The Diary of a CEOGrace Beverley: How To Build A Multi-Million Pound Empire At 24 | E69
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 4:20
Introduction: A Gen Z Founder Under the Microscope
Steven Bartlett frames Grace Beverley as a uniquely intense and accomplished 23-year-old who built two multi-million-pound companies while at Oxford and amassed a huge online following. He signals that the conversation will explore the hidden costs behind her polished public success—burnout, obsessive work habits, and personal trade-offs.
- •Grace runs a sustainable fashion brand (Tala) and a fitness ecosystem (Shreddy: app, supplements, equipment).
- •She built these while studying at Oxford and growing large social channels.
- •Steven contrasts the enviable surface of her life with the heavy workload and personal cost underneath.
- •The episode will dig into values, sacrifice, mental health, and how she has adjusted course so young.
- 4:20 – 12:00
From E-Books to Empire: Gradual Beginnings in Business
Grace explains that her path into business was not a grand decision to ‘be an entrepreneur’ but a series of small, opportunistic moves, starting with monetizing her fitness content as an e-book at 18. Over years, and driven partly by necessity (like a missing student loan), she experimented with products, made mistakes, and slowly built momentum and confidence.
- •Her first monetization was an e-book created during an IBM internship, turning free content into paid value.
- •Early years were ‘residual extra income,’ not a clear-cut startup with big goals and timelines.
- •A second wave of e-books was driven by practical need—her student loan didn’t arrive, so she created something to sell.
- •She challenges the media narrative of a single eureka moment; her journey was cumulative, one decision at a time.
- •She emphasizes that confidence followed action, not the other way around.
- 12:00 – 24:20
Ideas vs Execution: Barriers, Circumstance, and Confidence
The discussion broadens to why so many people have business ideas but never take the first step. Grace underscores that barriers range from material circumstances (time, money, multiple jobs) to fear and lack of confidence. She stresses the value of testing ideas small and not romanticizing entrepreneurship as an all-or-nothing leap.
- •Loss of jobs in the pandemic pushed many toward freelancing and entrepreneurship, but most stall at the ‘idea’ stage.
- •Circumstance matters: people juggling multiple low-wage jobs often can’t sacrifice time to test ideas.
- •Psychological barriers—self-doubt, “why me?”, perfectionism—also freeze people at the starting line.
- •She credits her own progress to gradually testing, proving concepts, then building on what worked.
- •She warns against only seeing the polished end product and not the many abandoned, bad early attempts.
- 24:20 – 37:20
Women in Business: Bias, Privilege, and Internalized Sexism
Grace reflects on what it means to be a young woman leading companies in male-dominated spaces like fitness and fashion logistics. She openly contextualizes her own advantages—race, education, class—while describing the persistent disbelief and stereotyping she faces. She also acknowledges her own internalized biases about other successful women.
- •She foregrounds her privilege: white, able-bodied, privately educated, Oxford graduate.
- •Despite that, she encounters candidates, partners, and collaborators who refuse to accept her authority as acting CEO.
- •She notes common stereotypes of successful women: superwoman, secretly unhappy personally, or an unpleasant ‘bitch’/tyrant.
- •She admits she’s caught herself applying these stereotypes to women she hears about, recognizing her own internalized sexism.
- •She notes progress since previous generations but insists there’s still a long way to go.
- 37:20 – 50:40
Criticism, Validation, and Growing Up Online
Steven probes how Grace deals with detractors who attribute her success solely to privilege or dismiss her achievements. She distinguishes between healthy conversations about privilege and the personal sting of criticism, especially since she initially filled low self-esteem with online validation. Stepping back from social media exposed how dependent she had become on external approval.
- •Grace welcomes nuanced conversations about privilege and contextualizing success—even if some people ‘write her off.’
- •She insists her followers who’ve watched her over years know her intense work ethic and unhealthy overwork patterns.
- •She describes an early career phase where validation from followers filled a deep lack of self-confidence.
- •When she stepped back from social media, that validation bandage was ripped off, forcing her to face her intrinsic self-worth.
