The best time to start your own adventures in the business world is when you are still young. It is a time when you are fearless and your vigor and passion are overflowing. In this episode, you will hear how Katie Kay, a successful young entrepreneur, has overcome challenges to get to where she is now. Katie also talks about how adults are unknowingly instilling fear in their kids and how they can, instead, support and encourage their kids to pursue their dreams. Listen in for more of Katie’s advice to aspiring young entrepreneurs. 

“Always say YES! to opportunities. Every time I said yes, a door open; every time I said NO, I stayed still. Always be growing and experiencing different things outside the normal.” -Katie Kay

Highlights: 

01:13 Millennial Entrepreneurs 

05:17 Sink or Swim

06:30 Advice for Young Entrepreneurs

Quotes: 

03:03 “Children are not scared of anything… And  we’re already instilling fear into them, but they just don’t know it yet.” -Katie Kay

03:32 “When you’re doing [business] when you’re young… you have a lot of time to recover versus waiting till you’re 60 years old to try to jump off and do something.” -Robin Edgar

06:30 “Listen to your gut. At that age, you’re fearless.”  -Katie Kay

06:53 “Don’t go too big, too fast.” -Katie Kay

07:45 “Always say YES! to opportunities. Every time I said yes, a door open; every time I said NO, I stayed still. Always be growing and experiencing different things outside the normal.” -Katie Kay

Meet Katie: 

Katie Kay is one of today’s successful young entrepreneurs. Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Katie didn’t feel inclined to follow in her parents’ footsteps until she realized it was her passion after all. At 19, she started her little business set up in a booth at Farmer’s Market and also tried adding more verticals. To date, Katie has opened her stores in different locations in North America and Europe. 

Transcriptions:

Robin Edgar Welcome to Real Talk with Robin. I’m excited today to have with me, Katie Kay. She is an entrepreneur dynamo that’s changing the world on many different levels. And I am so excited to be able to talk to her and get some advice for all of you younger people out there that might be thinking, How do I become more entrepreneurial? Katie, thank you so much for joining me today on one of my first podcasts.

Katie Kay Thank you, Robin. Thank you for having me.

Robin Edgar Yes. So tell the crowd that’s listening, like what motivated you? And what inspired you to really become an entrepreneur and kind of own your own business and do your own thing at such a young age?

Katie Kay Yeah. I definitely started at a young age. So we’ll tackle that first. I started at 19 and I did come from a home of entrepreneurs. So we have to start there because everyone always asks that question. But when I was growing up, I actually didn’t want to be an entrepreneur. So I actually was reading it more than I actually wanted to be an entrepreneur. And we always kind of say it’s a little bit of you always want what you don’t have. So I grew up in a household where mom and dad were always traveling and working and had their businesses running. And I always looked at all the other kids who had mom and dad at home and dinners together every night. And so for me, it was a completely different scenario when I was starting out. But what I quickly realized was entrepreneurism was definitely something I was meant to do. I went on to different avenues and realize that that was exactly where I was supposed to be. It all kind of started with my skills and sales so I started there. But I started my first company at a little farmers’ booth market, literally in a little small town. And I had a little antique mall that had a cabinet I rented out as well. So I did that. And my whole goal was to have enough money to open my first store and I was just so excited to keep growing that I added some verticals in and so I was in the CBD kind of vape industry. I was like how can I cashflow more from this little farmers booth market. So I started buying and selling gold on the side and anything I could to cash flow a little bit more, and really just grew from there. So we went from one store, we had 10 stores to wholesale companies, they were in North America and in Europe. And it just really grew and scaled to a global level very quickly. It was definitely kind of the right place right time. And that’s kind of where my entrepreneurism. It was more of a do-it and learn it. As much as I rounded my whole life it was just tried and I think because I was so young, I always say this, I always say children are not scared of anything, right? We watch children in the living room, and they jump off the couch and they do somersaults. And we’re like oh my god, don’t touch the glass table. Oh my God, don’t hit your head. And it’s like, we’re already instilling fear into them, but they just don’t know it yet. So they’re still at that age where they just jumped. So when people say how did you do it at a young age, I always say I had no fear, at that point I didn’t. I have more fear now than I did back then.

“When you’re doing [business] when you’re young… you have a lot of time to recover versus waiting till you’re 60 years old to try to jump off and do something.” -Robin Edgar

Robin Edgar And that’s such an important piece for young people is to realize that when you’re doing it when you’re young, if something doesn’t work out exactly like you think because it never will always work out how you think you’ve got a lot of time to recover versus waiting till you’re 60 years old to try to jump off and do something, you know, it’s still possible, and we can still do it. But it’s just not the same because you don’t have the recovery time that you do as a young person. So let’s talk about your mentors or people you say “we”, you’re kind of using that “we”. You had these ideas were you the visionary and then did you bring other people in with you or how did you kind of grow this organically? It sounds like kind of along the way?

Katie Kay Yeah. I say “we” just because I always speak to my team and everyone that worked for me, it was very much a family and a culture that we had built. But I was so alone, or I did everything on my own no money, no handouts, no loans. I learned very quickly about credit cards and having to– I think you were I learned a lot of lessons I should have learned a little bit later a lot earlier. And so therefore, I had a great team, great employees, great managers working with me and I treated them like my family. And they stuck with me to the very end some of them actually took over stores and actually started running the stores themselves and bought them. So it was more of a when I was going to sell. It was ride with me, stay with me and I’m also setting up your life. You’re not just an employee to me.

