To be exceptional, you have to be the exception 👸 | Amy Morris (Pop Up Global)

If you are a business owner and you're a passionate business owner that wants to create something unique, you are obviously striving to be exceptional. But to be exceptional, you have to stand alone. Hence, you are the exception. And so you have to live in a way that's different to other people to be able to achieve the things that other people have not. If you want to be exceptional, you have to be the exception.

This week's Millennial Master is Amy Morris, founder and CEO of PopUp Global. Amy went from cruise ship performer to running a global entertainment brand, but not without a few plot twists. Instead of backing down, she used them as fuel to scale her business beyond the UK, land major contracts, and eventually relocate to Dubai. In this episode, we talk about how getting legal threats from Disney forced her to think bigger, why being the underdog can be your biggest advantage, and the real reason ambitious founders are moving to Dubai. Millennial Masters is proudly sponsored by Jolt, the UK's top web hosting service. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling up a custom app, every great project needs a reliable home. That's why Jolt has hosting plans starting at just £3.95 a month, with unbeatable deals on domain registrations too. Why Jolt? It's a no-brainer. There's no waiting around with support within 30 seconds on live chat. Your site stays live no matter what with over 99.99% network uptime. And you can also pay with Bitcoin or American Express, so you can rack up those points too. How good is that? Sign up today and enjoy your first 3 months free. Head to jolt.co.uk to get started. Amy, welcome to Millennial Masters. How are you today?

Very good, thank you.

So there's so much to unpack in this episode, but we need to start from the beginning with your performing journey. What got you into performing? And from what I researched, one of your earliest jumps in your career was performing on cruise ships. What's the story behind that?

So if you spoke to my parents, they'd say I was a performer since I was born. That's all I ever did from a really young age through primary school, through high school. That's, I just did all the shows. I was in the choir. I wasn't particularly academic. I mean, I applied myself and I did okay, but it was always Drama, singing, dancing. It was always that, that kind of pulled me. And then as you approach like A-level and university age, it's when people start questioning, like, are you going to pick a more serious career now? Is— are you done with the singing and dancing? And I, I wasn't. It was the only thing that I really, really enjoyed and could see myself doing. I mean, from a young age I said I'd be a pop star. Quite make it as a pop star, but that was always the line of work I wanted to do. So when it came to deciding what I was doing at university, I had friends that were off to be solicitors and friends that were doing business, and I wanted to do theatre and performance. And so the compromise was that I had to go to a red brick university, but I could do theatre and performance. So that's what I did. I don't really know how impactful my degree of theatre performance is. I've never had to test that theory, luckily, but that's what I did. And it was when I finished that course and I was working in a bar in Leeds that in the window was an advertisement for a cruise ship audition, which was being held in the building next door. So I literally just said to my boss, tomorrow after the shift, can I leave a bit early so I can go audition for this cruise ship job? And to be honest, I kind of geared myself up for having to do a lot of auditions and see what happens. But I got the job, which was amazing.

From the get-go?

From the get-go, I just got this job working on board a cruise ship, and I had to ring my mum. I was like, Mum, I'm going away for a year to go sing and dance on a cruise ship. We'd always cruised as a family, so they kind of understood the concept of what I was off to go do. And that was 2012, so I was, I was 22, and I went off and sailed the world singing and dancing. And, uh, I wanna say living the dream, but it was probably the hardest year Even now, 10 years on in business, that was probably one of the hardest years, um, in terms of grafting that I've ever done. But I was traveling and seeing the world, and I met some of my friends that are still my best friends now, who actually also work with me now. Um, so it was a real pivotal moment, I would say, was that year.

So it was a formative year, but it was nonstop. Were you performing every night, or did you have any time off during that year?

So it was a full year contract, but 3 months of that were the rehearsal period. And the particular cruise line that I worked for, you had to work 6 nights a week, but say guests were on board for a 2-week cruise, we had to, and that was quite often the case, we had to perform 11 shows, 2 plays, 4 cabarets, and 1 solo cabaret in a 2-week cruise. But bearing in mind, we did everything twice. So you, and you rehearsed in the day, the full show. So I was doing 3 shows a day, 6 days a week. And then you would finish the show and you would go on top deck and you would perform another cabaret or your own solo cabaret. And if it was a sea day, you did a play twice in the daytime as well.

So after your year performing on the cruise ship and meeting the, your now best friends who would become your business partners. How did you get into the business world?

It's all on purpose, but incidental is the only way that I can describe it. I knew that I was always quite entrepreneurial throughout school, would put on shows in the local theater and charge people. And I remember making like £1,000 and I was like 16. I was like, I can't believe I'm making this amount of money. And so I kind of had that, that in me. But when I left my second ship, my dad had been quite poorly, and so I was like his full-time carer. And I wanted to do something that kept me at home, but also allowed me to perform, 'cause I was still only 25. And somebody asked me if I would play Elsa from Frozen at an event in Preston city centre. And now because I'd been working on ships, I didn't even know what Frozen was, which sounds mental now because I don't think there's a single person on this planet that doesn't know what Frozen is.

