Proving the sceptics wrong 🌙 Michelle Bell

I used to be a lot more sensitive about it and worried about how to speak about it. But now I'm just like, we built something incredible and it continues to grow and continues to scale. And some of the biggest, you know, apps out there are doing incredibly well. For me, it was definitely something I had to overcome and then just be like, it doesn't matter. If you care too much about what other people think about you and your business, you will fail. You know, you can't think like that. You have to, you have to just go back to why am I building this? So for me, any other male businessman who kind of laughs at it, I almost relish it. I'm just like, that's great, that's fine. I have no sensitivity towards it anymore.

And you take delight in proving them wrong.

Exactly, exactly.

This week's Millennial Master is Michelle Bell, founder of Cosmic Universe. She worked in journalism and SEO, where she saw just how big the demand for astrology, compatibility, and personality content really was. Most people dismissed it, she spotted a real market. That became Cosmic, a platform built around self-discovery, connection, and live experiences, sitting right at the intersection of identity, loneliness, and how people now try to meet. In this episode, we cover how to spot a market hiding in plain sight, why betting on yourself can beat a safe career, and how to grow a business people don't always take seriously. Michelle, welcome to Millennial Masters. Where are you joining us from today?

I am in London.

Well, that means that the weather is just as miserable. So let's talk about more interesting stuff. Because I know, Michelle, you started in journalism. That's one of our links there. And I'm curious to know, what did this career in journalism and media teach you about people, especially? That's something that most founders miss, you think?

I started my career in journalism, and I worked in a lot of different newsrooms and in kind of like the breaking news sector, which is a very intense environment at work. You've got to be constantly switched on. You have your Google Alerts for every single possible thing that's happening in the world. It's politics, it's celebrities. It tells you a lot about people and the people that you kind of work with because it just is a very intense place. And I think you have to just be very switched on and, you know, not take things too personally. You have to understand that It's a very high-pressure environment as well, and that can bring out the best and worst in people. But I think, I think that base is what led me to kind of where I am now. I don't think I'd be able to launch a company without having that as a backdrop.

Because it teaches you a lot about interacting with people and in a way, getting out of your comfort zone, which I have spoken to many other founders and they haven't been in journalism, but they still have the same challenges as a journalist would have in terms of getting the message out there.

Yeah, definitely, because as a journalist, it's quite an individual thing. You know, you're the one writing the story. It's quite like an individual approach. However, you also have to work as a team, and you have to work with your editor, and you also have to work at an extremely fast pace when you're breaking stories about what's kind of going on in the world. And you've got to be the first.

When news is breaking, you're already 5 minutes late.

Exactly, 100%. You know, and that's why you have to— it's something that not a lot of people know, but you have to prepare for events that haven't even happened yet. So I remember when, obviously everyone remembers when the Queen died, but we had that story prepped for a year before that happened because it could happen at any moment. So we have it for a lot of like deaths that happen for celebrities, cuz it's like the minute it happens, it's quite morbid, I have to admit. But it's, it's, it's the case, you know, you kind of have to be the first one to it, the first one reporting, the first one on it. And then with that, with the breaking story comes a million other stories that come from it. Who's their family? What does their husband think? Who are their children? You know, kind of, there's so many explainer type stories that come from the main headline story.

But Michelle, there was something at some point, and that's where I'm gonna probe. What was the moment you realized you didn't wanna write about stories anymore? You wanted to build something that was your own.

It's, I can very much tell you what that was. So I was pregnant and I was, worked right up until 2 weeks before giving birth. And it's, as I said to you, it's quite a dark place being in the newsroom. You know, you report on a lot of dark stuff. Especially with kind of like SEO, which is what I migrated into. It's, you know, you are literally covering the stories that people are searching for and what people search for is quite dark.

It's not the best. Yeah.

It's not the funnest. And it kind of puts you in a really, you know, I'm first-time mother-to-be, puts you in a really interesting mindset of like, is this what I want to do? Is this what I want to do when I get back from maternity leave? And it was just like a no, I do not want to be in this place. This is not what I want to do. I want to, I do believe content is king, and I've always been, you know, obsessed with content, hence why I went into journalism. And I just thought there's a better way for me to explore my passion, um, than kind of be here. And I want to build something for myself. I want to be the person who is at, you know, the thought leader, the, you know, the instigator, and kind of not have to have to go to anyone. So that was kind of my, my turning point.

And you went for the cosmic realm, which is not an obvious, safe startup idea. I'm sure there's competition in Spain, but it's not as tight as in news or anything else.

Yeah.

When did you decide you actually wanted to commit to it? Was it an idea that was in the back of your head for many years that you wanted to do, or was it something that you encountered through your journalism job and you thought, actually, this is a problem that I want to solve?

100%. So as you kind of just said, I was leader of my team and I commissioned a lot of stories and I moved more into, as I said, the SEO audience analytics realm. So there you're looking at search, the amount of search volume there is for astrology, horoscope, zodiac signs, all of that. So I would commission a lot of my team to do these stories, you know, on stuff. And, and that's when I thought, this is— there's so much here. It's not just like a news article, it's not just like these very old-school horoscope things that you see on a weekly basis. I was more interested in the kind of personality aspect and the compatibility aspect it all, right? So they're a, you know, they're a Leo. What does that mean? And we, I, we also did Chinese astrology, which kind of gave it a different twist and a new layer. So I very much have like always been kind of loved astrology. And here, you know, I understand that it's a, it's an interesting topic to talk to people about because some people are absolute diehards and can like recite their entire birth chart and other people think it's a load of crap.

You meet new people sometimes and they just ask you, what's your star sign?

