Olivia Pountney

I'm Olivia, I'm based in Cornwall and I'm a co-founder of the Cornish Diamond Company.

We're a really new company. So at the moment, my job isn't just one thing. I have to cover lots of different elements of it.

So we sell lab-grown diamond engagement rings via a website. So when we first started, I had to take on a little bit of the responsibility of building the website, making sure it was functional and easy to use for the customers.

So it was thinking about how they see things when they come onto the website, what their journey is going to be like, what they need to know, what's easy for them.

So taking something that could be really complicated and making it really simple for them, whilst keeping design-wise, keeping it aesthetic, keeping it pretty, making sure that people are going to enjoy that side of it.

And then I also cover the social media side of things. So we use that as part of our organic marketing. So that's like advertising the way for people to find us and find our website.

And that's been quite exciting. It's not something that I've really done before. So it's been really enjoyable to learn how to do the photography.

So those sides of being part of a startup are really exciting because you're doing something that you've never done before. You're learning. You're learning a lot, which is really great.

And then the other thing that I look after is we liaise with agencies who look after bigger parts of the business that we can't do yet. So they'll do things like when you Google for engagement rings, then Google only shows you options that a lot of companies will pay for to get onto the top of your search.

So we need to be part of that, but that takes experts. So we work with experts in the agencies to get us up there.

That's a lot of what I do is making sure that what we believe and what we want our company to show people is what the agencies understand and what they're also showing. So a lot of that kind of work is then down to me.

And then just simple, every day-to-day things like emails, looking after customer inquiries and things like that.

So it's quite broad. I think any co-founder, any of a startup would say that they're that good old sentence of you wear many hats, you're doing lots of different things, you're learning lots of different things, but it's really exciting.

And then you can also take what you enjoy the most and you can incorporate that as part of your long-term role.

I try to be quite structured with my day.

So I work at home on my own. I have my co-founder that we probably speak to each other every day to kind of touch base and talk things through.

But because I work at home and don't really report to anyone, I try to be quite regimented with my day.

So I stick to trying to do a nine to five because it's very easy otherwise for things to bleed out into your personal life and you want to keep that structure. I'd say that's always quite important for me. Everyone's different, but for me, I like to keep it that way.

So in the morning, first thing I do would be check emails, deal with anything that's time sensitive. And if I've got a really busy day, I'll try and block times to get important work done and signed off. And then usually check emails again in the afternoon and then finish off my to-do list.

I love a written to-do list, which is very old fashioned to me, but it's just how my brain works. I love ticking it off, that little joyful hit when you've done it is always a treat.

So that tends to be how I work. I prioritise that at the start of the day, look at what I'm gonna need to do and then break it up into blocks throughout the day.

It means that I'm not missing anything. When you've got so many different bases to cover and so much that you do have to do, it's really important to be structured and efficient with it so that you're not just chasing your tail.

So I work with my co-founder Ian. He has a slightly different background from me. So our company is lab-grown diamond engagement rings and he comes as a small business mentor.

So he has a different kind of skill set, whereas my background is goldsmithing. So mine is directly dealing with the jewelry and we work together really well because we have very different experiences when it comes to the work we've done in the past. So we're bringing really different things into the company.

So when we're gonna need to kind of break down the next project that we've got going or the next task, we'll usually either meet in person or have a chat over the phone, talk it through, look at what we need to achieve from what's coming and then see which of us is gonna be best suited to what that end result needs to be.

So it's very much that collaboration between the two of us, just talking it through. And we worked together previously, so we've got a lovely relationship anyway and find it very easy to figure out where we're going.

Learning new things.

It is really exciting starting a new company because the fact that you get to experience so much. So I really loved doing the photography, which I never did before. So doing that for the social media has been quite exciting.

And the biggest thing for me, actually, one of the reasons that I was part of founding this company was the customer experience.

When people come to us, they quite often never spent very much money on jewelry or they don't even know anything about jewelry. They're just buying an engagement ring for their partner and it can be so scary and so daunting.

And for me, when I can guide them through that process, make it easier, make it simpler for them, make them feel confident and like they understand what they're buying, that's actually really special because you hear some real horror stories of people being treated really badly and coming out of that experience feeling like actually their whole engagement has been tainted by it.

