Taryn Williams: Entrepreneur and finalist in the Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards
Taryn Williams only founded theright.fit in September 2015, but she’s already grown the digital marketplace connecting models and talent to clients, into a large community of more than 3500 users looking to bypass the traditional agency model.
thright.fit gives talent the ability to control where and when they work, and how much they’re paid, with a technology platform underpinning the entire process. Having raised $750,000 with Airtree VC and secured 800 clients, Taryn’s set to next take it to LA and New York.
Named a finalist in the 2016 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards for the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award category – recognising a woman who has started or acquired a major stake in a business since 1 July 2015 – she shares her story on getting started in tech, managing her first successful business WINK Models, and approaching investors.
About 4 years ago, I started building tech platforms to allow WINK Models, my first business, to scale – as we had 650 models! I couldn’t find an off the shelf solution designed for the modelling industry, so decided to custom build a booking system, payroll management system (with Xero integration), talent management and onboarding app. the list goes on! It was my first foray into tech and I absolutely loved it. During the time we were building this product, I saw all the changes happening in our industry – social media influencers emerging as an important part of the advertising and PR industries, change in digital advertising spend (set to surpass TV in 2018), small bits of digital snackable content needing to be produced for social channels faster and more efficiently (and with reasonable budgets) than ever before. I saw the opportunity to build a platform to solve these new problems by allowing brands who need to talent to find them directly in a marketplace online, and curate a seamless experience for both parties. And so theright.fit was born!
What’s been the secret to getting 3500 users on board, along with 800 clients, within just a few months?
It’s certainly been an amazing uptake, and I think it’s really shown that there was such a clear need for the product in the market. For the talent side, it’s purely been word of mouth and social – there is such a strong desire from talent to manage their own careers, build their own brand & reputation online, and to obtain more work in the industry they love. For clients, its a faster, more cost efficient process to find all the talent they need (from photographers, to makeup artists, to actors and more) all in one place, so its a bit of a no brainer! We’ve also got a really amazing team who manage our PR & communications for the brand, and online marketing, and we’re incredibly data driven as a business so we really only focus our efforts in channels that work.
How do you balance your time between managing your existing company, WINK Models, and a new start-up?
I have an incredible team at WINK, including my Managing Director Sage Greenwood, who run the business day to day and are incredibly autonomous. Because the business is highly process driven, and has clear reporting channels, my involvement is now really at a strategic high level. It certainly took time to get to that place though – for the first 10 months of theright.fit I was running both companies in a full time capacity, and it was very challenging. It was a tough decision to step out of the day to day of WINK, but certainly the right one, and has really allowed both companies to thrive.
You’ve recently raised $750,000, what’s the hardest thing about approaching investors and what do you think has ultimately helped you be successful with this?
WINK could continue to fund theright.fit, and we’d bootstrapped for the first sort of 8 months, so I was in a fortunate position that I didn’t have to settle for ‘dumb money’ – money from investors who didn’t add value outside of just capital. What I did want, were great strategic partners, investors who also bought skills connections to the table too.
We actually didn’t formalise a process of looking for funds. What I did do, by chance, is start this process by seeking advice.
I knew the skills, experience, and type of advisors I needed to have around me to make theright.fit work. I made a hit list of people who could possibly be our dream team of advisors, who would add value and were much much, smarter & more experienced than me. And then I started contacting these people, asking them for their advice, support and guidance.
As part of this process, I started meeting some incredibly talented, experience and well-connected people in our field. And unwittingly, started the process of people wanting to invest in us, validating our idea, and encouraging us to take the leap into raising capital and scaling much more quickly than we’d planned.
I was incredibly lucky to have an amazing mentor who had been through the capital raising process many times before and who really served as a great sounding board through the process. I think being really really clear about what you are seeking in terms of investors and being really prepared (IM ready to go, financial model, pitch deck) and allowing yourself the space and time (as it really is like a full time job!) will make you much more successful in your fundraising efforts.