It's like the first thing I know before anything else. And then you say what you are and they're like, ah, ah, that explains, that explains, you know, who you are.

So the vibe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The vibe. Exactly. So, you know, I would commission all these stories and it would do phenomenally well. And then kind of on a, you know, more like a business level, it's a huge industry. It's projected to be a $22 billion industry by 2031. So not just, right, there's a lot of search volume for it. People love this. There's loads of apps out there. It was also like, there's a market, you know, there's a genuine market for this, even though it might seem quite niche for the average person that doesn't know astrology. It's a massive industry, and I wanted to approach it from a kind of more self-help, self-discovery, personality compatibility angle, as I say, as opposed to this very generic weekly horoscope content that can be—

Yeah, because you're trying to solve loneliness in a hyper-connected world through— and I'm wondering what made you think, or was there anything that made you think this was broken when you thought, I'm going to solve it through astrology?

Mm-hmm. So I have never really been on the dating apps. I did it for a very brief stint.

Wow.

In my, in my single time before I got married, in my single time in New York, I was on it for about maybe 6 months and it was quite a terrifying place. But all I know from a lot of my friends and a lot of people and the data that is out there, you know, Hinge, Bumble, etc., have lost millions of users in the last kind of few years because people are tired of swiping, they're tired of catfishing, they're tired of this you know, very, very false environment. So for me, I was like, yes, I want to create this app that, that is—

And holding things back from you by trying to entice you to subscribe to see just who liked you rather than just presenting it in your regular stack and everything like that. I get messages from Tinder like every evening, like, what do we want? Daniel Ionescu on Tinder. It's like some of this ridiculous stuff that they put on the push notifications.

It's It's exactly— it's just I think there's a better market out there. Like, the dating industry is huge, obviously, and it will continue to be forever. Everyone wants to find love. So I think for us it's kind of twofold. It's like, let's build an app that is this hyper-personalized, you know, that's what we cared about the most. Everyone will come here and have a deeply individualistic profile that tells them who they are, and then from that we can do compatibility and understand people. So I think for me, I definitely didn't want to become a dating app, and I just want to say it's not a dating app. But it kind of tells you about yourself, tells you who you might be interested in, and just opens your eyes. And, you know, we, we try not to be too, you know, we don't want to force astrology down people's throats, but it's just be open-minded, be open-minded to what it has to say about you. And, you know, we, we get fantastic feedback from it. So that's all we care about.

Okay. And what were the first steps? Because you said you built an app first.

Mm-hmm.

Lara, another founder I've spoken to. A few months ago, she also built an app first and then later on started developing a web app because it was much easier to get people to sign up through the web, at least in the initial stage to do that. What was your route and your thinking when you've done that?

Yeah, no, so obviously the app was— building an app was the most obvious thing to do because we have all this content, we have this algorithm, where do we, where do we kind of store this? So for me, it was always an app. And obviously V1 happened a few years ago. So what it looks like now is much different to what it was at first glance. But what we really saw is our biggest feature is the compatibility one, but the next big one is a question feature where users can ask anything they want. What's my love language? What's my biggest red flag? Who am I supposed to be with? What—

The topics that, yeah, everybody's wondering about right now. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, um, you know, based on the data, what we overwhelmingly saw was it was all love. You know, it wasn't about career. It wasn't about personal growth necessarily. It was love. It was like, when am I going to find the one? When am I going to get married? Like, who is the perfect person for me? So that's when we sort of thought, you know, let's kind of bring this into the real world. Let's kind of take the digital platform that we built and connect people in real life. So that's when we decided to kind of launch these live events and live experiences where you use the app in a fun way. You are to very like—

let's break it down for people tuning in. Let's tell them how the app works in tandem with the live event and how it happens, because you can go to a live event or even to the cinema and just be on your phone all the time.

Yeah.

So how have you fixed that?

Yeah. So you come to the event and obviously you have the app already.

Well, hopefully you have it already downloaded because that's why your profile all sorted and everything else. You've done everything in the app beforehand.

Exactly. And then we've updated the tech for the in-person events. So it's literally because you've done your profile already. Put all your information in. It's just a quick QR scan to match, so it takes about a few seconds and you get a compatibility score. And again, you can ask questions about them. We have fun icebreaker games that you can play. So we've just really kind of gamified it in a way for the events to be different and fun. You know, again, we're not the first people to do dating events, but we are definitely the first people to do something different and to come at it from a different angle. Because what we find the most with these daters is they struggle with that first interaction. It's awkward, it's uncomfortable and stuff. So we really are there for— we call it our icebreakers, our cosmic astrology icebreakers. And obviously our hosts do a fantastic job at guiding the evening, show them how the app works. But it is also like, put the app down for— you do it and it's a bit of fun, but then connect, put the phone down and look at each other in the eyes and have a genuine conversation. It's not just on your phone all evening.

How long does one of these events typically last?

So it's from about, you know, 7 to 10-ish, but obviously if the—

Okay, so it can be, it can be a date, it can, it can basically be a date.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we host them kind of all over the country, all different age ranges, all different age groups, and obviously tie into, you know, obviously for us we do like full moon parties, new moon parties, things like that. Obviously Chinese New Year is coming up, which is kind of USP, so that's going to be really fun. Um, so yeah.

And what have you learned about how people actually connect versus how they say they want to connect? Because a lot of people say, oh, I want my life partner, I want to connect, I want to do all these things. But when it comes to actually doing it, it's just like with a business or anything else, and you don't want to go out, you don't want to go on dates, you don't want to meet new people because you're actually an introvert. What's your takeaway from the experiences you've had with so many people?

