Why I Walked Away From a £1m-a-Year Career | Founder Classic

0:00Alex Chisnall:So first of all, we talk Screw It Just Do It moment. Screw It Just Do It moment was, do I leave this job where I'm earning more money than I could even spend? The day came where I got my bonus. So I got the bonus literally and literally within half an hour I'd resigned. A similar producer who knew me from Secret Millionaire was chasing me saying, do you want to go on Dragon's Den? And I wasn't really sure about it. So I had a conversation with Sir Richard and he said, you should do it. And he literally said, screw it, just do it. And I said, OK, fine. got up to walk away and he said no come back here mainly producers back right now right now and tell him you're in what stops founders from building something meaningful isn't a lack of ideas it's the fear of getting started i'm alex chisnell and this is screw it just do it the podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting take action and make things happen we talk screw it just do it moments So moments in your life where you're on a certain path and took you onto another path, stopped you procrastinating, doing what you're doing, took action.

1:04Alex Chisnall:I'm thinking, you know, potentially one from you going from, you know, lawyer, banker into the entrepreneurship world. But equally, there might be one more recent as well that took you into the into the moblock space. So I said, naturally, I'm not a procrastinator. So I keep telling my daughters, my stepson, saying, you know, any decision is better than indecision. So I make decisions. But there are moments in my life where I've had to choose a path almost. You hit these forks, don't you? So let's go through your list, essentially. So one of the big ones was I grew up in a mill town in Lancashire.

1:39I've been through that story before. But I was a trainee solicitor in the city, and that was pretty hard to get into that. But it was even harder to get into banking. I became a banker at Credit Suisse when it was solvent. So I spent several years in the city and banking, probably three years. And then the dot-com opportunity came about. So this is now 1999. And I was working with a chap I'd met through a guy I trained as a lawyer with. And crazily, I've got a bit of a tan, more of a tan than usual. I've been in Miami. And I haven't seen this, it's called Doran. I haven't seen him for like, it must be over 20 years.

2:16and we sort of met up in Miami, went for dinner and it was like I saw him yesterday. So we set up this business and it was like a side hustle, what they call it now. And the point came where we thought, right, we can actually raise some money. And we were kind of waiting. He was a plastic surgeon, he had an MBA as well. And the day came where I got my bonus and that's the day where if you didn't, if you left before you got your bonus, I'm not going to pay your bonus. So I got the bonus literally and literally within half an hour I'd resigned.

2:44Alex Chisnall:Wow. and but the Scrooge Do It moment was was do I leave this job where I'm earning you know more money than I could even spend but my first kind of debit card you know a quarter of a million quid a year at the age of 25 this is in like the late 90s do I go and start this business or do I stay here and keep taking the money and when I talk to people especially my mum it's kind of like don't be stupid you've got a good job what are you doing yeah but I was always going to do it and I literally took my bonus, resigned, walked out of the room. And my, although I probably, I think we paid each other about£30 ,000 a year from the start-up.

3:24So my income dropped by a factor of like, you know, probably even 10 almost. But my spending didn't. That was the issue for a few years.

3:32Alex Chisnall:Oh, right. And then, so another big one really was, one of the stories I like, I've probably done it before in one of your pods, is Dragon's Den. so Dragon's Den so I'd done The Secret Millionaire so I'd been asked to do that and that was kind of a one-off thing you saw it or you didn't and that was where I was in Wolverhampton I met a young lad called Daniel who got serious offences 11 years at the age of 19 fast forward 10 to 12 years whatever it is last week he told me he's got another job every time I see he's got another job and he's probably earning more money than me now as a cloud infrastructure architect really still in touch yeah that's amazing that's cool you might see this so I wouldn't say I mentored him because that was probably a bit too, it wasn't that sort of formal, but I was probably like, I could probably say, don't mind him here, I was kind of the uncle he never had that he could ring up and say, I need a rent guarantee.

4:20I opened a few doors, employed him for a while, I made him redundant, which is quite awkward.

4:24Alex Chisnall:Wow. And we stayed in touch. So after that, the producer, a similar producer who knew me from Secret Millionaire was chasing me saying, do you want to go on Dragon's Den? And I wasn't really sure about it. So I had a conversation with Sir Richard and he said, yeah, you should do it. And he literally said, screw it, just do it. initially, partly because I was just busy. And they were chasing me, and I hadn't made my mind up. Now, at the time, I gave quite a large donation to Virgin Unite, which is the Virgin Foundation, essentially. Funnier life comes full circle. I'm actually seeing Holly Bunsen again today.

4:58Yeah. It's been a while. And I got to go to Soweto and meet entrepreneurs. And Soweto, unbelievable, you know, families there, making dolls out of scrap rags and selling them internationally. Real sort of entrepreneurs. And then we spent some time at Kruger National Park. He's got that James Bond, Ulusaba sort of lair there. Beautiful place. And I was there thinking, and this is not one of those founder stories that you make up after the event and embellish it. This is how it went down, right? So I was sort of sitting there saying, what do I do? I know the producers today, she's ringing me, called Kerry, and she was saying, we're going to do it.