Robin Edgar What did your parents think being entrepreneurs, then what did they like? What were the conversations? I’m thinking to myself, the conversations you had with your parents along the way, were they encouraging, were they like, oh, my goodness, you know, this is gonna be a lot of work or what were they saying during this time?

Katie Kay So it’s an interesting story, they kind of, they know me, and they know that if you tell me, I can’t do something I’m going to go do it. So I think because I was growing up around entrepreneurs, and definitely around success, they completely cut me off. And they said, you know, kind of sink or swim, you’re either gonna do this or you’re not. And so they were always watching from the background. I’m originally from the UK was moved to Canada my whole life, obviously, I don’t have the accent. But they actually moved back to the UK for a few years, right when this all started. And it was interesting, because as much as they would still check in on me, or I’d bounce some things off them. You know, I think they knew I was going to do it regardless, but not to get involved in a way that would stop me, scared me, put doubt in me, they were always supportive, and just kind of watching from the distance.

Robin Edgar That’s awesome. So what advice would you give your younger self today to do differently or to say you really did this right or I might have tweaked something here or there? What advice would you give somebody that’s 18, right now listening to this and saying, I’ve got this idea, I really have the passion to go for this, what they should do.

“Listen to your gut. At that age, you’re fearless.”  -Katie Kay

Katie Kay So definitely listen to your gut. I mean, at that age, you’re fearless, you just want to run and take over the world. So that always that stay with your gut. But also, if you knew how much time you really had, you would stop running. So there’s a little bit of a blessing in that, and one of my greatest advices after this all happened, and I actually learned the lesson during this period of my life was don’t go too big, too fast. So it’s easy that when you starting to make a lot of money, and everything’s working, you feel like it can’t go wrong. And no matter the industry, no matter what you’re doing, for me, it was opening up location, location, location. And actually, my third one was one that actually failed. And I lost a lot of money very quickly and I had to learn how to pivot to get out of that, and eventually actually opened another store who few months later. So that’s one of my best advices is to one, believe in your gut and believe in yourself, know that you have a lot of time but to still take action. I think a lot of the age groups now they have a lot of different, you know, barriers that we didn’t have growing up, right. They have social media. They have, I mean, even right now, they’re all doing school online. There’s a lot of things we didn’t have to go through that they’re going through at this age. So I think that to recognize that, but also don’t stop yourself. You know, always say yes to opportunities. Every time I said yes, a door open. Every time I said no, I stayed still. So always to be growing and to be experiencing different things outside of the normal school system. I mean, anything you can do outside of that, I think is genuinely great to grow in. But yeah, my best advice is don’t go too big too fast. If you’re starting to have success, you know, you got to then start doing best case, worst case, right? And just really grow at a steady pace, as opposed to run, run, run, run, run. And I was always very conservative with my money. So I always watch my pennies in my my dollars. That is one thing I do see in the news right now. Don’t go buying the cars, don’t go buying the watches, don’t go buying the lifestyle. You know, you have such a long way to go and still have a long life to live, if anything sacrifice in the beginning, so you can enjoy it in the end.

“Don’t go too big, too fast.” -Katie Kay

Robin Edgar That is true wisdom beyond your years, I can tell you, because, you know, having access to cash, cash is king is what I tell people and cash flow is so important. And a lot of times people kind of get over their skis, as I say in making money and then overspending and then having to reel it back and then not having the opportunity to really take advantage. Because if you have the cash to be able to take advantage of that next opportunity that walks in the door that is a very different situation than being cash strapped and not being able to take that opportunity.

Katie Kay Yeah, absolutely.

Robin Edgar So if somebody is out there, and they’re interested in learning more about your stores and your business, maybe even reaching out and connecting with you. How can they do that, Katie? Because I know there’s a lot to.

“Always say YES! to opportunities. Every time I said yes, a door open; every time I said NO, I stayed still. Always be growing and experiencing different things outside the normal.” -Katie Kay

Katie Kay Yes, the best way to reach out to me is to start with Instagram. That’s the millennial in me. I always say that but start with Instagram, send me a DM and I will direct you whether you’re looking for mentoring, coaching, and interest in one of my businesses, investments, anything like that, but reach out to us there and we kind of direct you from there. And send me a DM I’m always answering the messages. It’s me that answers the messages. I do have people that helped me with my social media, but I’m genuinely about building connections first and seeing how I can help and work with other people.

Robin Edgar Well, that is the word that I love more than anything is connections. A lot of people call it Networking I call it connections. And really what I’m trying to do, you know, with this podcast is just connect people with real people that will give them real info and real time information that they need, not doublespeak, and not what we hope for or wish for, but really what the real world is like, and you’ve done a great job of inspiring me, inspiring young people. And I know you’re probably gonna get a lot of people reaching out to you and I hope we can continue this conversation and you can join me again on future editions of real talk with Robin.

Katie Kay Absolutely. Thank you so much, Robin.

Robin Edgar Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.