Eating With Tod: 9 Crazy Ways to Build a 7 Figure Food Empire from an iPhone 11

35:42It had like loads of like Italian meats in it. So it had like, I don't know, salamis, mortadella. It had a really nice cheese and then they finished it with like a honey drizzle. Oh, yeah. Like a nice little vinaigrette on the salad. on the salad, but it was on the, like, it was just so good. It was the first time I had, like, proper focaccia bread that just tasted oily, pillowy, like, it had depth. It was just awe. Have you been to the Max's Sandwich place? Max is, Max is, yeah. And Crouch End. Yeah, his is amazing too. Yeah, because he talks about, I can never say it, I would say focaccia, focaccia, I can't pronounce things, but there is something, I think that's the best bread to have a sandwich on.

36:19100%. Like, it's just that, that, and also, I actually think sourdough is pretty wanked to have sandwiches on. Yeah, agreed. I think it's good to have butter when you're starting a meal. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But then to actually, like, have it as a sarni, it's too... Yeah, you need them sheets. You need those, like, all that bread to just slurp up all the moisture, all the everything that goes into the sandwich. Basically, what we just had there with these guys. Focaccia, how do you say it? Focaccia. No, no, the restaurant is focaccia. focaccia mia focaccia mia yeah that was it yeah because obviously you've got all the chimichurri that's just melting in it's a good vehicle to soak up things yeah that's exactly what it is but then also with the bacon sarni I think what's your favourite bread to have a bacon sarni on literally just straight up white bread yes well yeah so with fuck loads of butter that's what I like you know those soft floury baps oh yeah they are good yeah yeah if you're hungover that's what you need yeah yeah yeah with real extra crispy bacon it's so good yeah so sorry so we were saying back to these pillars of simplifying the complexity of building on socials so you've got have fun be consistent, what else?

37:27because mate, I could line up 100 wannabe bloggers outside right? Not everyone's going to get to 1.5 million what were you doing different? 1.7 there we go more than that by the time this comes out mate but what would you do differently because you know as we've said said the fun we've said the consistency again like i mean the spots that you find obviously like you can't really polish a turd that much like so you've got to be showing good food with good stories at good places so like you know i always look at a story of a restaurant you know who's working there like is is the you know is the mum the granddad the grandma still working in the kitchen great like amazing like she will have loads of stories like she's worked there for 50 years um and normally if a restaurant's been around for 50 years normally it's pretty fucking good yes yeah yeah yeah like because times are tough and restaurants will shut yeah and i think you're finding that a bit more these days is that it's actually really hard for a new restaurant to stay open if they're bang average like you always have to think of things and do and do things a bit differently now i don't think it's like it probably was 10 years ago what are some of those underrated um like restaurants or like yeah because i think this what i love about london is it is more than anywhere it's such a melting pot of different cultures and then obviously cuisines yeah is that you're just basically getting these atoms colliding of stories and just rich histories and stuff like what are some of the wildest stories of some of the places you've been um that spring to mind wildest stories but i know that there's you know places like you have like terry's sorry terry's cafe in like in borough market like you know that has been there for you know probably 80 years that is in borough's market it's just next to borough market um and austin now runs it now who is terry's son yeah but that like the concept of that cafe started because it was close to spitfold's market so he could go and get his meat and he would get all the meat from from the market you bring it back and you set up this like cafe to to sell like this amazing produce from and i don't know like things like that is what london's kind of all about like it is you know it's focused on local ingredients great produce and amazing people to go and enjoy that with how important is london to eating with todd and like could you do this elsewhere or how important is this city for you?

40:01I think it's, yeah, I think, you know, when I had a million followers, then I think 80 % of people were from the UK and 25 % were from London. But again, London's like, it's great because everything is here. Like, you know, you go to Paris, you go to, what are the European cities? Lisbon. Budapest, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're all great. But, you know, you can go and eat food from, you know, Portuguese food in Lisbon for a day. How many videos are you going to get out there? There's probably not, you know, you can probably get like 10, 15, 20 videos. But then it's just the same stuff that repeats.

40:42This is what's crazy. It's like London, obviously, I was thinking about the other day is, I've just had a mate who's moved out to Dubai. Yeah. He's paying fuck all tax, right? Yeah, yeah. He works for the city. And, you know, it was one of those wet days. And you're thinking, oh, you know, this is a bit of a slog. Yeah. but then and obviously all the I was just looking at the news it was morbid and bleak and stuff then I was just thinking well actually yeah but like for what I want to do so podcast meet the most amazing chefs restaurateurs founders London is the best city in the world in the world for like this and actually my background was more like starting actual brands they're all based in London like people people in Oz look up this city and think I wish obviously we might have New York and we can just discuss that in a sec but I do think it's a bit grim but the food you get here is just wild it's just so good some of the Indian and Pakistani places in North London are just incredible and then you go to South London you go to Brixton where you've got more Caribbean influence which again is just incredible I remember I got on the train at Brixton once and some woman just came up to me and she's like Tad, Tad, Tad, there's a woman selling Caribbean food out of her back garden, you've got to go.

42:02And I was like, fuck it, I'm going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I've seen that video, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, I didn't even know anything about this place, and I turned around from where I was meant to be going, got off the tube station again at Brixton, and then literally went to this, what's called Moran's Kitchen, and just kind of like, streaked into her back garden, and there's just these big pans where they're like, frying chicken, doing all this stuff, like going into her kitchen. I was like oh my god this is wild like this is crazy you could only get that in London as well yeah literally like there's nowhere else so you've been to New York you're just in Mexico City you've just been, you were in Singapore last year yeah these are massive cities describe out each one's different with their approach to food do you think in terms of like yeah like in terms of their approach to food how important food is in their culture and different types of restaurants and stuff.

42:56That's sick. What have we got here, mate? Excellent. Oh, I'm fucking... No, I'm on the food train, boy, so keep feeding me, boy. Yeah, so I think... Obviously, food's a massive importance in every single culture, in every single city. Like, everyone gets together with food. Yeah. What is this? Eggster. Ooh, naughty. One is a goat's ear. It's like a stick. Yeah. Why do you? Oh, yeah, them hash browns are naughty. You've had them before, haven't you? Is this like a pot of goose... What the fuck is that? I don't know what that is. Wait, is this the... Yeah, yeah, well, do we get a knife so everyone can get involved?

43:36Otherwise I'm just going to... Is that an egg in a cup? What's that? It's got an egg in it. Oh, my God. Yeah, I fucking love. Mmm. These have got a lot bigger. I'm going to dip it in this into this egg guy This isn't from LA, isn't it? Yeah That was like when I was setting up my food page, I think What, eggs start, got big? Well, they're always massive in America and then they came over How should I do this? Just down the mids, yeah? Yeah, so sorry, they're different cities, mate Different cities Oh yeah, so I guess food in every culture is just so important It doesn't matter whether you're in Vietnam or within...

44:23I'm trying this, mate. It doesn't matter whether you're in Thailand, whether you're in New York, whether you're in your mum's back garden. Food is so important to all these cultures. Yeah. Everyone loves to go and eat. I think in Singapore, it's pretty crazy because everyone goes to eat out. You have these hawker stalls, and it's cheaper. What are hawker stalls? They're basically like a food market, but everywhere is like a pop-up stand. So people are just going there, setting up, and you just get the most incredibly tasty food, which is so cheap. Some of the hawker stalls are even... How cheap is the food?

45:03You can get a Michelin star meal for like four quid. No way. Some of them have got a Michelin star, which is just mad. And yeah, you can eat there for four quid and get like duck, rice, soy sauce with some vegetables or something, and it's awesome. But yeah, in Singapore, a lot of people eat out because, like I said, it's cheaper to eat out in some of these places than it is to cook at home. And people say that Singapore is so expensive, and don't get me wrong, it is expensive if you go to the expensive places. It's really expensive. But it's just crazy to see the diversity between the street food and the expensive food.

