Timo Armoo - Retired At 27, Now What?

31:36No one cares. No one knows. All right. Because our exit was quite publicized, right? It was in a bunch of newspapers, et cetera. So what I do remember is actually on the day that we sold, when I went, I was walking back from the office and I was playing Frank Sinatra my way. And I was just like dancing on the street and like I was crying as well. and the reason i was crying was because i had some like family issues that we'll talk about um um a trial where i was like oh my god i can't believe this happened so the first stage is oh my god i can't believe this happened the second stage is guys this has happened why hasn't everything kind of changed but actually the world has stayed the same the third thing that then happens is when you realize and this is purely monetarily when you realize that things that you thought were expensive were not expensive anymore so you like adjust to your new normal so for example it took me a very long time to actually spend any money after the exit like took me a very long time and at some point i kind of broke through that and i thought like dude enjoy yourself a bit right so we ended up uh going to bali we did like first class flights to bali the best hotels and all that stuff just to get used to the idea of okay you've enjoyed yourself and you've lived this life and then the fourth stage is saying okay now that this is my quote-unquote new life how do I now live it's going into the future so you go from oh my god I can't believe this happened to me to guys this happened to me why hasn't everybody singing for me to how do I adjust to the money that I have now and emotionally, how do I do that?

33:26And then the fourth thing is, okay, now I've adjusted. What now are you going to do next? How now are you going to shape your future? So those were the emotions that I went through and all through the different parts of that. I think the people I was with, I wouldn't say anyone treating me differently. I'd say that to make some family things a bit odd right um because i never shared the number um you can kind of deduce i think the time to not go on it or something like that but you know some some family members told you know i had a hundred million i was like no no right and so because of that there's all that dynamics but the main thing is like those four waves with every something that i felt did Did you get requests for money from family members or close friends?

34:18Yes, I did. But also, I think I was very aware that will happen. In fact, before we sold, I spoke to a few friends who had also sold their companies. And they told me that there are a number of things that would happen that you just have to be very comfortable with. Number one, never loan money out to a family or friend. Just give them the money. Number two, families would always think that you have way more money than you actually do. And you just have to keep quiet about it. And then number three, make sure that you buy yourself a really interesting gift to commemorate. Those were the three things that he said.

34:59And it took me a while to internalize those. But I did all three. So it never caused you any significant issues? No. But I also think that what helped was like people know me as a very relatively serious person, someone who's a very grounded person. And so because of that, even if a family member was to come out, I just say, actually, no. Oh, yes, but here is exactly what I'm going to give you. And that's it. It kind of helps that I don't have a big family. Like you. Yeah. Do you have a big family? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I got more requests from friends than family. Yeah. Friends was not so much.

35:40Friends was actually not so much. I think it's because actually so many of my friends that I have were also friends that I had at the beginning. And so they saw me grind. Like they saw me struggle. They saw me put in efforts. And I think that they actually come to me more for like business advising, business expertise rather than money. Because I also think that a part of it is like they know that I got them. Right. Like they know if there was any financial hardship, they can come to me. And because of that, it's almost like I would only come to Tim if it's actually something serious. Not, oh, no, there is a mouse in my house and I need to, you know, like get an exterminator.

36:21Can you pay for it? Right. Right. But if it's like something very serious, they know that. Yeah. Did you lose any friends after you exit? That's a great question that I had never thought about. Did I lose any friends? I don't think I lost any friends. I think that my friends gained a much deeper appreciation of our friendship. So by that, I mean, a lot of my friends I was with were the same friends that I had at the beginning. And so for so many of them, they were there when I was like, sorry, guys, I can't come out tonight because I am working. They were there when I was creating presentations.

37:02They were there when I was trying to, you know, code the first version of our shitty website. They were there when they saw all of these things. And so there's more of an appreciation of the fact that, wow. And I think it's more inspiring to be like, wow, okay, if Timo can do this, then I can also, whether it's a business, whether it is being exceptional at their job, whether it's being an athlete, I can push myself as well and see what I can do. Makes a lot of sense. So today, what money means to you? So I think money means ownership of time and optionality. by ownership of time i mean there are so many small things small niggles during the day and during the week that having the money they were to take care of and i never truly appreciated that until i had money and in terms of optionality it is the fact that i can choose to do things out of a position of an abundance and not scarcity.