But you can see why they ask you based on your looks.

And my hair was really blonde at the time and longer. And so I said, okay, yeah, I'll do this. She was offering me like £100 to go and, and I was like, oh, well that sounds easy. I'll go do that. So I had to sit in my bedroom learning Let It Go, the song, over and over again because I'd never heard of it and trying to understand what This was about, and I, I, I didn't realize when going into this, like how addicted to Frozen children were. It was almost like, like a cult these kids had joined about this film. And I didn't know that. So I went to Preston dressed as this princess and I honestly was like mobbed. I felt like Beyoncé. These kids were screaming out to me and everyone was asking for a photo. And because I could sing and I sang the song live and I had the actual hair, it went down really well. So I remember going home and. Saying to my dad, like, something in this, I need to, to do this whilst I figure out what I want to do with my life. So I set up a Facebook page and called it Pop-Up Princesses because I was popping up in different places. And that was the October of 2014. And by Christmas I was fully booked. I had other performers working for me because then everybody wanted Belle and they wanted the mermaid and they wanted all these different characters that I found myself with a, like a team of 10 traveling up and down the country, working full-time doing these children's birthday parties. And back then, and this is, I think, what has translated into our success now is even then when it was children's birthday parties, the focus on standards, a premium product, and a service unlike anything else was incredibly important to me then. Um, and I think that's coupled with Frozen's success, but that was why we, we blew up so fast.

So that was the first time when you started working with other people and basically becoming a businesswoman and sending them on your behalf and representing Pop-Up Princesses around the country. And that's how Pop-Up Global began, but then it evolved. How did it evolve from there?

So yeah, that was definitely my first taste of managing people. And again, when it comes back to how I ran the company, that was very much how I envisaged the company being. So I would hold these team meetings every week and I would do reports and everyone had to raise invoices. And I remember thinking, I remember people thinking, this is quite intense. I'm just doing children's birthday parties, but I knew, like, I knew that I wanted to lay the foundations for, for a a successful business, but then this is where it gets a bit spicy, Daniel. About 2 years in—

I'm here for it.

I got a cease and desist from Disney. Yes. And I get it. It's completely fair. I was— but it is fair in hindsight. At the time, I was this, this young, naive girl that thought I was doing this amazing thing and didn't really think about licensing and IPs because a lot of other people were doing it as well. It didn't really cross my mind that I was doing anything wrong, but because of our success, by this point we'd reached maybe 20,000 followers on Facebook because that Facebook at the time was how I ran my business. Yeah, I didn't really think about the consequences of this. So I got this cease and desist from Disney. I think once they realized that I didn't have millions of pounds, they kind of left me alone, but they very much left me alone on the, we're watching everything you're doing.

So.

I'd already employed somebody full-time as well by this point. And that's when you really start to feel the responsibility, you know, Laura, who still works with me now, um, has her own mortgage to pay and her own life to pay. And I have this full-time employee and this responsibility. So this is when we really, and this was a pivotal moment. And I'm actually grateful for Disney for the, for the big time threats, because I had to really think, okay, where am I taking this business now? And so we started creating generic entertainment concepts. And because of my experience working on board cruise ships, I knew exactly how to create a show from top to bottom. And so we very swiftly went in that direction. And I remember I got that season just 4 months before Christmas. And then by Christmas, we were putting on staged shows of our own concepts in different locations around the UK. And we really pushed that and we left all of the Disney things and the children's birthday parties. Behind. And then that, that was 2017. And that was the real transition. Then we swapped our name from Pop Princesses to Pop-Up Entertainment. And then we really ran with that as a company, which was, I'd say, the beginning of who we are now.

So Disney's threats gave you a big-time push in what turned out to be the right direction. And when do you feel Pop-Up MUSIC Entertainment or Global got its big break? What was the moment when you thought, okay, we're hitting big time now?