45:43what about um new york that's so good mate this is the beef i mean you don't even know where to start with that i'll admit you you want to try that mate no no i'm all right before yeah yeah new york's just like where do you even start with new york like you get out you get off the flight and or you get into new york and you're just surrounded by these like huge buildings and these like long roads that you can just see into the abyss with but the food they're like everything's just on steroids so you know i remember when i went for my first new york bagel so i went to the place it was called tomkins bagel right and like you just walk in and just the energy in this bagel shop is like just mad like you feel it like you walk through the door and you just get this buzz of this line of people like fucking buzzing so about to have this bagel yeah all the staff like there they're pumped like they know that their bagels are really good and they want to be the best and like you just get and then the bagel comes in my face for these things this is just outrageous mate yeah you're gone yeah and the bagel comes and you open it up and you're just like what the fuck is this it's like it's like a ufo really like the the bagel was that big which you know in the uk you get a bagel you're like yes i don't know like it's as big as your fist this thing's like as big as like three fists like it's so big and like i was just like that i mean it was amazing but what did you have 20 pounds 20 pounds for a bagel yeah that's crazy what did you have in the bagel bacon egg ketchup bacon egg ketchup cheese loads it had loads of weird shit in it but it was so good really?

47:36yeah so good so what other places in New York did you go to? what's a pizza that's really famous I mean that's a fucking stupid question because there's loads of famous pizza places but there's the one Mama's 2? the really thin one oh the guy looks like a bit of a Donnie who's just like well I don't know I went I went to Joe's Pizza which is like a famous slice shop yeah which that was my first slice in New York New York pizza which I actually thought was pretty bang average for this really everyone talks about New York New York pizza and say it's like oh it's amazing like New York pizza it's a home to pizza like and then you go to uh crisp and crisp is in London is like legit the best pizza I've ever had yeah like it's amazing it's ridiculous but I don't know it's the culture in America and in New York and in Texas which really I just find is amazing and that's what I'd say that Britain doesn't compete on in the fact that you know all these neighbourhood spots like the fact that you know you've got this grandma running this Italian shop like Italian sandwich shop and she's been doing it for the last 100 years there's like a hundred of those in America whereas you come to like London and you come to the UK and you might have 10.

48:54So there's all these stories are just so much longer, like in America and in New York, especially because you've got... It's crazy because our history is much longer than theirs in general. Their country is only a couple of hundred years old. Yeah. But their food... Yeah, I think they just got very involved in that scene. Not necessarily maybe earlier, but everything's on steroids over there. like everything's like a religion and everyone's so passionate about it and they will shout about it so you know like if you go down the street in america you might have like three different sandwich shops that have all been there for for an incredible long time and each sandwich is literally as big as your your forearm and just to look at you're like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so i don't know like like i said when you look at like american bloggers compared to the uk bloggers they've just got so many places to go like so many like you've got the whole of america that and that's your audience whereas you know in the uk you've you've got london you've got people that are going to visit london don't get me wrong but when you compare in america to the uk like it's just so much bigger so much more would you say the actual what would you say dish for dish is better so my favorite thing i ate in america i i bloody love cats like people rip into cats they say like 35 quid for a sandwich it's ridiculous for listeners that's the big famous new york pastrami beat like a sarni place isn't it yeah castelli it's been there for like 120 years still family owned and you walk into it and like all like there's just this counter of uh people that have just got got all workers that have like armed with a knife just cutting this this pastrami and like there must be 10 15 of them in perfect sync it's like they're literally lined up to be in the army and they're like yeah just like soaring into this meat yeah yeah you pay them like 10 pound extra and then you get and then as a tip and then they'll give you like a free sample which is like just mental like it's not wagyu do you know what i mean but you do it and it feels great but i mean that that for me was like a highlight just to go in there to sit there and see and just like soaking all the history that's been in that place yeah like it's mad but like i said i think when it comes to new york food versus london food i don't know like they're probably like on the same part like in terms of well yeah i think london in terms of europe as you say you can we can i went to spend a lot of time in lisbon because my mate lived out there and it's like you you can whittle through the best restaurants in two days and then you're out Whereas at least with here, there's always something new.

51:37Yeah, like my restaurant list, I'm not joking, is like five pages of notes long. Like, it's so long. What else is on your list then at the minute? I don't know. I'm just stuffing my whole face with these, mate. Fucking hell. Let's have a look, shall we? Because whenever you see something, I just write it down. And then I've got my list of ideas, and then they might get deleted in a week's time or whatever. Where are we? I don't know.

52:06Okay, so last one I put on my list was a place called Unruly Pig. Oh, my God, mate. He's been on my podcast. Really? Brendan. Yeah. I can sort you out with that if you want. Yeah, sick. Mate. So I did a podcast with him, yeah? Yeah. And so he got voted the best pub in the UK the last three years, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I saw that, yeah. So I got there to do a podcast with him. And got there at 12 to start at, like, 12.30. Yeah. and I go and they go oh there's your table here you and Brendan have got a table and I was like oh we're just expecting us to like do that's where we're going to record the podcast and Brendan comes out and he's this larger than life character in terms of this is why I think in terms of doing a podcast like every if you've got a separate restaurant you'll be a crazy motherfucker because it's so hard yeah yeah completely it's so hard as you said the VAT stuff yeah yeah and he comes down this big sort of garrulous character and anyway long story longer we have a a five hour lunch yeah we're just having like every single dish and then he's and i'm like you know we've now got to do a podcast so then we did a podcast for two and a half hours with this guy can talk right um and then afterwards he was oh by the way it's late like just have dinner here but the food is insane but he's you know he came from like no hospitality background at all um was a lawyer that's mad just loved restaurants just loved restaurants as i and then he opened it and then now because it got voted the best pub yeah but i saw it was like the best pub in in the uk the last three years and then like the best roast and then i saw that he does this like sharing style roast and i was like that looks legit and then i looked at where where it was and it was fucking miles away not not that far like two and a half hours but But the problem is Sundays as well.

53:53Sundays is always roast day. But because I'm out with my mates at the weekend, now that I'm doing this full time, I try and have weekends off, even though that doesn't really happen. But I try to. So let's go back to, as I said, we'll always jump around with this. So let's go back to how you, I want to go back into the business side of things. Yeah. Because I think that's, as you say, you can build a following with, you know a couple of million people but like you may not make make no money off it and you know and equally like you may have a following with 5 000 people and making a small fortune off it right yeah completely like how did you begin to like talk me about some of the biggest mistakes you've made getting turning this into like a big business because it is a big like one man business like you know two ways about it you're doing incredibly well like you should be proud like incredibly proud of yourself but like what how did you get that off the ground how did you um I love the Jay-Z quote, which is like, I'm not a businessman.

54:53Yeah, I'm a businessman. And it's like, I think it's important to think of yourself as a business. Yeah, completely. Because otherwise you can get pulled into the, we won't talk about this, but like the call you've got after this with the deal. It's like, you know, there's a lot of hustle. There's all the shit we've talked about with the food stuff. There's all the business side as well. So let's talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely there's a lot of hustle, bustle. And I mean, for me, like the money's always been secondary. Of course. The main focus of Todd is to help these independent brands try and grow as much as they can.

55:25Like that's always been. And again, like you asked me earlier about, you know, how did you how did you have the motivation to carry on doing this with when you're working a full time job? and like when you get a message from you know this family who is on their ass and like their food's so good but that no one's going there and you transform their business overnight that's what gets you up in the morning i remember yes so i i remember there was a there was a taco place in bishop's bishop's stortford and i went north london that's like towards yeah miles away yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it, yeah.

56:06And I remember I went out the night before. I went to, I actually think I went to Fabric or I went to Egg anyway. Egg slug, oi, oi. Yeah. And, yeah, I got in late and I said to this guy, I'll be there, I want to go and film him. I reached out to him. I thought, there wasn't much on social media, but I thought, God, his birria looks really good and he's doing a birria pizza. And, yeah, I woke up in the morning and I was like, oh, God, I'm going to cancel. I just can't do this. I'm going to cancel. And anyway, I found the courage to go there. And I got there and it's just one guy, he used to be a scaffolder.

