Tash Insights
Tash Insights brings you inside the minds of female brand founders and the leaders of the UK’s fastest-growing e-commerce tech companies.
Hosted by Tash Courtenay-Smith – serial entrepreneur, investor, NED and fractional Head of Growth – each episode dives into the strategies, challenges, and breakthroughs that have shaped the futures of some of the UK's leading founders.
Whether you’re a founder, investor, tech lover or you just love hearing the growth stories behind top brands, this is the podcast for you.
Tash Insights
Susie Ma: I started with £200 at a market stall. Now I run a beauty empire.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Tash sits down with Susie Ma, founder and CEO of Tropic Skincare, to discuss her remarkable journey from selling homemade body scrubs at a market stall to building one of the UK’s fastest-growing beauty brands.
Susie shares:
- How she started Tropic at 15 with just £200 and a family recipe
- The turning point that led her to scale Tropic into a multi-million pound company
- What she learned from competing on The Apprentice and securing investment from Lord Sugar
- Why she built a network of 20,000+ ambassadors and transformed the direct-selling model
- How Tropic is leading the way in sustainability, social impact, and women’s empowerment
From selling scrubs at Greenwich Market to running a UK-based beauty empire with its own factory, Susie’s story is proof that determination, purpose, and hard work can lead to incredible success.