So I would say that would be 2019 is when it really shifted us into the limelight, I would say, with clients and performers as well. We pitched, I'd heard on The Grapevine that Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, which incidentally was the last cruise line I'd worked for as a singer dancer. I'd heard that it was going out to tender and we were only a couple years in from being, you know, PopUp Entertainment and no longer this party company. But I also knew that the industry was really looking for a young, fresh approach. There hadn't been a new company enter the market in probably two decades. And the industry needed not just a shape up in creativity and the product, but in culture and casting and standards of how we look after our people as well. And so even though we were small, we were mighty. And I thought, I can see that we could be successful in this. And so we approached Fred Olsen. I think they, if I'm being really, really honest, I think they gave us a bit of a pity space in the tender, but we ended up being the underdogs and there was maybe 25 people in that uh, tender. And every couple of weeks she would inform me that we'd got to the next round, and then the next round, and then we got down to the final 5. And they were like, can we come up to your studio? And I was like, well, this is serious because they're going to take a 4.5-hour journey now to come and see us. And I remember we put on this huge show and we had these amazing performers that did it, um, for us for free because they were like, we want you to win this. Like, if you're winning, we're winning. And so they came up from Ipswich, we put on this incredible show for them, and then the week later in our office— back in the day it was a huge studio with like a glass office— and my staff were in the office and Fred Olsen had called me and I'd gone out to the studio and they were looking at me through the glass and they were like, we got it! And I was like— and I will never forget that moment. We were all just crying. And it just felt like a full circle moment for me because obviously that is where I'd left my performing career. But this was the start now of us being a serious business that was being seriously considered for some of the biggest opportunities in the industry.

So you, but you didn't go as a performer back into the business. You, you went as the talent management.

We went as the production company we created. And we still have that contract with Fred Olsen today. We create and supply fixed production shows for the ship and the talent that, you know, we right now we have, um, 10 singer-dancers on board currently doing a world cruise. They're all over Maldives, Mauritius, India, Cape Town. They're currently doing that for us right now, performing our shows every night. The exact job I did back in the day, these guys are now doing for me. And the beauty of that is I can learn. From what I didn't enjoy from my experience. And now, thankfully, all the teams that have worked for us during that contract are having the most, like, incredible experiences.

So that's really interesting to hear that you've applied your experience and eliminated from the role all the parts that you didn't like in order to make what would be your contractors or employees a much more pleasant job. Can you give us an indication of that process and how you identified how to make somebody's job better than you've had it?

Ultimately, the product is the product. So the cruise line needs the shows. I can't say they're not performing all of those shows because that is what the audience need, what the client needs. But what we do everything around that is absolutely in our control. So, for example, when I worked as a performer, I don't even think people knew what the word anxiety meant. And if, and if, if they did, it didn't get said. And I remember I suffered terribly with anxiety when I worked on ships. And it's always been a constant in my life. Never knew what it was because no one spoke about it. Now, it's such a, and it's not a word that we use flippantly, but it's a word that we are absolutely open to discussing. Anything surrounding mental health. And so we provide a fully paid for anonymous therapist for anybody that works with PopUp. We, um, have something called the Happiness Program, which is something that we have a full happiness officer that works at PopUp, and her sole job is to cast people and to look after people when they're working for us. I mean, it sounds really simple, but just checking in with these people regularly is something I never had. I don't think I spoke to the production company that I worked for in 9 months unless I was poorly and they were threatening me to say, if you don't get better in the next 4 days, we'll replace you. So it's all of that care and letting them know that they have our support. And when someone is poorly, we just help them get better. We don't put the pressure on them to make them feel like they're just disposable. And if you don't get better, you don't have a job anymore. So it's all of those, it's all about the culture and the care. Into these people. But we also hold things throughout the year, like we have our Elevate program where performers are able to come and join us for a full day where we train them in managerial skills so that when they do their next cruise contract, they could go back on as company manager or dance captain, or they could help us with delivering different projects that are shoreside. So we're helping people progress within their careers. We're not just squeezing them for everything that can benefit us and then just sending them on their way. We nurture these people. And that is purely on the back of, that is purely on the back of me feeling like I was never nurtured during my time on ships.

So when you talked about anxiety, you didn't talk about the nerves you get before a performance. You basically explained that in a way you felt isolated on the ship and out of contact. So you filled in all these gaps. For everybody else working for Pop-Up and performing in there and nurturing them. What were the best parts of the job that you maintained?

Well, obviously the travel, that's a little bit out of my hands, but the travel is honestly one of the best things about that contract, especially with Fred Olsen Cruise Lines. Routes that they're able to take because they're smaller ships means that they literally can see the entire world. But we also create shows that are so versatile. You have to be a versatile performer to do this contract because you might be doing musical theatre. Theatre one night, soul and Motown another night. Then you might be doing a scripted show where you have to show more of your acting abilities. So there's a lot of variety there, and a lot of our performers come out so much stronger than when they began that they can then go on to jobs that are perhaps like West End focused, or go on tours, or different jobs that, um, they couldn't maybe have got before.

So that was pop-up entertainment. How did we get from pop-up entertainment to pop-up global.

So in 2021, we begun discussions, um, with a company out in Dubai called Majid Al Futtaim, who are— for anyone in the Middle East will know exactly who they are, but they're a massive company that own a lot of the malls out here. Now, I don't know if you've been to a mall in Dubai, but they're not, they're not like the malls in the UK. Yes, they are malls on steroids. And so, um, We began the conversations with them. They were wanting to enhance their facilities with an entertainment program. And by 2022, we won the contract for that. So then we began our expansion into the Middle East. But at the same time—

So you were still based in the UK at the time?