I think the thing— I think it's all about mindset and it's all about expectation. I think some people are so desperate— it's not the right word— but so eager to find someone that they're like, I'm gonna find the love of my life tonight. And we definitely don't make any promises like that.

Yeah, even when you go out in town for drinks, you don't make those sort of promises.

Yeah, exactly. Like, what we really try to kind of promote is like, we are connecting like-minded people. You've all bought tickets to be here, so there's something that you all have in common to be here. And a relaxed environment, somewhere where they can just talk to loads of people. You might not find anyone that you actually fancy, but have you met people that you've connected with that might lead on to the next connection? It's kind of like a domino effect. So I think for us, it's about being very honest and transparent with our daters. Like, of course we want you to find the one, and that is the ultimate goal, but you might not find them at your very first event with us, but you are definitely going to find some interesting people.

And there was actually a TV show, and I can't remember which one now, very recently, about how, say, in the future, you would test your DNA and you will find out who is your perfect match anywhere around the world. It was a 4-episode miniseries. I think it might have been on Netflix. I'll make a note of it.

I'm gonna watch that.

And I think they might have run into the same problem that you're having because somebody has to be on your platform to take the test in order to find their match. And some people didn't find the match because the person, the right person didn't take the test. And there was like one of the case studies, so to speak, that they were showing in the TV show where only after like 30 years, their match showed up. So how do you entice people to, in a way, try their luck to find their match this way?

Yeah, so I think the whole goal of the night, you know, when, you know, these people are here is like match with everyone. Don't just match with one person and then like think that, you know, there's so many people out there.

Yeah, because say a 75% score versus, I don't know, 72, you're not going to be stuck in those 3, 2, 3%.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Just experiment and you kind of never know. And we also, you know, we do give you like a compatibility percentage and things like that, but again, take everything with a grain of salt because it's like, we're not saying that means you're not compatible. What it means is it just might be a bit more difficult. And we're all about understanding yourself and therefore understanding other people. So if it's like, right, I'm, you know, I'm an Aries, I'm a fire sign, I'm quite hot-headed, just understanding that might be better for someone else. It doesn't mean that you're not going to be compatible with someone who's a watery Pisces. It just means that you're quite different in the way that you approach things. And if you understand that, it's like, oh, okay, that makes sense. If you kind of see where people are coming from, it makes you understand them more and be more compassionate, no matter what your kind of sign is. So I think for us, it's all just about communication and having fun with it and not taking it too seriously, you know, not saying, oh my God, I am never dating a Gemini, I'm never dating a Scorpio, which you get people who do that.

Never say never.

That's Yeah, exactly. And it's like, you know, there's obviously all these stereotypes around different zodiac signs, and, um, we're just all about connection, positivity, experimentation, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and just seeing what happens. When you don't expect things is when amazing things can happen. So that's why we just try to promote a very relaxed, you know, engaging environment that isn't too high pressure. That's not like— we don't do, you know, classic speed dating and like with a bell Like, right now to the next one. It's like, just relax. It's a mixer. It's a mingle.

Yeah, because all you just want, all you want to hear is the bell to move on.

Yeah, exactly. You're like, right, how many, how much longer?

I know it from networking. I have not tried speed dating.

Yeah, I have not. I think that, that would give me a lot of anxiety personally. I think just having to recite your life story 10 different times in 1 minute is quite stressful to me.

Speaking of anxiety, Michelle, and you said you had a bit of a pivot with the business as well from just the app only to moving on to the in-person events.

Mm-hmm.

Which I'm assuming also now they are part of the revenue strategy.

Mm-hmm.

But was there a point early on where you thought this might not work, where you doubted yourself and what you were trying to build, and how did you overcome it?

My answer to that is a lot. I think any founder would be lying if they said they didn't doubt themselves, didn't doubt the business model. You know, you can have all of the data, you can have some, some capital behind you, but nothing is guaranteed. You have no idea. So I think for me personally, it's always about just— you can have a, not a panic, but you can address that, okay, this is a bit stressful, this isn't quite working over there, this is. But as long as you just kind of sit down to be like, what, why are we building this? Like, why do we actually— why did I actually start this? Um, it really helps to just like alleviate that anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I will still have my moments of like, what is happening? You know, we're moving fast and that's great, but moving quite quickly and scaling comes with its own set of problems. So I think for me it's always just about about taking a deep breath and just coming back to the drawing board and being like, what is the purpose of this company? Are we still doing that? Is that still, is our core message still the same message? Are we growing in all the right ways? If those things are all still true, then you're doing the right thing and you're moving in the right direction.

Yeah, because you said you optimize for meaningful connection, which is not the easiest thing to measure, is it? Compared to, say, your typical business, even an app, which would go for growth, retention, scale, which you're also working on achieving as well. How do you measure meaningful connection?

It's a really good question. And I think for us, it's like, it's, it's feedback from customers that tells you what you're doing. So when we get our reviews coming about the app, and they're saying, this is me, you just literally described me to a tee, and I love this. It's like, you can't ask for anything more than someone resonating with something you built for them. And when people come to us and say, oh my God, I went on a date with the guy that I met, even better. We want to host as many weddings as we possibly can. But even just having a connection for a bit. That's what we're all about. And so I think whether you connect romantically, even if you just meet some friends, that's a success. That's all a success for us.

And you also mentioned, and I experienced that myself, and quite a few founders and entrepreneurs on Millennial Masters mentioned it as well, in a way you are lonely at the top. Have you felt that yourself while building this?

