Peter Wood: Founder and CEO of the Graduate guide on getting acquired as a 24 year old and building his second!

0:00Peter Wood:Hello, welcome. I'm here with Peter Wood, Exeterd, founder of The Graduate Guide and now founder of his new thing, Calibre. Thanks for having me, Seth. Appreciate it. It is such a joy to be here. This is amazing news. You've been acquired. Yes. How does it feel? I mean, it's one of those ones where I think now the journey can really start. it's taken so long to get here and I think what we wanted to build with the graduate guide and what we wanted to offer the world in terms of a real solution to the talent issues like now it finally feels like we can start trying to solve it um but to take what was a university passion project just like an idea that I had when I was at the pub and you know see it now and like all the people that are supporting it.

0:47It's crazy to be honest.

0:49Peter Wood:So let's go back to the very beginning. You said University Passion Project. Yeah. Where did it come from? Well so I went to UCL for context. I was doing a history degree and I think you know I picked history because there is no career straight after history and I should become a history teacher. And so I was kind of always pushing it back. I thought I'd find out what I wanted to do while I was there and nothing really felt right, consulting, banking and law, the sort of general options you get. And I saw the world of startups and this was back in 2022 and it felt like a really intangible, difficult to access space and I didn't have any network in it and so I thought, you know, everybody is starting a podcast but nobody's doing it for these people, for the students, no one's giving this generation a voice, no one's trying to solve what I could kind of envision is going to be a graduate career crisis.

1:47There wasn't anything at the time, but, you know, with AI coming around the corner. So I literally just, I invited my old head boy, a bit of Dutch courage at the pub, onto a podcast that didn't exist. Got my brother to make a logo and next thing I knew I was in some random studio calling a podcast and I was awful. I mean, I know you're on your own content creation journey, but when you first start, there's nothing that can prepare you for it. I'm just so glad I did start it because I didn't know what it was going to become. It's taken so many different shapes and to have it where it is now, it's a good feeling.

2:27Peter Wood:Have you ever looked back at some of those early episodes? We were actually doing it in the last week, sort of reminiscent on the whole chapter and journey. um yes is the answer uh i remember i used to like cut out the bits where i got um or like and it just sounded ridiculous but you know i really think i just you know i didn't know any better i was so youthfully naive and i think that was such a addictive and amazing energy that only entrepreneurship can really give you like there's no red tape you know there's no expectations and I was just able to throw myself at the wall of entrepreneurship and see what stuck really.

3:08Peter Wood:How did you find it in those early days? Do you know what? I know there's a lot of cringe associated to anything, sadly, in the UK and Europe. Putting yourself out there at that age is quite a difficult thing. But I felt, you know, generally speaking, although people didn't understand what I was doing or why I was doing it, They were supportive of the fact that they could see me as a person. Like, I'm a very curious person. I care a lot. And, you know, I did always have, you know, sort of delusional ambitions with my career. And I think part of me where I wasn't doing anything, like, where I was kind of just stagnating and nothing really felt right, like, that didn't look good on me.

3:54And nothing was really happening for me. And I think my friends wanted me to see me happy and doing something. So I think having that support of the close people around me and not caring about how, you know, the metrics or how many impressions I got, like I didn't just did not think about that. I just thought, can I meet incredible people that may be able to, you know, support me in building my career and nowadays business? You know, many people have sort of become investors and advisors off the back of it. And yeah, I just think you never know where creating content can get you.

4:27Peter Wood:Oh, for sure, yeah. I've definitely been on my own journey. How did you find, did you suffer from that, like, cringe at the beginning? Was that something you had to get over? Did you find it difficult to put yourself out there and put your content out there? Yeah, definitely. I think LinkedIn in the beginning. No one teaches you how to write on that platform. And if you just go off what you consume, I think you can very quickly start developing a voice that isn't actually your own. And, you know, you can sort of, especially nowadays, You can hide behind AI and I think actually you're kind of missing the whole point when you're trying to run away from cringe.