We were still based in the UK. Yes. At the same time, we started being approached for entertainment in Cairo and in the Maldives. And in Abu Dhabi. So it just made sense that now we were global. And so the name change just felt like a really natural progression with our global expansion.

So at what point did you decide to move both yourself and the business to the UAE and in Dubai?

So at the start of 2023. We came here for 6 weeks, and I say here because I'm in Dubai right now, and we came for 6 weeks to work on the Majid Al Futtaim project. One, I saw the opportunity here for entertainment, but two, the lifestyle just suited me and my husband to a tee. The sunshine, the, the kind of lifestyle we kind of found ourselves in was very much health, fitness, wellness, and this city very much lends itself to that lifestyle. And so the work opportunities coupled with that, it just felt like a no-brainer for us.

So tell me about the differences then that made you decide that I'm going to leave the UK behind and move both myself and the business to Dubai. You said about the weather, we can all understand that. Everybody listening from the UK will know that. But there must be more than that.

So what I will say is I still have my company in the UK and we still very much operate out of there. I never leave completely when it comes to business, because I still think there's great opportunity out there. And, you know, maybe 80% of our talent are in the UK. However, the opportunities out here, and I think I can speak for probably most industries, are far larger than what the UK is offering at the moment. Not only that, the vision and the budgets that clients have out here for even just a one-off event are so much bigger than anything you will find in the UK. Or maybe there's 5% of the UK that do events of that scale, but here they are all year round. And then you are obviously so close to other Emirates or other parts of the Middle East that are also thinking like that, Saudi being, you know, a key one.

So with your business developing from the UK in the last 10, almost 11 years. Would you say that the UK is in decline?

I have noticed over the past few years, budgets are getting smaller. The frequency in which clients are using entertainment as a marketing tool or whatever it is that they may use it for, it's becoming further and further down the priority list. And I completely understand that, but I also think there's a misconception around the impact of entertainment anyway. I think people put it so far down the priority list when actually, if you look around you, our whole world is based on entertainment. This right here is entertainment. Netflix, TikTok, what you read on your Kindle, everything is entertainment. Yet when it comes to parting with money for entertainment, all of a sudden it's not important, we don't need it. When actually the most valuable currency we have right now is attention. From people, getting their attention. And the most valuable way of doing that is entertainment. However, the UK doesn't have, doesn't have the budgets for that right now. Luckily, we work with some great clients that have been able to maintain and grow on budgets year on year, but we also have had to work with a lot that don't have the luxury of that. And much to their dismay as well, they don't want to be going backwards when it comes to their entertainment strategy. I hope in the next few years that it will come around because UK is where I'm from and I still have a lot of love for it. And that country grew my business to what it is today.

Life in the UAE as a businesswoman, a lot of people could think it's different than being a businesswoman in the UK, but now you spent a little bit of time there. Could you reflect on that and maybe explain if you felt discriminated in any way. A lot of people possibly have that misconception about the Arab states.

Yeah. And I can only speak on my experience. I have faced far more discrimination in the UK being a female in business than I have here in Dubai and in the UAE and in Saudi. For that matter. I think that, again, just my experience and the industry that I'm in is such an eclectic mix of men and women here that it doesn't matter whether you're male or female in terms of people listening to what you have to say. I think a lot of the decision makers out here as well are a mixture of men and women, which is great. However, the experiences I've had as a woman in business in the entertainment industry in the UK, and in particular trying to expand into like the cruise market or the bigger contract I have definitely faced some, yeah, some difficult times, um, being a woman. I, I'll never forget, I think it was only last year, I was speaking with a client, um, who told me to go put my big girl knickers on and get on with it. And I thought, it's 2024, that's not how we speak. That's, that's not how, and, and needless to say, I don't work with that person anymore. But, um, it's very, there's a, there's a boys club. In the UK, and a lot of the deals have been done on the golf course. And it's a lot of, um, performers back in the day in the Butlins and the Pontins world that have climbed through the ranks who are now decision makers in these big companies. And so the deals just get done with each other. And if you're a woman in this industry in the UK, it is extremely hard to, um, show your value and to be heard.

Do you think your age played a part as well in the UK, especially at the beginning when, when you were in your early mid-twenties? Did you feel undermined, but then taken seriously a bit more as you approached your thirties?