38:07I think beforehand, I used to think about things very much from a scarcity mindset. To be honest, that was some work I had to do even after we sold. I was very much still thinking about things from a scarcity. Which makes a lot of sense in your childhood story. Yeah, yeah. Where would you possibly have got abundance mindset from? And absolutely nowhere. You had to practice it, right? The way I see abundance and thinking in a certain way is it's like any muscle, right? If you are working out in the gym, you don't just do one day of leg extensions and suddenly your legs are amazing. You keep doing it.

38:56You keep training the muscle. And then eventually over time, you then have strong legs. And I think this is the case with also mindset and abundance that you have to start very small and just repeatedly hone your abundance muscle to think, okay, this is fine. This is the way that we think about money. This is the way that we think about options. So for you, your abundance mindset is about optionality. Yes. That's how you define your abundance mindset. Yeah. Yeah. It is about optionality. It is about not settling for the default option. And I think that actually applies to a lot of things, like including where you live, for example, right?

39:46Like in January, I'm going to South Africa for a month. And that's just because my friend was like, hey, let's go to South Africa. It's like, okay, yeah, let's go. And I think that's that optionality to say, yes, we could spend January in London or we could spend in South Africa. Right. But all the way to the smallest thing, like, OK, I need a new pair of trainers. I could get these nights or I could get these humors or I could just get both of them because I like both of them. And it's all a good one is about, you know, hanging out with friends, right? It is, well, I could force myself to enjoy time with these people.

40:39I know they're not my people. I know they're not my vibe. I know they're not on my wave. I know they're just really looking at completely different things. I choose to not spend my time with them. There have been so many times where I've been in a circle of people and I just say, okay, guys, I think I'm going to leave now. And then I just leave. And they ask me why. I say, well. Because I can't. Because I'm not quite enjoying this conversation. Yeah. And then I leave. and um now the thing about that is that doesn't have necessarily to do with the fact that like you have money to help you do that but it's more like if you are thinking abundantly in all these different parts of your life then actually in your relationships that should be a very important um that should be a very important thing for you to also think abundantly like do i want to be you with this circle of friends do i want to be with this person okay no therefore go next so you kept all your old friends which is brilliant and actually not that common in my experience but um did you intentionally think about adding different types of people into your circle oh great question yes yes i think that there are a set of new friends and genuine friends that i have made like since last year that I didn't have before now one of the things that helps is obviously if you are an exited founder it is easier to then network with other exited founders right generally I do think I was conscious that I wanted to add more people who had as deep an interest in business and personal development as I did and I think that my friendship group amazing friendship group but they weren't like as in true business as i was i could be like really tired at 2 30 a.m and if someone came to me and said okay so there's this business idea i'm all right we're up let's go and i wanted to surround myself with that a lot more actually here's a really funny uh thing about six months after we sold so around october yeah i guess october yes On the 8th of October, that was my birthday, I sat down and I said, like, what type of life do I want?

43:10And what do I choose to work on? But also specifically, who do I want to be around? And I wrote that the people that I want to be around are people that inspire me, people that I inspire, and also people that I genuinely really love the conversation that we have. Because I realized that often there was some conversation I'd be in. and if you asked me 24 hours after what did you talk about like i actually have no freaking clue right but with this deciding the type of conversations that you want to have it led me to then opening friendships opening relationships with people that i thought oh yeah this is what i really enjoy and it's not because that person is rich or that person is wealthy it is because like their interests are the same as mine now.