Yeah, 100%. I think, again, any founder would be lying, and I'm a sole founder, not— I don't have a co-founder as well, so I think it's a different experience to people who are co-founders. I have an incredibly supportive team around me, executive team. I don't feel lonely on that basis. But when you make a lot of the decisions yourself, it's a lot of pressure, and you're like, am I— was that the right decision? I don't know. So I think there's a little like inner war with yourself all the time because you don't know sometimes. As I say, you can have the data, you can have the facts, But it's sometimes it comes down to your gut and it's like, this is the right move. Let's go in this direction now. So I think 100% I experience loneliness, but the minute I start to do that, I'm like, right, I'm gonna go on a walk. I'm gonna go do some exercise. I'm gonna go talk to, you know, someone on the team that can kind of help me put this into a practical situation rather than an emotional one. I think it's just a constant, it's a constant battle. And as long as you understand that you're feeling a bit overwhelmed or something like that, as long as you do the right things to address it, then And then it's—

was there ever a time when you went for your gut instinct versus what the data or the numbers or the facts were telling you?

Yeah, I think, I think sometimes with the actual app and the features itself, again, it's such a personalized thing doing it. So I think a lot of the time, us, we as a team, we just sit down and we're like, what do you think? Like, within the team, it's not based on like hundreds and thousands of people saying something. It's like, well, do you like that? Would that— do you think that would be a good thing to do? And sometimes, you know, A/B testing is the best thing possible because you get to really kind of split test what's working and what's not. But I think a lot of the time we act on gut, and it's kind of the industry that we're in. We're big believers in the universe, hence the name Cosmic Universe. So yeah, I think a lot of stuff is gut as well.

And let's now go to the elephant in the room, the big topic.

Okay.

You explained why you built tech around astrology. I'll quickly recap it because that was your background, and you knew that this is a great way to get distribution, distribution which gets you exposure, and again, it's been covered multiple times. Now, I'm assuming the trickiest part for you as well is to get the distribution and the exposure for gaining new users, which is becoming probably entrapped by social media. Is that one of the experiences you've had as well?

Yeah, definitely. I think with things moving so quickly from social media to AI, at the moment, we acquire a lot of our customers through social media. That's pretty much the The main, the main platform.

But it's, is it paid advertising?

It's combination. It's a combination of paid and organic, you know? So I think what we found that was really amazing is obviously when we were app only, you're getting a very, you're getting that one type of customer. So I think when we kind of broke into our like dual, dual model with the, with the ticketed experiences, you just get a different type of customer as well, which is great. And again, we're doing all age ranges, so it's not just limited to like, right, our demographic is. Gen Z, and which obviously is the majority demographic for astrology. But you say that the amount of like 50, 60-year-old men that talk about loving being a Sagittarius or being a Scorpio, the funniest— it's the funniest thing when I have those meetings. They're like, oh, my wife tells me this, and it's great. I love when it's kind of like the stereotypical person who you would not think loves astrology knows all about their rising, moon, and sun sign. So it's really fun when that happens.

So what do you think the skeptics get wrong about astrology?

I think it's a hard one. You could debate astrology all day long with someone who is a massive skeptic, just like you could with religion or anything like that. And I think for me, I just never try to convert anyone. I think if they are a big skeptic, if they get seriously upset about it, I think they might need to do some inner reflection and just go look somewhere else, because you shouldn't get that upset about something. So for me, if you don't believe in it, I'm like, well, just use it for fun then. Use it for a bit of fun. Like, why can't you look at it from a lighthearted angle rather than like, I'm going to live my life because this app told me I need to do this. We don't fortune tell. We don't tell you that, right, next week you're going to get this job, in 2 months you're going to get married, because I don't believe that's true. I don't— I see astrology as a tool for understanding yourself and for helping connect with people, as opposed to telling you what the future holds, because that's not true. We have free will. We can do whatever we want. I just think astrology is a really nice thing for people to believe in. To help them on a daily basis, to give them guidance, to give them clarity.

And what part of astrology do you use practically inside the business?

It's a good question. So obviously anyone that we hire, we have to know what they are.

And of course, like on our website and things, that was going to be my next question.

So yeah, yeah, whenever we, um, you know, on our website you'll see what all our zodiac signs are and things like that. So I think again, it's used in a very playful way. Like, that is who we are in our core, so why not kind of put it throughout? Um, and then hiring— I don't go—

have you not hired somebody based on their star sign?

No, definitely not. I'm not—

did you have like a heads or tails and they were like, no, they're a Capricorn, they're a Sagittarius, and I'll just go for—

well, if they're a Capricorn, I would definitely hire them because they're one of the most hardworking. So don't worry. But, um, no, I've never—

here's the biggest tip so far for everybody listening.

Yeah, if you want a job, make sure you, you know, you know your star sign, but I would never not hire someone because of their star sign. It might just give me a little thing in the back of my head of like, okay, I, I know, I know who you are, but no, I would never, never reject someone solely on that.

And if you were to sum it up, if someone doesn't believe in astrology at all, what value can they still extract from what you are building?

I think it's almost like similar to the placebo effect, isn't it? We radiate positivity within the app. We don't tell ominous, dark things. We're not like all happy clappy and that's all you want to hear, but we're not telling you that something bad is going to happen to you tomorrow and you should be wary of doing XYZ. Everything that we do within the app, every feature is, you know, helping you, encouraging you to be your best self, to help you through the day, whatever it is. It could be as small as getting it through that day, or what should I do this month that's really going to help me? Like, it's a full moon, what kind of like grounding ritual should I do to feel better? And I think it almost like teeters into, you know, meditation and things like that. I think there's so many amazing things that people can take away even if they don't believe in astrology, because it's still in the kind of spirituality, self-help realm. And that, that's what I would say to any kind of skeptic.

