How Anyone Can Sell a Business for Millions | $28M Founder Timo Armoo

26:09Timo Armoo:Yeah. And now the gap is much bigger. Yeah. And so this is why it's very important to think about what is the gap that you're trying to actually play in? And if you're in a business where there isn't a gap, this is why I tell people like starting an influencer company now is stupid. Because brands are running their own influencer programs. Brands get it. Everyone gets it. Right. And so it doesn't make sense to do it now. So you want to go for where there is a gap because that's where you can charge more. at the time of fan bites it would have been like those brands they know how to spend on tv they know how to spend on like billboard advertising but they've got no idea about this new world of influencer and there's probably like very few providers as well right yeah what in what in 2026 would be like the influence areas you think well i mean the most obvious one and you've probably heard it every single scroll that you do it would be some variation of like ai automation Yeah.

27:03Because again, you know, Mark, who runs a dentist business, which makes 10 million a year. Mark just knows how to be a great dentist and run his practice. Mark doesn't even know what Claude is. Mark doesn't know what N.A.T.N. is. Right. So you selling solutions to Mark will be very, very straightforward. And this gap is going to be here for probably the next four or five years. and then eventually is going to close because what will happen is people will then bring in-house their own AI solutions, blah, blah, blah, blah.

27:34Timo Armoo:What else is important there? Is it also like the types of customer? Because I've heard you talk about selling to like rich people versus poor people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So one of the biggest changes that we did in Fanbytes and in all the companies I'm involved in is I always look at what is the quality of the customer because all revenue is not the same. So when you're growing a business or scaling a business or trying to sell a business, one of the questions that people will ask you is, what is the quality of revenue? And that's a very important thing. Quality of revenue is basically saying, who are the customers this revenue comes from?

28:11And are they sticky customers? And are they premium customers? And so this is why it's so important to sell to richer people because when you are trying to sell a company, if a lot of your customers are people with already high disposable income or consumers or brands to a buyer they're going wow this is amazing this means that that customer is actually going to be here for a much longer time that customer we can sell more to that person and so if you are doing any business whether it's a content agency personal brand agency video agency one of the most practical things you can do is actually to get a sheet of paper and write out on this sheet of paper, who are all my possible customers?

28:53And then once you've identified that, then say, who is the richest of all of these? And then what you then do is something called a problem mapping. What you do is that you say, does the problem that I'm solving for them, does it match to actually the budget that they have for it? So for example, with Fanbytes, one reason why at the beginning it was very difficult for us to like charge more was because candidly we were selling to broke people and the broke people are like broke businesses it's like the five person startup who's got an idea and is trying to get off the ground and like if we charge them 10 grand it's like this is the last 10 grand they'll ever see in their lives right yeah and then at some point i remember going hang on a sec we can just take the same thing and just like charge a bigger brand rather than going for the beauty brand who is just three people who have just started, let's just like go up market and just see what will happen if we wanted to sell this to Charlotte Tilbury.

29:50What would need to be true in order for us to sell this to L 'Oreal? Okay. We will need to have greater service. We will need to have greater output. We will need to have a greater customer success team. Okay. Is it worth us spending and investing in that if it makes us a hundred thousand pounds more? Yes. and so it is entirely possible for you to take the exact same product and just apply it to a different richer market and make more money but the reason why people and i'm going to say this and it's going to piss people off the reason why people don't sell to richer people it's often because they are not rich themselves and so what happens and i and i have gone through this which is the first time that i asked someone to spend a hundred grand on influencer campaign it was over Zoom and I couldn't actually look them in the face.

30:42So I opened up a new tab and said, oh yeah, a hundred grand, you know? And it's because at that point I had never, even though I had had some success before, for this particular business, I hadn't charged someone a hundred grand.

30:57Timo Armoo:And so it felt really icky to me. It felt really difficult for me because I hadn't done it before. but once you break through that mental barrier of doing it then you find that actually it is just like a very straightforward thing like in the book there is a cheat code number four i'm looking at it right now it says like do it scared because there were so many things especially the bigger decisions which were all some variation of like i'm scared to do this i know i should be doing this but rather than waiting to be not scared i'm just going to do it knowing that i'm scared and just that mental framework has just helped me so much it's helped so many of the companies that i run where i was like yep this is gonna be a bit jarring but you kind of got to do it because you can't get rid of the fact that it's going to be jarring what else is useful in in in having conviction in those things it's like saying it's 100 grand like oh is it your environment like is that important is it like how you dress is it like how you carry yourself like so here's you have to think like that like yeah so i'm from ghana yeah um and my mom anytime she saw someone like successful doing something and she saw me almost being like oh wow that's so crazy she'd be like well do they have two heads and she'd always ask me that question yeah and um even now she does right and the way that she says that is always some like always hits me always go yeah man like the person doesn't have two heads.

32:25They have two eyes. They have a nose. They have ears. It's like they are no different to me. And it does take a lot of mental unwiring for you to basically go, that person is no different to me. And sometimes you generally just have to say it out loud. Like you have to say like, you are no different to me. I remember one of the things now is we have a fund where we buy media companies. And I remember raising money for that fund and it was the first time that I'd raised that that amount this was like an early fund 30 million and I was like okay cool I've never really asked someone for like 30 million before well interesting and then I remember meeting a bunch of my friends who had raised like a hundred million plus and thinking all right bro you are no different to me so if you can do it yeah you You bloody hell, mate, you know?

33:19And it's actually one of the takeaways I want people to take from this book while stopping you. It's basically like, at the end of the book, I want you to basically go, if this bozo can do it, then I can do it. Like generally, I almost don't want you to be inspired.

33:36Timo Armoo:Yeah. I want you to almost be like annoyed at the fact that if this guy with all his like self-doubt and uncertainty and negative stories that he told himself at the beginning. If he can basically work through that and eventually achieve what he's achieved, then there's no reason why I can't either. If you're getting lots of value from all of the frameworks and strategies that Timo has shared in this episode, I'm going to put a full breakdown of them in my next newsletter. You can get a copy for free at the link in the description. So if you want to implement some of the things that Timo has talked through, you can get a copy of them at the link in the description.

34:17now let's get back to the episode what else is important here in building a company on that

34:22Timo Armoo:journey to so yeah um what about the boring stuff like is a lot of this actually just boring stuff i've heard you talking about like people see you now maybe on instagram and yeah they see you as this philosophical guy and this thinker and doing exciting things whereas actually like when you're in the trenches you're actually just doing a lot of the same stuff over and over again and like the actual operations of of the company is that where like most people actually get stuck like what are the what are the levels let's say we're going from like 10k a month 100k a month yeah million a month like where do people get stuck the first thing is you can tell how successful a company is going to be based on how boring it is yeah because the more boring it is the more it is we found a winning formula and we just keep doing it and we just keep doing it It's not really exciting now to work at Oracle.