56:42He set this business up. He got there and he's like, mate, I've got£50 in my bank account. Like, if you didn't come today, I'll be shutting tomorrow. Wow. So I was like, they'd best be fucking good then. No, I'm joking. But then we got there and he started making like this consomme and he was pouring in like these like chilies and all this spice blend and i was just like i've never seen anything like this before yeah it's kind of like the first birria taco spot for listeners is like a beefy yeah beef taco yeah beefy taco it's like this like when it's like more of a saucy sort of isn't it like a stewy kind of thing isn't it well the bit yeah birria beef is like it's i don't know what kind of beef they use but anyway they break down the beef then you have this like it's almost like a gravy kind of yeah that's it yeah gravy yeah yeah yeah that's it infused within the beef and then it's served with like a blanket of cheese um but anyway yeah i went there and did this video for him and it just went crazy like mental like got two and a half million views online like queues down the door he then actually had to shut for two weeks because butcher couldn't had sold out of meat so he's just had this like viral video he doesn't know what to do he can't he didn't want to employ anyone else because you know how long does the video last it's still him just in this little shop and then he had to shut for two weeks because he couldn't get any beef and it was just like he was messaging me he's like mate i don't know what to do i really that must be so fulfilling though knowing that you can like help and like change someone's business overnight what are some other places that you've kind of pulls from the ether of doom and like if you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in d2c but you're struggling to crack retail then you've got to listen to this maybe you've got a cardo listing maybe you've got a whole foods listing maybe you're absolutely killing it in selfridges maybe you're absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies but my friends making the leap crossing el chasum crossing el rubicon to grocery retail is not easy it's the Champions League of FMCG.

58:47It's super hard. It means playing at a higher level, and that's where some of your amazing brands sadly stumble. Look, retailers want stories backed by data, not dreams, and a pretty pitch deck. And let's be real, supermarkets are not just going to magically make a space for you and your little brand. They need data. Something's got to go for you to get in, for you to get on shelf. And that is why I've got to tell you about Northstar. They are the team that's helping purpose-led FMCG brands go from gut instinct dreams to unstoppable pitch decks that actually unlock retailers. Northstar are not like another data company that force feed you data like Fuagua that act like a NASA space mission.

59:29It's super, super simple to use. Their team are amazing and they actually get the challenger mindset. Northstar are your shortcut to smarter decisions, stronger pitches and investor confidence all built specifically for challenger brands like yours you don't need a massive sales team you need north star link in the show notes click that link and you'll be able to book a free demo with north star highly highly recommend that and thank me later i think that's i mean that's the the big one where he like he was actually shut the next day but i think a lot of these like independent family businesses like they don't run their own social page they don't really know what they're doing they're relying on their their normal income of people in each week and when you do do a video and it gets like a million views like you you know for the next two months you you are fully booked like there's that many eyes on these videos now from creators and even if the video is goes viral for the wrong reason people will still be going there like like it's it's eyes any kind of publicity is good publicity now and people are always going like if i'm trying to think of other examples of other businesses.

1:00:36I can't think of a topic. Quite a few, but... Yeah, you've done a fair share, mate. The... In terms of like the different... types of cuisine in London and there's like a whole sort of melting pot. What cuisine do you think we're lacking in versus other... It's obviously like, okay, Indian, we're absolutely flying. Because there's so many banging places. What are some of the weirder kind of cuisines that you don't think get enough love? I know it sounds weird, but pizza's definitely up there. You don't think pizza gets enough love? Well, I don't think there's that many good pizzas. Ah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:01:17In the sense that there's loads of people who do pizza. Like, you can get pizza on pretty much probably every road in London. But there isn't that many really good ones. Like, you've got, obviously, Crisp is amazing. Doe Hands is amazing. Bread Ahead Bakery. No, Bread Ahead do good pizza, but Bread Stool is insane. There's a new guy called Lenny's Pizza, I think, as well, which I haven't been to. Been to Gracie's? Yeah, Gracie's, yeah. That's banging. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Vincenzo's? Vincenzo's, yeah. them two are like yeah again they were vincenzo's was the first one i had where i had like a really good pizza so like before that you know you you go to like neapolitan pizzas and stuff they're all they're all very like same fest isn't it yes they're nice but when i think food review club posted vincenzo's it got like a million views went viral and i i kind of went there and i was just like what is this like this is like you get like a nice little like crispy crust but then you just get the most perfect slice of pizza which just holds itself to its own do you know what i mean so like you don't get any flop you get like a crunch with the cheese and the chili and you're just like yeah that's so good mate yeah tom's been on the pod actually he's a g yeah he's really yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's mad what they're just doing out of that one site in um like it's as big as this room.

1:02:41I don't mean that in a contest anyway, it just is. Yeah. They're just doing some of the most amazing pizza. Yeah. So you think pizza doesn't get enough, like it doesn't do what it could do? Like I said, London's massive and we've just reeled off like five or six places but again, in New York again, you have got really good pizza on every single street. It's really good. So like I said, there's not, I don't think there's enough really, really good pizza in London. and sorry as I said I jump around I think those those egg slut uh hash browns are sort of doing something to me but the um the so back to the business side of things so like yeah how did you get that that that going where you started making enough money to like really kick on yeah so again like I think we're just growing the page organically like brand deals come naturally you know so I can't remember what my first ever paid but it was probably like I don't know 250 quid to go and do a reel or something which you know you like I was just like oh my god this is just mad yeah I never knew at the start that you could really make any money with this like it was it it was actually because I was going around like doing all my thing and someone like messaged me and they're like mate I've just been paid 500 quid and I was like what like like you can make money in this like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um and then it kind of But yeah, then he kind of pushed on from there.

1:04:03And then you'd go around and, you know, your emails would get more and more and more. You'd get more and more, like, brand deals. You'd get, like, restaurants. And you'd get all this kind of, like, people would just overload you with, like, emails. And come here, do that. And then it's always been really important for me to, like, be able to balance content. Because if you try and get sucked into the money... Yeah, so how did you balance that? Yeah. I think it's by not being greedy. It's the main thing. Like, yeah, you're the munch, but not going to be with the dough. Yeah, because otherwise, like you could go, you know, it's working a full time job.

1:04:37If you go down around the weekend and you and you use your time to to film for money, then the engagement next week is never going to be as good. Like you're not going to those places that are really, really, really good. So, yeah, it's just going to balance it, really, and trying to not get greedy too early on. Yeah. And then did you because you brought in that that agency who helped you do deals? like what would you because I'm asking this selfishly right it's like we've like I'm at a stage now where it's like obviously this is nowhere near as big as what you're doing but like it's getting to the stage now where we are doing bigger deals they're more complicated deals it's not someone monzoing you 250 quid to go and eat fucking chow mein do you know what I mean it's like it's black and white contracts yeah yeah yeah exactly so like it's how have you how have you developed on the business side of things I know you've worked with that those guys yeah CCA CCA that's it yeah I've actually spoken to them they're amazing but the like how yeah how's that come about in terms of doing deals that are yeah so I guess like dad's always been like very business focused like who has?

1:05:41my dad right so what does he do? electronics so again like he's always been like you know he's very been business minded like I could ask him any question he knows it so like he's been like a massive inspiration like throughout this whole journey and the fact that you know I would see him getting up at six o 'clock to go to work to then come back in at seven o 'clock to then be able to afford for us to go on a nice holiday to go you know drive a nice car to live in a nice house to do all this kind of stuff so when you see that and you see like his determination you're like right i want that like that's what i want and i think like i mean in construction i was i was all right i was good at construction i was never like top of the class i i you know i formed good relationships with people but it was never like i never had that like buzz to get up in the morning and you know people always say like you know if you're really successful in life then you then you know work's not you're not going to work you're going because you love it like that's when you read you know that you know from construction that's when you read that article on the way home because you're interested in the news i would never fucking do that yeah yeah yeah but people that were successful would would do that that's what they do they oh did you see what happened in the construction times but i never really had that like willpower to do that so when the whole food thing kind of came around and you started doing more deals more more this more that like that's just like when my brain just i got so motivated so um sucked into it that i don't know i just absolutely love it yeah i think as you say everything's downstream from from what you love doing and the rest will sort of take care of itself exactly like that's the main thing and i think yeah like i said when so when you get in through these contracts and stuff like that i can i always like relied on dad to help me out to to look at things to read it over what do you reckon about this yeah i do the same with my i don't know what to say here yeah i'm very very lucky and i think that's and that's probably the thing in creator world as well like there's no it's not like where you've got a consultancy in in property where you can benchmark fees against loads of other competitors and stuff, and you might have a set rate of 10 grand a month.

1:07:55In influencing, it's so complicated because you might have a million followers, but you might have a rubbish engagement rate. You might be working with a brand who's got a really high budget. You might be working with a brand who's really big but doesn't have any budget. So it's almost like a guessing game for that whole chapter. What would you say is the best mix for like potential clients um again what well now we're told like it's not it's not about any kind of like small clients anymore really like we try and work with like bigger brands and then everything else is really organic and again like obviously what the great partnership with uber is the fact that we can still highlight all the smaller brands through a partnership which is unbelievable and Which is why it works so well.