Absolutely. And even though I think I'm not young anymore because I'm 36, compared to my competitors, I'm probably a good I don't know, maybe 10 to 15 years younger than them. And so it's like every stage, every stage this company grows, I find myself in another arena of me having to prove myself based on being female or my age. I think probably when I get into my 40s that might die down, but still at this age, and you would think that being in your 30s you would be taken more It's not being taken seriously. It's just the older men again in, in the boys club are definitely the, the people that seem to be heard a lot more than the younger companies like mine. You know, it only takes a little look at our TikTok or our Instagram to show that we do things completely different for anyone else. Everything we're doing is for our Gen Z audience in mind. And so we come across very young, but we still have this year 11 years behind us in experience. But I think until maybe I get in my forties, I don't think I will have that. I don't think I will be heard as much, sadly.

We'll have to find out about that. I'm not in my forties either, and all the millennials I've spoken to are just before that. So maybe that's for another series to be followed up. Perhaps.

And do they feel the same?

Yes, especially Peter, our common acquaintance, has always said that even though he was the expert in his field at his age, didn't feel that he was being taken seriously in the role. In my previous business life in local media, I felt the same when I was in my late 20s, early 30s. There was always an opportunity to try and put you down based on your age. And that's why I wanted to come back to you and see The, I know the entertainment industry can be tough, so can be the media industry. And I'm assuming you had moments when you felt that your competitors were trying to put you down and use tactics that wouldn't be seen as the most ethical nowadays. How did you manage to overcome those challenges?

I think it still is ongoing. I think what's happened within my industry, again, particularly in the UK, is I have spoken out. Quite openly about below-par working standards for a lot of performers. And that's not speaking for everybody, just my experiences. And we have a lot of performers come through, and because we have such an open-door policy at Pop Up, we, we, we hear a lot of stories. They come and tell us a lot of stories about experiences they've had. Now, I am not gonna ever badmouth individual companies. I will never do that. We're all in our own race for our own goals and vision, but I will speak out about how the industry needs to improve working standards. We need to stop paying men more than we pay women, and we need to stop paying— I mean, there's— I could talk about the pay structure of our company in depth, but a lot of these things need to change, and there needs to be a lot more importance on mental health. And I speak out publicly about this. Well, then that has started a lot of hate. Towards me and my company from other companies. Now, I've always said, if you think I'm speaking about you, that's a you problem, not a me problem. Because if someone posted about, I don't know, my boss is bullying me at work, I wouldn't read that and go, I wonder if they're talking about me, unless I was bullying somebody at work. So I've always said, like, if you think it's about you, then that's very much on you. It's nothing to do with me. But that has caused quite a stir. The, the positives of that is that a lot of companies are now implementing a lot more care and wellness and welfare around performers. And so it has had a positive impact too. But I will never forget when I won the first cruise ship contract that I was telling you about. Um, we had two companies that I know of, and I know for a fact, um, tried to sabotage that opportunity for us. And that, that kind of thing does go on. And I just think there is so much work for everybody in this industry. If we get approached by a client and, um, we don't feel like the opportunity is right for us, we actively call up one of our competitors and say, we've had this job come through, we don't think it's right for us, do you want it? We pass it on. And I just think that's how it should be. And I'm waiting for someone to do that for me yet. It's not happened yet, but it will.

So the good deed has not been returned yet.

No, and that's not why we do it. I just think, and I see one of the companies we did that for, I've seen just how much they're thriving now and off an opportunity we sent their way. And I just think that's what this should be about. And it should be a shared goal that we create an industry that people are proud to be part of, not tearing down the company that's speaking out about the changes that need to happen.

You touched on an interesting and important topic, both in your industry, but so many other industries, and that was equal pay. And if my interpretation is correct, especially on variety shows, when the performer doesn't have an individual name of their own to pull in a crowd like a typical artist, their name is not the one that draws in the crowd. So does that make equal pay easier compared to, say, the egos of stars and superstars?

You would think so. I mean, at Pop Up, we— everybody gets paid equally, even on board our cruise ship. Back in the day, it was very much like singers get one fee, dancers pay another. And actually, I do think that structure still exists. And I do see why in some ways. But what we did was strip away those titles, make everybody singer, dancers, and everybody gets paid equal, because there's nothing more uncomfortable than knowing that the person that you're stood next to on stage is being paid less or more than you for doing the exact same job. But it still happens where males are paid more than females because, as you can imagine, in this industry there's a lot more females than there are males. And so to entice the men to work on a particular contract, they pay them more than the females. And I just think it is absolutely outrageous.

But you don't do that. And obviously your experience as, as a woman, both on performing on cruise ship and then starting your own company, you can implement that change from the beginning in the contract.

And I remember when I worked on cruise ships back in the day, knowing that all my male castmates were being paid £400, £500 more a month than I was. And what's funny is with cruise ship shows in particular, male singers spend the most time backstage. They do the least, whereas the females are the ones that are dancing in most of the numbers as well as singing. So we're putting in the legwork and getting paid less. Remember being 22 and just accepting that as the norm. I never questioned it.