35:15It's not exciting now to work at Facebook. It's not exciting once you know what you are doing and you just keep just optimizing it. And so from zero to say 10K a month, it really is how do I find a customer and then how do I just serve them in a way where I get a predictable outcome every single time. From 10 to 100K a month, It is how do I do the same thing that I just did, but then for more people. And the way you get the more people is very simple. You ask the people who you had done the zero to 10 care month. You say, hello, we rely on referrals from companies like yours. Are there three people that you think are good enough for us to work with?

36:04Could you introduce us? We've done that in every business that I've been involved in, and it's always worked. Because if I'm helping you achieve an outcome, and I'm saying, hey, can you pay back the favor by introducing us to other people, there's no reason why you wouldn't. What you're doing is just iterating what you did from 0 to 10K, and then you are then bringing in more people to help you do that. When it comes to the more people, one of the things I find people do as a massive mistake in business is that they try and hire people to do the thing, which is the golden goose. So the golden goose is in any business, there are a number of functions or roles or processes, which actually are the thing that make the business work.

36:58So, for example, you're running a content agency. Now, what I found a lot of people do as a mistake is they say, all right, now it's time to scale, right? Okay, fine. And then they go and hire a salesperson or they say, I'm looking for someone to help scale my sales. But that is stupid because at that stage, you're still in the stage where you're selling a vision and selling a dream and you're selling a product and selling an outcome and people still have to buy into you. And so what you want to do is then hire people who can handle a lot of the back office, op stuff, the process stuff. Because if you don't, what would happen is you would outsource your golden goose and you never want to do that.

37:43Even when Fanbytes got to a stage where it was like seven, eight million a year, I was still the person who was like the head of sales, the commercial director. And you'd go, wait, why? And it's because I realized that, yes, it was good that we're running influencer campaigns. but still when we are doing a great sale to Estee Lauder or Adidas, I shouldn't outsource that to someone else. Eventually, once we had a good playbook for how do you sell big contracts, then at that point, I was then able to like bring in people who had done it before. So zero to 10, it is find one type of customer, serve them in the best way and then serve them in a predictable way.

38:24Ideally, it's a customer who already has money. 10 to 100 grand is basically do the same thing by asking the people that you initially helped who else they may know because that's going to be the way in which like it'll be a much easier sell from 100k to a million i'm actually going to break it down into two steps i'm going to do 100k to 250k because i believe it's at that point where you actually then go from being the person who is like the singer to then be in the orchestrator. And the most important thing about the orchestrator is that they are a process builder. So in business, there's this whole idea and my friend talks about this, Ryan Dice, he talks about this, which is a value engine.

39:09And a value engine is what is the simplest way that this business makes money? So let's say you're running a personal brand agency, right? You might say something like, well, what is our value engine? Well, a value engine, so we have three value engines. One of them is how we get customers, right? That is a value engine. The second thing is how do we then service the customers? That's a value engine. And then the third is how do we keep the customers spending? Because if you just get those three things right, you have a perfectly good business. You're getting the customers, you're servicing them, and you're keeping them.

39:47And so once you're at 100K, as a founder, you should then be thinking about how do I then create these value engines? And so for the personal brand agency, what that value engine may actually be is let's get a whiteboard. Let's get some sticky notes. And let's basically say, right, how does value happen? In this case, how do we get a new client? And then just sticky note on it. Well, they see us at a networking event. Oh, no, they came from a referral. Oh, no, they came from a code ad. What needs to happen then? All right. They need to then see some case studies. All right, great. What then needs to happen?

40:28All right. They then need to talk to their team. All right. What can we do to help them make it easier to do? And if you basically, as a founder, spend your time creating these value engines, what you find is you now have become the orchestrator and you're building a machine that exists independent of you. And that is basically creating from 100K to 250K as the value engines. And then from 250K to a million, and this is going to sound weird to so many people, it is just run the value engine and just input people in where you see bottlenecks in the value engine. Don't come up with any new ideas.

41:07Don't come up with any new products. Don't come up with any new services. Just do the thing. Because one of the biggest problems I see with so many entrepreneurs and I have a bunch of CEOs that I have to basically be like, bro, lock in. Like, don't do anything else. Yeah. Right? Because you might have 20 customers on your content agency and be like, cool. I now want to go build out this new service. But then it's like, bro, we have 8 billion people in the world. You have 20 customers. Do you really think that like you've exhausted the potential customers? No, you haven't. So what you should be doing is just saying, How much more of these people?

41:46How do I get 200 of these? How do I get 2 ,000 of these? How do I get more of these? Or how do I sell more to the exact same 20 people? But often they just go new products, new business, new service, because they think that they've capped out, but they haven't capped out.

42:03Timo Armoo:That's so powerful, man. That is like blowing my brain. There you go. In terms of those jumps, what are some of the traps there and some of the things that you should actually do? So one of the things you just said was selling more to those customers. How would you know? But you also said focus, right? And just focus on the one product. So if you've got the opportunity to create a different service that serves the same customer, should you do that? Or how do you decide when that's like a distraction versus an opportunity? So this is a great question because the answer to this is whatever the customers tell you that they need.

42:41So for example, when we started FanBytes, the only thing that we sold were these influencer marketing campaigns, connecting brands to influencers. By the time that we eventually sold the business, we actually had four different products. We had an influencer product. We had a thing called ByteSites, which was basically like a strategy offer. So it wasn't that we do the influencer campaign. It was that we just kind of give strategy. Then we had Bite Size Talents, which basically was a talent agency inside of FanBytes. And then we had a paid media division, which basically did paid media. All of those were at some point we had at least 30 % of our customers basically saying, hey, can you also do this as well?

43:30And there's a framework that I love, which is the before and after framework. So the before and after framework is basically a way for you to know what products or services to sell to your actual customers. And what it means is that you take your current service or the current problem that you're solving. And then you say, before the customer has this problem, what are the things that they are doing? And then how can I then help them to solve that problem? And then after they work with me, what are the things that they are doing? and then how can I build a solution to solve that problem? So I'll give a perfect example with Fanbytes.