5:07You're not actually helping you mould and shape your own voice and I think at some point along the journey I just realised that I'd made my bed and so this whole content journey for the last three years to now somehow having the LinkedIn top voice badge has all just been, I don't know, yeah, just a refinement of a very authentic, like, natural voice that has grown with me through all my different stages, you know, from this lost and confused history student to now hopefully someone that can actually make an impact on what I believe to be a graduate career crisis. I think there was cringe, of course, but I think I let it sort of separate me, if that makes sense.

5:52I let that use my ability to sort of confront to become a distinguishing factor and you know if I didn't have a voice I'd think this would be a really difficult career route to go you know no sort of online reputation it's difficult nowadays

6:07Peter Wood:right well I think what you've done amazingly well is you've built you've turned your content into a community and you've now turned that community into a business and now it's now you're entering your next phase with the business now being bought and you're kind of launching a new venture within that at what point did you realize that your content and your community could become something more and could become a business i delayed it for so long and and i think truthfully you don't know you really don't and and even when you think you do like the on company you know the ongoing weeks and months are always way less predictable and straightforward than you think but I think it was actually yeah I was lucky enough to be involved in some pretty successful businesses while at university which you know I met these founders through the podcast and sort of I scaled this water filter company which ended up doing very well and being sold and and then I worked at a sort of blockchain education company putting on events in the US and I was doing all kinds of strange what weird and wonderful things after graduating and I I was in this events job and I was thinking, I'm not, it just didn't feel right.

7:22Not in this, like, oh, I need to be an entrepreneur kind of way, but I felt like there was so much unfinished business with the graduate guide. And I still think it was before the days that people were making playbooks of build a community before you build a business. It all just felt very sort of make it up as you go along.

7:39Peter Wood:And were you still working on the graduate guide in your own time at that point? I had to kind of pause things. Well I'd actually with the support of a now very good friend of mine Ingmar from Huzzle he he basically funded four students to keep the brand going they continued interviewing and yeah we just basically empowered a bunch of students to do what I did at university and one of them was Marlene who is now my co-founder so that's how I met Marlene she was I was a student host in the beginning. And yeah, so basically just did everything to keep it going. And then by the time that I sort of was getting a bit, you know, a bit impatient with working for someone else and just realizing that everything I was doing for them I could be doing for my own brand.

8:30I just, you know, I took that leap. and yeah I think I really like I really didn't know what it was going to become and it was kind of it was still it was quite a blissful feeling though you know in the beginning it's so many people will give you support and help you give you a direction and I think like you do just need patience for this kind of thing right like I we've been we were raising investments and sort of January we're now talking in September and and I think I when you go into raising investment for example similarly with when I went to go build into a business you just want it to happen you just want to prove people that you can do it like you know you see people putting all these posts out and big headlines and big numbers and I think I belong in that but I think you do just need each idea and each founding team and each market you're entering it does require that like it just requires patience and and this is the thing that i'm coming to learn is that you can only force and fast track so much and uh so there's lots of big learnings but i think when i yeah when i started getting impatient that's when i knew i had to go full time yeah and were there signs early on of you going full time but you're like okay this is starting to work i'm starting

9:54Peter Wood:to see some early signals that I could build a career here and build something here. What I realised is that I'd started posting on LinkedIn as a social media before it was cool to do it right and students didn't post because you know I remember being a student thinking what do I have to say on this platform like I don't have a job to announce, I don't haven't done anything in my career really, I could talk about a work experience or an internship but But, you know, I think I remember, like, in the beginning, for some reason, you know, the podcast obviously helps because it gives you content, it allows you to, you know, prop up other people that do know who they're talking about, even if you don't.