1:08:45Like the videos that we've done to date, like have averaged like 900 ,000 views per reel, which, you know, for working with a big commercial brand is crazy. And I don't think there's many creators like in the world that have that same average and consistency. And again, but that's where everything that we do and everything we choose now, you know, it still has to be focused around your organic content, which you know like we've done you know with uber if we go to uh you know we go to a place and review a burger like 50 sorry 50 seconds that video is me doing my thing and then 10 10 seconds of that is about uber and and highlighting those as a brand but it's so it's very subtle isn't it what you would do because this is before we even we'd start working with uber as well but like it's very you wouldn't know it's not overt like shoving it down your face like oh get this on your knees yeah exactly yeah so like if you know if you've got a video that gets a million views and you're highlighted for 10 seconds within that video and it and it's really nicely positioned and then people like they go into bed sleep or will it they get home that night they go you know i'm gonna click on uber that's what and it's that little like subtle reminder whereas actually if you put 30 seconds of a brand in the video versus 30 seconds of of a pizza or of a burger place it's people have like disengaged like it doesn't work don't you don't have to you can tell me to fuck off on this one but what sort of money what's the most sort of money you've made out of a deal or for a post you don't have to answer it yeah no I probably won't you can tell us off air I'll get fired

1:10:30what about deals you've said no to that because I think I think actually when you get to this other stage is it's actually the art changes from at the beginning you say yes to everything and they're going to give you 250 quid and you're like buzzing your tits off like oh my god I can go and eat a panini for 250 quid you're like yeah you get to a bigger stage bigger responsibility and I think what you said earlier mate is it's like you've got responsibility not I don't think people think you've got you personally what I'm getting from you you have this kind of purpose or responsibility to like help the birria tacos guy help the nonna who's making focaccia bread help the you know the the amazing little cafe in stoke newington um that comes with that responsibility almost like the sort of superhero food if you want to call it that like you can just do a post and turn these businesses around so you've got that to contend with the tech the other tension is if a big big fucker comes knocking and says well it's a lot of dough for a post yeah yeah yeah completely and and that then you've got in between all of these two things is your brand yeah we'll come on to the film festival in a sec yeah of course but what what have you sort of had to say no to yeah i mean there's been like there's been massive deals in the past which have been you know huge like almost nearly like six figure sums like that you how do you say no to that because i don't think i would be able to because if they're if they're trying to get you to plug you know they're trying to get you to do a few videos that plug something that's just so disingenuous so what did you have to plug well we can take it out just tell I mean, yeah, yeah.

1:12:02No. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, it's not even plugging something like that. It's more just going away from, like, your organic content. You know, for example, like, you know, trying to do... If someone wanted me to do a cooking series in my house, you know, compared to me going out and eating at restaurants, like, I wouldn't want to charge someone lots of money to do a cooking series because the engagement's going to be shit. It's not going to work. Like, it doesn't really, like, align with what Todd is. Like, the reason why these ads and deals work really well is because I believe in the videos that are going out.

1:12:39And also, the way that I look at it is, you know, if I agreed a large amount of some with a brand, but the videos were so against what Todd is, even if it could be visiting a restaurant, but not the right kind of restaurant, and say that those videos get 150 ,000 views compared to a million, when you work with the next client then and they look at your previous campaign, they're like, what's going on there then? So I always look at the average of views for brand partnerships as something that I'm really, really close to and has to really match what I'm doing because that is the brand. That's how you charge money to clients.

1:13:19Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes complete sense. and it's like, yeah, doing a cooking demo is not going to have the same pull as you going to do four Smashburgers, isn't it? Yeah, or like Speedos ad or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it probably would actually do it right because everyone would see me in Speedos, but, well, I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, you in Speedos jumping into a pool of masala could be pretty fucking jokes. Yeah, I mean, I would do that. I would fucking do that. Talk to me about Foom then and you're um like what is that how's that come to be so when so fume started because basically like when i took a blogging as a full-time job and what people don't realize really is that you know even on 900 files and followers i still worked a full-time job like why did you do that because i wanted the consistency i like the environment again i'm still learning as a person like where i was what i wanted to do where i wanted to be and for me like having that rhythm that balance having people who are successful to look up to to ask questions even if it's not about blogging you know even if it's just you know so sorry just quickly go into this because I want to push on this a bit further because it's interesting so you stayed in the job because there were successful people in construction you could ask about construction even though it had nothing to do with yeah because it's a mentality so what happened so I worked at a huge corporate company for project management which which is Gardner and Theobold, amazing company.

1:14:53But then I left them to go and join a 10-person startup company. Again, purely, this is when I probably had like 70 ,000 followers on Instagram. Again, what I wanted to do is to understand how to grow a business, how to grow with people, understand that mindset of that company and how that went on. And, of course, it was about construction. I didn't know how Todd was going to be successful. I always had belief, but you never really knew. So that jump for me, like, I think, what's the word? Like, it was always a thought in my mind, even though I probably hadn't realised it, which is why, you know, I went to this smaller company to learn and just be inspired.

1:15:36Do you know what I mean? What are some of the lessons you took from that that you still apply to Todd now? I think, again, the main thing, as we talked about previously, like consistency, like, you know, those people consistently get up. I know it sounds stupid, but they consistently get up. They go into the office. They set a standard between work life, home life. There was such good banter in our office. Really? Yeah. But everyone knew their line. They knew their place. They knew exactly where the line was and the limit was. And it was just really important for me to just see how these amazing colleagues would go about their work life.

1:16:14Has there been a lonely period on this? because I've said I work for a peanut butter startup before and like the crack was fucking banging like you're just going to the office and it's just jokes like you're basically working with your best mates and I still think it was the best time of my life but then obviously jumped ship to do this full time and obviously this bit's amazing like I'm chatting with you eating eggs like fucking hash browns like amazing but like if I look at my week like there's such a small percentage of it and actually a lot of it is really lonely and like a bit like oh and so talk to me about that so you've gone from that social environment where you're working with a team of like amazing people yeah and then you get sort of plunged into the into the abyss of like doing your own thing like talk to me about the lonely chapters on this four or five year journey i mean yeah it's it's crazy like you know going back to when even when i was at work i gave up a lot of my weekends you know sunday roast days is huge but all my mates would go out on a saturday so like a lot of times we'd go out getting stupid o 'clock in the morning and I'd have to peel myself off my mate's sofa and drag myself to a roast place or to go and eat a chicken wing I just remember like I'd wait there and I'd be like what the am I doing yeah but like at least when you didn't have much followers no this is like when I had like 22 000 followers yeah it started from around there that like the bug yeah of just really wanting to go and but I knew that if I didn't go there I had no content to do for the next week and so I didn't have a choice like it's do you not have any content for next week or do you go and get these two new spots that have just come on the radar well i better get out of bed then and just get there yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so and what's taught me through the lonely period like you're on the train to bloody bishop storeford or like what's going on in your head yeah there's a lot of you know it's much easier looking back now you're you're smashing it yeah but at 22 000 followers like taught me through the doubts the demons all that yeah i think like like i said the main thing is you know speaking is one you literally are by yourself like you don't have anyone to talk to at all in this like yeah you can speak to other bloggers and stuff um you know how much you trust other people you know everyone you know everyone seems is a bit like a man for themselves like in in that world so you know we'd have group chats and stuff and they and they'll all be good fun there's also like a lot of like um like you know oh this person went there like oh they copied my video oh they've done that and i just stayed clear of any of that like i just kept myself to myself Yeah.

1:18:40Which, again, like, is even more lonely. Yeah. But I didn't mind it, to be honest. I was always so set on where I wanted Todd to get to. Which was, what was that vision? You know, it was that vision of, once you're seeing the followers go, right, I need to get to 100K, I need to get to here, oh, maybe if I get to there, I might be able to quit my job. Wouldn't that be great? So it was always like a battle in my head, to really try and get Todd to where we need it to be. So I never really feared loneliness. And like I said, I've always been really close with my girlfriend, with my mates. Like I said, the worst thing for me was the weekend.