44:11The main product that we had was an influencer marketing service. But then before someone worked with us, what they would need to do would be strategy to understand where are we in the world of Gen Z and how do we position ourselves in the best way? Well, we can help with that. And so we're being driven by what the customers actually want. And then after they do an influencer campaign with us, after doing the organic campaign with us, what do they do? They tie in paid media into it. And so now we're going, well, we can also do that paid media side to it. And so rather than us just like inventing products and going and saying, oh yeah, maybe this, maybe that, we're saying, what do you do before you engage with us?

44:52How can we help you on there? And then what do you do after you engage with us? And then how can we help you on there? And once you do that, that is such a predictable way to scale because what you're doing is rather than keep getting new customers, you're just increasing your wallet share of your existing customers and you're increasing your revenue quality. And revenue quality is one of the most important things in any business because it says, how much more is this business going to stay? And the more revenue quality that you have, the more valuable your business.

45:24Timo Armoo:That's super interesting. Is the other element there, like this that I heard you speak to, like the speed to value, like speed to return on investment as well? Because I've heard again, when you're talking about the different services, like how quickly can you deliver the results? Like why is that important? At any point in business, you occupy a customer's mind for a very short period. And so it's very important that you show the value you are offering them very, very fast. So the businesses that show that, hey, you spent a grand with us, you made two grand. It's like, oh, okay, that's great.

46:03So I think speed to value is important, but I think an even bigger thing is explicitness of value. Like how obvious is it that in doing X, they got Y and Y is the outcome they want. So for example, I'm going to use FanBytes as a good example here, which is in the early stages, we were like selling engagement and views and, you know, vibes. And then I think in like our third year, I remember thinking, hang on, guys. If Paulist Choice, if Charlotte Tilbury, if Nike are spending 50 grand with us, even though it's nothing to them, how do we explicitly show that that 50 grand is genuinely ROI positive?

46:47And so the way that we did that was that we took all the data that we had ever done in our campaigns, all the influencers, and we basically came up with a very good model to be able to say, okay, well, if we get these amount of views and these amount of engagement that should lead to these amount of clicks and then based on your conversion rate, that should lead to these amount of sales. And so now suddenly we could go to these brands and say, all right, you spend 100 grand, 250 grand, blah, blah, blah, blah. And based on our internal metric, that should mean that your ROI should be this. And so now suddenly the ROI was explicit.

47:22Whereas before it was, we're going to give you the impetus and you the burden to figure out, did this actually work? Now we're like, we both agree. This is how it works. We both agree. This is what success looks like. So that therefore means that if we constantly are hitting that target, then we're both happy, right? And we said, yeah. And that was one reason why by the time we saw the company, we are like 40 % repeat revenue, which for a services business is extremely, extremely high. so explicitness of value is a very important thing that you want to have in any business

47:58Timo Armoo:and is that just like a almost just like a model where you've come up and you've like you've kind of roughly forecasted it like initially just because you at the moment you're not communicating that and you you come up with a way to communicate it where it just makes it clearer and easy to understand yeah and look there are some things where explicitness of value is very easy to do from the jump, right? If I'm a PT and I'm like, all right, in three months, you're currently 100 kg, we're going to get you to 90 kg. It's like, bro, here's a picture, here's another picture. But if you are a service-based business, then you need to do another thing, which is showing the value a lot more.

48:43And more often than not, it is just a case of um having enough data and the data doesn't need to be a lot but like having enough data of a month or two of different events campaigns activations that you do and then getting that to then feed your future stuff because it's basic human understanding like if i pay you a pound and i make two pounds i'm just going to keep giving you a pound yeah i'm just gonna blah well but this is like an infinite money machine, right? So you want to get your service or your product as close as possible to that.

49:19Timo Armoo:You're obviously like really good at sales and marketing. Apparently. What are the fundamentals there or some of your like favorite frameworks? I wonder if there's any in the book actually. Yeah, so, oh, actually, cheat code number three is make it easy to win. And how that applies to like sales and marketing is actually, I remember when I got early on in the game, I remember it was like really, really hard for me to sell stuff to people. And I remember thinking that one reason why is because I myself have been convinced myself that this is actually something of value. And more importantly, I myself had convinced myself that this was something that was actually a very expensive product.

50:10And in the book, we talk about making it easy to win. And one way you make it easy to win is when your ceiling is someone else's floor. So by that, I mean when you are going in saying minimum or our spend is 10 grand, and that is someone's entry price, suddenly you go, oh, okay. So one thing I actively did during FanBytes and I still do it now to make it easy to win is I intentionally pick certain environments and locations where we're always talking about big numbers. We're always talking about big exits. We're always talking about that. And so as a result, what happens is that my brain is like, okay, this is a big game.

50:56This is a big game. Because a lot of sales and marketing, man, It's just transference of energy and belief into a stranger. And a lot of that transference of energy and belief is a result of, do you yourself believe that the thing that you're offering is something of value? Because if you did, and I'm not going to share any, you know, yes, there's all these tactics like pause and let the other person talk, etc. If you truly believe that the thing that you have is generally going to be of help and valuable to other people, then you have a moral duty to sell the shit out of the product that you have.

51:36Timo Armoo:If you don't know, one of the most effective ways to grow a show on the internet is actually the most simple way. It's asking your audience to share and that's what I'm going to do right now. So if you know someone who might get value from this episode or enjoy it, I'm just going to ask you a simple favor. Take out your phone right now, send it to them on WhatsApp or if you're in a company, Slack group or something like that, just share the episode in the Slack group. But yeah, it really helps me grow the show and grow it one audience member at a time. So we'd really appreciate it if you would share the show with someone who might get some value from it.

52:08Timo Armoo:Now let's get back into the episode. One of the guys I absolutely love, Dan Kennedy, an absolute legend. He tells this story of if you sold fire doors. If you are someone who sells fire doors and you go to a house and the house doesn't look great, the house doesn't look like a really nice house. And you knock on the door and you open the door and the person comes out and you're like, ah, this person is probably not my customer, etc. And so you pull your punches so you don't actually sell the thing, even though you think that it would be useful for them to have a fire door. You don't sell the thing.

52:52And then in two days, you open up the newspaper and you see that that same house got burnt down the night before. That's on you. Yeah. Because you generally thought this thing could help them. But because you felt, you know, icky or you felt bad about selling, as a result, you didn't actually sell. Like you didn't actually help them. yeah so it all starts with that belief like this product is the shit i am the shit and i'm the sort of person who can really help people that's really nice and that rings true i i've been in those

53:27Timo Armoo:situations before where you see the person you're like i just don't know man i don't know you do know it would actually be valuable for them yeah but you almost feel bad because you i don't know there's like something psychologically there yeah it turns you off psychological right it's all psychological. You know, people say this a lot. And I say this in the book that business and entrepreneurship is just a personal development course disguised as making money. That's just it, right? So you should feel slightly scared. You should feel slightly icky. You should feel slightly uncomfortable because you're going against the core of your brain.