10:35But I was being weirdly vulnerable sort of from the beginning, talking about therapy and all these kind of things where I think I kind of just started getting this following that, you know, I know everyone likes to call their following community nowadays. It's like the end thing to do. But genuinely, they're all real people on LinkedIn. And I could reach out to them. They could reach out to me. And I could really feel that tangible sense of support for what I was doing. And so I think by having that voice, yeah, it allowed me to make posts and do events that, in terms of where traditionally I was at in my career I had no right to sort of get that reach get that sort of support um you know we had one event that we did where I rented out a football stadium um up in north London had loads of people come play it was founders CEOs students all just playing football barbecue um and on LinkedIn it got 250 ,000 impressions like thousands of people I was like what is what is going on I don't know I had nowhere to channel them I didn't have a course to sell them or jobs to place them in I was just like

11:55Peter Wood:a bunch of people come play some football and I think it was moments like that where you're like surely there's some momentum there's something here that if left unexplored it would be that big what if there's definitely something tangible that you can, yeah, funnel into something, I guess, that you can create. And what did that look like, I guess, for the graduate guide in your early days? You know, how did you go about signing partnerships, commercialising? Yeah, I think partnerships has always been the thing that I've been pretty obsessive over. And, you know, I think bootstrapping is such a blessing in disguise for learning that skill because you do have to get so creative with who you partner with, like how can you give yourself credibility that previously you don't have how can you reach people that you can't spend on marketing and I think the best thing about that early stage was because there were no expectations and because you know I was this you know delusionally ambitious you know youthfully naive individual you know there were some people that just went all right mate like sorry sorry like i can't i don't have time to support you on this or come on this podcast but for the most part like there's so many different reasons why someone would want to support a young person just giving it a go like it could be uh that they only ever speak to the same age people and they never get any different opinions and you know they love getting asked questions by someone who's just completely outside their world or it could just genuinely you know rubs their ego a bit you know uh they got some content to post now i don't it's hard to know why people were coming on the podcast or wanting to collaborate on events but you know before you know it sort of big brands do just sort of yes like google and nat west and those kind of people start knocking on your door because you realize that there aren't many people that have captured you know if you found a niche and I wouldn't say students is exactly a niche but you know like really there aren't many people representing that voice and so there aren't very many students doing it right young people who have just been through that and yeah and you're following this as well right like you know for ages it just felt like Europe was kind of stagnating or no one was speaking on behalf of it and now it feels like you know the US sort of started doing it right like really getting creative of content and how they can speak on behalf of a whole tech ecosystem and now people like yourself who sort of it's a it's crazy to it makes so much sense once you're doing it yeah before that it's like i remember just thinking there is no guide for graduates yeah like for people like me right like you know there's this new whole job market and entrepreneurship coming up but no one's talking about it yeah everyone's just still applying for the same jobs And yeah, so I think it's in terms of partnerships and collaborations in the beginning, it's just getting creative.

15:06And ultimately, if you're not having fun doing it, like there is just no point because you don't get paid for it. So you've got to at least enjoy it and feel like it's getting you somewhere.

15:16Peter Wood:Yeah. And what kind of lessons do you have from those very early days when you're bootstrapping, scrappy? Any things that you look back on and you think, God, I got that so wrong? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think, well, I mean, wrong is quite a, yeah, it's quite a big word. It's quite loaded. Because all the different shapes that the Karajikar has taken and the time that we've spent on things, even when it felt like, oh, okay, this is not going anywhere, and you kept beating it a little bit more, they do mold and shape you into this like very unique and ultimately gives you that moat as a business right like and that learned experience that no one else can take away from you um so i'll preface what i'm about to say with that so i'm grateful for the experiences but i think we entertained partnerships and you know even offers and investments and basically i think we were victim to other people for too long.

