How to be real Business Men: Ben & Joel get a business 101 from a Growth Investor

0:00James, what sort of, I'm going to get down to the nitty gritty of it here. What can I get away with putting as an expense on our business account? Give me an example, I'll give you yes or no. I don't know what your sort of lifestyle is. Well, the honest answer is business expenses. Business expenses. We have a lot of need for cake. We have a lot of cake. Does cake count as a business expense? You know? Oh, I'm not an accountant necessarily, so you can talk to your accountant. Protein, yes. Protein, important. What do they call it? Subsidence. Subsidence? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meals and stuff like that.

0:38Yeah. Holidays, no. Holidays, no. No, sadly. Entertaining. If you go on a holiday and you have a meeting, is that a business expense? I couldn't comment on that. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

0:54For years, a deranged man in Wichita known as the poet stalked Ruth Finley. He sent her letters, gifts, and poems. The Wichita police put everything they had into Ruth's case, but got nowhere. The poet was always two steps in front of us, and we just didn't know why. And the city was already living in fear under the watch of another monster who called himself BTK. And he also had a thing for poetry. Could we really have two different people? But no one could have guessed how this would end. That's one of those Hitchcock endings that we did not expect. From Sony Music Entertainment and Newmetric Media, this is The Poet.

1:39I'm Rachel Brown. Coming July 1st to The Binge. Search for The Poet wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free.

1:54Hello. Hello, everybody. How are you feeling? I'm feeling business-y, Joel, don't I? Oh, let's get to it. Welcome back to The Businessmen. A really important question that we're hopefully going to answer today is, how do you actually set up a business? I was hoping you might know. I mean, we've... Look, let's be honest. We've both probably got businesses. I've got a business. What's your business? My business is called Neon Hero. That's my business. So I work out of... Because I think it's... I don't know. My accountant says I should work as a business. Oh, okay. So that's my way. Neon Hero, because you're like bright lights.

2:35It's the name of my first Edinburgh show. Was it? Yeah. How did that one go? It was about, that was all right, that one, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one didn't, I'm glad you said it didn't fail. That one was, did you come out even? Did you make money? No, it almost certainly cost me money. That's just, that's my first business venture, cost me money. But it's, that's my business that I've said, but I, in having a business like that, it's just me, so I don't really know anything of how to set up a business with people in it. No. I have no employees in that business. And even as well, Joel, like, how do you even start?

3:12Where do you go to set up a business? Who do you speak to? What are the key things that you need to set up? I mean, it starts with a great idea and some enthusiasm, but then actually you've got to put things on paper, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I assume so. I assume so. That's why I got you a pen and a bit of paper. Ben, genuinely. Sometimes, I don't know how to spell the word business. sometimes I go to approach the word business and I think it's double s i n e double s and then I think I look at that word and I think that looks wrong that looks wrong but that's a start if it looks wrong it is wrong you're going into business with a man who doesn't know how to spell the word business how does that make you feel scared we got problems uh now we I'm very excited today because we have a young man called James Robson coming in to help advise and discuss bussiness with us.

4:09James is a business and corporate developer. That's what he does. He works in the world of business and corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, private equity. Very businessy words there. He has done public-facing stuff. He's done private-facing stuff. He's worked in digital media. He has worked in all sorts of roles in the world of business So if anybody knows how you start a business Then James is our man This is unbelievable This is great And more importantly, he has a jaw square at them Buzz Lightyear Oh my god Like it's been hewn from stone I can't wait to see this man's face He is the face we need for our skincare brand I bet he's got a great skincare routine as well I'm going to say, what is your skincare regime?

4:57How do you spell business? Those will be my first two, that's my first two positive calls for any sort of hiring of any job. He won't know what's hit him. Oh my God. Here we go. We're going to be talking names a little bit later on in the podcast, but before we get there, we're going to try and get to the root of business. Yes, we are. And we brought someone in very special to do that. Really, really chuffed that James Robson has joined us. James I described you as a corporate business developer with the jawline of Buzz Lightyear I should add that in if only no no no there is a strong jawline so kind fantastic no no no don't smile with your teeth we can help you with smiling if there's anything we can do if I know teeth are very changeable That is something I know personally.