To, to take the mindfulness part and the reflection and the self-discovery.

Exactly.

And you also, I'm assuming you also deal with quite a few founders and, and business people in this space, especially as you're building basically a tech product.

Mm-hmm.

Regardless of the, the area. And then working with personality compatibility, behavioral patterns, I've, I've seen in your literature. What patterns do you see in founders specifically? Is there something that sets founders apart? To your typical employee, say?

Yeah, definitely. I think it's really interesting because obviously my entire background prior to this business, I've just been in the corporate world, not with founder-type people. So obviously in the last sort of 3 to 4 years, I've been much more immersed in that environment, and it is a different type. It is definitely a different type of person. Everyone is so different. Everyone has a different business idea. But I think it's very brave. I think I'm allowed to say that. I think it is actually very brave to be a founder because is, you know, you just have to look at the statistics of a success rate, and, you know, you have to be a certain type of person to just be like, I don't care, I'm gonna do this, it's gonna work or it's not gonna work.

So I think a higher tolerance to risk— some other people on the podcast have characterized it as—

yes, exactly, high risk, high reward. And so I think for me, I was like, I'm definitely at a place in my life where I can and want to do that. And it's really nice to surround yourself with as many people who are going through the same thing, even if, as you say, it's a different industry. You're still building, you're still doing things, you're still— whether you're B2C, B2B, there's always learnings to get from other people. And I think for me, I'm always, always trying to learn and always trying to understand, because no one— there's no like magic key for success in any business. But you can definitely do things, although there are many books trying to say— yes, exactly. I'm sure that— I'm sure there are. This is the magic thing. But I think once you realize that's not true, it's really helpful because you get experiment. I think, again, it's quite an annoying overwork— overused word in this industry, but pivoting. I think you need to quickly understand when things aren't quite working and moving on. But you also need to be patient and be like, things take time to, you know, you might not see—

patience is money, Michelle, isn't it? There's, there's another month of payroll.

I know, and that's the most— that's the most terrifying, you know, that's the kind of like rain cloud over your head of like, yeah, I'm responsible for all these people. Um, so don't get me wrong, that is definitely something, but I think as long as it's not too much risk and you're like, let's just see how this pans out, as long as, you know, that's working over there, maybe this side of Business Week can experiment. Because I think, again, it's the high risk, high reward. You have to experiment within it to— if you want to get big results, you know, you've got to do things that are a little bit uncomfortable.

So you mentioned some of the personality traits that thrive in entrepreneurship.

Yeah.

Are there any traits that quietly sabotage founders in the—

I think, again, it's, it's about understanding who you are. So, you know, I'm a, I'm a Cancer, which is typically quite, you know, me too. You're a Cancer as well.

Okay, 19th of July.

19th of July.

Oh, that's the same because I know that counts somehow because you're at the end of it.

It does, it does. You're the 19th. You're the same as my older brother who's also a Cancer. So that's, that's lovely. But we as Cancers, actually a lot of the most successful, um, entrepreneurs and tech people out there are Cancers, so that's good for us. But we are emotional, we are more emotional. So I think I have to understand that a lot of the time in business. Honest and just be like, okay, I am a bit more sensitive, but I do think that's also my superpower because I think I do— I, I have a lot of compassion and I come from a different place. So I think I do really care about my team. I want them to succeed. I want us to all succeed. I see us as like, you know, I can't do this without you. I don't want to— if, if you have— if you've done something that is not quite right, I would rather support you in that than give you a hard time because how's that going to the business if you're, if you're in a negative headspace. So I think for me, as like the leader of the team, I come from a place of compassion as much as I, as much as I possibly can, rather than, you know, kind of hotheadedness or anything like that.

If that's one trait of Cancers, it's the hotheadedness and the impulsive reactions you have to things.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which, which brings me on to my next question, Michelle. Has building cosmic changed how you understand yourself? Because you said at the beginning that you were doing it as you were going through the process of motherhood. So that's another big personal change alongside with the business and the independence, but also the risk it brings together. What has changed for you?

Oh, massive, massive growth and change, I'd say. As I say, I kind of had my, my son and the business was kind of like, I was doing, I just started the business. It was basically just me kind of building out the content and doing things while also being a first-time mom. So it was very interesting. And then I've also had a second son since then, so I kind of went through— I had, I had an actual maternity leave with my first one because I was still working at one of the publications. But the second—

word of the wise, yeah, if you're an entrepreneur, you don't really get your own maternity leave.

Yes, 100% don't. You are, you know, I don't have to go into all the details, but you are not. You, you are just working. So I think that was a really interesting thing Building a business with the, with a firstborn, and obviously like it's the, it's the first time, so it's super overwhelming. But then second one too. So I think, I think I've changed a lot. And I think when I think again why I'm building this, and it's like, you know, without being too cheesy, I'm doing it for them. And I want them to see their mum really passionate about what she's doing, very ambitious. So for me, I'm doing it obviously for myself because it's true. I think every founder, of course they want to be successful and they want to to showcase that. But I think for me, again, it's for them and I want to build something really successful so that I can also spend time with them and do things. I want to, I want to have it all, you know, essentially if I can.

And if we're speaking about having it all, were there any points in your building journey that being a woman and having a business related to astrology, maybe you weren't taken as seriously? Was Did you feel that at any point?

Um, you know, especially at the beginning when we were just building and you don't really have a lot to say, you don't have a lot of success, you're literally just building. I was so conscious of that. Um, just as you say, a woman in general, in business, in tech, they have their own challenges.