Until you had the opportunity to make a change yourself.

Yeah, until I realized, oh, that was actually a decision I could make, which meant that somebody else made that decision to pay the men more. And when I realized that, I was like, that's when I, everything came into light and the situation that I was in. But once I realized that somebody had sat down and it wasn't the cruise line's decision, or somebody had made a decision to pay men more than women. So.

And would you say there are challenges in bringing new talent on, or people nowadays still want to be performers, even in an era where social media, especially short-form video on TikTok and Instagram, can make them famous in a way?

I think there's never been more performers in the industry than there is right now. I know after COVID a lot of people left because I think COVID kind of highlighted the lack of security in that choice of career. But then I think we've boomed again and we're seeing higher numbers at our auditions than ever. But I also think what we have done at PopUp, and this is something I'm incredibly proud of, is we've created culture like no other that I've seen in our industry. And, and that's not, um, doing anybody else's cultural disservice. I'm just saying what we've created is unique. And I think I touched on our Instagram before. You go on our Instagram and it's like going on your best friend's Instagram. You feel like you are a part of this family. And that's what it feels like when you're in our studio, when you're on site with us, when you're at our audition, when you're on a long-haul flight with us, because trust me, that happens a lot. You are part of this family. And so the standard of talent that we are attracting now. I can't, I sit there sometimes, like we did a large event on New Year's Eve and the girls that were in that, I think I've never seen talent as good as this. I'm blown away, sat there watching it. And that is testament to what we've created because people want to be a part of that.

Amy, I wanted to ask you, you said earlier, you started this business with your best friends and you were alone at the beginning, but you, you created and you brought in your best friends. How was the journey being alongside them? Do you think you could have done it alone, or do you complement each other's skills?

A lot of people, and they speak about this now, don't go into business with your friends. It can end in trauma. But for me, the journey so far has been nothing but amazing. We very rarely have crosswords and we don't act, it's not I'm the boss and they all work for me. We are 4 really, really good friends, best friends that are just living their dream job. And we're all ex-show team on board cruise ships. We all know how it works, where we want this, uh, company to go. And so it's just this shared vision that we all have, and we're all completely aligned with that. On my very first contract, I met Dan that works with me now, and he was my boss on that contract. So we always joke about that because I don't think I could have him tell me what to do anymore. But it's not just something we say like, oh, we're all best friends. We all just chose to go on holiday together in January. We all went to the Maldives together for 5 days, which is, you know, it's just us on an island. We can't get off. And that is because we are genuine. That is a genuine love and friendship. And then when we're there, all we talk about is where we're going to take Pop-Up in 2025. Where are we going to be in 5 years? We should do this rock. Performers. Oh, we should get this new merchandise. We just live, breathe, and eat this company in a way that is authentic. It's not forced. And everything that you see online about what we talk about.

So you managed to maintain an open line of communication and align all this vision across a decade. So you, would you say the secret is constant communication, or is there any other secret sauce that other business founders and entrepreneurs should keep in mind along with their co-founders?

Yeah, I think constant communication, definitely. Sorry, I'm really just thinking about this one on what, what I believe has been the secret. I think I want the people that have helped me build up this company have a life that they could never have imagined on an income that they could never have imagined, because ultimately I couldn't do this without them. But also they are my closest friends. They are like my family. So I want to see them thrive. And when I see them do amazing things with either the money that they've earned or the traveling that they get to do, that is pure joy for me and fulfillment. Because the benefit of working with your friends is that you get to do everything together. And so if I look after them in that way, the benefits just come round in full circle for everybody. So looking at, and like I said for the performers, they all have access to the therapist. They all have access to the happiness program. We have something called the Fun Fun. We do a pop-up holiday every year. There isn't a company that would look after these people like I do. And, and that doesn't even come from a place of, oh, it's because I don't want them to leave. It's because I thrive on watching them thrive. And so I think if anybody here was listening and wondering how they can look after their people, It's got to come from a genuine place of wanting to see these people win. Because if it's just, oh, I'll chuck them a bonus every quarter, or I'll do this so that they don't leave, they will always find something better. But if it comes from a genuine place of generosity and care, and I think that's something my dad's always taught me, he's always been so generous and wanted to see people do well around him because that fills him with joy, and that's very much how I feel. When we get to a place where I'm able to increase their salary, I can't wait to tell them. I'm so excited to sit them down and be like, I'm increasing your salary. It fills me with joy because I think, what are they going to do with that extra money this year? One of the girls is buying a new house. One of them is about to book a really nice holiday. And I'm like, this company and the hard work and the friendship and the love that we have is the reason that they've got these. Lives.