54:06Your brain doesn't want to actually sell to strangers. Your brain doesn't want to talk to strangers. Like remember, like as human beings in the early, early, early ages, if we talk to a stranger and that stranger could kill us, we ain't talking to strangers, right? So you generally have to like go against what your natural form is if you want to make it in business.

54:29Timo Armoo:Yeah. I'm loving this. What other cheat codes are important what we haven't talked about is actually and i know penguin my publisher would not want me to say this but um i think the book is very good but my favorite chapter my favorite chapter if i if basically i said don't read any other part in this book apart from this one chapter is a cheat code number eight which is it's not that deep it's not that deep is my favorite chapter because Through FanBytes, I was so emotionally invested in it. For the first four years, I was so emotionally invested in it. And the reason I was so emotionally invested in it was, and you've probably heard me say this on a podcast, but I started it when I was 21, a few months before my dad had passed away.

55:19And I remember before he passed away, like for the first time he told me he was proud of me because he had seen like an article about fanbites and was like oh okay I'm so proud of you right and then literally like shortly afterwards he passes away and I don't have any siblings so it was just me and him who lived in the um in the council estate and I saw him pass away so I was like boys we have to make this work I remember actually telling the story of when he passed away, I called up my mom and I told her and I didn't cry. I called up my aunties. I didn't cry. They were wailing on the phone, screaming on the phone.

56:08And then I called up my co-founder at that point, Ambrose. And I just couldn't even get the words out. I started crying. And the reason why was because, unfortunately, some years prior, Ambrose had also lost his dad. And so in that shared moment, you had these like two Ghanaian kids who had both lost their dads who were starting this business. And the fire that he gave us was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. But also we were so emotionally invested in making fanbites work because it was more than just, oh, let's do this thing to make money. It was like, we've got to make this happen because I subconsciously were also making this happen for our dads who are not here.

56:59And that helped to a point. But then one of the things that I started to realize was that I was so tied to the business that any single problem that happened, any small hurdle that happened, I felt like it would destroy the business. Whether it was hiring an employee who didn't end up going well or an employee went to a competitor. And I would feel really vexed and frustrated about it. I remember one day we're trying to raise money. We were raising some money and an investor had committed to half a million. And he'd verbally committed to it and we'd gone through the docs and he signed it all. And then I remember that he called me in the evening.

57:49I think it was a Thursday evening. And it was like, Timo, I can't invest anymore. And I had already planned out everything. I planned out the projections. I planned everything. And he was like, hey, I can't invest anymore. I said, why? And he said, the reason I can't invest is because I'm having dinner with my friend. And he told me that TikTok is a Chinese spying app. And I don't want to support China. So therefore, I can't invest in what you're doing. At that point, we were activating a lot of influencer campaigns on TikTok. And I was like, how the fuck do you get back from that? And in that moment...

58:36I said, it's not that deep. It's not that deep. I remember just like getting off the call and just saying, it's not that deep. And what ended up happening was that we ended up raising the funds from other investors and the business went fine. But I do remember that being a moment for me where I thought, in the moment that someone said they were going to invest half a million into my business, and then at the final minute they declined it, I could have said, well, that is the end of the business. I could have said, guys, this was our lifeline and we're completely done. But by just saying it's not that deep, I was telling myself that I am bigger than my problems.

59:13And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially when you're early on in your business, you have to take that position that you are bigger than your problems. And when you do that and you have these issues come up, oh, a client's paying late, a client's canceling, verbally say out loud, it's not that deep. and what will happen is you will just get so much perspective that whether you're at 10k a month, 100k a month, a million a month is never that deep. It truly is never that deep. And as someone who thought it was always that deep, I've come to realize it is never that deep. There is always a way through it and this too shall always pass.

59:55Timo Armoo:That's really powerful. There's a couple of things you just said there which would be really interesting to get your take on. Yeah. Hiring. Yeah. Investors. technology what are your approaches to all those things like should people take on investors like why why would you take on investors is that like an important thing oh interesting so something i've never said publicly before but i've said it to a bunch of my friends um is i think we raise investment out of fear at no point in the business did our settled cash go less than a million but we raised money because we were scared of what might happen.

1:00:34And I don't think that's a good position to ever raise money for. Now you should raise money at a certain point. If two things, if you have a very clear idea of what you're going to use the money for, I get so many pitches from people.

1:00:49Timo Armoo:Yeah, man, we're going to raise for marketing or team. Like, yeah, but what the fuck does that actually mean? You know, like tell me exactly what you're going to spend the money on. because otherwise I'm just like giving you the money to like see what happens. Yeah, vibes. Vibes. We're investing for vibes. Another thing that I'm not a big fan of, I personally don't believe a lot of first-time founders who are like building their first, let's say service-based business. I don't think they should raise money because I think the best sort of investment is customer investment, stuff that comes directly from your customers.

1:01:23If you are going to raise money, I think have a very specific reason for it And more importantly, figure out who you can actually raise money from. In my opinion, unless you want to get an outcome, which is like a billion dollar outcome, even 100 million plus, you don't need to go to VCs. There is a fucking fixation with everybody who wants to just like, raise from VCs, raise from VCs. And you have to remember, to a VC, you are just a gamble. Like they invest in 100 companies, 200 companies a year. You're just like one of them. And if you think a venture capitalist is going to be the reason why you succeed, you are horribly wrong.

1:02:11So what you want to do with investment is to go to people who have effectively lived the same journey as you. People who have built older versions of your business. Like in my book, cheat code number six is how to build a network when you are a nobody. and there's a framework we talk in there about how to find investors which is something called the two-step framework and the two-step framework is basically that you should only seek to get investors or get people involved who are like two steps ahead of you nice yeah and if you do that what can happen is they can empathize with your problems they can help you they can give you money they can give you advice that will stop you from doing the mistakes that they know you are going to make.

1:02:54And so that's a very important thing about investment. So only raise when you actually know what you're going to do with the money. Try and raise from people who are just two steps ahead of you. And again, in the book, we talk about basically like, what is the email you should send to investors? How should you get in contact with people like that? And then also So like don't raise for vibes. Like fundraising is not the goal. On hiring, I've changed my philosophy on hiring a lot. I used to think it was important to hire people who are very passionate about what you do. I now believe that you should hire people who were going to be good regardless of where they worked.

