SASHA BENZ - CINQ, ALL MY FRIENDS ARE MODELS

Bondi-born Sasha Benz has a very impressive resumé. She’s the founder of four businesses and is Creative Director of The Surf Lodge – the Hamptons ‘it’ destination where, on any given day, you’re guaranteed to spot at least one major celeb (we’re not kidding…when we were there, Beyoncé was in town).

While her life might look very glam from the outside Sasha has worked incredibly hard to get here – at 24 she moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion and styling before starting two businesses, both of which didn’t get off the ground.

After experiencing these failures, she dug deep and went on to start not one but four businesses – fashion blog ‘All My Friends Are Models’, social networking app Cinq, and Wyld Blue and Baybi Pop – two retail stores in the Hamptons.

This episode was recorded in Sasha’s beautiful Hamptons home and over the course of the interview we covered a lot of ground:

Why two of her first businesses failed, and the lessons she learned through those experiences
The importance of building your rolodex, and how every opportunity has come through one of her contacts
The challenge with transitioning out of a creative industry into tech, and how she’s managed to quickly upskill
The importance of brand partnerships and how to make sure you’re going after the right ones
The power of word of mouth
The process of raising money for her tech start-up
How relationships are the most important thing, and they should be invested in above all else

“I spent about a year building this business, but in the end I just didn’t have the money or the power to get it off the ground.”

— On one of her earlier failed business ideas.

“It was so frightening going into it. It was super formal, super business-y, and I had to know my numbers. But I love learning new things, so I just figured it out.”

— On leaving fashion to go into tech.