S3: The future is curated, with Tamara Lohan MBE, founder of Mr & Mrs Smith

Conversations of Inspiration

Holly Tucker MBE

Education, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Business, Personal Journals

5.0 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Holly meets Tamara Lohan MBE, founder and CTO of Mr & Mrs Smith: a travel company that's grown from a single curated book of 35 hotels in 2002, to an online community of over 1.5 million members with offices in London, New York and LA. With the competition high and automation the current currency, Tamara explains what it's taken to grow a brand that focuses on the details.

In this meeting of minds, they discuss the early days of building Mr & Mrs Smith, what it's really like being a female tech founder and why curation is vital to future proofing of business.

Enjoying listening to these unfiltered chats? It's worth following Holly Tucker MBE and Holly & Co on Instagram, and subscribing to our weekly newsletter on our website, where Holly downloads her thoughts, and exclusively shares small business finds and topical, 'ungoogleable' business advice.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on Conversations of Inspiration, I'm speaking to Tamara Lohan,
0:04.4	MBE, founder and CEO of Mr and Mrs Smith.
0:09.1	Tamara co-founded her business in 2002 with her husband James starting out as a coffee table guide book for
0:15.7	discerning travellers.
0:17.6	With a huge success in book sales, Mr and Mrs Smith swiftly moved into becoming an online booking system curating the best hotels from around
0:26.5	the world.
0:27.5	They now have offices in London, New York, LA and Singapore and now have more than 1.5 million members worldwide.
0:37.0	I had the complete pleasure of visiting Tamara in her West London office
0:41.6	where we spoke about the early days of building Mr.
0:44.2	Mrs Smith what it's like being a female tech founder and why curation is vital for
0:51.3	future proofing business.
0:53.6	And wait till you hear her letter to our younger self.
0:56.9	It was so honest and moving.
0:59.2	You might need a tissue at the ready. Bow your eyelids close on down where we're going.
1:06.1	You won't need to bring your frown.
1:08.7	I'm Holly Tucker and welcome to conversations of inspiration. Back in 2006 I found Welcome to Conversations of Inspiration.
1:13.0	Back in 2006 I founded not on the high street for my kitchen table
1:17.8	and since then I've gone on to launch Holly and Co.
1:21.0	I'm the UK Ambassador of Creative Small Businesses and I believe that having a business doing what you love is the key to a happy fulfilled life.
1:30.0	My dream is to help everybody start theirs.
1:33.0	I'm here to offer advice, inspiration, wisdom and encouragement,
1:38.0	and in my view, the best way to do this is by sharing stories. So I've reached out to my
	...

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