44:02I love geeking out about business, but I also love geeking out about investment and portfolio strategy. I love that. And I love talking about fitness and going to the gym and doing all of these things. And so I consciously decided the type of people who would also be interested in that. So you brought us to the question of how you manage your money and portfolio. Yeah. So what's so interesting, and I'm sure you went through this even more was if there is anything public about someone who has made a bit of money the wealth managers and the banks just descend like vultures and I think probably two three months afterwards I kind of got the same thing as well and if I'm being honest I kind of enjoyed them pitching to me you know I loved Rothschild and Goldman and JP and Coots and our boss loads and all these people just like sitting there yes you can do this you can do them oh yeah tell me man tell me tell me what i can do if only i pay you fees right but i knew i was never ever going to go with like any wealth manager um just because i think i wanted to train myself and understand how to manage money because i think that you work really hard for your money and then you just give it to someone who just you know dumps it into like an index or something like that and it's like oh well there you go here my fees so how do i manage my money i think i do something quite similar to a lot of people actually beforehand a very fun story is that i struggled coming to terms with having money really really struggled like really really like insanely struggle because also as you know it's like when somebody pays you for your business they don't give you cash right it's all digital and so i remember so many times i would like wake up and i just check my bank account to be like okay it's there it's there okay it is real because i was freaking out i never came from money and i never knew really anyone who had money and so i was freaking out i remember having this constant dream that someone was after me like the police were after me like constant dream and i said it to a friend of mine and and she said oh you know the reason why right and it's like well because you don't feel like you deserve the money i said well it's not that i don't feel like i deserve the money It's more like I'm just scared I'll spend it all on bullshit, right?

46:50So that was definitely a thing for me where I had to come to terms with it before I could think about how to manage it. I speak to so many entrepreneurs or people who make the money from actually putting in the work rather than crypto people and dogecoin people. And they were like, oh my God, it took me so long to make this and I'm freakishly scared of spending it. so i had that for quite a while managing my money now is pretty much uh i see it as a fun game so on one end you have your you know very risky things or relatively risky things i invest in also a lot of agriculture stuff so one of the things i believe is everybody eats and so if you can get as close to the source as possible and invest in the source, then you're good.

47:47So for example, one of my big buckets is an agriculture business, which exports avocados, sweet potatoes, soybeans to the supermarkets here. And the returns are not a great. And I genuinely love that sort of business better than the other stuff I do, which is like index funds and stocks and and even property because to me i'm like oh i found an edge here like not everyone is out here investing in import export businesses and and getting great returns like 30 returns and all finding different arbitrages where someone needs some cash flow to buy this thing and the returns are 20-25 % and yes it's a bit risky but I still get that feeling of I figured out something that other people haven't so I think that's generally the way that I manage my money and then of course you've got your cash and all that stuff that stays in to make sure that you're covered but I generally have an appetite towards finding what I'd call the exotic investments, I think because it gives me a thrill to know that I found an edge somewhere, which other people haven't.

49:10What about angel investing? So I count angel investing as gambling. And to be honest, I have a very emotional tie to angel investing. When I started off, I was really just, oh yeah, yeah, you know, 25, 50, 25, 50, Just all of that. And I realized I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I realized that the reason I started doing the angel investing was because I could very clearly see the opportunity for a certain business if I was the founder. Yeah. And I'd invest in like an e-com brand and I'd be like, oh, well, it's very obvious the things to do for us to get this to a couple million in EBIT and then sell it.

49:53But then after a while, I kept thinking, why is this person not doing this? It's so obvious. Just do it, right? Well, we tell them, hey, do this. And then we meet in three, four, five months. Have you done it? No, there's this other issue going on. And then I realized that for me, the reason for angel investing when I was doing it at the beginning was I basically kind of wanted to replicate another success. And I saw it as my way of doing so. And then when you internalize that you are not the founder of that business and you are kind of gambling it and hoping for the best, I then stopped. So I currently have now 17 angel investments.

50:3790 % of them were made within six months of the acquisition because I was like, oh, yeah, you get a check. You get a check. Everybody gets a check. I was like the Oprah of angel investing. And then now I am taking less bets, but more concentrated into companies that I think I can truly help to exit. So that's been the journey that I've had through Angel Investing. Do you think part of it was to do with your identity that you wanted to be an angel investor, which sounds cold when you couldn't say you were a founder and CEO? That's a very good question. A really, really good question. I have a couple of thoughts on this.

