Alice Parmiter quit her corporate job at ASOS in 2021 to become a co-founder of Pimentae tequila alongside friend Wynter Karo. Here, she talks about the loneliness and burnout that can come with starting a brand.
I founded Pimentae with Wynter after spending some time in Mexico and realising that the UK had a disconnect about tequila. We came back into Covid and decided that we wanted to bridge that gap, so we put our savings together and began by creating the Spicy Margarita in a bottle. Neither of us had any experience in alcohol. Here are three things I experienced as a founder.
- I struggled with boundaries
Both Wynter and I had come from a corporate world where we had a lot of support and structure. Then, suddenly we were working alone in our own homes. Since Wynter and I were also in the same friendship group, the brand suddenly became all-encompassing in our lives. It took us two years to set some boundaries and say that after six o’clock we weren’t going to do any more work. As a co-founder, you really could work forever, and we both did until we were burned out. We weren’t taking the time to do other things we enjoyed like seeing friends or going to the gym and we hit the point of feeling exhausted and not enjoying it anymore. Eventually, we realised we needed to set some boundaries both to be happier, more efficient and better leaders.
2. I was lonely
I think lots of founders don’t anticipate how lonely it can be. We were lucky because we had each other, but even so we both work quite separately. I didn’t realise how much of a job is having a team and talking in the office. At the start we didn’t know anyone or have partners. None of our friends had been through this either and we didn’t have anyone to talk about it. We decided that we needed to start going to social events and networking to bring that communication into the job. Now, we have an amazing team of seven in a co-working space. After having gone through those first few years, it was important to us that we had a company culture.
3. I realised inexperience was a gift
When we started Pimentae we had no experience in alcohol. We had both of our savings, which was around £25k, and through that we managed to launch the brand. From there, it was very limited funds, which meant we had to get creative. We’ve found that larger players in the alcohol industry can be quite archaic and that wasn’t right for us. Being new and not having much money meant we had to do things our own way and that was good. For example, one of our first events was Taste of London, where our friends were running the bar built on upcycled pallets. The brand next to us had spent £200,000 on its build and we thought we looked like a disaster in comparison. But all weekend we were busier than them. It proved people wanted connection and fun, not a big budget.