16:21You know, some ways this whole journey has felt really short. Like a lot has happened. Like I've come so far, the brand's come so far in what feels like a short period of time. But also, you know, three years now we're talking, like that's a long time. And I remember weeks and months where you're just waiting for someone to say, yes you can do this or you know yes we'll give you the money we'll sponsor this whatever and you kind of just you know you wish you just didn't let yourself become so subservient to other people

16:56Peter Wood:okay so there's a time where you were waiting for other people to like give you sign off or approval yeah and like you know ultimately i think that was what was always great about the podcast is there was always i could always revert back to that like if a day felt slow like you just pick up a book you know the content carries on right yeah and and you keep and you can always end the day and feel like i've had a great conversation with someone i've learned something i've built rapport with someone that i never could have gone for a coffee with etc but and actually building a business like you know yes like in tech and all these kind of things you could ship things out and get product feedback and whatever but you're always kind of subservient to people in a way and and I think in the beginning what I wish I could have done differently is just kind of like trying to understand my level a bit more and you know understand who's going to be giving me energy who's going to be allowing frictionless things who's going to be my sort of the crowd that I just go all out of things with and and yeah I mean I'm so lucky to have people like Marlene, my co-founder of my life and my producer that was being there from the beginning like filming scrappy podcasts with iPhones and lack of storage and basements and all kinds of mad stuff and I wouldn't say those are things I did wrong.

18:19The thing I did wrong was kind of, yeah, not trusting that I can just go at things a bit more I think.

18:25Peter Wood:Just carry on. Yeah, just crack on. I just, you know, I'm not going to say I've done nothing in three years, but I just think everyone should feel like there's energy more, that they can really do stuff now. If you want to be high agency, there's never been a better time to do that. And is that advice that you would give to graduate students today? Listen, I don't like to prescribe advice to anyone because ultimately I have friends who work as lawyers or consultants and they love it and it's their dream job and the stability and there's all these kind of things and they are productive and all these kind of things in their own way and I quite like that sort of that attitude but it's just it's not me and it became very apparent pretty early on in my university journey that I was never going to be, I couldn't compare myself to people like that.

19:21So I think you really have to double down on knowing, if you were in a small team, what would be your role within it? What would be your value add? If you're doing a university project, what opinions are you bringing? What's your work systems like? Are you somebody that only needs one hour with the right people and being really creative and brainstorming or do you need to be sat down on your own for eight hours like being very analytical and doing a lot of due diligence and these are like very small nuanced things but I think it makes up yourself and I think employers are impressed when you really can go into an interview or even into a coffee chat and say that you can't you can't tell me I am or or I'm not that person because I've done it right like I know in myself that I am an awful producer I can't edit I have no design skills but you can't tell me that I can't do partnerships because I've done it yeah I mean like and it's like not letting anyone pigeonhole you in a career it's huge and that's my advice yeah I think that's

20:30Peter Wood:one of the that's definitely one of the things that I struggled with you know as like a graduate or like in your early 20s it is figuring out your skill set the things that you like doing the things that you love doing and trying to find a creator that kind of matches to that um yeah which i think is really challenging especially when you're like a young person without confidence and no experience in the working world on the other side you've worked with a lot of companies that are looking for graduate talent yeah what are you seeing that they're looking for in graduates this is the hard part right because you know with sort of acquisition i guess we'll get onto that more We've given ourselves an absolute vehicle and engine like no other for supporting companies and really a huge ecosystem of different portfolio companies that offer across sales and AI and data and leadership and marketing, training of talent that is already in the company, whether that's apprenticeships or commercially, and we can help them assess talent and acquire talent but attracting the right talent and being able to tell them like who they need to be like in order to get each individual job like that is the absolute minefield that no one truly knows because especially in startups it's not like it was for corporates where you could kind of be like you know do x y and z tick these boxes and you'll give yourself as good a shot as possible to get that job and if not that one then you know you go to a lesser one or less what like but it doesn't work like that in this new job market.