You said two key things in, in the last couple of bits. One was that you genuinely enjoy looking after people who work with and for you. And the second one was that you live and breathe this business. But I also know from my experience that things can get overwhelming at times. So My question is, how do you look after yourself, number one, and how do you disconnect in order to stay grounded and come back productive and with initiative every time when you have a break?

It's an age-old question, this, I think. Where do— where's the work-life balance? But cliché, I know, but if work doesn't feel like work, then you don't need to find this balance that so many people talk about. For example, when I said that me and the team went away this, in January, we were off. Our out of office was on. We didn't need to work yet. We sat and spoke about things we wanted to achieve, things we wanted to do differently. And it wouldn't even be me bringing it up sometimes, it would be the other guys, because it's the thing that we love the most. However, Q4 2024 nearly broke us all, and that was a period of time where we were like, we need a rest, we need a break. We grew so quickly in a short amount of time, um, and none of us could prepare for it. Because if— for anyone that's listening that works out in the Middle East, you'll know that you have about 3 minutes notice for any job. And so that kind of happened 100 times, and then before you knew it, we were incredibly overwhelmed. So to find the balance, for me personally, I put a lot of hard stops in place. So every night I put my phone on charge in a different room at 7:30, which can be quite difficult because that's only 4:30 in the UK right now. But my team know, the ones that are in the UK, if they need anything before— for me, it's got to be before 4:30. That I wake up every morning and from 6 till 9, they are my hours. I go to the gym, I go for a nice long walk, I listen to a podcast. I do— I go for a walk at 8 AM every day with my husband without fail. And, and so I really prioritize those hours in my day. But also, I have to say, I'm very, very fortunate that I have a husband that is my best friend, my teammate, my biggest cheerleader. My biggest support. And so he always ensures that we have a date night every week, and we have these 8 AM walks every morning, and that at the weekends we either spend all day sat on the balcony here just reading and chilling out, because we know we need that time too. But if I'm being honest, when I relax, that's when my mind comes alive, but in a positive way, in a, oh, we should be doing this, and Oh, I need to look at getting these new merchandise, or all of these things. When I'm relaxed and I'm taking that time is when my ideas flow. But I don't stress myself out with, oh, this is when I should be relaxing. I enjoy it. I enjoy when those ideas start flowing, and so I allow it to happen. I'm walking at 9 o'clock in the morning or whatever with a podcast, I'm always writing down ideas. And so that's what I mean by the work-life balance is I think that just looks different for everybody, depending on maybe the job they're in.

You mentioned something that other people have mentioned to me in the interviews as well, and I want to just flag it up to make sure that anybody tuning in makes note of that, is taking notes when the ideas come. If you, if you leave it for later, it won't be the same. So in a way, your phone is your best friend whenever the idea strikes, right?

Yeah, my notes notes section on my phone is like War and Peace. I honestly, it's— and I have some of them locked with only face recognition because I'm like, these are my million-dollar ideas, I'm locking these with my face recognition. And then other ones are— I'm huge on LinkedIn, I love LinkedIn— and someone will just say something, I'm like, there's a LinkedIn post in that, and I'll just write down the headline of that. But I'm doing that all day, every day.

And what would you say is the biggest risk you've had to take so far in, in your career and in your business?

Uh, I think a big risk was moving my business and my entire life out to Dubai. That one fortunately did very much pay off. And something I haven't mentioned is that in 2023, I set up another business called the Creative Events Collective with my business partner. And we won the contract to deliver the Grotto at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. And that all went well. So well that in 2024, we won the Grotto in Dubai Mall, which was obviously a huge jump. But these projects are self-funded and we make our money from the revenue. But of course, these companies aren't going to be profitable in the first few years because the investment is huge. And I think that expansion from Trafford Centre to Dubai Mall was the biggest, hands down, the biggest risk I have ever taken. Taken in business. Luckily, it was amazing. But I remember, and that fed into, I think, the feeling of Q4 last year of not only was I overwhelmed with workload, but with this huge risk that every day I was waiting to see if it would pay off. And I've never felt responsibility like that, I don't think.

How often do you get back to the UK now? To see family, friends, and keeping in touch? Do you feel a bit uprooted somehow? And I'm obviously speaking as a Romanian in the UK.

I try go back about 4 times a year, probably every quarter if I can. It's funny, when I first moved out, I was like, I'm only going to live in Dubai 50% of the time, and then I'm gonna live in, because I still have my home in the UK. Didn't pan out like that because the more time I spent here, the more time I actually didn't want to go back. And luckily my friends and my family and my parents included love Dubai. They've been coming for the past 10 years, so I've had them out here. And what the strangest part is, every time I go back, you forget that the world just carried on when you left. And you come back and people have had children, or people's children have grown up, or all of these things. And you— and, and, and my life now is so different. My life, my life now is so different to anyone else's life because of the experiences I've had in a completely new country. So when you, when you go back, I've got my core best friends where nothing changes, but actually on the outside of that, a lot changes and it is strange. And every time I go back, I'm like walking up and down the aisles in Tesco and I think, this feels strange, it feels weird, but I always I enjoy going back and I look forward to going back. And I think I enjoy it more than I ever did when I lived there, because I know that I can come back here.