1:03:39Timo Armoo:Have you heard of the PayPal mafia? Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's that crazy picture where it's like 15 of them in a picture and like 12 of them are billionaires, right? Elon Musk, Peter Teo, Max Lefshin, who now runs like a firm, David Sachs, who sold Yammer for like 1 billion, Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn, just like killers, right? Now, you could say, well, it's so great that they all were really passionate about payments at PayPal Mafia, right? But no, the key is all of those guys were going to win anyway. And so what Peter Thiel did was that he amassed people who were going to win anyway.

1:04:22And then he aligned their incentives to make sure that them winning meant he could also win. And unfortunately, sometimes when we are early on in business, we think that the goal is to hire people who are really passionate about the thing we're doing. But it's actually not. It's hiring people who are passionate about the skill. about the thing they are doing. And then your business is just a nice conduit to helping them be the best that they can. I also believe that however much you can, hire people who have done the thing before. Because if you think about it, everything you're trying to do has just been done by other people.

1:05:02Your goal as a CEO is just to like bring the people who've done it before and then just like create the system for everyone to be able to work very well from it.

1:05:10Timo Armoo:When do you think you should hire based on like, we're trying to build, we're trying to bootstrap, try and be like higher, like young talent who at like good rates versus like, okay, now we need to hire like proven at like more competitive market rates. Mate, I made that mistake so many times. It was ridiculous. Doing fanbikes, I remember taking pride in the fact, you know, because we're doing Gen Z marketing. And I remember taking so much pride in the fact that, yeah, man, our team has an average age of like 21, 22. It's like, you know, mate, that was a massive L. So remember earlier, I talked about value engines.

1:05:50And that being a very important thing, which is how do you make money? I believe that early on, before you build a value engine, you just need to hire people with the energy and the enthusiasm and the potential to learn the skill level. So, for example, again, let's go to a content agency, right? Do you need to hire an MD of your content agency? No, but you probably need to hire a young person who cares about writing a lot. Not about what you do, but just like they really love to write. At some point, once you've built your value engine, what you then want to effectively do is anytime there is a decision that needs to be made in the value engine, I believe that you should then have an individual who has already been through that decision several times.

1:06:44Now, that person could be basically a young person who has been in that decision so many different times. or that person could then be a seasoned person. So the question is not at what point you basically hire young, hungry people and at what point do you hire experience? I think is at what point do you bring on people who have recognized the patterns enough and that point exists once you've built out your value engine? So a good example of this is, let's say you've now got your business to like 50 or 100K a month and you've realized that one part of your value engines are keeping customers, right?

1:07:27And you know that your current team is like churning out customers, it's not doing quite well. If in your value engine, it then says, all right, so what happens is that we get customers and then they do the campaign. And then at that point, we need to upsell them. And like, this is the upsell thing that we need to use. At that point, you need to make a bunch of decisions about, well, where is this customer? Are they actually heavily invested? How much have they actually spent? At that point, that's when I say then you hire someone who can lead up client success. Because you're hiring them for the decisions, not for the actual tactics itself.

1:08:10And then the final point about hiring, and this is going to be something which I know your listeners would have done. Don't hire someone and instantly give them a head of title. Your first campaign manager is not your head of campaigns. Your first salesperson is not your head of sales. They're just a salesperson. They're just a campaigns person. And so many of us make that mistake because we think about building an empire and we're like, oh, you're the head of, you're the head of. But what eventually happened is that you may end up building resentment. Well, they may end up building resentment because you realize, well, they're not actually a head of person, but you've given them that title.

1:08:56And then you basically have to like hire someone above them because you've given them the head of title. Now you start like inventing bullshit titles, you know, vice president. Yeah. You know, you're like, and then you have like executive vice president and then you have like, you know, I remember looking into a company and it was like they had head of customer success. which is like this 24 year old. And then it was like vice president of customer success. And then you have executive vice president of customer success. And then you had chief customer success office. And it's like, bro, come on, come on.

1:09:30Like it's obvious here.

1:09:32Timo Armoo:Yeah. And they all know it. Like they all know that you're basically being a coward. Yeah. And you need to make that call. So that's just a mistake that I think people should just highly, highly avoid. Your first salesperson is not your head of sales. Your first campaign person is not your head of campaigns. Your first marketing person is not your head of marketing. Give them the appropriate title. And then eventually, if they grow into it, great. But if they haven't, no. The other part in your journey that helped you achieve good valuation was tech, like adding tech. Oh, yeah, yeah. Why is that important?

1:10:07Sometimes I think that people try and force tech into their ideas. I looked at this business which was a clipping agency yeah so it's like

1:10:17Timo Armoo:they clip up like podcasters they put them out on TikTok have like tens of accounts 20 accounts and this business was doing well this business I think was doing like 200 grand a month I said okay cool and then the next thing he says was yeah and we're raising to build like a technology platform which does this and that's that it's like why why are people paying you He said, well, people are paying us because we can go, we can clip up their podcast and then we can just distribute it and they can get views. And I said, do they use the tech? Have they asked you for the tech? Have they said, I will use you more if you have technology?

1:11:00Does the technology actually help you to do anything more efficient or better? I was like, no, because actually all our clippers are actually in Discord. And so we just talked to them in Discord. I was like, so why the fuck are you building a technology solution? If your customers are not going to use it, you're not going to use it. And he said, oh, yeah, because tech has high valuations. I was like, okay, sure. But if the tech is not actually integral to what you're actually doing, then any buyer will see through that.

1:11:33Timo Armoo:Yeah. with fanbytes our first version of it was we wanted to be a sass solution so our whole idea was like we'll be a pure software as a service a brand will come on they'll be able to find influencers etc and then we got a email from the government and they were like hey we want to work with you to tell people about the minimum wage i want you to run the campaign and we'll pay you 100 grand yeah and i remember turning to my co-founder i was like all right boys we are now an agency because if boris johnson is gonna run us 100 grand yeah fine right but then during that point then i was like okay we actually do need tech but it's not like a software subscription is actually a platform where we can upload content i.e the influencer content and brands can also see in real time the data, because that's actually what brands were like constantly saying.

1:12:34It's like, how are we comparing to our competitors? Who is going to go live? What is the views and impressions of this person? Should we boost this one? Should we not do this one? Right. And actually they wanted a technology solution. And for us, we also realized that we were doing so much stuff over email and getting people to send us an email to like show their screenshots, et cetera. That could all be done through tech. So we were being forced by the customer to introduce a tech solution. And we also saw the value there because it actually would, like, increase our efficiency and our cost and decrease our cost.

