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Great Company with Jamie Laing

GRACE BEVERLEY: What I’ve Learnt From Building TALA & Overcoming Burnout

23 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What challenges did Grace face while building TALA?

0.031 - 18.313 Grace Beverley

Tala nearly went bankrupt. There was about three months where every single week I was wondering if we'd make payroll. I spent a good few years like on the path to like full burnout, like full cannot get out of bed. I wasn't even ovulating, like my whole body had gone into like shutdown.

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18.333 - 22.858 Jamie Laing

If someone's listening right now, a female founder or someone who is starting a business, what advice would you give that person?

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23.178 - 24.26 Grace Beverley

Okay, big question.

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Chapter 2: How did Grace overcome her journey through burnout?

26.903 - 28.705 Jamie Laing

That is great advice.

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29.191 - 31.494 Grace Beverley

I'm Grace Beverly, and I'm in great company.

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31.514 - 32.115 Jamie Laing

Entrepreneur.

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32.135 - 32.636 Grace Beverley

Grace Beverly.

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32.656 - 40.906 Jamie Laing

Grace Beverly. Your husband, when he proposed to you, it was, I think, some of the world's greatest proposal. He organized a fake trip for you.

41.047 - 46.754 Grace Beverley

Yeah. We'd arrived at the hotel. They'd had briefing calls. They arrived. They go, are you here for the Armani event?

Chapter 3: What advice does Grace give to female founders starting their business?

46.774 - 53.063 Grace Beverley

He'd flown out an Armani makeup artist to do my makeup. Everyone is in on this.

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53.083 - 60.096 Jamie Laing

Oh, my God. This is insane. You said your miscarriage was like invisible grief. No one knows that you were pregnant and it's just you have to continue.

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60.377 - 70.858 Grace Beverley

It's entirely unfair that you wouldn't get your baby. And then also you're expected to, well, you didn't have that. So here we go. Guess you're back to work. If you lose your pregnancy at Tala, you can take a full maternity leave.

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70.838 - 73.723 Jamie Laing

Wow. Leading from the front like that is so important.

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74.043 - 85.402 Grace Beverley

Women are expected to do so many different things to such a high standard. I think that if you can have solid female friendships alongside whatever else you're doing, you will always be in an okay place.

Chapter 4: What was the story behind Grace's husband's proposal?

85.783 - 95.158 Grace Beverley

We have so much onus put on finding a relationship, on settling down, on getting married, on all of these different things. I mean, female friendships aren't said to be a priority in the world.

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97.383 - 111.079 Jamie Laing

Hello, guys. It's Jamie and Sophie from the Newly Parents podcast here. Coming up on this week's episode, my friend Rodney phoned me up and he was like, do you want to go and get a hair transplant in Nottingham? We got to this person's house. We got a discount because it was two of us.

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111.299 - 112.761

House? You did it in their house?

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112.821 - 117.766 Jamie Laing

We walked through their kitchen. And just to caveat this... You did it in their living room? In their back room, they had like surgery.

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119.068 - 120.99

This sounds quite human, Santa Pede.

121.01 - 123.313 Jamie Laing

I then woke up and I was attached to Rodney's arsehole.

124.634 - 127.137 Rebekah Murrell

Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

129.58 - 154.288 Jamie Laing

that i absolutely think they are hey guys welcome back to great company really excited because we have grace beverly on the show we go all over the place with it it's incredible get ready for it now before we start if i can ask one quick thing that is if you can press that subscribe button it notifies when you have another episode enjoying the amazing community that already subscribed thank you okay enjoy this incredible episode of great company with grace beverly what scares you about motherhood

154.42 - 156.223 Jamie Laing

Oh, there's so much. Really?

Chapter 5: How does Grace address the topic of miscarriage in the workplace?

161.711 - 185.361 Grace Beverley

I actually used to say so much as a child, like, I really want to be a really good mum, that my sister told me, the more you say that, the worse mum you become, because I was pissing her off so much. Perfect. Yeah, exactly. So clearly the aspiration was there from the beginning. I just... I think... Like I've, I've built my career in like a very specific way, right?

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185.401 - 205.268 Grace Beverley

Like over the past, I've been doing this for 10 plus years and every few years I've added on what feels like a really good add on for where I am at in my career and the teams I've been able to build and all of that to be able to facilitate me to do more and more of what I feel my skill set is.

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205.248 - 206.269 Jamie Laing

And that's conscious choice.

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206.389 - 225.947 Grace Beverley

And that's conscious. Pretty much everything I've done is quite specifically reverse engineered for the type of life I want to live and the type of businesses I want to build and the type of work I want to have. Even when I essentially kind of fell into, I guess, being a content creator, when I came out of uni, immediately I was like, this is not what I want to do.

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226.467 - 247.735 Grace Beverley

So deleted all my YouTube videos overnight, stopped posting for two years, focused on building the businesses because I was like, that's what I actually want to do. So what scares me about motherhood is that what you can imagine from all of that is like a complete... Well, it's complete control. Like it's complete control over... And don't get me wrong.

248.256 - 262.879 Grace Beverley

Every part of the business is a certain amount out of your control. And I deal with that every day as well. But I'm so trained to deal with that. And I've done that for so long that I feel like that is really what I'm good at. And I...

262.859 - 263.861 Jamie Laing

This is really unknown.

264.081 - 276.344 Grace Beverley

It's so unknown. And it's so many variables and so many uncontrollable aspects. And so far from what I feel like my day-to-day is like.