51:15I have always said that I think that people want to be angel investors and to be venture capitalists primarily for ego. I've always believed this. Sometimes I'd meet, you know, 21-year-olds, 24-year-olds. What do you want to do? I want to be a VC. Why? Because, you know, they help companies and all that. Like, no, they don't. No, they don't. No, they don't. Maybe 1 % of them do. Most of them, it's like, I want to be a VC. So in my mind, I can say, I am the one who funds your entrepreneur dreams. It's like you're 21, 24. You haven't lived anything. You also have never run a business before. So what the hell are you doing here?

51:55Go to work. Yeah, like go to work. Like go and do interesting shit and then have the credibility to then help other people rather than, yeah, I want to be a VC because it's cool on LinkedIn. It's cool on Twitter. so i do think a part of it was that kind of it's cool to say i'm the angel investor i now have basically to me an angel investor was like i now have enough money that i can give a bunch away and gamble it away right it is probably as close to someone basically you know being the chair of a non-profit right it's like you know you have enough money that we use our family funds to help the less fortunate right angel invested is a capitalistic way of helping the less fortunate right so i do think ego was definitely wrapped in it because i wanted that position of all right now he's done well and now he's helping the others and then when i realized you know the reason i was doing it was just like a bad reason it was just purely ego it was just purely trying to replicate okay, some past success without being a founder, I thought, that's not what really gives me the kick.

53:12So probably go do something else. But you're still doing it. So I'm doing it in less companies and I'm taking like active, like bigger positions. So now it's really for financial reasons because you think it's a good investment. And most importantly, I can see a clear exit which I can help with. So for example, the companies now have stakes. And in fact, there's a company right now that we are selling and it wouldn't sell for a ton it's selling for 19 million 19 million is a ton but like it's selling for that after i invested in it probably yeah just about two years ago and i thought it was just like oh yeah let's kind of see how it goes but then over time i thought oh actually there's a very clear obvious exit for this and i can influence it so then i spoke to the founder i said look let me put in some more money i also want to have a significant part of it as a non-exec, we're going to get this to an exit, right?

54:09And it is definitely financial reasons, but it's also the idea that I can be involved in something, exit it again to private equity rather than some kind of strategic. That's a big difference actually in the way I engine or I guess now I invest. I invest now trying to understand what the end is going to be in mind and how well can I influence it? I wonder if that ticks the box for significance and proving yourself once again without you having to actually do a business. I'd love to talk to you after that exit to see how it affected you. Yeah. When it's not really yours. Yours, yeah, yeah, yeah.

54:49I mean, I would say in that vein, it does tick the box of significance, but more of the fact that like I helped another founder achieve their dreams. So it's not mass significant, but it's like very specific significance and in this case i think it's really interesting because the founder has a family he's like 42 or something as a family etc and i think it's cool to be like oh you know dad bought this house because it's how we're going um and i think that you're in bad legacy yeah exactly so i think that drives that significance i wasn't even going to go there into the whole legacy and the state planning thing because you're too young for that but are you thinking about it and how are you thinking about it no okay no i don't believe in legacy i believe that when you die you die and then that's it you're not even going to be there anyway to think about your legacy i went to egypt about four months ago and we went into this massive museum and there were these two massive sculptures there and on the ground it says you know here lies the prince of blah blah blah and here lies the princess of blah blah and then looked up and i thought wow in their time these guys were so powerful so powerful and now there is a water bottle next to them and there's a wrapped sweets next to them and chocolates are next to them because people are like, oh, okay.

56:23They don't remember who you were. They don't remember really what you did. The only thing really is, I guess, how you made people feel, right? And so this is why, for example, I care a lot about creating experiences with my friends, with my family, creating really amazing things because it matters how they feel rather than look at all the things that they did. How do you think about spirituality? So I am not religious in any way. I do think I believe in manifestation. Actually, let me see how I got this. On the 25th of July, 2017, I wrote a journal entry to myself. And it says, Through my own effort and my mindset, I've come up with an idea that is now worth 3 million pounds, making 38K every single month, where I'm being paid 800 pounds to speak for 20 minutes.

