how much hard work that was going to be would I have done it? I honestly don't think I probably would because it is, you know, there's blood swentiers in there, isn't there? There is absolutely. I know we've had this conversation many times before, but I mean, the reality is that I didn't work very hard when I had a job. I had a very nice life and I didn't work hard at all. I was a late. My nickname is Gentleman's Hours in my employed life. Love that. And now, you know, for 20 years I've worked my rear end or front. Has it changed you? Do you know what? I think I was maybe always so. I said I was a magazine editor. I started at that magazine in sales and I worked really bloody hard outside of hours. I would sell all day and then I just made myself kind of invaluable to the editor at the time and I worked my way up and did it. So I have always been a bit of a grafter and I think almost it was like that kind of mindset of I may as well do it for myself, you know, why not? And you know, when you've been major London and you've had that kind of, yeah, I think for me, it's not so much changed me, but the passion and the drive and the kind of, yeah, definitely test, she doesn't it. But I love it so much and I love, you know, speaking to other founders and other business owners and, you know, yeah, just knowing what you have to give, but then what you get from those moments of delight of like creating something that wouldn't exist if you hadn't kind of put all of that hard work and the late nights and all of that sort of stuff. So yeah, it makes me very happy but very tired and all of my grey hairs have been well and and so look, I mean the name of this thing is no rocket ships, right? And I called it that because I was sick and tired of people putting that emoji on LinkedIn sort of almost giving the impression to everybody that was going to be easy and we had this rocket pad thing that was going to, you know, when we're going to be, we're going to fly off to the moon and, you know, but the reality is rockets explode and I'm not sure there are any rockets anymore. What's your view of that sort of hype around, you know, the sort of massive growth and the quick exit, which is really what was being promised whenever, you know, a while ago? It's largely absolute BS, isn't it? And I will curb my usual swearing ass. But yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, I don't think there are many companies of any type that you can look at that have truly had that rocket ship experience, but also you're right, rocket ships explode, but they also, even when it goes well, they don't happen overnight, do they? So it's like it's kind of built up this fake thing, like rocket ships are really hard to build. They have like really super well-trained people inside of them and outside of them and it's a very complex thing. So yeah, it's a, I agree with you that it's a somewhat annoying kind of vibe that said I've definitely been known to use that rocket ship in May, so I'm judging my past self. I forgive you. I forgive you. I feel absolved. But yeah, I think it's always 10 years of hard graft. When you scratch the skin of any, even the businesses that are super new and going really quickly, there's often something there in the founders past that has informed that next day. You know, nobody wakes up overnight and a month later, you know, or very few, obviously, exceptions with some of the AI stuff, but yeah, I think blood sweat and tears is grand and it makes you better at what you're doing. And it's interesting is that you've saved weight me beautifully into desert iron discs because only because I think, again, we've spoken about this before, the thing I love about listening to desert iron discs, by the way, if you've never listened to it radio for, you find it on BBC sounds, you can find it all over the internet. It's been going for, I don't know, 70 years or something ridiculous. And they're into, they're our long interviews with high achievets, right, from, from everywhere. The thing that I love about it and I make sales people listen to desert iron discs episode whenever I'm mentoring them, is it, it shows you where the drive comes from, from that person's, or almost always from their early life. I mean, you understand that, don't you? You just understand them. So I dress up. Yeah, I totally totally agree with that. And I think digging back into that, it's so lovely to see those little nuggets isn't there. My first job was I was Mr. Blobby on Blackpulpia. So yeah, and I'm wearing pink today, I'm thinking red, feel like this. Not me've done. But I always say like that was the first time I had to stand up. And I was like literally, I mean, it was illegal to hire me. I was like 12 or something. I got paid a five for the day. But I stood there all day and said, "Bloby, blobby, blobby" and had my photo taken with little kids. It made them happy. I talked a lot of rubbish and you know, here I am. Hi, I can be rough. And also you can tell me now where you can tell me later one or two episodes of Desert On Ends is that you would recommend listening. Let me tell you later, there are so many. So I will follow up. So second bit, sort of went to pivot and went to stay in your lane. I mean, actually I did some work with you recently on, not recently, a year ago, on Valley Prop. And I see what's changing in the business. But this idea of sort of staying your business. I know your customers quite well and they like the fact that appointed does one thing really well. They like that fact. But obviously growth and all the other stuff doesn't necessarily always come from just doing the one thing that you do work. So that idea of the pivot, the growth of stretch. How do you, how have you been thinking about that? Because you've been thinking about that a lot in 12 months. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think for us like it is a pivot in a way, but it's more of an evolution, I think. And I think, you know, the way you phrase that is really interesting to me are customers like that we do that one thing really well. And the really well is the important bit. So it's not enough for us to just power that booking and give a great customer journey up to the point of booking. And then a great onward customer journey when the person comes in store and a great journey for the associate when they're managing that and they're capturing the data and they're making sure that they are like able to delight their customer. I think that was fine. You know, 10 years ago, that isn't fine now. We have to be innovating. We all, you know, retailers are being pushed out of their comfort zone like at no other time, no time in history ever, I think. And so we have to do that alongside them and we have to look at the landscape and say, OK, what are the opportunities that exist around this booking and how can we sweat every little bit of data that the customer gives us or context that we know from the retailer, how can we take the insight that they have around what customers that look like this customer often do next or what they want to have. Next and then how do we look at things like retail media and say, OK, how can we plug this data or this booking into their retail media journey so that brands can, you know, connect with this customer who we know is coming in store and so yeah, I think for us it was about looking at all of that and saying, you know, really sweating. And so we have to look at our customer up at night and then holding ourselves to account as to what can we deliver against that. And so the retail media piece has been a really interesting journey for us like I love that you've been quite open of like who knows what's going on and I saw Paul Stafford from very media group and who I love and was doing a talk recently around, you know, it all being chaos and it is but it's wonderful chaos. And so that's what in tears piece if retailers and vendors are up for the challenge and really sweating the detail on these things that's where the magic can happen. So for appointed to be able to say, you know, you do a retail activation, we just did one with Victoria secrets over the last two weekends, they have reopened, they've opened a new store in Birmingham, which was hotly anticipated. It was just amazing to see how much brand equity there is, you know, people love Victoria secret as we all know people in Birmingham really, really, really love Victoria secret. It's just amazing to see, but we were able, you know, we knew all of that and the brand knew all of that going in. And so we were able to take a retail activation and make it into a really elevated VIP experience with pre booking and you know, we still had the cues because there are hundreds of people who wanted to engage with this. But we had like pre booked VIP visits, we had people coming in, walk up and having VIP capturing every little bit of data and then being able to start onward journeys that are, you know, you know, yeah, curated to what the brand wanted to drive. So being able to kind of activate all of that just feels so exciting. So yeah, for me, I get why you're using the word pivot and definitely we aren't, we're not showing away from that, but it feels just the natural evolution of how do we better serve our clients and help them to navigate the challenging. And that's a bit of a moment where it is just so hard and so much is changing so quickly. It's interesting, isn't it? We, I mean, before we started recording, we were pitching in my new idea for for a store based event series. You know, the reality we got 70 to 5 to 80% of all retail stuff happens in stores, they're all et cetera, et cetera. And when you talk to retail leaders, they worry about footfall. You know, they're not worried about steak, they're not worried about tech. They want customer, they want footfall, they want the simple things in retail, other things that they all really worry about. And the reality is, you know, point it gives them footfall, like you predicted footfall, but with intent. So it's, you know, which hasn't cost them. But you know, may not have cost them what, you know, a purchase might have cost them online. It is that footfall with intent, that's the important thing, isn't it? They don't want stores that are absolutely packed and they've got big cues at the front and all of that sort of stuff. They want people to spend more and have a better experience. And I think that's the whole intent pieces. And it's like, how do we capture the people who we can serve best and help them to do that in the most kind of elegant and yeah, customer centric and delightful way. And I think, yeah, putting a book to layer into that customer journey allows those people who want to do that to opt in and share all of the insights so that they have a great experience when they come in store. But it also frees up some of that fluidity, you know, we work with card factory who it's such an interesting use case for us. It wouldn't have been, you know, it wasn't an obvious use case for us. So much of what we do there is remove the kind of friction at the front of the store when people are doing these big purchase on balloon arches and things that are, you know, big considered purchase within that retail environment and allow just fluidity and flow for the people who just run in and they're getting a Valentine's card at the last minute because they forgot about it kind of thing. Like, I think it's easy to