Founders Reveal All! - Drunken Hires, Billion Dollar Clients & Partying With Royalty!

0:00Hello and welcome to a new series and new style of show from Secret leaders. I'm Dan. This is Chris. Chris, get off your phone. Sorry. Trying to make a good first impression here. I'm in the room. Thank you. This is co-host Chris, and we are going to be exploring a new format, some new style of stuff. Now, you'll notice this is a new studio as well. We're in Podshop in Shoreditch. Thank you very much to them. We're building a brand new studio in London Bridge, and it's going to look absolutely amazing, but it's going to take a few more weeks. So anyway, oh, that was unprofessional. Yeah. So we're looking to take you on a little journey with us today.

0:35We've got a new host dynamic, new co-host vibe, new co-owner of Secret Leaders. So we thought, why not run through some old photos that we've got on our journey. 10 years of entrepreneurship and a handful of photos, some memories. Let's get into it. Chris, what's your first photo? I've got some photos of my earliest business days. Anything embarrassing? I didn't find anything too embarrassing because I can't access my Facebook. You've never done anything embarrassing, you mean? Well, I do actually think that when I began the content journey, I do think I did a scrub. I do think I went back and tried to rewrite the past.

1:11Are you genuinely paranoid? Are you actually paranoid about what people think about you or what they might find? I think that, you know, I think all of us were young at one point. And I think that back then social media wasn't so pervasive. And therefore nights out were just covered with loads of photographs. and i don't know necessarily if i would want that stuff being public and then you know you don't want a million photos of yourself smoking and drinking all the time do you so i did i did go back and find some early photos but but nothing nothing too embarrassing have you got something embarrassing my entire back catalog is embarrassing yeah and i i am a personal embarrassment and i but i wear it with pride i've got no shame um i feel like i take i take the exact opposite approach to you I scrub nothing, I delete nothing.

1:59I'm all or nothing on this stuff. I'm free speech till I die and come at me. And I don't believe in my past being able to haunt me at all because I just wouldn't apologise for it now or then. But yeah, so I've got a bunch. I mean, yeah, I found a couple of real talking points on this. What do you want to start with? No, no, no. I will start with you. We'll try and bring out some personality if we can. Dragging, kicking, screaming. Through the mud. Yeah. I think my the photo I found which I didn't think I was gonna find was I found a photo of my first office for verb all right show it to me which is which is on brick lane oh an apple monitor things weren't that bad I think it was second hand yeah it was a startup what I'm looking at yeah it was uh but we were a design company doing luxury design so yeah if we didn't have the mac okay yeah you know we wouldn't we wouldn't have anything and i think that office cost 400 pounds a month it was on brick lane in the old truman brewery and i was so proud of it i'd been like entrepreneuring for a long time i had done lots of side hustles i think you'd call them and had a few businesses that had succeeded or failed before that but i remember that distinctly in my head being like that's very much the beginning of the the journey and that company is obviously the the one that took 10 years and you know part of my soul to make work so that's a very nice memory and i think that alongside that i've got the the photos of the final verb office which again is another i used to i used to i used to do a series of photos where i would go and stand at the back of the office and get photographed from the front of the office um this is also in the time by the way that if you were to ask me i would say i don't want photos or video of me online i used to be like i don't want to put any photos of myself online why is that i i don't know i think i was just very i think i was very like i don't i thought it was cringeworthy and cliche and i also think at that time i was a bit like i haven't achieved much so what why should i share whereas nowadays i do have a different view that you can build in public which i think you were always quite good at actually it's sort of sharing what you were doing whereas mine was kind of like no personal brand no personal brand and then just like total explosion of focus on that uh which is why again i have less photos of the the build as it were yeah interesting but you've got kind of like a before and after of essentially screens.

4:41And that is so interesting, right? That's your memory. There's something quite... So do you not feel like upset, you know, like the iconic Amazon, you know, in pen there and he's at the desk? Yeah. Do you not feel like sort of sad? You don't have those sort of memories where you're part of it? I mean, I will dig deeper in the future to find, but there is a shot of me at 21 sitting at the desk looking super haggard like exhausted like this yeah just like now um and you know i like visibly have bags under my eyes like my hair is a mess i'm wearing like a hoodie and i think at the time like i prescribed my life to like the hours in is the success like i don't even know necessarily if the work was good work um but it was all about the hours and so i have a few of those i'd have to really dig deep to go and find them and then and then the other thing i do have is i have a massive album of nights out with the team yeah because i i we've discussed this many times before but like i substituted seven or eight years of my real life social life as in my friends and my life outside of work for work but alongside that i was socializing with the team every friday night most Thursday nights like we were going out the whole time and so you know I just sort of fully committed to the company as it were it's very classic agency owner vibes that isn't it yeah definitely I mean and I think I think there's more of an onus on agency style businesses which is all about the people to have that culture and I think as well if you look now like the stuff that I talk about I've been talking about building good culture forever because I was super deliberate about making the places that i ran great companies um isn't it funny that 10 years ago yeah the idea of building a great company culture was basically measured in how many nights out you'd get wankered with your team and in 2024 it's just not about that yeah well it's probably a bit about that but it's really not as much it just isn't like people don't want that as much from work yeah totally i mean i would say that that back then it was almost like uh it was almost like a draw like join us we're a really fast growing young agency get fucked up the whole time and it was part of the whole alert you know like clients would come on nights out with us it was a whole thing whereas now i think covid was the like the real stop on that but now i would say that the young people in Lottie or my other companies don't drink.