And, and many women on Millennial Masters have, have spoken about them, but you seem to have like a double one.

Yeah, no, you're, you're completely right. And I think I think so much of it was like, how do I explain this then? How do I explain this in a way that I'm going to be taken seriously? And then I think it got to a point of like, I know what I'm building is, you know, successful. I know it's going to be even more successful. I know the data behind it. So if people want to laugh at it, if they don't agree with it, then I'm kind of just like— I used to be a lot more sensitive about it and kind of worried about how to speak about it, but now I'm just like, we built something incredible and it continues to grow. It continues to scale. And some of the biggest, um, you know, apps out there, astrology apps out there, are doing incredibly well. So I think for me it was definitely something I had to overcome and then just be like, it doesn't matter. If you care too much about what other people think about you and you're, you know, you can't think like that. You have to, you have to just go back to again, why am I building this? Look how many customers we have. Look how many people come to us every single day telling us that we're helping them and that they love what we're doing. So for me, any other male, male businessman who kind of laughs at it. I, I almost relish it. I'm just like, that's great. That's fine. I have no sensitivity towards it anymore.

And you take delight in proving them wrong.

Exactly. Exactly. And I've got an incredible executive team who are a lot of men who are backing me and who believe it themselves. So for me, it's, yeah, that's all I kind of need.

And you said that sometimes you don't really have to listen too much to what people say. But at the same time, you're building in a way a social platform. So what's been the hardest part building that? Because that was some of my experience as well, but in a different area, and that was local news. But it can be— it's not a religion as astrology. However, it can also be very tricky. So I'm curious to hear your learnings so far in this space?

Again, I think being B2C comes with its challenges because you're dealing with people. And so not only are we dealing with people, but we're dealing with people's very personal, intimate lives because we're telling them personal, intimate things about themselves, actually about who they're with or who they should be with. So it's kind of like another layer, another dimension of this is, you know, can really upset people because they're like, I don't believe that, I don't agree with that. And I And you've got to take everyone's opinions into account, but you also have to realize that everyone has their own opinion. Someone might love that feature and love what is said, and the other person's like, I don't agree. So it doesn't mean one person's right or wrong. It's just hugely individualistic. So we just come from a place of always listening, always listening. Like our customer service team is very busy all the time, whether it's event goers or kind of app users, because we genuinely care about what they say. At the end of the day, they're the reason that we're going to be a success or not because they keep coming back. So for us, customer service is our biggest thing to just make sure that we are on top of, we're listening. If they are happy, acknowledge that they've said something to us. If they're unhappy, definitely acknowledge that and try to give them something, get them to come back, get them to have some free usage of the app, something. So I think for us it's, it's listening, but also trying not to please everyone all the time because it's just impossible. You're not going to be able to do that.

Just like in news, you You never win.

You never win.

So what surprised you then about user behavior once people were inside the product?

I think what's really interesting is we get what I like to call them as like super users who just get in the app. Like you get some people that come and they come, you know, every other day or every week or whatever. Then you get our like super hyperactive users who are there every single day, every single minute, asking a thousand questions, doing more compatibility matches. Pulling their tarot cards, and it's amazing. Like, it's kind of like their daily guidance. And I think that's what we try to promote as much as possible, is we love those hyper users. They're, they're our, they're our favorite type. So I think that's what's really interesting. It's, it's a very addictive app, but in a good way, because it's not mindless scrolling on Instagram. It's actually stuff that hopefully is giving you practical guidance or help or kind of insights.

People lean on you in a way, just like they started, for example, doing with with AI. How are you building AI into Kosmic and your product?

Yeah, so we kind of use like a hybrid architecture where we kind of use a bunch of different AI platforms combined with our own proprietary database. Again, because your profile is based on your unique date of birth, your time, your place, personality signals, et cetera.

So it matters where you were born as well, not just the day.

So it depends. So if you, if you want your full birth chart that tells you your, your sun, your moon, your rising, what sign your Jupiter is in, everything like that, we need your, uh, time and place of birth because that's what is going to be the most accurate, um, profile.

That's usually on the birth certificate, so it's not that—

yeah, yeah, it shouldn't be much. Just, just text your mom. Just text your mom and say, yeah, she'll know. Yeah, she'll know. But you can still— you don't have to put your place and time if you don't know it or don't have it. So you can still create a profile and we'll still give you, you know, your Cancer sign and And then we also, as I said, do Chinese astrology, which is based on the year that you're born. So again, don't need time and place for that.

And how are you separating now? Because you mentioned you have your super users and then you have some people who are called the lurkers or the occasional users. Different businesses have different words for them.

Yeah.

But you, by this point, you would've noticed the difference between building a community versus just building audience and having eyeballs on things, which is what you would've had in your previous previous life, especially in the SEO era, compared to people engaging and interacting with your product on a daily basis, if not multiple times per day, as you detailed.

Yeah, exactly. I think that's what's interesting with the sole app users that find us through, you know, not the event. It's quite a personal road you're going down because it's very, it's just you, you're asking questions, you're doing this and that. Whereas with the event goers, because that's where the community is sort of built. And so I think for us, that's what we are really interested in building, is that kind of community spirit and people who aren't just looking at it as like, who am I? But it's like, who are you? Who are you? What's your sign? Like, what does that mean for us? And I think again, that's why building this at the core, it's like, what are we? We're personality and we're connection. We're two, you know, those two are the kind of like core ethos of Kosmic.

I'm also curious to know, because you You mentioned you have two children.

Mm-hmm.

You didn't have a maternity break the second time around.