just look at a pointed and say, we do one thing really simply, we do, but the way that the retailer deploys that can be super complex and the benefits of it can be really surprising. And I think that's been a challenge for us is like, how do we educate our market that there is, you know, there's real magic there if you come and collaborate with us and we can get really creative and we do. I mean, you know the appointed people we really care about this stuff. So and we love like getting in the trenches with with our customers. So yeah, it's exciting empathy. Third area, you can we can call we can treat it as any way you want really, but you know the idea of empathy is being a what I suppose I want to redefine it slightly from my initial thought, which is, you know, you're a warm and very funny person and quite sweary. I've been very good today. I feel like I'm too, I think we're probably very, very similar. Does that ever, does that help us you or actually do you always I've always sort of slightly felt like I shouldn't be all of those things I would be a leader if I wasn't possibly some of those things. It's such an interesting question isn't it? I think undoubtedly it does help and you have those moments where you meet somebody and you just like I feel like we did you just click and you're just like, oh, we are two people who. Yeah, really care really, you know, run faster things and I think then it can be wonderful. It can also bite you really badly, can't it? Cause I just think you know what and I don't think I've thought about this until you've said this, but I think sometimes people see that you care. And so then when you're not totally focused on them and totally just delivering what to their needs. feel really hurt because they're like, oh, but you're not caring as much as you do. And it's like, I know I'm trying to give you as much as I can, but I'm also trying to do this at the moment. So, yeah, I think it definitely can create challenges. That said, I wouldn't have it any other way, because I think, you know, good stuff comes from it, doesn't it? It does. The only thing I would always have said is that, is that we, I remember, buying time for years was on the preferred supply list for sales for or cessap in Adobe and others. And we never really did the amount of work we should have done with those companies because I, honestly, I would have been, I would have just been in the meeting and said something really flippant and stupid. And those companies would just never write for me as the owner of the business. I was always much better at the challenger brands, but actually all the money, let's be honest, all the money is in those big old dinosaurs. I just never wanted to do it. And I've, I don't regret it. Maybe I do regret it. Please tell me you've got something similar to share. Yeah, I think it's actually very, very true. And maybe I was better at it earlier on in my career. So, I think I used to be quite good at pretending that I was like bad-ass and trying to be like, you know, I remember having a call with, yeah, a legal team in the States and just feeling like because on LA law or something, I was like, oh my gosh, what am I saying? Like this doesn't feel like me. And I think because I felt like I had to pretend and kind of I had to prove, you know, I had to prove myself that, yeah, I almost was better at it whereas, but yeah, I think you're right. Like there's definitely implications of that and there'll definitely be money left on the table. But it's also, you know, the benefit that we get now of doing business in the way we want to and, you know, getting that empathy and I just feel like that's too lovely to give up, you know, and with all of the hard work, why not enjoy that kind of people's side and the empathy and yeah. Okay, I mean, I think, and my wife and I talk about it quite often, you know, I think run a business for 20-odd years doing pretty much the same thing, a variety of the same thing. And, you know, the thing that we do was the hardest thing, you know, demand gen is the hardest thing of all of the things that we all do. I've had amazing clients. I mean, I have had very few dickhead clients. I mean, most of the people that I've worked for have been fantastic to work for and therefore it's been lovely. And I don't think that's quite unusual, I think. I think, you know, really unusual. Yeah, like, and it's great that you recognise that and you enjoy that and actually, you know, there's an element of like that's where you start a business, that's where you work as hard as you do, so that you can make those choices. So yeah, I definitely, definitely agree with that. But I also think you do have to make sure that the empathy is the right empathy and it's for the right people. So, back to the Victoria Secret thing this weekend, it was so great to be on the shop floor, to be helping. So we went down, you know, as a team of appointed people and we were there and we just felt like we were part of the girl gang that is Victoria's Secret on a Saturday and, you know, they had cues and they had people just so excited to be in, which is all wonderful. And, you know, that is the bit that you see of a brand. But you also then being on that shop floor, you realise all of the little bits that you can kind of forget when you're sat at the vendor side and you're making your strategic decisions or you're just talking with senior stakeholders. So yeah, I think, you know, we were touching on it earlier, 80% of revenue is still larger, you know, it's in store and it's happening and there's so much like insight and like magic and decisions and data and all of that that happens on that moment in the fitting room or on that moment, you know, wherever you are within the store. And it's easy to kind of overcomplicate that and kind of remove the empathy for that. So, yeah, it came away being like, okay, everyone is going to spend way more time in shops or customers. Yeah. And I think you sort of, you know, you brought home that idea that, especially in somewhere like Victoria's Secret, especially when the store's opening, you know, imagine the girls who were, you know, in and around Birmingham, they're going shopping, you know, that's a day for going shopping. That's an activity which can be classed in the same way. That's a hobby, right? I'm going shopping. 