7:23It's not even like the company drinks do get wild, but they're like once a quarter. Whereas back in the agency days, it was like twice a week or something. I mean, I was no better. I was just thinking as you were talking about our first ever head of growth at my old company, Grable. We were the first ever customers for Social Chain. So I met Steve and Dom and we... Claim to fame? Huh? Claim to fame. It's really cool. And so that's why I'm still friends with them, right? We went through something together. We were literally their first ever customers. And we worked with them and we went viral and it was all amazing.

7:58Anyway, I ended up being like, we needed a head of growth. And so there was the next person that they'd worked with randomly was this app Happn. Do you remember Happn? It was a dating app? Yes. Right. They were based in Paris. And so Steve and Don were like, there's this guy and he's been absolutely brilliant at Happn. You should chat to him. and so i was like right i need to poach this guy and so um i told this guy jack um who's now one of my best friends but at the time um i said why don't you come over to london for the weekend we'll go out to do all about gravel it'd be great steve and dom have recommended you all of this stuff so he comes over to paris he comes over from paris i take him hoxton hotel we go for drinks we go for dinner i take him to a rave at fabric yeah um this is the interview this is the interview literally i was like he's like you know i should probably like go home whenever i've got a spare room in my house just stay there it's absolutely fine went out got wankered all of saturday as well had absolutely brilliant hired him yeah uh it was incredible poaching strategy um and uh yeah he's like one of my best friends now like go to glastonbury and like all sorts of things with him um and he now he now runs his own business right his own venture funded business and stuff so also quite like the you know you pick up like really talented people along the way they don't work for from you forever.

9:10And I didn't only show him the negative sides of this stuff, but frankly, that was a very good hiring strategy. Like he was working for an amazing company, better company than us, but French culture, not quite the vibe. And we were like young, sexy, cool, interesting, up for having fun whilst building a business. And if you know, that's one of your things, you've got to place your strengths, right? Yeah, I do. I mean, I do think back to that. and I think to myself, I don't know if I had to put in what I put in. I think about it a lot because we've spoken about it a lot. Like if I think about the sort of broadly 10-year period it took to BuildVerb and it was bootstrapped.

9:48So like it was quite literally month to month, are we going to afford the salaries? All that sort of stuff, building from zero. And I just don't know if I had to commit at the level I committed. You know, like I didn't have to sign off for not having any friends for seven years or eight years. And I think that you can do that. And almost nowadays, I don't think you would have to have such an intense social culture at work, which I think would be nicer, you know, for me personally anyway. Because I think it was just a challenging time to be like a CEO, to be the head of like the socials, the entertainment.

10:24And like so many of our interviews were the pub. Like the interview was the pub. So what is your first work memory, business memory? Well, I went for a sort of random photo that sort of tells two stories together or maybe even collection of photos. Because technically, the first thing I did as an entrepreneur really was when I was 16, I did the young enterprise thing at school and blah, blah, blah. And basically, made a kid's party brand. And we put on some fun kids parties and charged parents who we understood, you know, so I understand your customer. We knew that they were really busy, that they would just love to just spend some money on giving their kids who are like seven or eight like wicked parties and did that and did that quite well.

11:11I don't have a photo of that time at all but then it suddenly occurred to me that I've got three businesses and one of them is called Founders and it's a community and I started it 10 years ago but really it's basically just an excuse for me to hang out with loads of other entrepreneurs and have the kind of fun that I had when I was a kid but as an adult like i know you know everything that you just said like i i'm probably the opposite in terms of like my fear was growing up and becoming serious i don't want to do that i want to have fun i want to play like i'm a kid my whole life yeah but it's harder and harder to find those kind of things and i've always been the kind of person as an entrepreneur is like well if you can't find it make it for yourself yeah and so i have these photos here i think they perfectly encapsulate this sort of childhood play kind of thing there's this one so nick jenkins who was the first ever guest on Secret Leaders.

12:03I became really good friends with him. And he gave me his house. This is... He gave you his house? Normous house. Let me finish the sentence, I suppose. I told him I want to have a massive party for a bunch of entrepreneurs. I want to do it annually. I want it to be like really fun. Blah, blah, blah. Was he a dragon at the time? He was a dragon at the time. Wow. And he did invite Deborah Meaden, but she didn't turn up. No. But he was like, just do it at my house. Come see it. Come see it. you want to do it like just just do it she sounds like he does honestly i do some good nick jenkins impressions i've spent a lot of time with him so i've got these photos here that i'll just show you like this this one is this this one is we uh we hired a 170 foot uh bouncy castle assault course in his garden so that we could do a sports day um this is a bunch of people outside this house this is this is all at his house this is um shift to the camera there this one is squash court this is a squash court at his house and this is us playing life-size hungry hungry hippos so you're a person with a bucket um on a skateboard and you have to go into your four corners and the other person has to push you out on a skateboard on a string with all the balls in the middle you have to catch them with your little bucket so literally like human hungry hungry hippos this is um at the sports day during the sack race this is nick elegantly going straight through the sack which which is hilarious with his legs exposed.