- •She differentiates between rationally understanding criticism vs. the human “punch in the stomach” feeling it still elicits.
- 50:40 – 1:04:20
Sacrifice, Obsession, and the University Experience She Gave Up
Grace details the personal sacrifices behind running fast-growing businesses while at Oxford: long days of academic work followed by late nights on the companies, and a university life nothing like what she’d imagined. She likens building a company to having a baby—constant responsibility and inability to walk away—and admits she grew up too quickly.
- •Her daily routine at Oxford: early academic work, then working on her business late into the night.
- •She felt pressure to over-perform academically to avoid any suggestion she wasn’t serious about her degree.
- •She sacrificed the typical ‘university experience’ of carefree social life for work and high-profile responsibilities.
- •Running a business is compared to parenting: you can’t ignore crises, quit for two years, or stop paying attention to employees’ livelihoods.
- •She acknowledges she’d still make the same choices, but they were unexpected and costly trade-offs.
- 1:04:20 – 1:15:40
Why We Keep Grinding: Motivation, Family, and Fear of Being Trapped
The conversation turns to the psychological drivers behind Grace’s relentless work ethic. She attributes it partly to a family culture of hard work and observing her mother’s career, and partly to an anxiety about ending up stuck in a job she hates. From school age, she aggressively sought work experience and second-chance opportunities, including reapplying to Oxford after rejection.
- •Both parents modeled intense commitment to their careers, especially her mother as a working mother of four.
- •Grace never internalized the idea that it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a serious career.
- •As a teen, she took internships every school holiday out of fear of being stuck in unfulfilling work.
- •She reapplied to Oxford immediately after rejection, securing a gap-year IBM placement the same day she was turned down.
- •She self-identifies as dogged and ‘straight out’—once she chooses something, she pushes until she gets it or decisively moves on.
- 1:15:40 – 1:30:00
The Worst Decision: Launching Tala During Oxford Finals
Grace recounts what she calls the worst decision of her life: launching Tala a month before her final Oxford exams, while writing massive amounts of academic work. Even though people praised her as the ultimate hustler, she now sees this as a textbook case of destructive overwork and misplaced pride in suffering.
- •Timeline: Tala launch on May 7; finals finishing June 6; roughly 40,000 words plus five three-hour exams in two weeks.
- •She also had investors, suppliers, and a team relying on a big, polished launch.
- •Externally, she was celebrated for working in the library at 3 a.m. and on supplier calls at 7 a.m., living ‘the hustle.’
- •Internally, she now recognizes it as unwise, unproductive, and dangerous, inspired partly by her need for validation as ‘a hard worker.’
- •This experience heavily informed her book on productivity and critique of hustle culture.
- 1:30:00 – 1:44:00
Burnout, PTSD, and the Body Forcing a Shutdown
Grace opens up about a traumatic event that led to PTSD presenting as seizures, which she initially downplayed until hospitalization forced her to face it. Despite championing mental health days for her team, she had seen her own mental fragility as weakness. Therapy and reflection showed her how differently she treated herself compared to friends.
- •She describes a period where trauma-induced PTSD led to seizures and hospital visits.
- •She had multiple warning signs before that but only took it seriously when symptoms became undeniably physical.
- •She admits to a ‘toxic mental health attitude’ toward herself: compassion for others, harsh dismissal of her own needs.
- •She tried therapy initially as a weekly offload but found herself talking like an interviewee, avoiding deeper vulnerability.
- •She argues business owners especially need therapy because constant high-stakes crises aren’t psychologically ‘normal’ to absorb alone.
- 1:44:00 – 1:58:00
Redefining Productivity: Sprinting vs. Sustained Performance
Building on her burnout, Grace tackles the mismatch between how we understand physical performance and work performance. Expecting ourselves to ‘sprint a marathon’ mentally is as irrational as doing it physically. She advocates a more nuanced view where hard work and self-care are intertwined, not opposing camps.
- •She explains that current productivity culture means doing the most in the least time, then repeating it indefinitely.
- •This is like asking an ultramarathon runner to sprint the entire race: they’ll lose and get injured.