1:13:14Timo Armoo:So that was the reason why we then introduced technology into the business. It wasn't some kind of, like, let's force feed it. It was actually driven by cost of demand. And like one thing I want people to take away from this particular part of the podcast is it is fine if your product doesn't have tech in it. It is fine if your service business doesn't have tech in it. It's fine because the truth is you are probably going to end up starting multiple different businesses. It's fine if this business is an agency which is a multiple of EBITDA and it's very clean and it's very simple. Make your first bag.

1:13:55It's fine. And then from that first bag, go do all the techie techie stuff. But like if this is your first business and you haven't had your first win, do the most predictable thing, which is you have a service. You provide the service. You get paid. You pay out your costs. you have a profit, just keep doing that. Don't read TechCrunch and all these things and think, oh my God, I have to do a billion, I have to do 100 million. No, you don't.

1:14:22Timo Armoo:I'm super excited to share that this podcast is produced by 7x Content, my own podcast agency. So if you're looking to grow a podcast in 2026 or take your existing one to the next level, then you can reach out to us at 7xcontent.com. We'd love to hear from you. We work with some incredible creators, incredible brands, creating top 1 % podcasts. And we'd love to show you some of our case studies. So check us out at 7xcontent.com. In the book, What's Stopping You? That's the name of the book. Cheat code number nine is called like your internal scorecard. And basically it's a whole chapter which shares frameworks and ways to basically like live by your internal scorecard.

1:15:02Because when you're on entrepreneurs, you scroll social media, you're like, oh, he's got this thing. She's got this thing. He's got this thing. and I'm not doing this and I'm not doing this. But the truth is, especially if you're an entrepreneur or an enterprising person, you are going to be doing more things over time. And all you're doing is you're just accumulating enough skills that every single business, every single project, and eventually those skills compound to then do like a big thing. So I could not raise a fund when I was running fanbites because I had no fucking clue. I, when I was like 17, doing Entrepreneur Express, like I could not like sell half a million packages.

1:15:43In fact, here's a crazy story, crazy story. So I led Fanbytes for six years. The highest deal that we ever did was 500 ,000, right? Per brand. When Brain Labs bought Fanbytes in six months, in six months, they had done three seven-figure deals. Wow. with the same products, the same service. Why? Because they had the skill of just doing that for so many different years that to them it was just like, oh yeah, duh. This is just how we do it. But again, but with Brain Labs, they could not have done that say 10 years before because they didn't know how to do it. And I'm sure at some point if I had still been running Fanbytes, we'd have got to then selling these seven figure deals because we have learned to.

1:16:36we'd have improved our skill on it. But we didn't know how to. And this is why I say to, again, so many entrepreneurs, it's like, bro, the first business, just make it mad simple. Just get your bag, you know? It's like, just get your bag, because life is different when you are someone who has done well, opportunities, doors open, as opposed to you just almost trying to do a Hail Mary from your first ever business. It doesn't make sense.

1:17:04Timo Armoo:One of the things people will know you from now is your personal brand yeah and i guess two questions here one is like how important was that on the journey today and how important is it in terms of like growing a business selling a business and the second thing i guess is i've got friends or guests on the show and they are constantly coming to me with this where they're like i'm a founder i've just sold my business or i'm starting this business i need someone to grow my personal brand like how the hell do i do it So I'd be interested, like, how important is it? And then how have you built your own?

1:17:39I've changed my perspective on this over time. So whilst I run Fanbuys, I didn't have, say, a general personal brand. But I did have a niche personal brand. So in the marketing circles, Fanbuys had a personal brand. Maybe that was max 5 ,000 people. But if you ask 5 ,000 people, at least half of them would go, oh yeah, I know fanbites. And I think that's a bigger point about personal brand, which is at the beginning, rather than being well-known, you just want to be known well by the right people. That's it. That's really the purpose of personal brand. If you are like a legion agency selling to B2B tech brands, post stuff about B2B tech brands, post on LinkedIn, post on Instagram about B2B tech brands, Like don't care about having millions of views because more times than not, they're not actually going to come from the people that you want to actually help.

1:18:42So that's the first point. Yes, it helped us, but it helped us just being known very, very well from like a very specific group of people. And then your second question was about.

1:18:54Timo Armoo:How have you grown your personal brand? Like, how have you personally done it? Like, did you do it yourself? Like, do you use an agency? Yeah, so at first I started off doing it internally. I mean, actually, if you scroll way down, way down to my Instagram, you see some of the worst videos. I hired my chief of staff from my prior company, Cameron. And we're just trying to figure out, right? And so there were times where I'd like just put a video, I'd put a phone selfie style, and then I'd just talk. And I remember thinking, man, these are shit videos, but it's fine if they're shit videos because I expect them to be shit because I haven't done it before.

1:19:37And then I got the help of an agency, these guys here. I got the help of an agency called Your Social Currency. I think that, you know, they help to make things a lot more like scalable, systemized. Now, the truth is, and this is going to be somewhat controversial, right? I think what happens is that people see people like myself or Cody Sanchez or the Homozis of the world or the Garvis of the world. And they kind of believe that you have to be like that person. Yeah. You kind of have to have that personal brand. And I've seen some incredibly sharp, confident, amazing entrepreneurs who have the shittest personal brand ever.

1:20:26Yeah. And you're like, how on earth is that you? And the reason why is because they're trying to do the, here's how to do this. When actually a lot of them, it is like, well, lean into your competence. Like you are a nerd. And if you're a nerd, then make like nerdy topics about nerdy things that you like and introduce your story into it. That would position you as one of one. And I think a final thought on that is I have a big thesis here and we're making a big change to our content going forward. Personal brands are now becoming media brands. But if you think about what a media brand is, media brands have their own formats.

1:21:11They have their own storylines. They have their own characters. and I think there is a world in which short form video, Insta, LinkedIn, and then obviously long form, YouTube, in which rather than the content being about the person and their background, the person is almost a personality in a bunch of shows and formats that they do. So for example, some of our best formats, which actually involved brands, Lovable, was when we had me sitting in the street. Yeah. Yeah, you've seen that, right? Me sitting in the street and then people pitching me to win 10 grand, right? Like one of my good friends, Simon Squibb, right?

