1. Can you tell us a little about your background and your company?
I grew up in Weymouth with six siblings. With so many of us and my dad’s disability, I left school at fifteen to help support my family. I started working at thirteen, cleaning ferries. Looking back, that feels very young, but I was always ambitious and craved a better life. At 23, I discovered marketing and joined Omnicom as a team assistant. By 29, I was Marketing Director, and then Managing Director of The Drum, the content and social business. By 33, I was CEO, growing the team from 12 to 75 people.
In 2016, I took on my dream role at notonthehighstreet.com. I began as Chief Commercial & Partner Officer, then Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer, and later, interim CEO. During this time, I helped turn the business from a loss-making enterprise into one of record growth and profit, leading it to a successful sale. I wanted to build a better future for retail—one driven by purpose and community. That’s what inspired i love it, a place that rewards everyday people for their genuine recommendations, with influencer-level commissions.
Corporate giants profit from people’s recommendations every day, but most get nothing in return. i love it changes that – we offer a marketplace curated around what you love, powered by people you trust and reward everyone for their authentic word of mouth.
2. What inspired you to start your business?
Social first shopping is here to stay – the problem is who and what we can trust? Paid ads, paid influence, #sponcon, and the rising use of inauthentic product recommendations all make shopping a minefield. Often the people promoting the product haven’t even tried and tested it. Some are even in contracts that mean that they can’t actually tell people what they really think about a product or what alternatives they like.
It is also incredibly hard for smaller brands, even if they are brilliant at what they do, to get any visibility, because huge giants like Shein or Temu dominate ad spaces. Just getting discovered is so tough today.
The number of times I hear from brands, shoppers and friends that they don’t trust social media platforms or influencers, is staggering too. A recent study suggested 77% of us don’t even trust influencers. What we do however trust is our friends, family and people with real experience and passion.
What we found is that when people know that a person genuinely loves something, what they share matters more to themselves, brands and others. The problem is, few get anything in return – i love it rewrites this wrong.
3. How did you create awareness for your brand?
Whenever you have a big dream, you can worry if others will love and embrace it as much as you. To my relief the reaction has been incredible. We don’t charge brands to join our platform, it’s a zero cost, risk free option. However, it’s our desire to make the platform a fairer space, where anyone can become a sharer, and people are encouraged to stay authentic and true, meaning the best products will always rise up – that has resonated the most.
We decided to start in running, fitness & wellness because we wanted to begin in a community that has positivity and genuine passion at its heart. This has helped us build authentic connections with communities who already share recommendations naturally.
Sharing and giving recommendations is something that happens every day between friends, passion and community groups. We’ve tapped into these existing behaviours and created a platform that harnesses that energy while rewarding people for what they already do.
4. What strategies helped you secure funding and scale your business?
Fundraising as a woman is super challenging – only 2% of VC money goes to women founders, so that instantly puts me at a disadvantage. It’s tough, but I didn’t let that stop us. We raised £3m in January, and we’re out raising again now.
My leadership style values humbleness, which can sadly be mistaken for a lack of confidence in the investor world. I’ve had to learn to balance staying true to myself while doing justice to the amazing opportunity I believe i love it will bring.
5. What have been your biggest successes so far?
Building the i love it app is absolutely a big achievement. With the app, anyone can store the things that they love, share them with their friends, family or followers, and every time someone goes on to buy from their recommendation, they are rewarded.
Our early users say the thing they love the most about the experience is the authenticity. That’s huge for us because it confirms our core belief that people are craving genuine, trusted recommendations in a world of paid ads and sponsored content.
I’m proud that we’ve secured some big global brand partnerships including Nike, adidas, New Balance, Castore, and Huel with shoppers having over 300,000 products to choose from.
But mostly, I’m proud of the team we’ve built. I believe in being open and honest with each other, using time to prepare and prioritise the right things, being brave and not perfect, staying curious and always learning. The first thing we did as a team was to align on the behaviours we wanted to shape i love it around: kindness, courage, passion, fairness and fun. Seeing those values come to life every day is probably our biggest success.