5:36Who do I talk about in a media business, combining the two? You know where this is going. this is when the book was out this kind of time and I said okay fine got up to walk away and he said no come back here make the producers back right now right now and tell them you're in so I was thinking do I want to it's Richard Branson what do I do do I go away and say oh I need another five minutes and I thought screw it just do it so I called her back I think it was Kerry actually and said I think I told her I'm sitting here with Richard Richard, I'm in. And that was, I was ended up on Dragons Den, quite literally.

6:15Alex Chisnall:It's not like, like you said, that five minutes, like when somebody in the den will go, can I just have five minutes and they go and stand by the curtain, turn their back to the dragons, have a conversation with themselves. It was a bit like that, with myself, yeah. And then, I mean, even very recently, so this is probably a week ago. So I'm, I am sort of, you know, leaning quite hard into artificial intelligence. It fascinates me, it scares me, but I think a huge opportunity for businesses I think smaller businesses and creatives especially talking about that earlier and so I met a guy who did my I did a podcast with Nat West and I met a chap on there and we had been talking about this and he had an approach to it and I had some thoughts on it and we were on a call on the weekend I think it was Sunday like nine at night as you do talking about AI and this opportunity that opportunity someone should do that and we sort of thought why don't we do it?

7:08So you can hear, it literally, you had that kind of awkward silence, like, yeah, okay, let's do it. And we started a business this week, incorporated it. Wow. And that was another moment of Screw It, Just Do It, was kind of, do I want to start another business? You know, have I got the bandwidth? But it fascinates me, and I think it's a huge opportunity. And I, that awkward, that wasn't awkward, it was just a silent moment. thinking to myself thinking all my knowledge everything i know about my time thinking about my partner he's like i know what she's going to say about me starting another business because you know well yeah it was all going ahead and it was like screw it do it interesting and do you

7:48Alex Chisnall:think you you've had time to reflect on it now like only a couple of days but yeah i've got the energy he's like me he's he's often we're sort of talking over each other a little bit yeah we've got the same thoughts but often we don't have to we don't have to say anything because we're come out from slightly different angles which you always need in co-founders yeah if you're the same person it's just gonna get quite messy so we're still sort of ironing out you know the actual structure framework who's doing what where when he lives in Portugal so we're sorting it out but I think it's a huge opportunity he's a great entrepreneur I think we work well together I think we'll um create something interesting but it's gonna happen very quickly it has to so quickly yeah even the name you know we've called it implement AI so it's kind of like it is what it says in the tin so even time to create some funky brand that people don't know what it means i haven't got time for that no no that i mean so i often have those conversations with people wanting to start a podcast it's like do you call it the name on the tin like the education podcast or do you call it something you know subjective well after lots of um branding uh i've been for lots of branding processes cost me a lot of money over here and um you know you've got the literal ones and they've got the ones that are a play so i was explaining that i want to call it maybe shovel so when somebody said why have you called it shovels ai company like because in this gold rush and i don't want to go panning for gold it's too risky the world's changing too quickly the people make the real money the ones that sell the shovels yeah i love that that's what i want to do i love that be interesting a conversation we'll have uh in 12 months time then see yeah see what's happening okay i'm selling you a shovel yeah exactly so here you go here's a question then what do you want to happen in the next 12 months 12 months from now what conversation do you want to be having about the new business?

9:31So you sort of, you kind of know what I'm up to, don't you? Not in the great detail, but you sort of track and follow the chat now and then. And, you know, I mean, running a business has been quite difficult. I mean, it's quite starting businesses, you know, raising money. And people think because you're a bit of a dragon and you're on TV, everything's easy. It isn't. So, you know, you're looking at pivoting a business. But the last year has been quite hard. I've just been very focused on minutiae and raising finance and dealing with issues and, you know in some cases not being successful raising the money you need to be quite frank um and it's and i've kind of realized and my partner as well we need to restructure our lives a little bit so i'm much more restructuring it now so that i'm not tied to being in london all the time you know we've got the we've got our van conversion which we're actually thinking of selling because we weren't using it yeah but no one's willing no one's willing to pay what it cost me to make so yeah so we're kind of like there's a bit of a gap so we thought yeah it's

10:25Alex Chisnall:It's not like an off-the-shelf model, is it? It's a bit bonkers out of that, yeah. I did a thing yesterday, and I need to be in St. James' Square for like 8.30 in the morning, and I'm in North London. I thought, I can't be bothered driving through the traffic. So I drove the van, and I was in St. James' Square having a nap in my van. I had a shower in the morning, and I could hear two guys talking outside about our latest hedge fund, and it's about that far away. There's me in the shower and this van. So we're going to use, the van likes to maybe spend July and just go over Europe. but I want to be able to work from anywhere remotely.

10:56You want to be a digital nomad?

10:57Alex Chisnall:Yeah. If this conversation resonated with you, don't just sit there, act on it. Make sure you follow or subscribe for more game-changing conversations and remember, the only thing standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it.