1:19:27Why was the weekend so bad? Because that was basically when it was time to shoot content and you had the time. yeah but your mates wanted to go out and party yeah so what i tried to do like because obviously you don't eat you can't really eat out every single day like you'd be enormous so i try to like eat relatively healthy during the week and then weekends i go and do all my shoots but then also at the same time you're trying to meet your mates you know you're 23 24 25 years old like all your mates are like yeah let's go out let's go let's get absolutely like completely bollocks yeah yeah yeah and then i was just wondering didn't you say you went to uh was it drum sheds and everyone's saying coming up to you going you can't take a date take a mate that must be a treat and i hadn't been there for a long well i hadn't been out in in public for a long time it's out in public like who the fuck am i um like but you know yeah yeah i'd grown probably you know the page over like between sort of like july and christmas last year it really ripped like it went up probably like 600 ,000 followers again.

1:20:29Wow, yeah. So like, I hadn't been out clubbing in like a year. So then just going out and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Like everyone's like coming up to you like, hey, Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd. You can't take a date, take a mate. Yeah, like can I get a photo and then we would, it got to like half eight and we were like, this is just ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, you can't get like shut, shut down with that. Like, at the end of the day, like it's positive isn't it like people are recognizing you they're seeing your content like it may not last forever like enjoy it like and so i i enjoy it i enjoy meeting people like people that come up to me like they'll say what's your favorite restaurant i'll probably stutter and say i don't know um but yeah i like i enjoy that side to it yeah well what who was the guy we met the 10 bells pub who's my mate's cousin the other week yeah yeah it was oh how do i sell these burgers again that goes back to helping someone like just open the pub shortage got a new food menu and straight away you're like mate just one give out a load of free burgers to advertise on the table that you've got a burger's here like yeah that's from you you're almost like this sort of like the google of how to make a restaurant good you know like almost like this sort of ai oracle like right what do i do it's like do that and i bet he's probably selling some fucking burgers now um yeah it's uh so yes you went through that sort of um lonely period which i think everyone is who's trying to do their own thing and go against the grain is is gonna come with that but like that's why i kind of like so i still went into the office still went to work like still i kind of had the best of both worlds i kind of had everything just trying to juggle it trying to make like men's men's meat yeah and then obviously then i went full time like I think it was nine months ago now.

1:22:20Just it was about 50 ,000 followers before I hit a million followers. And then we went to Vietnam and then it was kind of like the realisation point where my girlfriend flew home to go to work and then I flew to New Zealand for like two weeks. I was just spent two weeks in a hotel room by myself. And then I was like, this is pretty bleak. Really? It was really good. I met some amazing people, but sometimes you just want to have a nice little conversation with with with with your missus yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like oh fucking hell i've got to go um i've got to you know you gotta go meet this that someone else but i'm not naturally like the the biggest like of chattyest like people like you know i like to speak to my mates and stuff like that and you know i'm always better in a two than a one so like having to go every single night and socialize and meet new people like that was quite challenging but I also learned a lot about myself what did you learn about yourself?

1:23:17because something like that if someone said to me you have to go and put yourself into a situation where you're alone for two weeks I would have hated it when I was at uni I always wanted to my mates come join me on a hangover you always wanted to be with people to bounce stuff off them so for me to be alone for two weeks I was like oh my god but also like you the trip pushed me like outside my comfort zone like the fact that we were climbing these mountains we then go like fishing at sea like I've never done any of this before and trying to do that by yourself like make just it makes you realize what you what you can do yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so then you you leave just before a million followers you leave you go full time like how's your week your day change now because i think one thing pulling the rug of discipline and consistency underneath you and you're like you can be like a fish yeah out of water because you're like oh shit now it's just me like how does how did you that's the crazy thing isn't it like i remember waking up on the monday thinking sorry thinking god what do i do like i don't have to go to work like i haven't got a boss anymore like this is just me i can i I think I just sat on the sofa, watched TV, because I was just like, why not?

1:24:39Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the same time then, like, that's... I'd always been held back by this, like, whole weekend point, like, where you... You were just so stressed from the week, trying to do... man, it juggled all your planes. So straight away, what we tried to do is do, like, more like a working week. So, like, now, I very, very rarely will edit in the evenings. I try to get off my phone at like six o 'clock now like yeah okay I'll dabble a little bit here and there the other thing might come up obviously we'll go on to fume but that's another thing that now takes a lot of time and energy um but it definitely a lot we try to get a lot more rhythm and like I said this year I've cut down on posting a little bit like last year it was unhealthy trying to manage all these places then you beat yourself up about views a bit and how do you deal or that because that's something i'm very bad at well what how do you separate you because your name's toby it's not yeah it's not what talk me through the difference between todd and toby i think it's just interesting yeah like how do you separate todd versus from toby you know what i mean yeah todd yeah todd's kind of like it's more like there's like character that's like bimbling idiot that like again just is very smiley very chatty very you know enthusiastic about food and life.

1:26:00Yeah. And I guess there's not much difference between Todd and Toby, to be honest. Do people call you Todd or Toby? Do your mates call you... I'm Todd to a lot of people, yeah. Yeah, okay. Maybe if I've done something really wrong... No, even Mia will call me Toby. My parents call me Toby. My sister calls me Toby. So, yeah, I'm Toby to those people, but to all my mates it's Todd. Okay, yeah, yeah. And Todd came up, like, Like, one of my mates just misspelled it on a chat when we were A-levels. And that's how Todd, like, came up. Yeah. Just stuck. Everyone just... That's wild. So then how do you almost let Todd take the beatings of the bipolar-ness of the views and then almost keep Toby sane if that's the best way to look at it?

1:26:49I think what I've realised now after posting so many times and doing all these videos is that if you do a good video, you get rewarded. Like, no matter who you are, what followers you've got, if you do a really good video, people will want to watch that video. It's like a TV show, like, if you've got a really good... Or a film. Like, if you do a really good film, like, this director has done this... puts out this really good film, that film goes crazy. Like, if you look at, like, the Squid Games, like, that came up, no one knew anything about it, bang. Whereas, you know, people do shit films, no one watches them, but the next time they might do a really good film and loads of people watch them.

1:27:27It's the same with content. Like, if you're producing the same content, you're going to get the same amount of views, but what am I trying to say? I know what you mean. Ultimately, the algorithm's a meritocracy, isn't it, really? Yeah, what do you want? And it's like, I think, what's it? Who's it Mr. Beast says has got a great thing, which is like the algorithm, it's not that the algorithm didn't like it, it's that the people didn't like it. just transfer the word algorithm for people yeah so you know like people will say like they'll say oh yeah my like the algorithm's really bad at the moment and then someone else says oh yeah well you've got a comment on all your posts and you've got to read and read all your responses like it's kind of like no you don't like if you put a good video out people will watch it and you know whether you post one time a week or five times a week like as long as you you know you have a bit of consistency in there at the end of the day if your content's shit then no one's gonna watch it how do you balance between like creating content that you want yeah and then it what by by the time that you know like a content's gonna absolutely fly yeah then because for example with the podcast i know if i do a video about like sorry a podcast interviewing someone about how to get your brand into sainsbury's and waitrose that's gonna absolutely fly yeah but there's i've i've done this for four years i can't fucking do that every single time yeah and it's like actually sometimes i might want to speak to some like henry hayes the comedian like very tangential link to food yeah but like that really gets me out of bed yeah because it's a conversation how do you balance between like doing stuff because you personally follow your own curiosity yeah versus doing something that you just know is going to slap the algorithm you know yeah i think to honestly everything i try and put out now i'm caught that's something i'm cautious of and you know everything i like to do like normally is kind of like by the algorithm them but following like these like you know you can't just fly to new york and go to cats every single week you can't just go to like san sebastian and go to these like incredible steakhouses that like have these huge depths of story like at the end of the day you kind of need to accept that those views are really good for that reason and you know you might go through a quiet patch for a month you know because you're you're you're in london and you know you might you might not think of any ideas but that's okay do you know what i mean like this world you might just wake up tomorrow and you think oh god yeah shit i need to do i need to go and do that so like you can't really beat yourself up and it's in it's just normal to have those patches where content may not be as good as as how you like it or where you want it i know that you know it's a bit like a music writer like you know they might do their first album like which might be you get into a million million followers and it's great then you just go blank you're like what do i do now all those styles of videos are working but all whether a bit boring like you know yeah it's interesting also i think like some of the best music like the arctic monkeys i don't know if you like the arctic monkeys but like their first album was so different i went to see them at the o2 when they like i don't know the album was called but like didn't sound like the first arctic monkeys yeah but ultimately i've got respect for them because they weren't just banging out a different version of i bet you look good on the dance floor you know Same with David Bowie, constantly changing his fucking music.