1:21:56Simon's actually a very accomplished entrepreneur, but his videos, especially on short form, are not like, here's how to do this. They are, what's your dream? What's your dream? Yeah, it's a format, yeah. It's just a format. Simon is a presenter of the format. But then there's different characters. And I actually think that's where personal brand is going, especially on short form, because we could all spend 10 minutes going through TikTok, Insta, TikTok, Insta, YouTube shorts, blah, blah, blah. And then five people who we watch their videos, five people could come into this room now or just walk past us and you would not recognize them.

1:22:35But if you scrolled enough to say Simon's Insta, what's your dream? what's your dream what's your dream and then even in a week you just sort of walk past you go oh shit that's the what's your dream guy yeah so you may not even know his name but you know his formats i think that's where personal branding media is going now so to the founders to the content people who are listening to this think about your brand is like a media brand format driven as opposed to it just being about yourself as an individual because people buy into the format before they buy into the person. Whereas beforehand, I think because there were not that many people doing it, it was like people buying to the person.

1:23:19But that's changed.

1:23:20Timo Armoo:Let's talk about when you actually sell. Like how do you know when's the right time to sell? And then what happens after you sell? Like what are you up to? One of the worst times to sell is when you need to sell. And often it is when you have exhausted the market. So I talk to so many founders. because one thing that we're doing next year and making public is that we have a peer program. It's called Ready to Exit, and it's all about helping founders position their businesses to sell. And I've been having conversations with so many founders about this, trying to see what will be very valuable to them.

1:24:00And one of the mistakes I see a lot of people make is basically, let's say you are running a business and you have a chart. Like this. And for those who aren't watching, this is your CTA to go and watch it on YouTube. So you have a chart. And what people tend to try and do is that they try and sell at the peak of their business. And that is not the right way to do it. The way to actually do it is that you try and sell when you are 70 % of your way to the peak. Because what that means is that you are then leaving something on the bone for the buyers. Because as a buyer, and I've helped a few friends buy companies, what you want to be able to do is be able to have enough narratives which justify the purchase that you're going to make.

1:24:52So I'll give you a very concrete example with Fanbytes, right? Which is we had three main narratives for why it made sense to spend tens of millions of pounds with us or on us. The first narrative was that we had 40 % of our revenue coming from America, but we didn't have a single person there. And so if you know that to a buyer who has an American office, you're like, whoa.

1:25:19Timo Armoo:Yeah, they're licking their lips. They're like, whoa. Yeah. So you're telling me. The lion is looking at the carcasses. They're like, whoa, you know. So now it's a great reason for you to then potentially buy. The second reason was so much of what we did was with, say, the head of social at Nike or the head of blah, blah. But if you're a bigger company, you are talking with the CMO of Nike. And that person has a lot more budget and a lot more sway. And so now we also had another story, which was basically we engage with the heads off. If you buy us, you have C-suite access. you can take the exact same product and sell it for a lot more.

1:26:00And that is exactly what happened, which was that they took the exact same product, they sold it to the CMOs, they made multiple, multiple millions from the exact same product. And then the third thing that you also, and then the third story that we had was, we said that we do influencer marketing mainly. We have a bit of paid media, but it's not actually that much. So if you, Mr. Buyer, have a good paid media performance division, then what happens is you can just take all our existing customers who are doing organic, you can plug them into your performance, and then you can also make more money.

1:26:37So now if I'm a buyer, I'm like, hang on a sec. Number one, you don't have an office in the US, but you have 40 % coming from that. Oh, and I have an office? Yeah, we are absolutely going to tear it up. You don't talk to the C-suite, but I know all the C-suite people. And I can take your exact same product and sell it for way more. Oh, we're absolutely going to tear it up. And then, oh, you mainly do organic infos and stuff and not much paid. And I have a massive paid media team. Oh, we're going to tear it up. So now I have three reasons to basically say, this company really is a bargain to us.

1:27:12And for a lot of founders, they don't do almost that storytelling for the buyer. They just go, I want to sell my business. Do you want to buy it? It's like, no, I don't really want to because I don't really know it's going to be worth the price. But if I can justify it over and over through these different stories, that's when you win. The second thing I'd actually say on that point is. At any point in any market, there is consolidation, right? I do think in the book I talk about this like Chico 10 is called How to Get Lucky. And one of the elements of luck that we talk about is how you basically time the market, how you time the market.

1:27:55And a big reason and a big thing about timing the market is when you see consolidation happening with the big guys buying the smaller guys. But also when some of the big guys in your industry have got private equity. Yeah. because the way companies grow once they raise PE money is they buy other companies. That is the main reason. So if you see your biggest competitors in the space raise PE money, or maybe people tangential to you raise PE money, that is a sign to you that there's going to be consolidation. And the number one thing, if you are someone who wants to sell your business at that point, is that you start making friends with these people.

1:28:44You start dating these people. Because if you start dating these people, like, hey, let's do some kind of partnership together. Let's do this together. That's the way you date them. And then eventually, when they want to buy you, that's when you get married. So many people don't think about this. They just go, yeah, man, I want to sell it.

1:29:04Timo Armoo:So they would be like your competitors or they'd also be like strategic, or would they be kind of like strategic people who are kind of like... Oh, both. Yeah, both. Yeah. And you just start reaching out to them. Yeah. Building those relationships, flirting a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's this analogy I give, right? Like date before you get married. When you meet someone, your first thought is not right. Let's get married. Yeah. You date a bit. Yeah. Similarly, a business exit is a marriage. It is the consummation of two different entities. Yeah. And you'd be surprised. You'd actually be so, so, so surprised, man.

1:29:39the number of business exits that are basically one founder knew the other founder one founder had a bigger company and basically was like your smaller company can help us yeah so i'm just gonna buy you because the weird thing this is such an unspoken thing but a lot of big companies say they've raised PE money, the founders know it's not actually their money. Because if I raise$100 million from PE guys to buy companies, like, it's not my money. Yeah. And even at that point, maybe I've taken like$10 million or so for me anyway from the PE round. So really I'm just like, yeah, well, it seems to make sense.

1:30:26And I got money to spend probably. And I got money to spend. And you just be so, I've now seen this so many times One of the companies I sold, the PR agency, one of us called Megan, we sold that business to the business that she worked for before for 19 million. Because basically like she had built this PR agency when we knew it was time to potentially sell. I said, write a list of all the potential people. And then she then wrote her prior employer. I was like, oh yeah, this makes perfect sense. Like they know you, they know how the business works. They're just a bigger PR agency. Your focus is on sustainability.

1:31:08They want to have a focus on sustainability. Let's just talk to them. And then it was like a deal which took two months. Done. Because they didn't need to go like, is Megan a good person? Is this a good business? It's like, Megan worked for us for eight years. We know. Done. And you'd be surprised how many times those sort of deals get done in the world of M &A.