Yeah.

How do you balance it all? A lot of mothers still feel that they need to take a certain amount of time off to focus on their child, especially in the early days where they are fully dependent on you. And I'm wondering how that changed your perspective besides what you shared earlier about wanting to build something for them, but also how, again, you have no co-founder, so everything was reliant on you and your executive team.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a really good question. So I had my second, was born on Christmas Day, which was also very interesting. So I think it was a natural break for a lot of people at that time anyway, which was quite nice.

That's like a week or two, is not—

it's a week or two. Yeah, a week or two. But I think, I think, look, motherhood is extremely hard, and I definitely don't want to come up here saying that it's easy, but I think having your second, you've done it once before. So you definitely— it's definitely not as— you don't have those firsts of like, when's the first time this is going to happen? You, you have a little bit more knowledge. Granted, every baby's very different, um, and I was very lucky. He was a very good baby, um, he's quite lively now, but as a baby, as a newborn, he was very relaxed. And I just have a— I have a very supportive family, I have a very supportive, as I say, executive team, team around me, like at Cosmic itself. So I definitely relied on them a just to be like, I, I have to live my life around this baby, so I might be able to make that meeting, but I can do work at 11 o'clock at night on my laptop because he's asleep and stuff. So I think it was just not necessarily ideal, but just working whenever I kind of could. And I think that's the life of any founder anyway. I don't think they have a normal 9 to 5.

Lauren Khouri mentioned the same. Yeah. And another Millennial Master a few months back, and she explained about the support system around her from family, friends, and further afield in order to have the village that it takes to raise a child. Did you prepare your village beforehand or you started building it during, with your first child and then by the time your second child arrived, you had the village there and you felt it was easier even though you were going through a lot of the same processes?

Yeah, no, it's a really good question. They're quite different because when I had Max, my first, I was living in New York at the time. So, and I was looking for my friends to have a baby. So I had an incredible village support system because all my friends wanted to be aunts and uncles. And so I was very, very lucky in that sense, in terms of I had so many people around me. With Rory, the second one—

and that's in terms of childcare, to be more specific, right?

Childcare. And at that point of the business, as I say, it was just me with an idea, so it wasn't as demanding. I didn't have meetings, I didn't have things to go to. It was just me at my laptop building something, so it was a lot easier. Um, and then with Rory, we had already come back to England, so it was a new village. It was a different type of village, but a kind of new village. But I definitely had established that before giving birth to him, so it was quite an easy transition. And as I say, it was cliché to say it takes a village, but it really does take so many people to help you because you're also just in a fragile mind, you know, mindset anyway. Like, you're in that anyway as a founder and building something, but then add hormones and everything else that comes along with it, it just kind of like intensifies it. So I think as long as you have people around you where you can just go to take a deep breath, go on a quick walk, just do something that kind of like grounds you, that, that's what you need. You need people that you trust inherently and you can just go and just have 5 seconds alone.

I'll ask you about that one in a second, but I just had a question popping in my head.

Mm-hmm.

Because you basically lived, oh no way, half of your professional life in New York, half of your professional life in London, and you brought your first child in New York and then another one in London. How do you compare? What's, what's the pros and the cons? I, I've visited recently last year as well, but as, as a single man, it's quite different.

Yeah. Um, so I started my career in LA actually for about a year. That's when I started my journalism career and decided I wanted something a bit hungrier. LA was quite a sleepy town for me as a 22-year-old girl, so I moved to New York and I was there for about 8 years, as I say, single for a lot of it. So that was a lot of fun just not having to care about anyone but yourself and your career. So obviously that was incredible for my journalism time. But then moving from New York, yeah, we just, we had Max, and it's just not a place I think is that kid-friendly. And obviously being English, okay, obviously being English, I wanted to come back to my roots, come back to my family and stuff. I love New York, don't ever want to shade it, but just in terms of raising a child there, I was like, I think I need to go back to where I was raised and what I really enjoyed as a child and be around some family. So that was the biggest, that was the biggest decision for coming back here. And yeah, it was the best decision we ever made.

Okay. So I think you mentioned now about 3 or 4 times in the space of 40-odd minutes we've been talking about going out for a walk. I've written how many founders have told me going out for a walk is the best decompressor to extract yourself from a situation, think clearly, especially not without your phone, but you can use it productively as well. I use it for calls a lot when I go for my walk. But are there any other habits or routines that keep you grounded, especially when things get hectic, when you're preparing to release a new version of the app and you have to go through all the QA and the testing and then like you find all these things that you need to fix, but also there are so many other battling priorities. How do you keep it all together personally with two children at home as well?

Yeah, so I mentioned the walks a lot because we have an amazing dog who needs walking a lot as well. Yeah.

Okay, that helps. Yeah.

That helps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is incredible. And I think dogs also help you with any sort of anxiety. They're just, they're just the best companions to have. So for me, walking is massive. It's any exercise anywhere where I can like dissociate. And I actually am very happy walking without listening to a podcast, without listening to Spotify. I actually enjoy, you know, I live, you know, kind of near the country, so it's just beautiful kind of terrain anyway. So for me, it's any form of exercise, any form of just being active and doing something and not, you know, a lot of my work is is sitting down at a laptop, meetings, podcasts like today. And so I think anything where you can just get moving and get outside of just being stagnant and still, for me, is the biggest thing. I know if I'm kind of, as I say, feeling a bit overwhelmed, I'm like, right, I need to move my body. I need to go exercise. I need to go have a quick run or something like that.

I'm just gonna have a few— they're not really quickfire questions, they're more more depth questions.

Okay.