6. What challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them?
The vision is about creating a fairer and trusted shopping space for all. We’ve had some challenges from those stating that we would make money faster if we let brands determine the commission level, or placed ads on the platform. Whilst that may be true, it would completely destroy our vision. Therefore we have had to hold strongly to that, by explaining to them how being firm on authenticity will lead to a much bigger and better company in the long term.
We’ve focused on building a purpose-led business with strong values and a clear mission, which has resonated with the right kind of investors who share our vision for democratising wealth and creating a fairer shopping experience.
7. What are your plans for the future?
Our goal over time is to become the ‘Every Passion Store’. i love it will eventually include everything you could possibly love and recommend – it will be there for you, and feel personal and relevant. We want to be the most trusted platform out there and we will properly democratise the value of word of mouth, putting money back into the hands of the sharers that deserve it.
A big ambition from our approach also relates to the environment. We don’t like having to return things bought online – it’s commercially tough for brands and of course the planet doesn’t thank us for it either. We are using AI to train our feeds on understanding the customer so that we can put the best products in front of them, whatever their passions. Our goal, as we learn and get better, is to reduce online returns by half.
For me, it’s about celebrating the little wins, keeping the team motivated and believing in what we’re building and being kind to myself and those rooting for us. Mostly, I can’t wait to prove that by leading a company with kindness and empathy you attract the best talent and can create one of the most loved companies in the world.
8. What advice would you give to aspiring female entrepreneurs?
My advice is always centred on creating the best support system around you. I couldn’t do what I do without my amazing husband, friends and family. I have also found that my children are happy if I am happy.
And lastly, to those women thinking, should I step into these roles, I would encourage you to be the role model you wished you had and do it. Ask yourself how brave you’ve been each week. Time flies, and if you’re not careful, routine takes over. Push yourself to be brave, and you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve.
9. What are your top three tips for entrepreneurial success?
Test your concept and product with as many people as you can, as quickly as possible, so that you can create a culture obsessed with learning and adding value to people’s lives.
Don’t worry when things don’t go as planned. Setbacks are inevitable, but it’s how you bounce back that matters. You’ll have good days and bad days—just aim for more good than bad and take the lessons from both. I’ve learned to accept that there will be good and bad days, and I forever try to ensure there are more good than bad.
I am not scared to make tough decisions but I do them inline with my values. It’s important to stay true to you and your vision and values as a leader and the business.
10. Who are five people who inspire you the most, and why?
Philippa Brown was an incredible role model for me at Omnicom, and now we are lucky to have her on the Board at i love it. Always facing difficult things straight on and creating amazing teams, Philippa has the ability to balance clear-eyed business decisions with building strong teams and showed me what great leadership looks like.
Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish who founded notonthehighstreet were trailblazers for their time and grew one of the first marketplaces in the UK with amazing success. They built a platform that supported thousands of small businesses, most of them run by women, and proved that purpose and profit can go hand in hand.
My team at i love it inspires me daily – people like Sophie Robinson, ex MD of Stylist UK, whose energy and positivity is incredible. My husband and our CMO, Sam d’Amato for his unwavering support not only as my husband and an amazing father to our two children – he’s the biggest cheerleader for our business and has created a brand that everyone can resonate with.
11. What are your favourite inspirational or motivational quotes?
My favorite has to be from Ted Lasso: “Just listen to your gut, and on the way down to your gut, check in with your heart. Between those two, they’ll let you know what’s what.” It’s a reminder that good decisions come from both intelligence and empathy.
Growing a business or excelling at work is hard, but doing it with kindness means you go to bed each night knowing that you’ve been a good person to others along the way. And the world needs more kindness. Always.
12. Where can our readers connect with you?
- https://www.iloveit.com/
- Ella d’Amato LinkedIn Profile
