This isn't a fun girly pop hobby. This is a legit business and I'm paying people's wages who are paying for their life.

Hi everyone, it's Alex York. I'm an editor at Forbes and I'm here with Pia Mance, the founder of Heaven Mayhem. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. So you are in New York right now. We're shooting in our New Jersey office.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit about why you are in New York today. Well, I was so excited that this worked out and I was able to have this in my trip, but I'm here to do a panel this afternoon at NYU. I'm so excited. I just did the Vogue business one last week, literally last week, but time has flown. It feels like three weeks ago. And I really like panels because it puts me out of my comfort zone. I love meeting people in person, so I love like talking to them on the side, but I get really nervous to go on stage. And I like feeling nervous because I think it's good to like have some new energy in your body. So I love being on panels and I'm excited for today, but I like feeling that little bit of nervous as well. Do you have any tips for when you are in that nervous energy, how to climb yourself down and, like, show up as your best self? I feel like you need to eat. You need to breathe. You need to have a glass of water. You need to do all those things. Of course, like look after yourself. But then I think I always just remind myself, it's not that deep. Like I think people would think, oh my God, NYU panel, vote business panel, that is the pinnacle. And like, yeah, it is. But it's also like everyone in the audience is someone just like me who's there to like learn and listen. And if I was speaking to them one on one, we would just have a little powwow. So if I'm feeling a little nervous instead of stumbling over my words and trying to be super professional, I'd just be like, oh, sorry guys, I'm kind of nervous. Anyway, back to the question. Do you know what I mean? Just being like casual and remembering like it's not that deep in people like a little personality. And also like sometimes, not to throw any shade, but when they have back to back-back-to-back panels, they start to get a little

repetitive and boring. So I think throwing in a bit of personality and keeping it real and, like, speaking to the audience actually helps. So I just remind myself of that. Totally, yeah, bringing that humanity into it. Just be like, we can relate to each other, like we can just have a conversation, a casual conversation with each other, even though one of us is on a stage in the audience. Yeah. I love that. Have you been doing more and more of this? Or like, how have you come into this role, obviously as a founder, but also as kind of like the face of this brand and some people want to learn from and hear from? What has that journey looked like for you? I think I was asked to be on a couple of podcasts, and then from there it just sort of of snowballed and I think often it's like anything people kind of see one person has them on a podcast and then they it just snowballs and people like oh she has a good perspective she speaks well on a mic like let's get her on and then it just snowballed and I kind of put it out into the universe I wanted to do more panels and more public speaking and events and stuff like that. And it's just

snowballed. And so I'm just saying yes to like pretty much any opportunity because I actually really

like it. Totally. Do you feel like that's helped your business? Has it helped your just like personal

confidence? Like what has been the payoff for you? I think personal confidence for sure,

positioning myself with a little bit of a point of difference and I think it's good

for the brand it's great brand awareness but also it's good personal brand awareness because

in my life my goal in the next five to 10 years is to invest in a bunch of brands and

help build them alongside other founders so I really want to position myself in this

world like put my name out there get people to know me for that reason and so that's really helped and then as well as that speaking on the brand and having a room full of really smart people whether it's at Vogue business or NYU now they know the brand but often these people are looking for jobs or looking or they might be freelancers and they're looking to like extend their career so then they want to connect with me and I just meet great people who I've ended up

hiring or have ended up you know working within a freelance capacity so it's actually really good

from like multiple different angles I want to back up a little bit before we get into like all

you're doing right now let's take a step back to you grew up in Australia yes can you tell me a

little bit about what that was like what your child was like what you were interested? Who was Pia as like a young girl in Australia? I was so cute. I feel like people, like for example, I get a lot of people in the US being like, oh my God, I'm never going to Australia. It's scary. There's too many bugs. I grew up in a city. There's not that many crazy bugs. And I was obsessed, my dad's an artist, I was

obsessed with sewing, I did sewing lessons with my mom, I would make something every weekend,

I would go to the flea markets, I would do henna tattoos, my wall was covered in posters

that I would make, I was doing so many arts and crafts and creative things until probably

aged like 14, 15 and then I thought it's not cool anymore. And so I kind of stopped doing that, but like that is my roots and bread and butter. I was going to flea markets and so enclosed since I was like 12. Like from the age my parents let me get the tram by myself. I was doing that. So I grew up in Australia. I met my boyfriend who I feel like some, if you're listening right now, you're like, don't care, but it comes back to the story. So we met when we're really young at age 12 and then kind of got together at age 15. We both finished high school. He moved to China and we did long distance and then I moved over to China for a couple of months to be with him. And so there I had a real insight into like factories, business.

I was around his family dining table for like however long since I was age

...