Michelle, what belief do you hold today that might turn out to be wrong in 10 or 20 years?

So I don't know if I have a specific example, but the only thing I will say is I think something my younger brother always kind of teaches me and tells me to think about is growth mindset. I think that's been the biggest shift in things and understanding that I'm not the same person I was 5 years ago. I'm probably not going to be the same person in 5 years' time. And I think being— I don't love change, but I think you have to learn to get comfortable with change and appreciating that, that if you're not changing things in your life, then you're not moving and you're kind of going backwards. So I think for me, I can't think of anything I necessarily believe that I might be wrong about. I just know that there probably will be several things in 5 years' time, 10 years' time, that I'll feel differently about. Because—

and that's where I'm gonna go next. Okay, that's where I wanted to go next. What you changed your mind about already after the first 5 years of Cosmic?

I think I thought building a business would be easier than it is because you, when you've never done, never done something before. And I think at the beginning stages of a startup, it's all exciting. It's all like, there's so much momentum. There's so much potential. There's so much blue sky. It's like, we can go here, we can go there. So there's a lot of excitement that comes with that, which is fantastic because you need that to get going. But then I think it quickly kind of like reality dawns on you and you're like, oh no, I'm running a business and I'm responsible for people's payrolls, as you say, I need to get this going. I need this to work and that to work. So I think the naivety is interesting thinking back to 5 years ago, but again, I probably wouldn't have built the business had I not been naive and been excited and been like, let me—

Naivety is a superpower and one of the previous guests, Stefan Hosannu, who runs a remote work furniture business. And I think we all had that. If you start young and you haven't been through these type of situations, naivety is your superpower because you can go power through these things, but then they soon catch up with you, don't they?

Exactly. So I think, as I say, I have, you know, I don't think there's any point having regrets in anything. So I'm so glad for every stage that the business has been in, and I'm so glad I I, you know, did it when I did at 8 years old and no idea about anything.

So I think, yeah, because when you look back now, you don't feel like you know what you knew a lot, even in, like, your late 20s.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think you grow and you learn, you know. And as the team expands, and I think the biggest thing for me is, like, all these people who work with me believe in what I'm doing, and they believe in it as well. And that's huge, to just get people to believe in your passion or your idea. Is one of the biggest hurdles because people know what it's like at a startup. It's not like a normal job. You kind of do have to be switched on all the time. You've got to be flexible, big team player, and things like that. So, for me, I don't— it doesn't get lost on me that these people have chosen to work at my company and help me build something that we are all so proud of and passionate about.

In the same vein though, Michelle, what do people misunderstand most about you, you think, that you have to sometimes explain yourself? Like, for me, it's that I'm joking even though I have a serious face on.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I think I laugh at a lot of things. I laugh, and probably like maybe a similar thing to what you just said, but, um, I think maybe people don't—

well, no wonder we're the same size.

Exactly. I think maybe people don't know how ambitious I am because I, I don't like shout about things too much. I don't, I don't think so. That's my perception of myself. I think I see myself more as the underdog, and I think people are be surprised by that. So I'd say that. Yeah.

And finally, Michelle, you said you don't have any regrets and I wasn't expecting you to say that. All the entrepreneurs I've spoken to have no regrets. And even with my journey, I don't have any regrets, but I'm wondering what sacrifices you had to make to be where you are today.

I think you make a lot of sacrifices. I think you have to, like, doing any decision, whether it's like being an entrepreneur or going off to, you know, your dream job, there's always sacrifices. And I think I've sacrificed pretty much everything except my family to business. You know, you sacrifice a social life, you sacrifice— but you also do that by being a mom. Like, I kind of already had sacrificed that a little bit. So I think, as you know, going back to what we earlier spoke about, you know, the kind loneliness aspect, that is a very real thing. But then you have to remember that this was your choice. And I still stand by that choice now. I think as long as you still believe in the sacrifices you made now, then yeah, you're doing—

They won't turn into regrets.

Exactly.

But is that because you convince yourself that you've done the right thing, or is it just the passage of time that brings you to that conclusion?

It? No, I think about a lot. I think about just continuing on my journalism path, which I did love. I did love that job in that industry for a very long time. But as I explained, being in the mindset I was in, I was like, I think this is not where I want to be. So I regularly think about being back in London and working at a big News Corporation, and what would that life have looked like? And I don't like it. I don't like the thought.

Well, the, the world has changed a lot in the last 5 years in terms of not necessarily just media but journalism itself.

Yeah, I think you have to deal with the AI side of that era, so I— it's a very different landscape, um, the journalism world nowadays, what it was when I was there.

So yeah, what do you use AI for personally, Michelle?

It's like my personal assistant, to be honest. Like, it's almost like I use it to, um, just go back and forth, brainstorm, understand things. It's just literally like having a personal assistant, to be honest with you. Being— having a journalism background, I'm still very big on writing your own content and doing that. Yes, you can use AI to help you and to give you ideas, but I think people that just say, write this email, do this for me, you can immediately tell that they've used AI for it. So I think for me it's—

I've written one of my most popular written posts is about how to tell if something was, was written with ChatGPT, how to fix it.

Okay, I like that.

Especially The contrast structures at the moment, they are ridiculous. It's not this, just that. And you hear all the ad copy and everything else from YouTube videos, sometimes even on television. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a much longer—

yeah, that's another day. We can have a whole—

that's a whole nother podcast.

Yeah.

But thank you so much, Michelle, for, for sharing your journey so far, your learnings, and I can't wait to to see what you're going to be building next with Cosme.

Thank you so much, Daniel. I absolutely loved speaking with you.

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