Interview with Amy Watson

Amy Watson is the founder of HASSL, a social enterprise tackling the root causes violence against women. HASSL is a rapidly growing global movement to tackle harassment, combining tech tools, training, and community initiatives.

What inspired you to start your own business, and what challenges did you face in the initial stages of entrepreneurship?

Growing up, I’ve always had to have a project and I knew from a young age that I wanted my own business – I always kind of hated being told what to do! I’ve also always been passionate about social issues – the injustices of the world would keep me up at night as a child.

I ran businesses as part of my degree in entrepreneurship which provided practical experience, which is good because I never liked writing essays! I ran multiple businesses whilst I was at school and university, with the first venture starting in sixth form. These all taught me the importance of networking, audience testing and organic marketing strategies.

The inspiration for HASSL came from my personal experiences of harassment in London and hearing stories from other women – and the frustration that comes with the lack of action. One of my colleagues actually filmed a guy who had followed her home, who admitted he was following her home, and the police just told her, it’s over now, don’t worry about it and she just had to drop it.

So, I decided to do something about it – by creating reporting tech supported by a mainstream brand that would appeal to younger generations.

How do you maintain a work-life balance while running a successful business?

I don’t – my very honest answer! It’s been an issue for me my entire life because I think business has always been my hobby as well. It’s the thing I just love and have always just been obsessed with. I’m so passionate about HASSL so I do find it really hard to find work-life balance – my parents are always like, “how do you survive”?!

However, I have recently hired a team after doing it all on my own until literally a month ago and now there are four of us which has taken a lot of the day-to-day pressure off because I’m not working on the maintenance stuff. I’m more focused on the growth side of things and there’s not as much that has to be done every day.

My assistant is also trying to properly schedule time in for all of us to take a break because the team is all obsessed with what we are doing and I’m not setting a good example right now! Small things though, like having a walking pad at my desk and trying to get outside for a walk every day can help – even having one-to-ones with the team while I’m out on a walk is good.

Can you share a significant milestone or achievement that you are particularly proud of in your entrepreneurial journey?

To be honest, with HASSL… every day there’s something; for example, a partnership that comes through that I can’t believe they even know about us, or someone who’s got millions of followers gets in touch to say this movement is amazing, or when I’ve talked with very senior professionals within law, policing and policy.

When people message us to say that they reported their sexual assault because for the first time they felt like they weren’t alone in this – that is unreal. And there’s been something like that almost every day in the last six months since we started. I thought I’d be doing this for two years before I quit my job but I had to after only two months. The whole thing has been a crazy milestone!

And especially the ambassador programme – we hit 1,500 ambassadors in under three months, with people who want to volunteer to work on initiatives and stuff behind the scenes. I wasn’t even launching the ambassador programme until stage three and then so many people were asking to join so I decided just to launch it and it keeps growing.

Have you experienced any gender-related obstacles or biases since starting your own business?

I specifically didn’t want to get investment because I really didn’t want investors to dictate the direction of HASSL. I’ve worked with investors before and I know what it can be like and I’m just so focused on what we’re trying to achieve. I also avoided it because I know what it’s like trying to get investment as a woman.

I’ve also had a bit of trolling from men and some nasty messages. If I was younger doing this, it would have really got to me but now I just think it’s a projection of your own issues. A lot of the stuff we’re working on day to day is changing the psychology of men that leads to male violence. We had our first men’s focus group a couple of days ago and a some of the guys were saying they agree with the concept that they’ve just never been in an oppressed minority position which could be why some men find it difficult to understand. But we’re aiming to change that with our training.

How have you found marketing your business – has it been easy for you, or have you found it quite difficult?

I always said my dream business would rely solely on organic marketing because paid marketing is such a headache to set up and so unsustainable when you want to scale and reach the masses. Social media obviously massively opens up the opportunity to reach people all over the world.

So, in a way, it has been easy because I’ve still spent nothing on marketing. We do it all through organic channels – but there’s still a very strong strategy behind what we do. Everything is tried and tested before it goes out, like testing variations of word combinations.

I struggled to be creative at the start because I was trying to restrict myself to an hour a day for socials. I was trying to think of ideas that would resonate and go viral, filming and replying to messages and sharing stories. Hiring a social media manager has been amazing so far – she’s able to take my ideas and execute them properly as well as coming up with lots of incredible content herself.

We’re also not relying solely on socials, so starting more organic channels, improving SEO through posting articles on the website and looking into affiliate stuff. We’re going to start working with influencers, especially male influencers; to promote positive masculinity and green flag behaviour – positive role models for men.

Can you discuss a time when you had to pivot or adapt your business strategy?

It was definitely a pivot with the ambassador platform because that was planned for stage three. The plan was to build out the platform first so it was all ready but there were so many people asking how they can help and support that I just had to take a couple of days out and build the platform to launch it. I didn’t want to lose those people that were so keen!

And quitting my job so soon was a big pivot. I had a nice job, a good salary, living on my own in London, which felt like an achievement. But HASSL was just at the point that it had so much potential and I couldn’t maximise it whilst having another job. So, I had to make the call – it was a very scary decision but I’m glad I did it. I have funded everything myself so far from savings, apart from sales made through our merchandise and training bookings. We’re getting into crowdfunding now but it’s not about making money – we are going to reinvest whatever we make to get the initiatives up as soon as possible.

Looking ahead, what are your future goals and aspirations for your business?

HASSL was always built for the reporting tech, which is stage five. That was always the goal but I needed to create a brand that people trust and has credibility and therefore builds brand loyalty. So, everything that we’re doing up to stage five is about making sure that stage works as effectively as possible.

It's about tackling the root – improving the system that fails so many, so people feel there’s somewhere they can go to and trust and there is a deterrent to perpetrators with increasing reporting and conviction rates.

Stage five won’t launch until 2026 and that’s when I’ll feel like I’ve done what I initially wanted to do – it’s frustrating because I can’t talk too much about it but it will be so game changing and people will be asking where was this before? Everything else is very supplementary and is trying to target people higher up the scale like police forces and crime agencies who can hopefully adopt the tech once it’s live and lead to systemic change.

It would be amazing to create an opposite role model to the Andrew Tates of the world. They know how to prey on insecurities and utilise social media – we want to do exactly that but use all the tactics for good; not for dividing people. We want to expand the HASSL for men initiatives – the response has been so positive with men wanting to get involved and help in any way they can. This gives me so much hope for the future. 

Want to get involved in the HASSL movement? Find out how here: https://hassl.uk/pages/get-involved