13:25There's everyone in fancy dress at his party, like just in his garden. And this is very successful, incredible. One of the most successful entrepreneurs I've ever met is incredible, called Aaron, dressed as Snow White. He's about six foot five. Runs a company worth a few billion dollars, genuinely. And that's just him as Snow White and he had loads of seven dwarfs with him. um it just like that that stuff to me is is the exemplary uh sorry it's a perfect example of how not that i don't want to grow up like i've really enjoyed maturing as a person especially becoming a dad but i just want to keep having fun yeah and i think that fun is like i feel like you only live on this planet once there are things that i feel very strongly that people should do um travel the world take psychedelics um sleep with random people unless we're already married and then you you shouldn't don't cheat on them but you know like just just experience things yeah um and I think it's because I was quite um a very uh typical maybe somewhat protected childhood where my parents my parents just my parents came from a lower class background and you know then became middle class during it and wanted me to have a better life and all of this kind of stuff and so very careful with me um and so everything was just safe and i feel like when i broke free of that as an 18 year old i was like well i kind of want to explore a bit so anyway that that's kind of been my vibe is like wanting to make sure that i understand that you only live on this planet once and that you really shouldn't spend all your time at work and if you do and if and actually that work can be play right so that business founders it's a not-for-profit the whole thing exists just for play really i mean you've participated in i certainly have yeah and yeah exactly in the events and it's so important to have an outlet i think as entrepreneurs with each other that is or in any community don't even be entrepreneurs but just that's fun and expressive i came to founders the first time when i was 32 yeah i remember what you said to me yeah and it was it was a pretty life-changing uh experience for me and it's crazy to think i was 32 years old and i'd never met networked with founders yeah yeah you kept saying it over that weekend being like how do you get so many of them here and you're like i was i was shocked yeah i was shocked at like the i thought it was a really really fun weekend but what would you say though i think so many founders don't commit and therefore don't get the outcome they want and then they always you know you always have these situations where that they they go on so many podcasts they go to all the networking events and they don't do the work yeah that's quite different that so you're right 100 um that's very different though over a 10-year journey saying should you not have had fun yeah like over 10 years you should have fun yeah right but your work-life balance like you know vibe i hate that expression but you should remember to enjoy yourself as well otherwise what is the bloody point well the counter argument would be i think and i tell it from my perspective because i don't feel too guilty about writing off seven years my life um but yeah you can have fun now my life my life changed in you know building a company over 10 years and selling that company successfully the scope in my life from the moment that happened to onwards has been remarkable i think no one has more time off work than i do these days i do everything that i want to do and i i have that freedom and flexibility i think by and large due to the fact that i committed for so long and i think that you don't need to commit in the way that i did i think is is is my takeaway and i wish i'd spent more time with my friends and covid was the thing i actually do have a great photo of me sitting in covid working and and it actually made me a bit emotional when i saw the photo because because i had worked so hard for so long i had never worked from home ever and then there's a photo of me working from home in the in this in the um and i look awful in it like i'm wearing you know like a like a striped top i have had to really carefully not press the bin yeah i'm really proud really really cry and then i just oh i just deleted that i'm sorry mate um and like that that was like a defining point in life in a weird sense because i had to chill out because the the business went from like the the timing was insane as well it was like uh i basically had an offer for the business for about 25 million pounds to buy the business before covid and we went then went skiing lou and i and when i came back from skiing we had to come off the mountain because of covid quick question did you splash out of that skiing holiday because you knew you were getting this money or did you just go normal oh my god yeah i mean like the pre-spend was insane when you know that you're going to sell a company for tens of millions of pounds you start spending as if you have i've heard this from a lot of my guests honestly it's insane yeah anyway we had to come off the mountain because covid hit i then went back to our tiny flat in east london that my girlfriend at the time owned um and i had no money like i was dead broke but the business afforded a lifestyle you know the the company card etc that i looked like i had some money and then the business crashed we went we like lost 80 of our revenue and everything fell apart and i remember being like i can literally see the email where they suggested how much they wanted to pay for the company and i said i think it's worth more and then i was like stuck in the tiny flat in east london couldn't pay myself a salary again because the company was basic everyone was on furlough everyone was gone from the company redundancies etc and i just remember being like i did lose seven years of my life because i didn't get the exit and at that point if you if you're not successful it which most people aren't which most people aren't it would it would feel i feel good about it because i made it through in the end we recovered the company brought it back and you know fought tooth and nail for it but had it not been a success it would be a hard pill to swallow but the counter argument to your counter argument is if you're so successful and can do anything that you want why the fuck you're sitting in a podcast studio here and not just traveling around brazil mate so decision making process is still terrible well maybe i just really enjoy talking to you can't buy good taste can you um so i uh so that was your high moment is that like a like a good memory essentially that photo i think it's a great memory marks a point in time um what about you it's a weird one because i um i sort of like have have two framings around like a lovely memory um and i found these photos really cool actually my first ever around the corner here in one of my offices in shoreditch so my first ever interviews with secret leaders michael acton smith from calm uh where is it here we go simon cook who's the founder and ceo of draper espri stephen bartlett that's his first ever podcast interview that's Stephen Bartlett's first ever interview.