1:30:43Yeah. And it's a balancing act between giving people what you know is going to work versus following your own... Because as you say, if you keep going to Cat's Deli every week, then you're not going to be wanting to do that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some things don't work. Like, actually, that fish restaurant in Epping Forest, I generally thought that story with... I thought the video looked amazing. I thought that was one of the worst things you've done. Did that not do well? No, I mean, it got half a million views. But normally, like, the average is around 800 to a million, I'd say.

1:31:15So, like, for something like that, that's just really organic, really good content with a really good story. Like, I was like, ooh, like, I kind of thought that would do better. But it doesn't really matter. Like, at the end of the day, in a month's time, that video's kind of gone, like, and then you've got the new ones, which is why short form's a bit weird, because you put out your video, everyone watches it for two weeks and then see ya. That's gone. You don't even really access it. Do you know what I mean? It's so far down someone's feed. Yeah, because you're going into more longer form content now like with the YouTube stuff.

1:31:50Yeah. Now how do you, that's an interesting place to play because you say short form, what we're doing now is almost the complete opposite of that. It's like people can listen to a pod that was done four years ago. Yeah, yeah. It's just a different mindset versus like, yeah why are you going into sort of more the longer stuff again it's i think one the short form's great and i kind of feel like i've managed to i kind of really understand short form and i understand the places that i need to visit the content and the style that i need to visit in like i kind of get it whereas like long form i really don't understand at all like so i want to focus like more of my energy and creating this more of like a rounded creator against you know someone who's just not known for for smashing these instagram reels so for me like as a creator as a person and also like the main thing is that i can tell more stories like i can tell like better stories over these amazing restaurants on long form over 10 minutes and i can for a minute like yeah because this is what i was trying to boil down the essence of like like what what behind the scenes and we're definitely getting there mate but i think ultimately like you're just you're like an enchanted storyteller really and through those stories you help thousands of people like one get into food and two keep businesses alive it's a beautiful kind of almost robin hood-esque you know uh way of doing things but talk to me about stories like what have you learned about grabbing people's attention because i'm just trying to apply this to what i'm my podcast like again it is slightly different because it's a longer for like we have the clips that go out some absolutely boot off right so like yeah we do one with osh from devonshire yeah that's gonna that's doing 700 000 views like i know that's gonna work the hospitality episodes i do yeah are always gonna do better because the net is bigger so i was like you could be in finance and still love food yeah you could be in whereas we've got those sort of hospitality episodes completely which i know are going to boot off right i've then got the challenger brand which is more like say i wanted to put create a a thing of diet a drink and sell it to a supermarket right yeah the audience pool is much smaller and because like but it's like if i don't but that that this audience is ultimately what keeps the lights on like then we do the supper clubs with them but i beat myself up sometimes i'm like that video should fucking fly but i'm like i'm like the the total the total addressable market for that video for the challenge of brown one is just is is never going to be able to do what osha at the devonshire is going to be able to do yeah and like i just i don't know how you sort of work with that do you I mean yeah I think again it's just learning and experience really yeah like I said like when you know when I first started my page I was kind of like I was poking all these burgers I thought burgers is what people wanted to see like these big drool drooly huge burgers but actually kind of what people want to see like in the UK is like everyone's really interested in fish and chips like because mate tell the story about the chip you called it the chips and fish or something oh yeah that's right where i was trying to get to my again the egg slot patch browns are sort of polluting my brain now but the the yeah is the attention uh storytelling attention and i think the chips and fish is a great story of that yeah exactly so i mean first first things to any short form video the first three seconds the most important thing ever like if you're scrolling you've got to catch someone you've got to stop someone from scrolling and that's a when you're like when you're on your shoots when you're when you're looking at the content you need to think how do I stop someone and so like the ways that I kind of I do that is people always complain firstly I mostly wear a hat in a lot of my videos whether I go to a fine dining restaurant wherever I go anywhere else and generally I think you've got to fuck that and bold like but I wear it again because it causes it stirs the pot basically why does it stir the pot as in because really you should be wearing like a nice hat into a fine dining restaurant okay sorry yes okay with you and just things like that like and So what are the little tricks of the trade in terms of winding people up?

1:35:53Yeah, so like, again, there's one, so I went to London's oldest fish and chip shop, and I then thought, you know what, I'm going to call it Chips and Fish, rather than Fish and Chips. Yeah, yeah. And so I just thought, oh, I was going to do it and see what people say. And I'm not joking, I lost 2 ,000 followers. And that one actually kind of backfired on me, because I didn't realise people were so religious about fish and chips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I'm obviously joking. I've literally got like I study this shit and like I know that fish and chips are popping off in London right now like obviously and people were just like I can't believe this guy he calls himself like a food reviewer like he's a he's got this food page and he calls it chips and fish people are so insulted yeah yeah yeah but again like there's a lot of things like that just tell me some other ones you know with well off the back of that I thought about doing calling it like mash and bangers yeah yeah yeah and doing a whole day of eating just like reversing these terms and then I flapped it in the end.

1:36:51Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, I think, like I said, another one that, you know, quite often, like, I'll take an excessive bite of a burger. I'll, like, you know, so food's, like, kind of, like, drooling down my beard, like I'm saving it for later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you know that with wine people. Come a bit closer. Yeah. You know that with wine people, you're sort of trying to poke the bear. Yeah, you poke the bear because at the end of the day, if your content's perfect, no one will watch it. There's no one who's going to comment on it. not every you know people don't like to say that they love you on social media they like to go boom like who's that disgusting pig like they much rather like give you hate and shoot you down but what they what a lot of people don't realize is that those people are making the video like you know yeah exactly like and also it's a bit tongue-in-cheek so there's obviously there's always a line and there's a standard don't take it too far but having these little like plenty funny phrases and just little like bits and bobs just to trigger certain people like it always helps yeah yeah yeah yeah it's mad how um so then so then so that goes into that bit right yeah so that's your hook yeah then to keep people engaged and get people sharing it or like what's the next step in terms of that storytelling for me it's enthusiasm like when i do a voiceover i'm i'm never sitting down like i when i'm doing do you record into your phone yeah i just like smash it off on my phone like this like today we're on the hunt for the best like yeah yeah yeah but what i do is i'll stand up like and walk i'll pace up and down the kitchen or the living room and like and i'm just like i'm literally i'm going like this man's like i'm really getting into it like i love it yeah like i've i've done the i've done the idea i believe the edit's good i've got lots of different like angles i've got a good story there all looks good like i'm i'm pumped so like When it comes to the voiceover, that's just like the cracking on the game.

1:38:43Are you doing that off the cuff? Yeah, a lot of the time. Sometimes I might do a bit more research. If I'm going to Cat's Deli, then I want to know when it first opened. I want to know a bit more of the story. Can I meet the owner? Can I do this? But I'd say eight out of ten, I just try and smash off. And then I'll probably wait a day, re-listen to it all. I could do that. You'll whack it here, Sam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got some final bit of... Last one. Moon. What's this one? Smashing Plates. Smashing Plates, yeah? You've been to this place? Yeah. It's, er... What is it? Greek. And it's banging.

1:39:21It's absolutely banging. Their, er... The gyros is outstanding, but the best thing... Wait, where is... Where are these guys based? Um... Yeah, based on London Bridge. I love it They put honey over a lot of things And the honey is just so good Look at that That is huge mate Ideal boy Naughty I do love it It's absolutely huge It's very aesthetically pleasing isn't it How many meals are you doing a week? How do you navigate I've done three now. It's not an easy gig, mate. It sounds like it's... Sometimes you must just think, I just want to have a poke bowl or a banana. Yeah, I mean, like I said, because I'm a lot more selective these days, before, you're really trying to work as hard as you can to try and get yourself out of your job and be able to support yourself.

1:40:30It's like you're just going around, smashing as many places as possible, really trying to support yourself, Whereas now, like I said, because I've scaled back on all of that kind of stuff, it's very much just going to places I want to go to. Which is insane. Fucking hell. And, like, if I don't really believe it or there's not enough, like, substance or context there, then, like, I won't really, I just probably won't go these days. Whereas before, I'd probably take more of a chance and be like, oh, try and do that. but again I don't I don't really want to let like people down as well you know sort of obsessed in that period of time yeah 100 % like obsessed like I saw like all these bigger like accounts and I just wanted to really wanted to be like the most followed kind of like food review or food recommendation page in the UK and there's always people that like you kind of like look up to and and really try and overtake, and yeah, now it's happened.