- •Hard work does matter—she doesn’t know anyone truly successful who doesn’t work hard—but so do rest and boundaries.
- •Sometimes self-care is indeed rest; sometimes self-care is finally finishing the project you’ve avoided for weeks.
- •She calls out the binary online conversation: glamorized burnout vs. glamorized self-care, leaving no room for realistic middle ground.
- 1:58:00 – 2:10:00
Toxic Positivity, Algorithms, and Binary Thinking Online
Steven raises accusations he’s received of ‘toxic positivity’, and Grace situates this in the context of polarized, algorithm-driven echo chambers. She argues that social media strips nuance and forces creators into rigid positions, even though most humans hold conflicting thoughts and behaviors (cognitive dissonance).
- •Grace acknowledges she has her own ‘toxic’ coping mechanisms, like burying herself in work when something goes wrong.
- •Both extreme positivity and extreme negativity can be unhelpful; online discourse often labels one side and ignores the other.
- •She notes that truly nuanced positions rarely fit into short posts; most people won’t read a 2,000-word think piece.
- •Social platforms reward linear, binary stances—pro vs. anti—instead of complex truths like “this is bad, and I still sometimes do it.”
- •This pressure to be one-dimensional contributed to her stepping back from constant online commentary.
- 2:10:00 – 2:23:00
Relationships, Intimidated Men, and Choosing Work First
Steven presses Grace on dating as a young, wealthy, visible woman. She’s pragmatic about the pool of men who may feel emasculated by her success and frames that as a useful filter rather than a problem. For now, she openly deprioritizes romantic relationships, recognizing that her current bandwidth is consumed by work and existing loved ones.
- •Grace is currently single and intentionally not focused on finding a partner; work and personal goals come first.
- •She acknowledges that some men find successful women intimidating, but she’s glad—those men are self-filtering out.
- •She predicts future relationship challenges will center more around time and prioritization than male ego.
- •She identifies as an extremely loving and committed person in relationships, and suspects she’d over-invest if she were in one now.
- •She wants a partner one day but refuses to compromise on someone being genuinely supportive of her work.
- 2:23:00 – 2:38:00
Money, Friends, and Power Dynamics When You’re the ‘Rich One’
The pair dissect the awkward dynamics of being significantly wealthier than your friendship group in your 20s. Grace is upfront about enjoying treating friends—buying dinners, holidays—but is wary of people who may be around solely for those perks. She relies on long-standing friendships and her own judgment to manage this.
- •Most of Grace’s close friends are long-term, many in entry-level jobs, and not ‘yes people’—they challenge her.
- •She enjoys generosity: buying bottles on birthdays, paying for cheap dinners, taking friends on trips, giving good gifts.
- •She distinguishes between genuine generosity and ego-driven ‘flexing’ where you always suggest expensive venues.
- •She’s aware of potential exploitation and has had at least one experience of someone primarily valuing her for trips and perks.
- •She sees it as a responsibility not to let money isolate her from people in different economic situations.
- 2:38:00 – 2:52:00
Work Culture, Boundaries, and the Pandemic’s Impact
Grace zooms out to critique modern work culture, exacerbated by remote work and blurred boundaries during the pandemic. She draws on books like ‘Rework’ and ‘Work Rules’ to highlight how corporate perks can mask expectations of constant availability, and how our generation’s boundaryless approach to life bleeds into burnout.
- •Internalized work culture now equates simply living your life (off Slack) with ‘slacking off.’
- •She notes that perks like free meals and laundry can be tools to keep employees in the office longer, not pure generosity.
- •Working from home made her simultaneously work more hours, produce less, and feel her mental health slide.
- •She links this to a generational pattern of bulldozing boundaries in the name of progress, then getting lost without any limits.
- •She questions whether four-day workweeks are implemented for employee well-being or just to cram more output into fewer days.
- 2:52:00 – 3:18:00
Stepping Back from Social: Nuance, Cancel Culture, and Standing for Something
Steven notes that Grace is one of the few influencers who clearly stands for things like sustainability and work reform, which makes her a target for hyper-scrutiny and perfection policing. She explains why she quit YouTube and reduced her online presence—not as surrender to negativity, but to focus on building enduring businesses and reclaiming her mental space.