1:31:30Timo Armoo:I've heard some people say that in this process, you should actually almost say, these are the things we want to do and we want to be acquired so we can do them. Like, how important is that? So in your case, was it like, we want to have offices in San Francisco, New York. We want to be in Singapore. We want to kind of 5X the team next year. But, you know, we need to be bought to do that. Yeah. So I think, like, both people know that's cap. Yeah. Like, buy is on donuts. Yeah. You know, like they know when something is capping, when something isn't. But again, that is just a good example of a narrative.

1:32:10And a narrative is not a bad thing. A narrative is not a negative thing. It is just justification for why this deal makes sense. And yeah, so if you have things, you know, I think in FanBytes' case, it was we want to play bigger. The way that we play bigger is actually by getting to the C-suite, is by having a full suite of different services that we can offer to our clients so that we can do the influencer stuff, the SEO stuff, et cetera. And like, these were all true things. And then the third thing that I also said was like, bro, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I was a 27-year-old guy.

1:32:50My co-founders were all 27 and 25. we now had a business which was actually quite a beast i'm like bro what yeah you know and i'm like all right can somebody help me here yeah and so yes it is true to have you know like reasons and things to do but really remember that the foundation of it is they're all just justifications that the buyer can use and you can also use for why this deal should make sense what does it feel

1:33:21Timo Armoo:So like the day the money lands in the account?

1:33:29It felt insanely insane for six weeks and then afterwards it became underwhelming. So the day that the money landed in the account, I remember like walking around King's Cross with my two co-founders and we had announced the deal had happened. BBC, Forbes, everyone is covering it. I'm getting congratulations, congratulations. But the money hadn't hit our account yet. And so I'm getting all these people saying, oh, my God, well done. And I'm like, yeah, but where the fuck's the money, bro? And the reason why is just because it had to go through, like, different stages, right? It was like the PE guys had to send it to BrainLabs, BrainLabs had to send it to our lawyers.

1:34:12Then our lawyers had to send it to our bank, then our bank, all of that. So we are out here saying, yeah, man, thank you so much, people don't have the money. And then I remember us walking around my co-founder, Mitchell, like he refreshes his bank account. He's like, ah, ah.

1:34:29Timo Armoo:I was like, shit. And then I checked my bank account. It's still like zero, zero, zero. Because I opened up literally a fresh new bank account for this. And I'm like, shit. Did I give someone like the wrong bank details? You know, wrong so-called account number. And then my other co-founder, Ambrose, he refreshes. And I'm checking, man. I'm like, fuck, there's still nothing there. I'm panicking. And then I refresh and I'm like, oh, yeah. And I'm shouting, I'm like, let's fucking go, lads. And that was an amazing period. That was just sensational period. Now, one of the things that is very, very interesting is that over time, your brain then gets used to a certain level.

1:35:22That happened probably after six weeks. And I went, okay, cool. This is me now. And this is actually a very good point to make, which is strive and strive to achieve. Like do everything you can to be the person that you know that you can be. but then realized that it actually was all about just the realization of who you could be. It wasn't about the money. Because I grew up like poor council estate kid. I was driven by money. I was driven by financial. And then literally like the fourth year of my business, when I'd come and I'd see, you know, 60 people in an office working on this idea that I'd had in my mind, I went, wow.

1:36:07yes it's about the money but it's actually more about the ride with these people like the journey with these people and realize that anything that you end up achieving you will basically get to a certain point and go oh cool that was nice even for example this book i'll stop you this book is out on Jan the 15th, right? When Penguin came to me and they were like, cool, let's do a book. It's like, okay, cool. This sounds amazing. You know, great Penguin, et cetera. And I was like, really, really tied to the idea of this doing numbers, this being like Sunday Times bestseller, you know, everything, everything, right?

1:36:52And then I remembered something. I remember that I was also really attached to selling fan buys, becoming financially free and doing that stuff. And realizing that in six weeks, I then just went back to, okay, cool. This is my life now. And now just, you know, time to get on with it. And when I remember that, I went, okay, Timo, regardless of how well this book does, if it's on the Sunday Times bestseller list, if it's not on there, The fact is you wrote a book. It's a book you're proud of. It's a book that you generally think can help people. You got your team involved and they all feel very energized to make it happen.

1:37:35As long as you did everything that you can, detach from the outcome. Because let's even say, let's even say this then becomes like a Sunday Times bestseller. Great. Let's even say it stays a Sunday Times bestseller for like two months. Cool. And then what? Because then the thing that's meaningful is the people who will like stop me in the street and say, hey, I read that book. And as a result of that, I grew my business. Hey, I read that book. And as a result of that, I got that promotion at that job. Hey, I read that. And your chapter, which said it's not that deep, was a reason why I left this relationship that I thought I should have left anyway.

1:38:16But then you finally gave me that push. Because like that is the thing which is sustaining. Yeah. And that was such an amazing moment for me because I thought the moment that you as a kid had constantly yearned for to be able to be like financially set and, you know, generational wealth and all that crap people talk about. That lasted you like six weeks and then you thought, let's get let's get back to it. How much more when a book then becomes like a really good book and it impacts people?

1:38:49Timo Armoo:You just be like, oh, great. OK, that was nice. And now get onto it. I think for people listening, I think you should practice what I call a healthy detachment from your goals, which is at some point, sometimes you get so attached to your goals that it fucks you up, that you're like, this has to happen, it has to happen. But when you are relaxed and detached and you go, you know, I will do my best and the rest will happen, you're more likely to actually achieve it. This has been amazing, Timo. Absolutely loved it. And I'm like, can't wait to get my hands onto the book. Well, send you a signed copy.

1:39:30Yeah.

1:39:31Timo Armoo:Insane. All right, man. Thanks so much for doing this. And we'll definitely do another one, try and get you back on. But yeah, this was insanely valuable. And yeah, super excited about the book and reading it and getting into it. And thanks for just sharing so much. All good, man. It was amazing. If you enjoyed this episode with Timo, I think you're going to love my episode with Jodie Cook. She's an incredible entrepreneur. and her and Timo think about life and the world in a very similar way. So I think you'll really get on with some of her frameworks for living an incredible life and being really successful as an entrepreneur.

1:39:57Timo Armoo:She also just happened to have sold her agency for lots of money as well. So yeah, cue that up next on your podcast player or on YouTube. I think you're going to love it. And thanks for watching as always. I hope you have a great week.