22:06It just doesn't. And people like to just throw around words, especially in job descriptions right now. They put high agency, they put entrepreneurial mindset, they put these kind of terms. And I really challenge myself to dig in to when founders say that, they're looking for that. What does that actually mean? And it's interesting when you start getting those answers because you realize it's a either the company hasn't created their own culture and so they don't really know what they're looking for in a grad and so that's where you need to support them or they have it and it's about how they express it right and when we start increasing the transparency on that side then it will get much easier to be able to tell a graduate what employers are looking for right because I just don't if someone says they know the answer now like I just think they're lying because I could say grit determination resilience what does that actually mean right like in practice I think you just have to as I said double down on knowing absolutely down to tea as much as possible if you were to go into a company what would you like to be empowered to do you know what kind of questions that can you ask what kind of rebuttal can you provide in a team that no technology no someone someone more experienced they could not do that because this is like you being unapologetically yourself in the hardest place to be in the work the workplace yeah okay so let's let's go on to

23:44Peter Wood:the acquisition because i feel like that's yeah it's wrapped up in a new venture so the graduate guide officially acquired by uh the apprentified group yes can you tell me a little bit about how that came about yeah so january this year we decided we want to raise investment and in the beginning we thought we'll do angel investment because you know we don't see ourselves as a vc business it's like i'm sure you know like vc is very intense fast scaling and when you're still kind of working out exactly what you want to become and what product you want to build it's not the time really to raise VC money um and so we went all in on angels and luckily you know through all the interviews I'd done and just being in the space for a long time I had a lot of really amazing people I could reach out to to either invest in us or build warm intros um and honestly I kind of loved the raising process for about three months um because it felt like free consulting from industry experts.

24:49In a way, that's a very positive spin because the other side is that it's also the most mentally taxing and confusing and vulnerable thing you'll ever do. But basically we found what happened was we had angel investors putting in checks, saying yes, supporting us, but they didn't really know what we wanted to build. Couldn't understand the sort of nuance and depth of it. They just thought as founders we would eventually succeed somehow. I think Marlene and I knew in the back of our head that we needed real support, like we needed not just an injection of money and capital, we needed a huge amount of experience and expertise on this very difficult problem that we're solving and you know at our age it's not about, you know for me I'm a very mission driven I wanted to build something that actually made a difference that didn't already exist and something that is better, not just sell something better than anyone else right like that was the goal and so we kind of we actually started saying to angels we're like you know we're not actually going to take your check because we've had a joint venture you know sort of offering from this company called Apprentify and we didn't really know what this could end up being like it's not it's not weird to set out to do yeah but we thought we have we have to entertain it like they've got all these amazing clients they've got huge you know exited founders from before and and yeah like the people I had met within the group I got on really well which is pretty important or at least I think under undervalued when looking at exit opportunities I mean you're gonna be working alongside these people for a long time and I think their ability to actually look at what we had and not just say what we wanted to hear and go like we want to give you money or whatever and go why do you think that of work like you know really pushing back on elements of the business that was when we realized we were in the right place right this is these are the people we're going to work with we're going to make it work somehow yeah and you know we never stopped building the graduate guide and we really started actually getting noticed a lot like working with huge brands like vodafone you know signing exclusive partnership with nat west and you know thousands thousands people coming into the community and I think at that time we realized this community that we built this is what their group didn't have this voice this access to talent I it's not a recruitment company and it never was meant to be it was meant to be a guide for graduates I think it's yeah you actually have to have built over three years it's not it's not something that you can just set up right and inject money at like this is like we realize as this kind of is gold dust right and so luckily they did as well and that's kind of where the

27:43Peter Wood:acquisition came in and were you looking to them for investment initially and then it became as you as you spoke it became possible or like apparent that something bigger could be done here yeah well i think you know we'd been doing recruitment town acquisition employer branding under the name of the graduate guide you know if you go on our website is that's what it says we do but it always felt wrong doing it under that brand name and I think we realised actually what we should do here is separate the two brands. So we have this new company called Calibre which is all about high calibre talent calibrated to your team and the new world of work.