20:42Yeah. He came in with... With his hat on as well. I know. Because he wore the hat. And he came in with his video thing, right? So he was doing a vlog. So what was interesting is he was doing a vlog. So he was quite early on vlog. He was so early on vlogs. But he was like, I've never done a podcast or anything like that. And so then he hadn't... Because he was doing the vlogging, he hadn't been interviewed by anyone either. So it was the first time he was very much like, oh, wow, this is cool and interesting. What is this? So the diary of the CEO was what formed In Secret Leaders. he saw it and thought this is it he did he did say in that interview it's recorded on the episode you can go back and listen to it oh oh i think i you know i think i'd be interested in doing this well he certainly did it okay he picked up the mantle and did it well uh this this this one i had to include because this is lols i've got an explanation let me defend myself but this is uh what am i looking at you're looking at me interviewing prince andrew at buckingham palace wow what year is this oh definitely before the scandals so the background the background to this is that was recent wow oh this is me and the founder of instagram that was uh all in the same week as well wow crazy i had a nice you have actually i mean more than more than because i was a fan of yours and a fan of the show long before i knew you yeah so you have had the most remarkable life well i had i had uh i had this spell of stuff going really well at gravel so like in terms of like great memories yeah there's this little period here i remember um this is uh like this is all from the same evening but this is me with the founder me and joel my business partner and jimmy wales founder of wikipedia with our app on his phone because he was like oh my his wife loved fashion and she loved matches fashion all the stuff he lives in london and he was like i've got gravel and he you know he was like showing us on his phone i was like so found of wikipedia Yeah.

22:27Yeah. Yeah. I've got nothing like this. Oh, I've got one for you in a second. Anyway, what was hilarious, because he's relatively well-known, like recognisable Jimmy Wales. There was this guy at the event who was sort of like on his own. This is at Buckingham Palace in an event called Pitch It Palace, which we won. So that's the kind of thing. We pitched it. For Grable. Grable, yeah. And we won, which was incredible because it meant that. And that's the thing that Prince Andrew used to put on there, right? So it meant that you were suddenly being looked after by the royal family to go to events and stuff.

23:00They did so many things. They paid for us to go to LA and pitch at like, you know, pay for our flights and accommodation and stuff just so that we could go and like represent Britain, essentially, and entrepreneurship at these events. And they did amazing things. Like they get a bad rep, the royal family. But if you're, if they're trying to help you and do something in their space, they actually do. And do they do that now? I don't know if they do that right now because of the whole scandal. Like that kind of all unraveled. but um like in the same event right like meeting the queen um and actually made her laugh which was great and that's her with her lovely son prince andrew made her laugh by taking the piss out of prince andrew by the way which really do you remember what you said uh yes i think i do because i because it's for a grabboard she said watch out for this one she said what do you

23:45um i said she said what do you do why are you here like you know what's the thing this is before we've gone on stage to do the pitching and um i go well you know i run this company called grabble you know what's the quickest way that i can say this to the queen uh we help people look better through mobile phone apps i just kind of kept it really simple she's like do you have any tips for me and i was like oh you're immaculate your son however i mean he could he could do with his own own stylist let's be honest and she had a little raw with laughter um so and that and then that photo there which is like literally prince andrew's twitter handle tweeting me meeting the queen my god um so not you know it would have been one of those things where if that had all gone well that'd be memories to be proud of now they're things that i don't don't tend to bring up otherwise asked i mean those are amazing stories it's funny right um so let me tell you the story yeah um there's a guy there who no one was really talking to lots of famous people in this room like famous entrepreneurs richard branson like all sorts of people that you just know they're there right yeah it's fucking palace and there's this guy no one's really talking to who looks interesting go and talk to him um and then really nice conversation i'm trying to sort of ask him so what do you do like what's your vibe he's sort of like deflecting the conversation the whole time asking about mo and i was telling you know what is what is gravel i'm telling him you know oh tell me a little bit more about mobile commerce i'm like okay fine and anyway get like two three four more people come around and they're like all like wow you know really talking to him and kind of amazed by him and i was like who is this guy and finally get around to it being like okay what do you do and he goes um i invented the internet you've been telling him about your new oh my god it was i just went about a shopping app yeah it was just so bloody embarrassed yeah it was incredible um so i uh yeah i had a very humbling moment there i was like you actually should be very careful trying to look impressive anywhere like bucking palace because people in there are kind of ridiculous.

25:45It's great. It's great. Let's see young entrepreneurs. You see it all the time where you get into a conversation with young entrepreneurs and they just bulldoze the conversation on their new business idea. You sit there in the context of the conversation looking at like billion pound founder, new entrepreneur, they don't ask them anything. Yeah, it's crazy. A highly topical, relevant, you know, subtleness about this, you know, with people, these long, long profiles, all their awards and all these things. Yesterday, because we're recording this, obviously in in august um andy murray played his last ever game of tennis yeah and i saw two screenshots his old twitter profile used to say i play tennis and yesterday he updated it to i played tennis and that's it yeah how brilliantly subtle is that amazing that's all he did on the day that he retires that's all he's done on his social profiles just changed it to i played tennis absolutely love it amazing there's a great example of like ego right it's just like that's the story simple enough when you're when you're as amazing as him that's all you really need to say yeah maybe that's why all of us talk so much it's amazing it's true just trying to cover up our insecurities to me that's sort of that whole experience felt like my big moment um because it's so memorable going to buckingham palace and meeting these people and meeting the queen i've always been someone who really appreciates the monarchy um my mom's a royalist it's very much like a thing she really just loves the british monarchy and almost like all pomp and ceremony type stuff in any culture but she's british and feels proud to be british and so she really respects the culture um so that for me was so important because it meant so much to my parents yeah um what about you what is like a big defining career moment for you what's the thing that springs to mind when you think of that career career defining would be i i think like if If I think about major success, I think about two things distinctly.