100%. And that booking piece is really interesting within that. Like, we had so many interesting conversations where people had booked their bra fitting experience and they were coming in and they knew they'd booked that at this specific time because they were going to go for lunch somewhere, you know, just afterwards or there was one lady who was doing all of her chores around it. She was like, once I've made the booking, I knew I was going to come into town and so I've going to do this and that. And it's, yeah, it's just that sense of occasion and that sense of, this is people's hard one kind of fun time isn't it? And we should be, we should take that really seriously. Going shopping. Right. Okay. Going shopping. Right. We're done. I'm going to give you two. You can choose any 80s pop tune or any pop any tune that you feel like listener needs to be aware of that you are aware of and the fangirl of and I'm coming back to the desire and dissipersed. Well, I should have asked you this earlier, Jamie, but are we allowed to talk about skunk and outsee? You can scow, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Are we allowed to see? Yeah, yeah, so just for the for the for the record, one of the reasons Leah likes me, probably the only reason Leah likes me is I was at university, I was in a band with a lady called Debbie and Debbie became skin from skunk and outsee. So I was in a band when Debbie had here and Debbie, I've been Debbie seeing soul tunes that I because I was the the band founder. Debbie is, so yeah, Debbie, I was in a band with Debbie, but but Leah is actually a massive skunk and outsee fan. I'm a massive skunk and outsee fan and it's one of my like to your point earlier of like getting to know what people were like kid as like kids and younger people. I when I found this out that Jamie, I was telling you that I got called out in assembly at school because I used to have a beat up old blue mini and I was listening to skunk and I see really loud a pick up all of my friends on the way to school as the first person to get my driving test and my license and I used to pick everyone up and we used to play skunk and outsee really really loud and one day I got called out in school assembly because I was apparently driving aggressively and listening to loud music and that was my and beautiful skunk and outsee kind of you know yeah having that amazing kind of yeah, letting yourself go before going and strapping into a day of I went to North girl school and you know it was very structured and so yeah weak for me as a skunk and out as a you know song. I love a song that just I love like angry music that you can just yeah so that is is probably one of my favorites and and also balance fast in lazy line painter Jane is one of my oh I'm sorry no it was just my connection in my head was like unusually angry music from people balance fast in a chill and I you want me to tell people you know surprising songs so surprisingly angry song by a beautifully you know chill yeah sorry and it's alright and desert island discs go on it is so so hard isn't it I mean I have a drama in theatre arts degree so dangerly dentures like my you know hero heroine and so that one I think is the one that is top of mind but yeah there are just so many like honestly like I love that you did your little desert island disc advert before because it is so right if people don't listen to this they should listen to it there are obviously podcast fans and it is one of the best there is I think I think if I mean obviously Ian Wright the footballer yes he's is amazing right but he basically cries for the whole thing which is pretty Ian Wright the thing that's the most the one that was the most surprising to me and still probably my favorite I could read this on a regular basis is Tom Hanks because I don't think anybody really understands Tom Hanks's early life I didn't know have anything I had no idea about it and he speaks so well and he's so thoughtful about everything that he's gone through and his achievements he's so humble and and also there's a there's a little bit of a cry in there which makes you feel it's good always makes you feel like you've got somewhere doesn't it it's just if they don't have a little bit of a tear at moment you know oh let me see if you know you know what I'm actually gutted they didn't cry on this now I'm thinking about it I was on the BBC documentary in the really early days were pointed I was followed by a BBC doc BBC 2 documentary called The Entrepreneurs and I cried on it and the amount of people that come up to me like oh you're the girl that cried on TV and you're like yeah I mean it was just really bloody stressed and like but it is is one of those like you're right showing that little bit of emotion and that vulnerability is yeah it's magic isn't it? Leo It's fantastic to talk to you as always. We are at our 30 minute mark. I think we've ticked all the boxes. - I think so. - And yeah, that was great. Really, thank you very much. And I'm sure we'll see each other very soon in April at RTS. - Yes, see you there. - You're so wonderful. - Cheers.