277.025 - 277.666 Jamie Laing

Do you know what?

Chapter 6: Why are female friendships important to Grace?

277.726 - 281.273 Jamie Laing

By the way, you're going to relate to so...

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281.253 - 303.43 Jamie Laing

many people who feel the same way and I think that especially when you're a bit of a control freak like I am as well I need to be in control of different things when you are having a baby it feels like something you can't control and a baby is baby and it's there and it has needs and desires and wants and it's human and all and everything and so you have to let go of that control

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303.41 - 327.779 Grace Beverley

A hundred percent. I think two parts of that. A, I literally have OCD, like diagnosed OCD. So there's an element of that that I'm kind of like, I've been trying to, I don't know, I've been trying to work around that, but also almost like use the parts of that that I feel like are my superpower. Not to, I mean, everyone will have a different experience who's been diagnosed with OCD.

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327.819 - 339.32 Grace Beverley

Like I'm not talking for anyone else, but for me personally, I have tried to mitigate the bad sides of things whilst also being able to use the sides of things where I'm like, well, this actually means that I'm amazing at this, this, this, and this.

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340.022 - 354.167 Grace Beverley

I think that that is so far from, like, you have to let go of control so much when it comes to motherhood and parenting and all of that that is probably, like, I feel like I'm being thrown so in the deep end from where I am now.

355.389 - 355.489

Yeah.

355.469 - 359.438 Jamie Laing

How does your OCD manifest before the point two? How does that... What happens?

360.039 - 381.142 Grace Beverley

Lots of different ways. As you can probably tell, I'm very intentional around how I've done everything. And that's my happy place. And that's where I feel... It's weird. I feel most free in an environment where I can control a certain amount of... Like my recurring dreams are about being unprepared for exams, for example. Like every single night.

381.662 - 395.221 Grace Beverley

I have a fucking dream about the fact that I'm sitting my finals the next day and I've not done the work for it. And like that's my version of like a true nightmare. Because like my freedom sits within a certain level of control. And a certain amount of that is unhealthy.

Chapter 7: What insights does Grace share about seeking investment as a female entrepreneur?

994.466 - 995.128 Jamie Laing

What do you mean by this?

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995.328 - 1006.358 Grace Beverley

I think there can be different things for different people. For some things, it's proving something to someone. For something, I think I was really quite an insecure teenager. Same. Yeah, and I think that I...

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1008.211 - 1030.357 Grace Beverley

I started my first business at 18 and I started suddenly being able to prove to myself that actually like, maybe not that I was like the most fun person or the prettiest or the like this, that and the other, but I could make money. I can do that really well. And so I think that that like, you know, it's not that that became everything.

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1030.397 - 1049.288 Grace Beverley

But I started to realize that I was quite good at like various of these different things, particularly without needing other people's buy-in. Like it wasn't necessarily that I needed you to find it cool that I was selling e-books online. I found it cool that I was seeing the fruits of that.

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1049.572 - 1066.703 Jamie Laing

Because I just want to understand this because I think this chip on the shoulder idea is really interesting, right? Because being an entrepreneur, you have to, there has to be something driving you. And there's that whole saying, which is, are you being dragged or are you driving? And typically we're being dragged by something like the idea to be seen or to make someone proud or whatever.

1066.683 - 1088.633 Grace Beverley

I think with so much entrepreneurship as well, it goes beyond the threshold of what would make sense in terms of like, okay, well, if you were just doing it to succeed in this area, which I see some people do, and then they're great and they're happy. I also see lots of people who have the serial entrepreneurship, the exit after exit, the complete obsession with constantly hitting new heights.

Chapter 8: How does Grace balance work and personal life as a founder?

1089.053 - 1104.564 Grace Beverley

And I think that has to... And I say this from my perspective, so perhaps I am projecting. But... I think that to a certain extent has to come from an underlying search for validation that's not being found elsewhere.

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1104.604 - 1108.312 Jamie Laing

How important are friendships to you?

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1108.673 - 1129.507 Grace Beverley

Very, very important. I think one thing that I like... try and make really clear, even across socials now, for example, is yes, I would love you to take me seriously as a very important businesswoman. But the most important things to me in my life are my relationships outside of work and particularly female friendships.

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1130.028 - 1130.589 Jamie Laing

Explain why.

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1130.63 - 1159.161 Grace Beverley

I believe that what you can get out of female friendships... is and what you can the fulfillment you can both like give to and get out of female friendships is unlike so many other things and I think that particularly for young women we have so much onus put on finding a relationship on settling down on getting married on all of these different things I mean women

1159.698 - 1176.846 Grace Beverley

are expected to do so many different things to such a high standard and to never look like it's hard and all of this all comes from the like having it all aspect. But I think that actually for so long, that's meant that female friendships aren't said to be a priority in the way that I absolutely think they are.

1176.826 - 1196.657 Grace Beverley

like I think that you know I'd like to think that my marriage will last forever I'd like to think that every relationship I've been in will last forever and all of these different you know that my businesses will last forever and all of these different things I think that if you can have solid female friendships alongside whatever else you're doing you will always be in an okay place

1196.637 - 1214.122 Jamie Laing

I think that friendship is the most important thing. And actually, there's that great analogy we had a guy called Bob Waldinger on who's part of the happiness test, which is basically saying that connections with family and friends are the most important things to make you happy in life. And actually, when we go through life, we forget that. But you haven't.

1214.183 - 1216.025 Jamie Laing

You've realized how important friendship is.

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