57:19I now have a team of six people who were paying good money to work for me. I've made this happen and I'm living my actual dreams. This is crazy. My dad, I woke up to find him dead and he told me he was proud of me. And that feeling there of being unable to help with debts, that feeling there is one I never want to feel again, which is why I want to succeed so badly. So I never feel that feeling of powerlessness. The more money I make, the more power I have. the more I own my life. This is my opportunity to own my life. This is going to be the opportunity to own my life. And I wrote that on the 25th of July, 2017.

57:59And basically what I'd done was I had like through this and several entries, I had like designed a life that I wanted to happen. And it is the life that I'm currently living now. So I don't believe in like spirituality. I'm not religious, but I do believe in the sense of manifestation and basically being able to like push yourself and like design yourself and push yourself into the future and then live in that future. Did you visualize it or you just thought about it? So I thought about it a lot. I visualized a few things. A very interesting story. Whilst I was building the business, once every two weeks, I would go to this restaurant here called Claridge's and I would sit in the foyer of Claridge's and I would just surround myself with people having conversations, people coming in and I'd like look in there and I'd be like, I'm gonna be there someday.

58:57Like I'm gonna sit in there someday. Know what's going to happen. And a very, very funny thing. Two days after we sold, I went to Clarida's and I sat in the seats and I ordered like afternoon tea and I just had it yes yes so definitely there was that visualization this is going to be it and then it was it amazing you're gonna keep doing it I guess once you've decided what it is exactly what it is that is the tricky bit as you said in fact I think in a lunch that we had before one of the things that you really made me think about was the forcing function for the next thing and the thing that's going to like really really push me for the next thing and to be honest I still don't quite know what it is yes I know it has to do with significance and all of that but I still don't quite know what it is because I guess for you like when after you had your previous exit then you started another company which you then stopped after a year what specific exercises did you do in order for you to go, oh yeah, okay, now I've understood my triggers.

1:00:06Well, at that time I didn't because I was overwhelmed with my children. And I decided that, okay, this is what I'm going to focus on right now. And I actually see quite a lot of exited founders find their purpose in the family first. Yeah. It's kind of the easiest. So they focus on the family. I did that as well. and for a while it really satisfies this search for meaning and it feels very meaningful. Because for me at the end of the day, what's meaningful is when you give yourself, when you serve someone else. It's bigger than you. So that meaning is always that, but we grow out of different stages.

1:00:48So at some point I still was very focused on my children. I love them, but I started feeling, okay, there is something else I need to do. By that time, I already knew that it had to be something not selfish. And I read enough to understand that spirituality really is our growth from our ego, from our selfish to selfless. But it takes time. We can't just decide, oh, now I'm this selfless being. I call it spiritual fitness. It's something that you do in a manner very similar to physical fitness. You learn a few rules, how to do it, how to do it efficiently. And then it's about being disciplined every day and doing it.

1:01:31For some people, it's meditation, gratitude. There are tools that have been known to humanity forever as how to do it. But it's training yourself to be less selfish. And then I think purpose, in a way, reveals itself when you're ready. That's interesting. That's interesting. One of the things I've been reading a lot about is that final point you said about it would review yourself when it's ready. It will come. That sort of vibe. I find that really hard to almost say just be in a moment or work on yourself and the right thing would come to you rather than go and create that right thing. Well, but you can give yourself permission to not know.

1:02:19Yeah. Start with. So you relax and you don't worry about it too much. Yeah. And then you just work on your fitness, right? Because if you think about physical fitness, you don't expect that if you work out for five hours, you'll be ready to go to the Olympics. It's exactly the same thing. And I think you can apply it to your thinking about business as well. You mentioned it before. It's really that everyday work. And it's the same in a way with spirituality. But if we haven't grown up religious, and like you, I haven't grown up in a religious family, we have to find that formula for ourselves that works.