- •Taking stands (veganism, sustainability, feminism) invites interrogation and perfection demands, both online and offline.
- •She compares social-media hypocrisy calls to everyday life: people love catching others in cognitive dissonance they share.
- •Grace left YouTube during a difficult period; it was partly about mental health, partly about long-term business strategy.
- •She built financial cushion and business foundations first, so she could afford to disappear if needed.
- •She emphasizes that not every retreat from a platform is a ‘loss’—sometimes it’s the most strategic move.
- 3:18:00 – 3:40:00
What She Actually Loves Doing: Brand and Product as Her Superpower
Grace clarifies what her real work is now that she’s stepped back from full-time influencing. As CEO of Tala and Shreddy, plus her own brand, she’s learned that her irreplaceable zone of genius is brand and product—while other functions (finance, operations) are better handled by seasoned specialists.
- •Her role has progressively shifted from executing everything to working ‘on’ the business instead of ‘in’ it.
- •The tasks that repeatedly pull her back in are marketing and branding, revealing her unique value.
- •She sees founder-led brands (Gymshark, House of CB, Huel) thriving when founders stay deeply involved in product and brand vision.
- •She’s hired senior talent for areas including product (e.g., from Sweaty Betty) and admits feeling intimidated interviewing them.
- •She now uses her time primarily where she’s irreplaceable and lets true experts own their domains.
- 3:40:00 – 4:03:00
Letting Go of Ego: Delegation, Legitimacy, and Leading as a Young Founder
This section dives into the emotional side of delegation. Grace and Steven both recall fearing highly experienced hires as young leaders. She talks about the insecurity of wanting to touch everything to feel legitimate, and the inflection point where she realized this was capping growth and harming the business.
- •Early hires were students and fresh grads partly due to budget, partly because senior hires felt intimidating.
- •As revenue grew, she hired serious operators, accepting that they know far more in their verticals than she does.
- •She reframes leadership as enabling others to be founders of their projects, not hovering as the all-knowing boss.
- •Her investors and other founders reinforced that good hires ‘pay for themselves’ by freeing her to do high-leverage work.
- •She now sees clinging to tasks you’re not best at as ego-driven and ultimately anti-growth.
- 4:03:00 – 4:21:00
Mistakes, Intern Errors, and Emotional Regulation as a Boss
They explore how to handle inevitable mistakes within a team, especially when Grace’s personal brand is tied to her companies. She describes her instinct to leave the room, cool off, and then address issues constructively, emphasizing that screaming at staff is neither effective nor aligned with her long-term values.
- •Grace acknowledges mistakes from interns and junior staff can blow back on her personally online.
- •She distinguishes between honest mistakes and fundamental mismatches in values/brand understanding.
- •Her options are: fix together and mentor, or kindly part ways if it’s a persistent misalignment.
- •Temper outbursts might happen privately with housemates, but she actively avoids them in professional contexts.
- •She uses physical exits—going to a café—to avoid reacting in the heat of the moment in the office.
- 4:21:00 – 4:36:40
Self-Worth, Validation, and the Person She Wants to Become
Asked who she wants to be, Grace identifies unconditional self-worth—not more money or bigger exits—as the main growth edge. She knows she’s harsh on herself, craves validation, and struggles to forgive her own mistakes. Stepping away from constant online praise and criticism is part of learning to validate herself from within.
- •Her central aspiration is to develop stable self-worth that isn’t constantly rocked by external feedback.
- •She openly calls herself ‘Miss Trunchbull’ in her own head—never satisfied, always demanding more.
- •She recognizes she sees her own mental health struggles as weakness, while seeing friends’ as legitimate.
- •She doesn’t fully know how to ‘fix’ self-validation, but believes awareness and reduced noise from social media are key.
- •She also wants to maintain the early-20s life experience—living with friends, being young—rather than prematurely morphing into a 40-year-old executive archetype.
