Alyce Tran co-founded and built two viral brands from the ground up. Her savvy for social media not only sells out products but landed her a role as head of sales for ANZ at LTK, the world’s largest premium influencer marketing platform. She speaks to the power of collaboration, finding a niche and career pivoting.Inside Retail: Tell me about your career journey. How did you get into the retail industry, and what are some of the different roles you’ve held along the way?Alyce Tran: I guess I have always been in retail in some way – to take it right back, I grew up on a strawberry farm and started out selling strawberries to people driving past our farm en route to other attractions in the area. Then my parents moved into the newsagent industry and I worked for them after school and during university. I started my career in the law – at first working at top-tier law firm King & Wood Mallesons in M&A; I then moved to a boutique firm called Deutsch Miller where I was exposed to entrepreneurs who were doing their first capital raises, which kicked my mind into gear on all things entrepreneurial.  I started The Daily Edited (TDE) with another lawyer during my time at KWM. At first it started as a fashion blog; we launched a small clothing line that didn’t get so much traction and then pivoted into leather accessories. It was a side hustle that we had a lot of fun doing after hours and on the weekends but it went a bit viral on Instagram and grew into a significant business, which enabled us to leave our careers as lawyers behind. We grew that business domestically and internationally through online and bricks-and-mortar channels and that was my foray into the retail industry. I learned everything along the way without a rule book and created my own ways of working from growing on social media, opening retail stores, entering concession arrangements with Australian and US department stores, pushing a CRM and building out a tech stack that worked across our distribution channels, creating content, building partnerships and collaborations, marketing from top of funnel to lower funnel. I sold my shares in that business back to my co-founder to exit the business in 2021 and the business has since traded and sold to Bernie Brookes and he has created a nice home for that brand.  During that time another friend from school came to me with an idea to do a homewares brand that I wasn’t so enamoured with to begin with, but then I did think there was something in it. There aren’t so many brands playing in the Gen Z-Millennial market in the home goods vertical. In The Roundhouse is the brand, and it has gone from strength to strength in the last few years. I have expanded my retail skills to include wholesale relationships, something I did not do with TDE. I play a similar role to what I executed at TDE and cover everything from product design, the full marketing funnel, our online infrastructure through to customer service.  Given my experience with TDE, running In The Roundhouse is a bit of a walk in the park, so I have time for other projects, and as such, I took a part-time position with LTK (formerly rewardStyle) the world’s largest premium influencer marketing platform. I was a client of LTK with TDE and it was a natural fit as I love the business model and expertise LTK brings to a very meaningful part of every brand’s or retailer’s marketing spend. I work as their head of sales for the ANZ region growing their business in ANZ by onboarding every relevant retailer across beauty, fashion, lifestyle onto the platform and in some cases being engaged to run a brand’s influencer marketing strategy from end to end. I am currently on secondment to their office in London to work on brand strategy, which is exciting and a new challenge for me to work with other like-minded senior executives to grow a technology business in the UK/EU market. IR: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in your career and how have you dealt with them? AT: I’ve faced many challenges, I can’t say everything has gone smoothly and what I will say is that I am extremely flexible and resilient; I just evaluate and pivot as needed to create the best outcome.IR: What are some of your career highlights so far? AT: Selling out of The Daily Edited was great as that gave me a bit of comfort that I could build something of meaningful value. I’ve enjoyed the new experiences my working life gives me from travel, the exhilaration of seeing hockey stick growth to exposure to different people to work with them and understand their businesses.IR: What is your approach to building viral brands that stand out?AT: It all begins with a product, I just love creating aesthetically pleasing products which is the key to building a viral brand – you can’t get virality out of thin air! IR: What do you love about your current roles? AT: I love how varied my days are and that is how I stay engaged. It is really a fun thing to be able to work on a range of different projects and keep my mind spinning. I’m never bored and if I get stuck on one thing I can leave it and switch to another project and then go back to the thing I was stuck on once I feel a bit more inspired. IR: What advice would you give someone who wants to get into your line of work?AT: Just get out there and do it. I didn’t have any prior formal experience in the retail industry and I am just making that happen for myself! IR: What role does collaboration play in each of your jobs?AT: I love working with others to bring creative ideas to life – I think it is a way to keep things fresh and bring diversity to product and content which I think is an easy way to keep your audience and customer base interested in your brand.IR: What do you think brands get wrong when they are trying to build an online community?AT: I don’t think anyone does anything wrong but rather might under allocate resources to their social channels, which is one of the easiest ways to connect with consumers. IR: What role does collaboration play in each of your jobs?AT: I love working with others to bring creative ideas to life – I think it is a way to keep things fresh and bring diversity to product and content which I think is an easy way to keep your audience and customer base interested in your brand.