1:41:31Yeah, because you're the biggest in the UK, aren't you? As far as a following goes on Instagram, for food recommendations, I think so, yeah. That's wild. Let me just smash one bit like this, and we'll get it back in. That was so good. These bad boys.

1:41:53Naughty. What was that Tom Skinner guy like? Absolute legend. Really? Mate. How did that come about? So, I think I messaged him ages ago saying, can we do a video together? He obviously just didn't see it or, yeah, or just thought this guy's a twat. But, no, he reached out to me a couple of months ago and just said, look, Todd, I'm a massive fan of your content, would love to do something with you. And I was like, mate, let's get down the cap. Like, let's go to Dino's. Where is Dino's? It is, it's in Smithsfield. Is it New Smith? So he's down there every day. I think he goes down there a couple of times a week, yeah.

1:42:36And the atmosphere in that place is just wild. Like, you walk in and it's just, it's literally a building made out of concrete blocks, like outside of where people, where it's like, I think it's New Spitfield's market and it's where all the top restaurants get all their groceries. So they sell loads of onions, tomatoes. It's huge. It's this massive warehouse. What does he actually do? So he sells mattresses, but then also goes down the markets with all this produce that he buys from New Spitfuls Market. Fruit and veg? Yeah, fruit and veg. And he sells everything. What you see him is what you get with him.

1:43:16He's so good. He's so good. It generally goes down the market. I'm packing my vans up, getting down the pub. He's so good. Yeah, and he's exactly like that in real life. He's a true gentleman, and I would like to spend more time with him. Really, yeah. He's a legend. Is he... And so... Because I suppose you've probably learned from his consistency. He's so consistent as well, isn't he? Yeah, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Do you know what I mean? And, you know, his content, the motivational speeches, which, by the way, he just racks off. I was like, have you prepared for this? What do you want me to say?

1:43:49And he's like, I don't know, mate. I'm just going to stand up and I'll say something. And I'm like, fucking hell. So did you have like a curry at... Yeah, so, yeah, again, yeah, so I had a curry at four o 'clock in the morning, followed by an English breakfast. But again, that's like, again, it's that hook. Like, you know, if I didn't post the curry, then it would probably got 300 ,000 less views. Oh, because, yeah, so the curries that you're thinking of, you're constantly thinking of a controversial kind of... Yeah, kind of, yeah, and I mean... Controversial's the wrong word, you know what I mean?

1:44:20but like the yeah like where else can you go and buy a curry from a cafe at four o 'clock in the morning like nowhere so people people will watch that because they want to you know just see you eat the curry basically that's so funny the um yeah so just a few more things in the storytelling um because I think it's fascinating I want to get on to fume yeah but so so it's a attention grabbing yeah the first bit and you're kind of thinking of those riches sorry mate I've literally smashed so much like about my heart's beginning to sort of implode on me but yeah so then you've got you've got the rich storytelling yeah and then you go into the like hard work are you thinking about how people are going to share it like is that something you think about no not really no what do you I think about just the spot the story how the visuals are going to look like what's the story that's the main thing and but the thing is you can't grow an Instagram account with posting like one video unless you're that girl that goes hooked her.

1:45:22That's only happened once in history. Yeah. Like, I think last month, the views on the account were 100 million. And even at that stage, I think you probably grow like 100 ,000 followers in a month. That's crazy. So, like, that's the proportions that, like, you're working at. So even if you're averaging, like, a million views a week, which is still a shitload of video, to get to a million followers, you're still going to, like, it's going to take, like, four years. So the hard work of having to post so much viral videos is obviously it's the crux to gaining all these followers. Like if you post one video that gets 100 ,000 views or three videos that average like 300 ,000 views or one video that gets, you know, five million views, that's the one that none of your followers are going to see.

1:46:14So then you're going to get people to. What do you mean? What's the one that's not known? So say that you've got 100 ,000 followers. Mm-hmm. You post, like, you're posting regularly, but you're posting... Say that you post every single day for a week, and each video gets 100 ,000 views. Yeah. Or you post one video one day a week, but then that gets 700 ,000 views. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Mm-hmm. Those 100 ,000 views that you're getting every single day, a lot of those are going to be your own followers. You're not really gaining much. whereas that one video that goes viral and gets you 700 ,000 views from that one video that's where you're going to get your following from right, okay you're kind of better off doing, I know I kind of smashed it last year in terms of just trying to pep all these spots but if there's one thing that I've learned, it would be not to tie myself out so much trying to grab every single bit of attention or every single spot, it'd just be to pick your spots more wisely post consistently and that's the way that you're always going to grow yeah it's because i'm learning so much from you mate tell me about fume then because we've sort of yeah almost jumped into that pool but let's get our speedos on and jump straight in yeah yeah let's run that bath of curry yeah um yeah so fume basically so when i quit my job i never wanted to just be reliant on on todd like i knew the risks you know if someone hacks my account it's gone that's the whole business gone overnight so like it was really important for me to be able to grow the pool of businesses using Todd while it lasts because like I said Todd's great at the moment but any year's time you never know what might happen and it might go down the shitter you know I don't know someone might get ill someone might do something else like you might it's not sustainable no one can run Todd without me so what was really important for me is to be able to set up other businesses that you know i can invest time in i can have fun with and that i get the same enjoyment from todd with as well so obviously combining barbecue food which is like my i wouldn't not that it's my favorite food like but i just love creating content for barbecue why just because you get all these meats it's the people it's the enthusiasm it's like it's like a whole culture of people and everyone's so happy because like barbecue food's the best food in the world right because you can sit on a sunday and you can roast a you know a beef joint and you're always with with your friends you're always with your family and you've always got a beer in your hand you can't do that by cooking a pizza you can't do that by like cooking a curry i mean you can with a curry but you know you've got sun on the back of your neck the the the meat is as literally like a totem pole which pulls people together yeah and the fact it's over time it's just a great place to to be so that i've always loved barbecuing like with my family from when i was a kid through to now being able to go to texas and and just see all these like big like um bones of rib and you talk about three seconds like grabbing something you've been to reuben rubens yeah yeah that is unreal because he's got a place at derby's now yeah he made those red beef ribs are so fucking good man i remember the first time like i heard about reuben it was in lockdown and he was smoking salmon from his mum's back garden.

1:49:31I think he was like 18 at the time. And everyone was like, this guy, he's a wizard. He's transformed the London smoke scene. He's actually taking his time. He's not pulling it off after three hours. He's smoking it for 10 hours. He's smoking it overnight. And I remember just trying his food and I was just gobsmacked. I couldn't believe what this guy was doing. So talking about the barbecue, obviously Ruben's smashing it over here, but like the barbecue in the States. Yeah. Why does that enchant you? Why do you feel like a kid at Disneyland when you're around? I know we've talked about barbecue in general and I agree.

1:50:08Like if you're in Brixton or you're in Leamington Spa, a barbecue is a kind of a very symbolic kind of meal. Yeah. But like I've heard, you know, I've heard everyone talk about the barbecue in Austin. I mean, it's just... What's so wild about it? Tell me about it. It's completely on a different level to anything that I've ever witnessed in my life. like really people go i remember the first we went to it was franklin's and you know we got there at seven o 'clock in the morning no half six in the morning with the second people in line it didn't even open till 11 one hour later half six in the morning yeah yeah because we wanted that brisket we wanted to be the first people yeah we wanted that brisket bear so that's jokes yeah but you get there and like it's before 11 o 'clock and this line is like so far down and everyone's like drinking beers like like 10 o 'clock in the morning i'm like this is just crazy and just the culture out there of of it's like like i said it's like having a family barbecue but doing on a commercial scale and that's kind of what what you know the people in texas it's like a religion to them it is a religion like they will they don't so that they they never cook anything on the day so they're always one day behind so they put their brisket in their brisket they will cook 48 hours before cook it for 24 hours and then they'll hot hold it overnight so for another day so you've got like this 48 hour like cooking period for that one bit of meat that you're going to put in your mouth yeah which i just find is bonkers and yeah now obviously uh michelin have gone over there and it was quite good because a lot of some of the content i didn't put out i was waiting for to see if michelin if they got michelin star and a couple of them did and i was like sick well timed Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:51:50So what were some of the dishes you have these Michelin-style barbecue places? Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, it was Leroy Lewis and Interstellar. Yeah, it's all good. And, again, like, they do the normal stuff, like it's a sausage, beef rib, brisket, candied bacon, whatever it might be, but just, it is, you can just tell that it's taken 48 hours to cook. Like, the way that, you know, it just disintegrates on your tongue, but there's still, like, a little bit of a bite. the saltiness like the the sources that they're starting to pair this stuff with so what Leroy Lewis and um Interstellar have done is like they've taken your traditional smoking method of salt pepper long period of time but they've like put all these incredible sides with it so like normally like if you go to somewhere like Franklin's you get really like average sides so like you get like coleslaw or uh new potato salad some onions like they're really basic it's about the meat but these guys have gone like right we're gonna make some epic sides wow yeah and it is just like crazy it's the sides things because that's what uh i was asking stewart black bear burger like how do you stand out yeah like quite a lot of um people i've spoken to on the pod it's like focusing on things that people don't really think about yeah so there's that restaurant in new york that they're like how do we become the best restaurant in new york and they're like well fuck it we're gonna get a beer sommelier you know no one's ever thought i'm gonna be a sommelier and it was Union Square.