27:35One was winning Bugatti as a client because I was in the game of luxury brands and winning them. I remember sitting in the Bugatti factory with like Stefan Winkleman, who was the CEO, Nexter, like a Chiron and, you know, the parts of the cars all around me. And he was like, he stood up and we'd just done the pitch. He stood up and he was like, I'd love to appoint you as the global agency for Bugatti. And I'm there, you know, I'm like 27, 28. I'm not even massive into cars, but I knew the significance of winning Bugatti. I knew that the minute we were able to demonstrate that we could shift a company like that digitally and socially or whatever, the world was kind of our oyster.

28:18And it was, you know, we won them, we promoted that case study and we went on to win everyone. Yeah, that's a proper heritage luxury brand. It was an unbelievable brand. And like we went on to win Aston Martin and all the rest of them you know and it was just an amazing thing but the moment that like did change my life obviously was after nearly selling the company the company crashing during covid um and then the rebound when like digital took off in the world and you couldn't sell offline really the rebound becoming bigger than we were and then running out of energy completely going flat and like straight like you would you know my wife was like worried i was like struggling to get out bed and i was the most successful i'd ever been and it wasn't anything other than i feel like i fully burnt out yeah and then i remember thinking to myself i have to sell this because i can't leave myself in a position of putting in it will be 10 years of work and not get an unbelievable outcome here yeah and so we went through the whole process ended up um exiting the company to uh another agency who was private equity backed um and i remember i don't know if i've ever actually said this before i remember the the the morning the morning the money came through um because the night before you celebrate the deal happening and obviously everyone got really drunk and like had an amazing time and whatever and i remember being on the tube the next morning because i was going lunch with with the team again to sort of second celebrate and i was on the train in the morning on the tube and you know on the banking apps the notification comes through and the notification came through the money came through and i burst out crying just like on the tube in like happy tears you know like i am overwhelmed by how excited and happy i am i'm so proud of myself like that type of money is like i never need to work again money yeah i can take care of everyone i ever want to take care of and i remember just like crying and just sitting on the tube for so long crying and i was offline you know basically so i was getting like scant things through um but obviously that as a defining moment and change was like i think people underestimate the the value of the impact of an exit moving forward obviously it's a lot of money but the credibility you get yeah afterwards for any any deal you know like your inbox gets flooded with unbelievable business opportunities like press and i didn't even do personal brand back then really but immediately exploded you know like i had incredible opportunities to invest to join boards to to you know make a lot more money a lot quicker than i ever had previously and so for me i can't help really saying that any other moment kind of compares to that morning on the tube because like i'm not a crier i'm not an emotional person but i was like i was like i've done it you know like 10 years of like putting in i've done it and it was just yeah it's just memory a memory i will never probably forget to be honest did you cry on your wedding day i did cry on my wedding day only for the short moment when uh we got married on the beach and when i saw louise coming down that moment oh you were disappointed yeah this is awful um i had a little cry when she came down she had a little cry when she came down but yeah i mean i i don't know are you are you an emotional person i mean yeah you're more in touch than i am yeah i'm an emotional person yeah i'm a crier in most films as well i think i cried in deadpool over the weekend so yeah um but you know i i'm i i've not had an exit right i've not had a proper exit i've had a bunch of um uh financial events through different business things for sure um but i've never had like one big solid exit so i don't know what that emotional feeling is like and it's interesting to hear you talk about that because very commonly you hear the opposite story it's actually good to hear you say that because a bit roll your eyes you often hear people say well i just felt empty you know i didn't feel anything and i thought i would and you know that's very much a narrative you often hear whereas i often imagine that i'd be like ashamed of the fact that i'd be like really excited to have that much money i i don't know what it is is it is it is it a british thing like i don't know why people in that moment feel that the narrative has to be like you know it wasn't meaningful like for me i was like of course this is my life changing ever change i put this in an account what to do forever more i can i can and and since that moment obviously i had to do a short earn out and i have done businesses since all the rest of it but since that moment the freedom of choice to pursue anything i wanted has been remarkable yeah and so like i think celebrate the hell out of it like you should be over the moon about it like we should say it's awesome i've struggled always with the that when i hear people say you know i was you know money doesn't solve this this is the and it's like of course like money doesn't solve all of your problems but like the freedom and choice you get off the back of it is remarkable and i don't think we should put it down no we should be proud of what we achieve and for me like that that was that real defining moment and but i mean you know i look at i look at your story and like you will definitely have those big exits in the future but you're already at a point with your businesses and you're a prolific investor that it might not mean as much because you've already kind of achieved so much that whereas for me i think the difference was like i had no money because of the way i'd structured things very badly you know like never did stuff like secondaries in the first business never took any money off the table didn't pay myself well whereas now i would sit there with founders and say like you've got to do those things pay yourself properly please like don't leave yourself screwed and like if you can take money off the table and invest around why not yeah like of course do that um so but i mean yeah for for you i think it's it's different i think you've had more of a portfolio career yeah for sure of your of your career so if i look at you nowadays you have a business that I know turns over eight figures that you built from scratch you've invested in I don't know a hundred companies no 87 now 87 companies now as an angel which is you start to count when you get over 50 you're like I better actually count this and then you're like oh shit and then which is insane yeah which is frankly targets obviously 100 and then fucking stop at that point so you run a company that makes eight figures you have um like in my opinion and I am bias but one of the most successful business podcasts you know ever and then you also run one of the most respected founder communities which is again like quite not quite unknown but once you're in you're like this is the coolest thing i've ever been part of yeah it's amazing um do you think that an exit would give you validation do you think that it would go beyond money you know do you do you think it would be a badge yeah do you know what i have had probably not enough psychedelics to destroy my ego enough to pretend sit here and pretend that i don't want it and it is funny because like on a personal level um every every few years i try and do something called ayahuasca uh like the world's most powerful psychedelic and you know occasionally we'll do like therapeutic mushroom trips and things like that all with the sole purpose of knowing that this pathetic need for validation to the world yeah is so empty and meaningless and doesn't truly make people happy because happiness is an inside job and you need to be like comfortable with your self-worth and all those things um it's definitely helped me a lot throughout my career to stop trying to posture to other people about how important I am and just be like totally comfortable in my own skin with the journey and doing as I do.