28:20And I think it was really, I mean it's not been done very often but to have this community that the whole group has access to, this talent pool and actually have a new entity that targets what I believe to be the market that needs the most support right like scale-ups companies that have just had loads of money injected into them you know these huge growth targets and they live and die by talent yeah they do and so far all the support they've got is would you like to see some talent like in our talent pool and that's all they can do and they need to somehow have developed the leadership experience to make the most of all this talent they're bringing in and we looked at that space and we just saw this huge opportunity to take what is genuinely industry-leading expertise working for the biggest companies in the UK and bringing out to the to the companies that yeah like like said live and die by talent and so that's what we're bringing to the market and to have that funded by Apprentified to be working under them on this project like it's yeah it's it is a yeah I think people will throw this around lightly but from three years ago when I started imagining what this could become this is you know is a dream come true because it's the opportunity it's the

29:43Peter Wood:opportunity to make a difference yeah to do the mission that you wanted to do from yeah one so So the Apprentify group, Apprentify, they're acquiring the sort of the graduate guide community that you've built. And that's going to be used by all of the kind of the different groups within Apprentify as a sourcing pool. Yes. And then on the side, you've got Calibre, but that's sitting under Apprentify as well. Yes. Yeah. So it's all sitting in the same ecosystem. And yeah, as I said, the rest of the group is made up by companies that specialize in AI, data, tech, marketing, sales. They offer also like government funded upskilling that we are offering via the Graduate Guide, which is free courses where people can learn how to integrate AI into the way they work before they go into a job and develop their entrepreneurial skills and these are made in partnership with companies like Intel for example and I think from every different angle whether that's for the employers or the graduates or just early talent in general I think it's so nice to see that we have across the whole spectrum we have a way of supporting them you know we have the community side we have the the upskilling before you get the job when you need that support and then we have when you're in a job making sure that you're onboarded correctly making sure that people are making the most out of you making sure there's continuous development and continuous assessment and this is like the bit where we just I don't think we've seen the evolution of the people space and especially not in the scale up and startup space so yeah that's how we're going to sit within the group and from from outside looking and it looks like what they're bringing is amazing training and kind of resources across that element of that was that something that was really important to you when they were kind of like pitching either you know acquiring you or working together yeah yeah i mean that was honestly everything because we looked at the market when we decided to raise investment and we wanted to we wanted to focus on upskilling but it's such i mean they've been around since 2017 they've been building these capabilities you know backed by private equity and you know huge amount of experience as I said for us as you know two 24 year olds who knew the problem and had been able to get into the space and upskill ourselves we had a bit of understanding but it was such a big leap and like I said like no amount of money really could have got us to where they are now yeah um and it's it's everything like the skills gap is a real thing like it's it's it's there like and it's getting worse it's getting seriously worse at a rapid rate and I'm you know AI for example I use use that as a that resembles the skills gap the most because people are learning how to get outcomes but they aren't learning the inputs for example they're not actually learning how did I get this result and how can I build on this and replicate it and that is like brain decay right like that's your your brain decaying and I think we're going to start seeing those that learn how to not just prompt it but really understand it and those that are just getting shortcuts that skills gap is going to keep widening and widening and widening and i think everybody should have access to training whether that's in or out of work that allows them to utilize it in their career the best way and right now it's not happening so not just yeah have it brought your brain yeah yeah and so how are you are you still going to be involved in the graduate guide from from you know from now on or yeah i mean like as far as events and speaking on stage and developing content and materials like that's one of my favorite things to do like genuinely for the graduate guy like i mean i've done it for long enough not making any money like it's the kind of it is almost like a non-for-profit right and and it's it's not there to service clients like yes we partner with brands like partnered with linkedin recently and partnered with nat west as i said and um and that's amazing But really, this is a new chapter for myself, right?