1:02:57But purpose is a spiritual thing. It is about being ready to serve other people. And it happens with age, with experiences, with spiritual practices, with understanding how it all works. you can't push it like you can't push being physically fit in one day but you can think about it in a way very similar to what you were saying about manifesting your dream you can know the direction right so my direction is there just because I know it's there and if you're religious it helps to have faith so you just believe it's there because you have that faith. If you're not religious, it's much harder because you have to do that work to create conviction.

1:03:51And for me, for example, I create conviction if something is very logical, undeniable. I like going back to first principles and making sure intellectually it's very logical. And then I have conviction. That's what works for me because I don't have faith just by default. That's interesting. And that's kind of thinking from first principle. Okay, well, what's a recent belief you've had that you have got rid of because it didn't logically make sense to you? Well, I believe, for example, that at its core, motivation simply comes when we want to get away from suffering and we move towards what we think is pleasure.

1:04:40So moving from suffering towards pleasure. And if you think about it, we can manipulate it quite a bit. So we can focus on how much we hate a particular situation. For example, you know it very well. You hated your poverty. And then you created a dream and you were both pushed and pulled. Pushed by suffering, pulled by that dream. And to me, that's really first principle. This is simply how desires, how motivation works. And then I feel very empowered because then I focus on creating that dream, focusing on that suffering, and then I am driven. That's just an example of how I think about first principles.

1:05:23Instead of, for example, a more popular way of thinking about it, oh, decide what it is you want as opposed to what other people want from you. It's all very confusing for me. I need to have a very clear, simple mental model. It makes sense that based on first principles, it's logical, and then I believe in it. So, for example, talking about serving other people, to me, it comes from very first principles because it's natural for us to want to serve others. We are tribal animals. So people are born very selfish. Then once we take care of ourselves, we naturally want to take care of others. That's when we fall in love, we have children, and then we want to give our knowledge to the next generation.

1:06:11So that circle of those we serve naturally grows because what the nature wants us, it wants us to survive and it wants us to help our species to survive. So it's very primal that we want to serve other people. So it's more about being aware of it and cultivating understanding of it and accepting that fact than coming up with some fancy theories that are not based on how nature works. Yeah, no, I think I can empathize and I can agree with a big part of that, especially your motivation framework that you have, which I guess is one question. Yes, for both of us is now for you, what motivates you?

1:07:00I am madly in love with the community of post-exit founders. I want to serve them. So I've identified that tribe that I want to serve. And I think I do have knowledge that would help them. And this is why I ended up doing this podcast, which is really your fault, by the way. Let's be honest. If not for you, I wouldn't have done it. That's good. But you pushed me and you encouraged me and I'm very grateful because it is, I feel, the best way to do it, the most efficient way to do it. And it gives me enormous satisfaction. And looking back, I definitely can see how I had these different circles and I've been growing out of myself, out of my family, into this community.

1:07:53And it's okay. Hopefully I'll care about the whole universe soon whenever. Anyway, let's get back to you. It's your interview. Talking about your fitness and health, how do you think about that? I think that is one of the most important parts of living. People say health is wealth, and it sounds very much like just an Instagram quote. But actually, health is truly wealth. And so for me, it's very important that I look physically in shape. It is something that I've always done. and I think it started off just being that I just did not want to be fat. Quite frankly. Fair enough. Yeah. And then I thought, actually, it's also a challenge in the same sense of a business is a challenge.

1:08:42So this is physical challenge. Let's go back to that moment when you had just sold the company. You were excited. Do you have any idea what you wanted to do then with your life? I think one of my biggest regrets was that I had no clue what I wanted to do after I sold the company. Why was it a regret? Because I think I then ended up spending a lot of time being very aimless and thinking, if that is, now what? And that was a massive challenge. I still don't quite know what I want to do. But at the very least, with the stuff I'm doing, with content, with the people I'm meeting, with the networking, I feel like I'm opening up myself to some kind of randomness.