36:21And even yet, I still can't pretend that when you say that it doesn't trigger something in me where I'm like, yeah, actually, I feel like external validation would considerably probably 10x. I don't know if it's true or not, but in my head, it would 10x if I'd had an exit. um and there's a really fine balance with heights heights is the only business that i run that could have an exit or not looking to do one for secret leaders or if we are we haven't talked about it it's a quick turnaround yeah exactly um we're not you know i wouldn't do one for founders it's just a not-for-profit community that i don't want to or need to so i only run one business that is an asset that is like designed to sell and it's got unbelievable scale and it's got unbelievable scale and so the thing that i'm always battling at like at the moment i actually whatsapp to you about this last night we were talking about this last night how i had an investment offer but it came with a term i didn't want so it came with a board seat but i don't want to give up a board seat because if i give up a board seat i give up control yeah and your life changes right and if i give up control i'm not in control of when i exit this company i might exit heights at 100 million pounds and i've had this conversation with joel my business partner right we both said that we are we'd be very happy with an exit 100 million pounds yeah because that's a lot of money it's a lot of money yeah and these amount of people when you do these investment rounds who'd be disgusted to hear that you would only exit 100 million like you're not ambitious and i just like please let's come back to reality this is absurd right it's not like i'm building open ai over here right businesses have to have tangible value beneath them there needs to be a reason why something is worth a hundred million pounds like the world has gone insane in the last couple of years with valuations and so forth like you are you are unlike most you're the least posturing person ever and yet you have a company that legitimately can be worth and sell for that much in the not too distant future yeah so i'll tell you what i had i'll tell you this is a exclusive and then we can decide whether I cut out his name or not on this afterwards.

38:25So I'm doing a, you know, during the round and meeting some amazing investors and people. And one of them is James Watt from BrewDog. So controversial figure, controversial figure. I've never been a big fan of all the hate on James. I've never been a big fan of James. I've always been a big fan of James, actually. And I've always been super suspicious, which is probably to my own detriment. Like I have a natural bias towards entrepreneurs. Like, I believe them over the investors. I believe them over the press. Like, I know how bloody hard it is to be an entrepreneur. And also, by the way, like, it only takes one toxic employee to ruin your reputation as an entrepreneur and doesn't even need to be true.

39:08Like, in the entrepreneurship game with hit pieces and stuff, it's totally guilty until proven innocent. And so with the James stuff, all of the stuff that ended up happening in the press with the BBC and everything and him countersuing, it all ended up being bollocks. Really, it was like the outcome. Yeah, he countersued them and had to spend so long in court to prove he had basically one troll that just decided to have it out for him and fabricated an entire case and stuff. Not necessarily all the stuff in the company. He's admitted, you know, not everything was perfect, but you're building a multi-billion dollar unicorn.

39:41Things are not going to be like zen and perfect. Never done it before. You know, just come on. Have some sense of reality for what that would take. But he had one troll as well that made all his life much harder. So anyway, my view is I've always been massively cynical on this narrative that he's a terrible person. And he then came out and said, I'm neurodivergent and stuff. And actually, if you've worked with neurodivergent people, they don't necessarily understand how to process all events and interactions with employees the same way as everyone else. So you do have to have some patience for that.

40:11Anyway, so I'm talking to him about our round at the moment. He's made us the most random offer, which we're deliberating on. But just to give you an idea of how he sees it. So he's a Heights customer. Right. Loves it, which is awesome. And so he said, I think that Heights can be a unicorn. So I want to invest. But here's my proposal. If I want to join as an advisor or whatever in some kind of capacity. And I've never had a proposal like this before because it's a bit random. I don't really know exactly what it means either. So this is like half-baked and doesn't mean it's going to happen. I'm quite excited already though.