34:16I've never been a salesperson, really. I've never been a CEO. I've never built a team. And there's all these new jobs and roles, which I'm so excited to do. But it's the transition from the whole journey that we've spoken about, like that youthfully naive guy throwing himself at the wall, learning what skill sets he has to now like this is my opportunity to really see what I can do with the support of Apprentify.

34:46Peter Wood:What are you most excited about? Getting back into content is going to be something I'm really excited about because there is something really weird about the race investment period where although people could be messaging you like oh you're smashing it or whatever like on the inside like you can't tell them about anything you're up to like you know it's all this kind of stealth stuff it's like yeah I can't I was itching to sort of put this this this baby that I've been working in on into the world and finally yeah I can kind of enter back into the content space as an exited founder and not a lost confused history student um and And so that content piece is called Understanding Ambition.

35:32It's exploring three different themes in a documentary style. You've got individual ambition. How can you make your ambition work for you and not against you? You've got collective ambition, which is how can you make other people believe in your mission and build a team around your mission, right? And then you've got cultural and national ambition. How can you reignite the ambition and, yeah, ultimately get UK pumping again? And we're going to be doing that by speaking to what I believe to be the most ambitious founders and sports people and variety to hopefully produce something that nobody's seen before.

36:16And meet some companies while we're at it. Quite shamelessly, yeah.

36:21Peter Wood:Yeah, I mean, you've built your career on content, right? you're taking that with you into the next stage of the journey. Yeah. Why did you choose ambition? I mean, I've always had a weird relationship with it because I think the funny thing is that I'm 24 and over these 24 years, I know for a fact that some people would have met me at different stages going like, this is not an ambitious bloke, like this is a degenerate, like you know out drinking every night and and i think that is almost a suppression of ambition like that escapism um you know and and and whenever i wasn't working hard or you know constantly like striving it's like yeah sort of 15 year old me listens to me saying this and it's like oh what a loser but like that 15 year old me would also So when I was in bed at night, I think this is all I've ever wanted, is to be living life vicariously as yourself and doing shit.

37:20Do you know what I mean?

37:20Peter Wood:Yeah, I feel that. It's interesting when you talk about your 15-year-old self being like, oh, what a loser. It sounds like that's almost like a peer group. That's what has always held me back is being worried about what other people think or being seen to be cringe or keen or trying too hard. I think that's definitely a problem that we have in the UK. and that's why I kind of really understand the mission is that is that something you've experienced from your own peers or friends or family this sort of attitude of don't take yourself too seriously don't work too hard stay in your lane yeah I mean I actually think it's so important who you're surrounded by right it is genuinely it's it's everything actually who you're surrounded by your immediate people and I've always luckily had the support of my family to not just take you know the world trodden path I have an entrepreneurial father and yeah being exposed to him from a young age even if I didn't fully appreciate what on earth he was doing until relatively recently that was a huge you know necessary thing to happen to enable this journey the The other side of it is that I know universities stick for the courses and the value they can provide etc.

38:41but getting into UCL or a university in that region was everything to me. I became completely obsessed and this is as someone that was not naturally good at school. you know I pissed around for a lot of it and but I just knew like if I'm not surrounded by ambitious people between 18 and 21 even if it's not entrepreneurially I wouldn't like none of this would be a complete non-starter this whole career that I'd dreamt up myself so the early in your life you can understand the significance of well one people nobody cares as much as you think they do, right? And I think even if you're surrounded by ambitious people, it just doesn't matter.

39:30And ultimately that ambition is what people end up finding cool and start asking about anyway. So it's trying to kind of visualize that version of yourself. But then secondly, I think there is no point doing this journey if it's on by yourself. I know some people are like, they can make entrepreneurship this very lonely, no one gets it, constantly working at your desk, but I would just argue kind of what's the point to some extent, or at least the way I like to live my life. It's that collective part which is why I felt it was so important to have it in the series. How can you make other people produce something better than you could do by yourself, right?