- 4:36:40 – 4:52:00
Instagram, Representation, and Why She Didn’t Disappear Entirely
Despite stepping away from YouTube and reducing output, Grace kept Instagram. She sees it as both a manageable way to stay connected and an important platform to visibly represent young women in business and to celebrate her own and her brands’ achievements without shame.
- •She uses Instagram more like a regular person now—posting when she wants, with no rigid content strategy.
- •She’s aware Instagram is often called the worst platform for mental health but uses it with stricter personal boundaries.
- •She feels women who loudly celebrate their business success face harsher backlash than men, and wants to push back by existing visibly.
- •She believes she ‘owes it to herself’ to be able to celebrate her own success after working so hard.
- •Instagram allows her to maintain a degree of community and representation without the exhaustive demands of vlogging.
- 4:52:00 – 5:09:00
Regrets, Non-Regrets, and Learning from Rejection
When asked about regrets, Grace mostly reframes past ‘failures’ as redirected paths, citing her initial rejection from Oxford and a dream job canceled by the pandemic. She acknowledges this might be a form of ‘toxic positivity’ but believes her bias toward making something good out of bad situations keeps regrets from calcifying.
- •She sees not getting into Oxford the first time as a path to valuable corporate experience at IBM and eventual success on reapplication.
- •A dream job (implied major media opportunity) canceled by COVID turned out possibly for the best, given her shift away from social-first work.
- •She admits she may block some sadness to stay moving forward, but doesn’t see value in ruminating on unchangeable outcomes.
- •Her core stance: regret is less useful than extracting lessons and redirecting energy.
- •She sees strength in acknowledging past missteps without letting them define her identity.
- 5:09:00 – 5:26:00
Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Focus: Saying No to New Businesses
Despite being a natural idea-generator, Grace now actively resists launching more businesses. She already runs three ‘companies’ if you count her personal brand and believes the most disciplined, high-impact move is to deepen and scale what she has rather than chasing the next shiny concept.
- •Her current plate: Tala, Shreddy, and a growing personal brand with a book and media obligations.
- •She has seriously contemplated additional ventures, including an ‘influencer VC,’ but recognized this as ego and momentum rather than necessity.
- •She’s strict on preserving weekends and realistic about unexpected work taking up a large portion of each week.
- •Her new mantra: more is not always more; one or two well-built entities can outperform five flimsy ones.
- •She intends to channel her idea energy into major projects within existing businesses rather than entirely new companies.
- 5:26:00 – 5:41:00
Exit Strategies, Corporate Creep, and an Open-Ended Future
Looking ahead, Grace doesn’t have a fixed exit timeline for her businesses. Instead, she anticipates pivot points driven by scale, funding needs, or her own joy threshold. She’s wary of her brands becoming too corporate and losing what makes them fulfilling for her.
- •She’s considered selling one business in a few years and keeping the other long-term, but acknowledges this keeps shifting.
- •She expects the real decision points will come when she either hits a personal ‘I’m done’ wall or the business demands change (e.g., funding, acquisition).
- •Both Shreddy and Tala are still early: Shreddy ~4 years old, Tala under 2 at the time of recording.
- •She’s conscious of not becoming obsessed with ‘the exit’ at the expense of present execution quality.
- •An overly corporate environment in her own company would be a signal to consider moving on.
- 5:41:00
Redefining Balance and Happiness in Her Early 20s
In closing, Grace reflects on balance as subjective rather than a neat 50/50 between work and life. Right now, it means heavy work focus combined with genuine daily happiness, living with friends, and not forcing adulthood stereotypes like high-rise solitude. Steven ends by praising her unusual self-awareness and nuance for her age.
- •She’s much more balanced now than a year before the interview, largely due to clearer boundaries and choices.
- •Her ‘balance’ is work-heavy but feels right; most importantly, she is genuinely happy and doesn’t feel she’s missing life.
- •She deliberately chose to live with three friends instead of in an isolated luxury apartment, to stay grounded and enjoy her 20s.
- •She recognizes that a future relationship or children would reshape the equation but is not preemptively planning around that.
- •Steven calls her ‘a very wise head’ and highlights her commitment to nuance—she refuses simplistic, binary explanations of complex issues.