1:09:27But shortly afterwards, when I had absolutely no clue, it was actually a very daunting time. Is it because you put a lot of pressure on yourself that you should know? Well, I think it's because I didn't envision a life after I had, quote unquote, made it. I just thought well that's it happily thereafter yeah I didn't envision what I want to do family wise I didn't envision what actually really excites me I had one sole focus and once I'd achieved it I didn't quite know what's next but don't you think it makes a lot of sense because if you didn't have that focus then you wouldn't have achieved what you wanted to achieve maybe the time is now to do that introspection Now that you can afford it financially and time-wise, now is the time to do it.

1:10:18Nothing to regret, really. I agree with you. And to be honest, there's a bunch of things that you've said in this interview, in this conversation. And a few times I've had lunch that have implemented some guardrails for me to think about that. And you're 100 % right. You know, it is one of those things where like, if you didn't have that soul focus and intensity, you will not have been in this position. So now that you are in this position, you can now afford to do the thinking. And I'm excited. Have you tried vegetation or silent retreats? I haven't and I'm really down for it. I am. Maybe we can talk offline about it, but I'll be like really, really down for it.

1:11:04It's something that I've wanted to explore. I just haven't found the right people or been in the right surroundings. It just seems like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. And that's a way to explore that. Probably. Probably. I think part of it, I mean, I think a part of it also, it comes from not having siblings. Okay. Let's blame the parents. That's always my favorite thing to do. It comes from not having siblings. And so I have always been self-reliant. It comes from, you know, as I mentioned, my dad passed away and like feeling this desire that I had to do something important. It comes from, you know, mom and I don't have like the easiest relationship and just feeling the need of, okay, I have to rely on myself.

1:11:56And so if I then peer into the future as to what that future looks like, I'm like, okay, well, you're going to design that future. Nobody else. And so because of that, I am seeking to find some good answers. It looks like there is some healing that can be done for your soul. I think it's going to be a wonderful period in your life right now, figuring things out. Amen. Okay. You don't know generally what you want to do next. Yeah. What's on your plate in terms of immediate things? Because I know you, you always have lots of friends. So earlier I said that's one thing I've been doing is creating social content online since the start of the year.

1:12:36That seems to have been taken off considerably well. So a couple of things. I have this TV show with a TV network. I have a book that I have just signed in ageing for and a lot of publishers are fighting over the book. That's honest. Yeah, I heard. I also have just really been enjoying new formats and new social content that we've been putting out. I take a lot of pride in coming up with new innovative things. Yeah, book, TV show, the speaking engagement stuff is like doing very well, but that's something that I've always done for a while. I think overall, just all the opportunities that come as a consequence of building a personal brand online or building an audience online or building a valuable audience online as well is very, very powerful.

1:13:31And so I'm excited by that. So basically, you know that you want to build a personal brand. You just don't know why quite yet. Yeah, I think the short term thing is having a personal brand to me is such a massive cheat code in this new era of business. You have an audience already. You're able to get into things because of your audience. People know you for your expertise and that makes things significantly easier to do anything. And so for me, it's like if you have the opportunity to build that audience, why would you not do so, especially with something that you enjoy? For the benefit of our audience, we have lots of people who are thinking what to do, and they are flirting with the idea of building a personal brand.

1:14:15What would your advice be how to start if you have no experience? What's the easiest way people like us to start? So I think there are probably three steps to this. The first one is to not commit to building a personal brand for a long period of time. because actually it can be quite daunting if you think okay this is now who i have to be i now have to be a social media personality i now have to be a personal brand the first thing is i would say just do it for three months and then at the end of three months if you enjoy it do it more if you don't enjoy it then you say at least i tried it the second thing is to figure out what is your competitive advantage in the marketplace.

1:14:59So for example, I sat down and I had a sheet of paper and I wrote, what makes Timo unique? And I came up with a whole host of different things, right? Like being a black guy, being in South London, being someone who had grown up in Ghana for 10 years, being someone who did enjoy like jazz, classical music, opera, but also hip hop and rap, right being someone who had built a business in an industry which is not deep tech or anything like that it's just like an advertising software business most people can do that building a business in an industry that people understood like social media industry so there's all these facets that make me unique and then as a consequence of that i just started to put in different frameworks and narratives based off that so that's the second bit like really trying understand what will make you unique in the marketplace.