40:46if we sell for under 500 million i get nothing extra if we sell for over 500 million i get 10 percent of the transaction value and if we sell for over a billion i get 15 percent of the transaction value because i know how to build billion dollar brands and i literally think that heights is a multi-billion dollar brand in the making um i just think that we need to know how to do it and i know how to do it so that's my proposal you've got me you've got me hyped up saying it it's really interesting yeah yeah i've got the email i'll show you god i would be like i'd be i'd just be a bit pumped up hearing that well it's really fascinating because uh psychologically i mean firstly flattered right it was amazing um he's actually done it so and he's actually done it the the flip side of this that's sort of challenging is a legality on even paperwork like that it's actually as you know it's actually quite complicated um b you've got to go back to investors and they'd be like well how do you tangibly decide what value is or what not value was the stuff gets quite complicated and then thirdly on our board we already have a consumer brand billion dollar founder yeah right so it's a bit like i'm a bit like you know how do i take that offer to her because she's technically already been with us trying to build a big company and hasn't said i want any more for like that kind of exit but this one over here does so creates a really weird dynamic worth like trying to figure out how to manage so other than talking about it here.

42:06I haven't actually told anyone about it other than Joel, obviously my business partner. But sort of the reason I say that story is I sometimes get locked in the, I think that the potential for heights is a solid hundred million pound exit and feeling super proud about it. And then you show the product, the business, et cetera, to people who have built billion dollar companies before. And they say, this is a billion dollar company. And I'm always trying to manage my expectations between the two because i do i want to build a billion dollar company i don't know that i do or rather i don't know that i'm the founder yeah i certainly wouldn't be the ceo for that i don't think i've got the chops for that would a billion valuation bring you a an unachievable um uh validation that you wouldn't get elsewhere because i think it i think in silicon valley billion pound valuations is like you know this is me this is who i am i think i'd invited back to bucking palace which would be nice yeah whereas i i think to myself is you can achieve a hell of a lot in small businesses that will change your life multiple times without so much stress and that you know i think i i think the point about taking the money and not taking the seat is a very very good point yes and i think for most people that there is a nuance that they won't understand but the minute that you have someone on your board yep it's meaningful yep very meaningful correct and that's kind of the thing i i i haven't decided whether i want to build a hundred million pound business or a billion dollar business.

43:35And I don't pretend when I'm doing investment, you know, James asked me directly and I said to him, I don't really have an answer for you personally. As in, I don't know which one of those I want to do more or less. It sounds better to say billion, but at the same time, I don't want to be led by society's requirements to tell me that that's what I need to do to validate anything. I always said to myself, I think this is also really important as a good entrepreneur lesson that I feel like I didn't learn last time. I want to maintain this time, Joel and I said we would be super duper proud of building a hundred million pound business.

44:07Like incredibly proud. Of course. Right. Of course. A hundred million. Of course. Right. Unbelievably proud of that. Yeah. I mean, proud at 50. Isn't it amazing that you can even conceive that your business is going to and could easily go beyond a hundred million. Right. So for us, it's a question of, you know, not trying to move the goalposts all the time so that if that incredible target was ever achieved we don't go but it wasn't a billion it's a great it's a great lesson i think to all entrepreneurs and people in general that like as success goes you never quite give yourself the recognition because the goalpost moves so fast internally and so you're never quite achieving at the rate that you that you that you set out to even though you have yeah it's amazing so there's an offer on the table for money but it comes with a stipulation of a 10 % on transaction value bonus for half a million and 15 % at a billion.

45:09And you have to get that cleared off with all your other investors too, obviously. It means you'd get 15 % less at those values, but whatever. Would you take it? It's a near impossible one for me because I would say the rest, it's a great thought experiment with the rest of our investors would never sign off on something like that really and on top i mean you know our investors are like top vcs they'll never sign off on a deal like that they've never recognized the value in someone like that yeah well and also their predisposition predisposition is that it's a billion dollar business anyway so of course of course you know they invest but i suppose i suppose the interesting thing is let's say that we made it practical and you didn't have other investors and whatever how would you possibly track their value add to that level that's kind of the problem and and and in it he said you can set this up any way you want i'd be an advisor and i'd give it serious time like he's i want to like give it serious time so he was like you know multiple days a month like operationally doing it working for free right but then what does it mean yeah exactly like it's very hard to say like is he a genius is he a brilliant entrepreneur that i massively respect and look up to 100 has he done it again well he's building a new company called social tip right right he built brew dog so it's one of the breakout brands globally so one way or another it's incredible yeah um so you would you would or wouldn't take it

46:39i wouldn't take it no yeah and that's where i'm leaning at the moment but we'll see stay tuned for part two so then speaking of businesses that might be might be 10 might be 100 might be billion dollar companies you raised recently for lottie right so you raised at over 100 million dollars uh yeah yeah about 150 million dollars was the valuation casual yeah so is that going to be a unicorn or what what do you have to say you're on camera i don't you know that there's lots of cameras everywhere no yeah i've seen them uh address your vcs properly

47:26the fear you just got into a different color no no i mean i'm trying to think obviously from the outside when when people look and talk about lottie you get kind of two very distinct reactions which is one is um the idea is so obvious you know and two is it's a kind of a foregone conclusion So like three years ago, Will and I co-founded the company and three years later, it was valued at 115 million. And I think that that as a journey, as an experience has been insane because obviously valuations aren't, you know, aren't everything. It is an amazing company, of course, but I think that tech and so forth gives you that, that pump, that pump because it is an infinitely scalable business.