1:53:16I don't know if you ever went there. And so they were like, okay, we're going to get a beer sommelier. Stuart Black Bear Burger is like, well, the burger landscape in London is so busy. Yeah. So it's like, and he says, we're not a burger restaurant. We're a restaurant that does burgers. Yeah, yeah. The wings they do there are so banging. Yeah, yeah. That's so good. You know, the thingy. Yeah, the spring roll with the brisket. That's so good. But I think there's a focus on that. And what's wild is like, if that restaurant just focuses on the sides and gets a Michelin star. Obviously, it's not as easy as that, but it's like focusing on those little things.

1:53:49Yeah. What were some of those sides then? Four. Good question. What did they do? Leroy and Lois. He did... Long time for my mouth to go blank, ears to go blank, mind to go blank. God, how long have we been doing this? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be finished up in a sec. So he did this creamed corn, which I swear to God, like, didn't even look much. But the way that, like, he had this, like, salty, cheesy, creamy bite, which you then paired with, like, a sausage, I was just, like, blown away by it. I just couldn't believe, like... And also, like, a lot of them now kind of put in this, like, Tex-Mex, like, spin on some of their sides as well.

1:54:33So, you know, you get, like, that Mexican heat, that Mexican flavour. It's, oh, delicious. So quickly, just quickly talk me about the game plan with Fume then, because you wanted to get away from you having to solely be the revenue stream. Yeah. Yeah, so what I wanted to do with Fume is to kind of spin the festival, the way that festivals are run on their heads. I've got no experience in doing a festival. I just do my food page. And I partnered with my business partner, Alex, who has run successful festivals for the last 10 years. so I was like what happened so and what the feedback I get from all these festivals are traders are so unhappy because they're they've gone out there and they've paid a lot of money to be at the festival and then at the festival then they're still giving away like 20 30 40 percent of the earnings they come away and they're like I've just slogged uh like in Hyde Park for the whole of summer and I've literally made no money so that so how does the business want to work they so basically a festival like you know we'll charge you say five grand for a trader to to be at that festival and then they'll take another like 20 to 30 percent maybe more of that trader's profit to to to sell food at that festival so yeah so by the time like the that restaurant has done all their prep they've done that home they've worked there for six weeks two weeks a weekend like they've never actually made that much money but oh if any money like every single trader that I spoke to is like oh yeah we barely broke broke even so it's more for them it's kind of more of a marketing play just to like yeah be there okay yeah so it's marketing play so what I so what I thought is and what happens if we take that away like what happens if we we don't be greedy like what happens if there's a festival in the world that everyone everyone wins so we sell the tickets the venue will get the bar money and the traders get they get to trade at the festival for a small fee but don't take any percentage and also then we keep we ask each trader to offer a three pound dish so that people can come to the festival they can visit 10 traders and only spend 30 pounds so that way every single person in the equation is winning and everyone's having fun and so we sat down and then what i also said is that if we do a three pound dish what annoys me when i go to a barbecue festival any food festival they always have these kind of like middle-sized portions and they're overpriced.

1:56:59So what happens if we do a three pound dish, a seven pound dish, but then do a 15 pound dish, which is that big rib that, you know, if you've had a couple of beers and you want to show off in front of your mates, you can go and do that. Yes, yes, that's so smart, mate. So that's where the thing... Because everyone's usually about eight, nine quid and it's the same sort of size. Again, what I've tried to do with Fume is just trying to cut through all that. Like, you cut through, so with this at Fume, like, you wouldn't be able to get the carbs with we want people there eating meat we want people enjoying like food and we want everyone smiling we want the traders smiling because they're making money we want the people smiling because it's not a rip-off and then like you know we're happy as well so and where so where are you going to do it if you don't already don't want to mention so we did it in peckham and it sold out last year both of them sold out and then we've now doubled in capacity in london we've gone to Woolwich Works where again now I think we've got 10 ,000 people there this year and then we've also gone up to Manchester which sold out in 24 hours which is whereabouts in Manchester you're doing it's at the Progress Centre I'm not sure that yeah it's yes it's just outside the city centre but yeah to think like for that we literally post it within 24 hours it completely sold out so now we're about to add another date which now is so sick 50 % sold out that's so sick and what were some of the like the key lessons you took from that first little one in peckham about doing festivals because i think i told you i want to do this hoot rooney thing yeah at some point like it'll be much later down the line like this year i've got to just focus but like i still that's one thing i want to move into like we do these small supper clubs live podcasts which is sick but yeah what are some of the what's what's the art of putting on an amazing event you think i think like again it goes back to enthusiasm like you need to you need to believe in the end product you need to and like i said for us it was very much we wanted to have great food we wanted to support the traders we wanted to support the people and also like a lot of people for for see instagram and they think oh god like tos been there but like god it's expensive if someone in manchester wants to go down to london then they've got to buy a train ticket they've got to sleep overnight they've got to then buy their tray of barbecue food then they've got to go all the way back again and you've ended up spending 600 pounds to try this place so with fume i was like why don't me just bring all these places that I'm visiting together for people so then they can get into a into a festival they can pay 25 quid for a ticket yeah then they can try not just one but they can try 10 of these these spots that I've picked for over the best spots of the last year and then they can try a little bit from every single one of them what are some of the spots you've got so this year we've got Burnt which are um the Basin Shoreditch amazing barbecue house um we've got Reuben yeah he's talked about Reuben we've got who else have we got Korean Cowgirl which Korean Cowgirl yeah they've won it like for the last two years best bite with these cherry ribs sorry he's laughing at that no it just sounds genuinely interesting yeah but also like this year we're also speaking to some guys in Texas we've got someone confirmed from Paris which is going to be extremely exciting so we're really trying to like you know fume for the next three years like we want you know to look at huge venues like we want this to be massive we want to be the biggest barbecue competition like literally in the world is it a competition as well when people are there or like yeah so yeah this we all try to debate whether we should do it as a competition or not um but it's just fun isn't it like you want traders to really put their put their effort into that three pound dish also you want people to be able to go around and create that excitement you I've got my sticker, which one am I going to put it on?

2:00:46Like, I think it's fun. It goes back to the storytelling. Yeah. Like, mate, this is what I've learned from you today, mate, is it's like behind all of this, I just think there's this few things, like this excitement and enchantment with food. As you see, you called it Narnia or Disneyland. Like, there is that energy which you can only get through food. I think once you get old, like, there's not much to fucking do, especially in London and outside now. But food can give you a lot of colour and happiness. but then also the storytelling and the craft of telling stories and that's in terms of getting attention but also in terms of like actually helping.

2:01:21people whether it's the birria yeah you know attacker thing and then with fume you're almost building your own fucking harnier yeah well that's yeah that's the plan yeah to bring all of those people to together into a place and like i said like fume for the traders like i'll go there i'll do a video for them they'll come to the festival so like you know the marketing everything around that like everyone's winning like everyone's winning and that is so important that we build this family this community that we we're all together so the traders trust us we trust the traders we trust the venues that we work with and we really just want to try and create this model which really like hasn't been done before or it has been done and it's got ruined because people have got greedy like our main principle is not to get greedy not to and it's always to to really try and you know support the communities the people and through that everyone's got a smile right you can't you can't go wrong 100 toddy boy thanks for coming on the poddy i really appreciate that it's been an absolute pleasure mate thank you so much thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you liked that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search Dan Pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much