You mentioned you enjoy reading a book, especially you mentioned your Kindle. You mentioned your walks and your podcasts. Are there any particular books or podcasts that changed your business mindset and influenced you in a positive way that helped you take your business further or forward?

So do you listen to Diary of a CEO? I know that as a classic answer, but there's a guy called Daniel Priestley on there.

Yes.

I am now addicted to listening to anything Daniel Priestley has to say, especially everything he talks about from a personal branding perspective. And I think when you hear him describe the importance of personal branding, in conjunction with growing a business, for me, the penny just dropped. And now that's very much— and it's something that I was always doing but without intention. I was just, just sharing my life because it felt nice to do so. Once I had the switch and understood the mentality of why it was so important, it's been a game changer for me. And I think it was listening to— I think the first episode he did was great, especially when we were launching The Grotto, because he helped you get into the psychology of the consumer and all of that. But his second one that he just did last month about personal branding, I think, is a really, really good podcast to listen to for anybody that's a business owner, or anybody in general.

He has a couple of popular books as well, including Oversubscribed, which have been recommended by other Millennial Masters I've interviewed. So they're also worth checking out and Even though some of them are 10 years old, they've stood the test of time in terms of concepts. As we're nearing the end of our interview, there's always something, Amy, that I ask all the Millennial Masters because I know and I understand what it takes. And there's no success without sacrifice. What were the sacrifices you've had to make to be where you are today?

I just posted about this the other day. I think if you are a business owner and you're a passionate business owner that wants to create something unique, you are obviously striving to be exceptional. But to be exceptional, you have to stand alone. Hence, you are the exception. And so you have to live in a way that's different to other people to be able to achieve the things that other people have not. And so all the way from when I was doing Princess parties, I would go to bed at 9 PM. I'm not going out with my friends. I'm not doing the things that other 25-year-olds were doing because I had a job to do. And I feel like that very small sacrifice just gets bigger and bigger as the business scales. So I've had to miss weddings. I've had to miss big occasions for work. I need to be alone a lot of the time because solitude is where I am at peace. When I put my phone on charge at 7:30 at night, I want to be alone. Maybe with doing that, I am sacrificing social connection with other people, but I'm very much in this— Daniel Ionescu calls it a sprint, a sprinting period of my life where I don't want to go to beach clubs at the weekend here in Dubai or go to clubs on Friday night. I genuinely don't have a want to do that. Because I want to carry on building what I'm building right now. And so maybe in 10 years' time, I'll think, oh, I missed out on that, but that was the sacrifice that I made to do what I'm doing. And I just think, like, if you want to be exceptional, you have to do, you have to be the exception.

That's, that's a very good line, but I have one more question for you, Amy. And while we're reflecting, I'm I'm wondering, with all these years of experience under your belt now, what would Amy today say to Amy who was just embarking on a cruise ship for her first contract, being away for over a year, and later on starting a business? What would be the advice you would give to your younger self?

Straight away, the thoughts I started having were focus on getting a thick skin. Because the amount of situations that are gonna be thrown your way, you need a thick skin. Because if Amy then had to deal with the things that Amy now has to deal with, she never would've been able to cope. But it's with that resilience and that bulletproof armor that I now have wrapped around me. But I honestly, especially after last year, believe you could throw anything at me now and I think I'll cope with that.

Anything else that, that comes to mind? Obviously confidence and resilience are key for, for any entrepreneur in their journey.

I think focusing on having a small support network of people that you can trust is key. I don't think when it comes to a support network, I don't think It's about quantity. It's about 4 or 5 people that understand what you are trying to achieve, that understand that for periods of time you might not WhatsApp them back for a month, or you might not be able to see them, or that you might call them up out of the blue and say, I need you, and that will be reciprocated. But I think one of the biggest keys to my success is my parents. My husband and my closest friends who, yes, in my circumstances do so happen to also work for the company. But it's about focusing on a handful of very good relationships rather than being as popular as possible and having a ton of connections. Just don't think that's conducive for a good support network.

Some great insight to wrap up our conversation. Today, Amy. It's been great to, to hear your story and your journey, and I'm looking forward to seeing where you're going to be taking PopUp Global next. Thanks for sticking till the end for another great episode of Millennial Masters. But don't keep this to yourself. Please share the wisdom with someone else, and it will also help me spread the word. Don't miss out on my book club and extra features features, get them in your inbox every week. Simply subscribe on millennialmasters.net. Catch you next week.