So for me, being able to stop that from happening, being able to look after the customers is actually really important. And that's probably one of the biggest uplifts that I get from my job.

It's the flip side of being able to learn all the new things.

You're also not learning from anyone because there's only myself and my co-founder within the business. You've just kind of got to go with it. You're figuring out a lot on your own.

And that can be really daunting, can be quite scary, particularly then when it comes to like our social media is such a big part of how people find us. Neither of us have done marketing in the past. Ian's done a little bit and touched on that. But for me in particular, it's a really new experience.

And so it's quite scary to think that, am I doing the right thing? Is this working? Is this what people need me to be doing? Is this what people want to be seeing? So it's very much not being able to learn from people when you're trying to figure a whole new thing out.

So when we built the website, all of those kinds of things, when it comes to paid marketing, it can be a bit scary. But you just got to go with it.

So I've been designing and making jewelry since I was 16, so that's been going on for years now.

But I actually did really poorly at art when I was at school. I came out with a really not quite failing, but pretty much a failing grade. And that really knocked my confidence when I came out of school and I actually didn't do anything with it for years.

So when I left school, I did A levels, but when I left school at 18, I just went and got a job. I moved around, I did different jobs.

And then reflecting on the experience I had, I think it was very much a case of I wasn't particularly inspired by my teacher, we didn't gel. And I think I just then probably I became, I probably got a bit lazy and didn't actually put the work in. And that's all going to reflect in the end experience, isn't it?

But I came back to it then when I was 25, I decided that I wanted to come back to the jewelry, keep going. So that was when I went to university and doing the degree, having that gap in between actually gave me some great skills, actually just some good people skills, good work experience, and actually gave me the space to really know this is what I really want to do, I really want to use it, I really want to make the most of this.

So I think even though I didn't do well with it from school, I then went on and really well at uni, actually became a prize winner, and got my confidence back basically. So it was a bit of a long winded journey, but we got there in the end.

And then after that, I went and worked for some luxury brands. So I got a really good, really good experience in what people need from you as a salesperson.

And then also got to work for some companies where I thought, that's not how I do that, that's not how I treat customers. And then that then brings you to the other side of what we do.

So between the experience working in luxury sales and then my degree, it's all kind of come together.

I think that's when it comes to being structured makes it so important for me.

Like I said before, everyone's different, but for me that set hours, set switch off time.

So during the day as well, I'll have an hour to go and take the dog for a walk. So that time away from the computer, it's that fresh air it gives me. I feel much more energised when I come back then.

I think not feeling like you have to have your head in it all the time is really important. It's really easy when you're in a startup, because you love it and you really enjoy what you're doing, to get really swept up for that and do it 12, 15 hours a day, not have a break, not take the space. But even when you love what you're doing, burnout is gonna be really easy like that.

You can get really overwhelmed and then you stop loving what you're doing. So for me, it's that structure, that switch off time and trying to be as strict as I can with do my work when I need to do it.

Don't get distracted in one drive and do something else. So I have to come back to it outside of what I kind of consider my working hours.

So that's the really important thing for me is just prioritising that very separate time.

When you work at home as well, that can be quite hard. So I've got the separate office. So the door closes, I leave the laptop in there.

I might sketch and design in the evenings because that's a bit more of a kind of peaceful switch off time. But generally I do try to make sure the work gets done during the day and then we switch off.

I think that will probably be stepping back to when I was at university, which really would have been the start of my career.

And I won a national prize for the Worshipful Company of Pewterers, which was for a design competition, particularly after the experience I'd had at school when I then started to question whether I was talented, whether I could be a designer or anything like that.

When I achieved that, that was only in my second year. And I just remember being absolutely thrilled by it. And it gave me that boost again to know I can do this and I am going down the right path.

I think to have the confidence in yourself, to not feel that you have to have all the answers straight away, but to just explore what you find exciting.

So that's really important work-wise, that you really do enjoy it, that you really do feel that you get something out of it, but you don't have to know all the answers straight away.

It's a bit of a journey. It can take time. And to not put that pressure on you to just know it straight away. There's gonna be... there's gonna be pitfalls and you're gonna struggle sometimes, but that doesn't mean that you're not gonna get there.