1:15:55And then the third thing is to actually lower the barrier of success. So this was something that I intentionally did where I said, all right, when I start creating content, the barrier is going to be, can this crack 2 ,000 views? Okay, cool. Can this crack 5 ,000 views? Okay, cool. Can this crack 10 ,000 views? So incrementally, I kept improving. And I think because I saw that rapid improvement every single week, and now we're hitting like 100 ,000 views, half a million views on content, then I'm like, oh, okay, now it's working. And now the bar is, can this crack half a million views? But if basically I'd started off by just saying, all right, we want to make things viral, we want to make half a million views, we want to make a million view video, absolutely no way would I have been encouraged to keep doing is because at the beginning of anything, you're not that good, right?

1:16:53At the beginning, I would often say to my team, I want us to look at this video and in six months look and say, what a video. And the funny thing is yesterday, we were looking at a video from ages ago and like, that's a video. Like the Hulk is rubbish. There's no payoff. There's no reward. It's a rubbish video. But at that time, we're like, oh, this is a sick video. And so I think those three things of A, actually commit to just a short period of time because i think the thing that throws off people is that they feel like now they have to have a new identity as a personal brand as a content creator second one is to actually really figure out what your zone of competence and your zone of genius is and then you build up narratives of that because there's always an audience for uniqueness and then the third thing is actually to set a low bar for success because by doing that you'll be encouraged every single day to see as the numbers go higher and higher.

1:17:50And then you choose the correct platform depending on that image or that story you created where it would be received properly, right? Exactly. So, for example, we are bringing out a newsletter, but we didn't do that for quite a while because I actually hate writing. I passionately hate just sitting there and typing and typing and typing, right? but i love talking and i love video and i love um just just like the like the visual storytelling and so because of that i then set it on the short form video which is like instagram and tiktok youtube shorts there are some people who are listening to this who are like actually they are really in-depth thinkers and they're able to get out their their narratives and the story and the edge they're able to get it out through words therefore you should write a newsletter you should write on LinkedIn.

1:18:43So I think you're right that you apply what your competitive strengths are to something because so many people would ask me, why don't you have a newsletter or you're missing out on a newsletter? And I'd say, cool, but also I would focus on the thing that I really enjoy and I'd grow that really big. So then if I want to launch a newsletter, now I'm launching it to like half a million people and not just like, you know, video, I have 20 ,000 here and newsletters, I have 5 ,000 here and this I have 3 ,000 here. No, actually like focus on the thing that you have an edge in really make it big. And then on the top of that, it's when you can start to build other things.

1:19:19What are some non-obvious ways to monetize a personal brand? Non-obvious. Oh, do speaking engagements counts as non-obvious? I guess so. Okay. So, So, speed and gamemans are non-obvious. I'd say consultant stuff is non-obvious. By that, I mean it's not directly from the platform, but it's because people see your expertise and then they ask you. And then probably for me, the most lucrative is actually getting into investment deals. I got into a number of very lucrative deals because basically for a number of months, someone sees me constantly showing up on their LinkedIn and constantly showing up on their Instagram, constantly showing up on their YouTube and going, this guy knows what he's talking about.

1:20:06And so as a consequence of that, they say, right, for what our next partner is, for what our next is, for what our next that, he doesn't need to put in money. Actually, we just want him on the cap table and we just like, you know, give him like 100 grand worth of shares, 200 grand worth of shares, because we know this is a guy that can add value in other ways. So those would probably be a three-year start thinking about it. Brilliant. Timo, this has been absolutely amazing. Right. Yeah, it's been good. I'm almost out of question. I'll just ask you one final question. Sure. How do you want to be remembered?

1:20:43I don't care about being remembered. I love it. You're the first person who says that. I don't care about being remembered. Once I die, I'm gone. Yeah. And I don't really care. And I think there is so much pressure that people put on themselves to do something that makes them remember it, but it doesn't matter. Fair enough. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. It always is. That was fun. That felt like a therapy session.