Ep.17 'Failure Was New To Me, I Wasn't Ready For It' - Fisayo Longe On Forging Your Own Path To Success.
Working Hard with Grace Beverley
sophie@grace-beverley.com
4.2 • 901 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fisayo Longe is the founder and CEO of Kai Collective, the womenswear brand offering attainable clothing with luxury aesthetics. A brand crafted intentionally to make women feel their most confident Kai Collective is one of London's 'most talked-about online boutiques, Fisayo was personally recognised for her success on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Art & Culture list in 2021.
Fisayo launched Kai back in 2016, a time when her popular fashion and travel blog 'Mirror Me' gained popularity and simultaneously began to attract large brand partnerships. Exchanging accounting for fashion and entrepreneurship, Fisayo went on to focus on Kai full time, her iconic Gaia collection her main product for growth. Still a bestselling print to this day, the Gaia dress went viral in after Fisayo wore it to a BAFTA party in January 2020. Despite the pandemic, the Gaia dress sold out immediately with thousands left waiting, ending up in the wardrobes of several A-listed celebrities including Saweetie and Jackie Aina.
Recently, rather than forcing herself to continue running the business, Fisayo took the brave decision to publicly step back from Kai to get herself a break and add a little work-life balance. Reconnecting with her business, Fisayo realised that taking care of herself meant she was also taking care of your business, as her break sparked inspiration, creativity and productivity. As result, Fisayo's brand continues to evolve and flourish - I can't wait to see which celebrities wear Kai next!
Topics:
- Self-doubt and imposter syndrome in an industry with no experience
- Fisayo's inspiration and concept for Kai Collective
- 'I was on Right Move looking for the house I was going to buy the next day in cash' : Fisayo's initial misconception about business success.
- The power of limited edition products and community in business
- 'Copycat culture' in the fashion industry
- Burnout and business breaks
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's the first customer of the day. |
| 0:02.0 | The unexpected 20% tip and the 100% boost to your confidence. |
| 0:07.0 | Business is a numbers game and sum up has the tools you need to stay ahead. |
| 0:12.0 | With tap to pay, you can accept contactless payments using just your smartphone. |
| 0:17.0 | And with our free business account, you can manage all things money with zero hassle all in one place. |
| 0:24.4 | Make it count with SumUp. Download the app or find out more at sumup.com.uk. |
| 0:32.1 | It had to be done. Otherwise, I would have hated myself, hated the business and nothing would have worked. |
| 0:38.3 | I was really shocked at the reception of the purple guy address. |
| 0:41.3 | The night I wore it and posted a picture and it was so loved, I knew that I was onto something. |
| 0:46.3 | Between 2019 and 2020, your revenue grew by 535%. |
| 0:53.3 | How did that happen? |
| 0:56.0 | So I knew that if I was always trying to live up to that print, |
| 0:59.0 | I was always going to fall short of that. |
| 1:01.0 | Some fast fashion brands were bringing out items that we hadn't even launched yet. |
| 1:06.0 | Wow. |
| 1:07.0 | Colours of Gaia that we hadn't even launched yet that I had just teased on my stories. Recently, you publicly took a break from business as a company. |
| 1:14.6 | I was just having a really, really difficult time mentally. |
| 1:17.6 | I couldn't be the leader that I need to be. |
| 1:20.6 | I literally just started crying in the middle of the room |
| 1:24.6 | because I couldn't think of anything worse. |
| 1:26.6 | I was. in the middle of the room because I couldn't think of anything worse. Hey guys and welcome back to working hard, hardly working. |
| 1:40.3 | I feel like it's going to become a bit of a situation because every single episode |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from sophie@grace-beverley.com, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of sophie@grace-beverley.com and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.