48:10I find for me, it's been the most exciting journey ever of learning because I'd never had a funded company before. I don't only ever run bootstrap companies. So I now have a completely more sophisticated view of like raising money about having a board, like having a board is a real fucking thing. You know, you go and you sit around and they meaningfully own part of the company and you end up, you know, discussing, debating and, you know, you're not in control fully anymore. and the VC treadmill, you know, like we raised$30 million. It's valued at nine figures, whatever, but like the treadmill is real.

48:48You know, like we have targets to hit, we are running on that treadmill. And so, you know, it's not all like bright pink and lovely Lottie like people see. It is like a legit VC backed, very high pressure business these days. How does that make you feel? I mean, for me, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. I'm very okay with working hard and I'm very okay with pressure. It's kind of my superpower. It doesn't faze me anymore. But I feel like, would I do a VC-backed business again? Maybe, but I would go in much more eyes wide open. I would be much more prepared. And that's why I think I like to produce content for my younger self.

49:30I like to make stuff that genuinely guides you on good decision making in your business. Because there isn't a hell of a lot of good business content out there, in my opinion. I couldn't agree more. Especially in the UK, I feel like all the business content is either by VCs and therefore talking about the VC world, which is a tiny microcosm of the world that we actually have in business. or it's basically a lot of people with strong opinions excellent attention grabbers which is not a bad thing it's a skill to build an audience and grab people's attention it's something that obviously you and i trying to pick up and do and ourselves but not so much necessarily the direct experience of running a business yeah and so i feel like where we're trying to position our time and our experience to actually help deliver value to our audience is various business experiences you've run an agency, run a funded business, I've run a community, not-for-profit, obviously a media company, and multiple tech consumer business and a consumer packaged good product.

50:39There's a wide variety of entrepreneurship experience that we've actually had over the last decade that hopefully we can add some value to people about. Good decision-making, bad decision-making, things to avoid, and actually things that we'd like to do differently, right? if we could do them all again? There was a distinct moment in my life when I remember seeing business advice from the Kardashians. And the Kardashians are obviously amazing business people now. Yeah, they are. And they have like incredible teams around them and so forth. And I remember thinking like, I don't necessarily know if I think that is good business advice.

51:17I feel like they probably get away with running okay businesses because of massive audiences. But at the same time, i also saw the rise of like side hustle culture videos on the internet and the rise of like semi what i would call kind of entrepreneurs people who'd never run the business promoting the business and i just remember sitting there being like there has to be an answer to this like we have to create content that genuinely helps someone as opposed to just sell someone on something yeah and that's why like you and i do it i think and that's why also we get so much positive feedback from people who want to be entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that the advice we're giving makes a difference to their life.

51:59And also because we've been there and done that, our bullshit meter, our nose for who is a entrepreneur and who isn't. We should do a series. It's pretty strong. We should love to do a series on it. Honestly, the amount of people selling courses who have never done anything other than just try to sell people a course and then deliver no value, entrepreneurs, 99 % of them. Yeah, like bring us a list of businesses and like we'll break down the economics because... And show you just how much you're getting conned. Yeah, because I'll call bullshit on most things. Certainly most things I see online.

52:30And that's why like, again, I want to come from a place of like, been there, done it, got the t-shirt, been through it, had the bad, had the good. And now I'm going to tell you like, not the perfect answer, but just my lived experience of these things. Yeah. And also if you're watching something like this anyway, you're the type of person who is in the buyer catchment for those people. They're trying to tell you and sell you on a lifestyle you may not currently have and are aspiring to. And that's where you're most vulnerable. Totally. That's where you are like, I would actually spend money to get rid of the feeling of pain where I am now.

53:04And the pain that you're experiencing is ultimately the fact that you're not that future version of yourself yet. And you want to shorten that gap and get there sooner. And entrepreneurs massively exploit that. And that is something that we will never do we will literally just try and add value answer questions from our community and basically try and build the most entertaining and meaningful business show that we can on youtube i think my one takeaway for audiences and people in general is that if someone is selling you a shortcut it's most likely bullshit you know if they're saying that something is achievable in a shorter period of time most likely that's bullshit yeah and i think that all really great business stories you just don't see the first six or seven or eight years of hard work that the person has done to get to the outcome if it feels too good to be true i mean 99 % of the time it is which is why it's all about not destination but journey so long as you're on the journey and you're liking the journey that's where like you know we differ in opinion like your journey sound painful because you're hating it so much my journey has been mostly enjoyable obviously lots of ups and downs but make sure it's enjoyable because i'm not trying to rush the outcome or the exit i'm understanding that it's a process and it comes when you're not desperately in pain trying to force it to happen um but i guess we can debate that forever so we started this episode looking at different photos from our journey uh basically trying to get to know each other but through the experience of memories and we're going to close out with a picture that was literally taken yesterday as chris and i were walking around our brand new studio our brand new office which hasn't been built yet but is in the process um let's get that photo up there we go design in the studio what were we talking about there probably our producer jay no god damn it jay um but yeah i think i think uh i think in building it and being very meaningful about it i think that we're both very clear that you know we are intentionally trying to build a business channel that's going to support and advise people and give them genuine advice, tested, tried and tested advice.