5:55He knows a man. I know many men. So, James, can you just explain a little bit about what your corporate experience is and what it is that you do? Yeah. I probably wouldn't describe myself as a business developer. It sounds a bit like I'm doing software. Oh, okay. Which I know nothing. Yeah, I was a corporate lawyer originally. And then I went into business and finance. And my career has been very much focused on helping businesses buy other businesses, sell other businesses, and raise money. and more recently been working a lot with early stage we call them early stage startup businesses to raise money for growth so that's the mergers and acquisitions sort of part M &A fancy pants stuff time is money we need to shorten those things write M &A down M &A sounds great I wouldn't write it down you're nowhere near that yet then write it down scrub out scrub out but funding you will be can we ask what your skincare regime is fairly basic a little bit of just shampoo soap I'm old school Imperial leather Are you still an Imperial leather man?

7:02I do old school and then a little bit if I'm feeling you know a little bit of Nivea maybe Do you? I do occasionally A little bit of moisturiser A little bit of moisturiser and that's about it So it's never developed Has your wife ever suggested or brought you other things to say we can help with this or that? She's decided she can't help with this he's decided that's too far gone but you're and have you is that just because you are of that era where men didn't really have lotions and potions necessarily yeah I am you know I'm probably slightly older than you that's just the way I am really I just came up through that sort of we talked about sports and doing stuff and you know quick shower slap on a bit of something make you smell nice and off you go what is the scent of choice for have a guess brute.

7:51That was my first. That was my 14. Followed by Kuros. Kuros! Now it's Fahrenheit. Okay, classic. It's a classic. I am probably not exactly your target audience for this. You might be a little bit older, but I still think it's really interesting feedback because I think there is still, there is undoubtedly a group of men that we can really appeal to that perhaps haven't been interested in skincare because it's been overly fussy and it's been overly sort of complicated. And I've certainly experienced that, you know, when you pick up bottles and you don't know what they are and it's in French and I just don't get it.

8:28It's like, keep it really, really simple. Keep it unfussy. So if we can sort of give you a product that actually you kind of go, well, that was really, really super easy to use and I do feel like my skin has improved, then that would be a win. It can be. And, you know, talking about more generic stuff than specific, the fact is you need, you know, you're creating a business and product to sell. And in the end, you need an audience and a customer base to sell it to. So what you've got, the great opportunity here is that you can build an engagement with your audience on the podcast, you can build a customer base, and you can try it with them.

9:03But most importantly, you've got to listen to what they say. So however much, you know, and maybe your idea is great, you know, I don't know, you know, maybe it's a fabulous idea, and there is a market there, and you'll sell millions of units. But if they're coming back and saying, no, we don't want that, but we want this or whatever, you have to listen to them. We're ready to listen, aren't we? I think that's all I do. That's all I do is listen. Sometimes too much. You've got really big ears. I like it. I haven't talked much yet since you've been here, James, because I'm absolutely fascinated by it.

9:30I think it's, I'm just, you are from such a different world from me. It's a different realm. It's unbelievable. And this is why I'm really excited to do this podcast and this business, because I get to interact with people like yourself because in no other world are we chatting. And I'm from this strange entertainment world. I'm a comedian. I've come from 20 years of doing comedy and entertaining audiences. And actually what's really interesting is what you say when people don't listen to the feedback is why I really love comedy in the first place because it's immediate feedback so you can immediately know whether what you're doing is right.

10:10And this is what scares me, I think, about this is going into something where I don't really know what the feedback is until you're launching or whatever. It's further down the line. That's what we were talking about, wasn't it, last week, I think. When you tell a joke, you want feedback straight away. You were talking about a tablet that you take for your hair or whatever, and it takes six months to get a sense of whether it's working or not. You're like, that takes me too long. Particularly when you're doing stand-up, there is an immediacy response that is so gratifying or instructive. And the people that don't do well in comedy, who don't end up going on to further their career often, it's people who don't listen to that feedback in exactly the same way you say about businesses.

10:57So there's people who are still on the open mic circuit now that were on the open mic circuit 15 years ago when I was on it, who would go out and they'd say their stuff, people wouldn't laugh at it, and then the next gig I'd see them at, They're still doing the same jokes that people aren't laughing at. And I'm like, why don't you change that? It's definitely not the joke. It's definitely the audience. You can't hear the fact that it's not working for you. But you both have a tremendous advantage over other startup people and entrepreneurs. Because you have a voice. You have a potential audience.

11:29We're doing what we're doing here. You have the opportunity to build and interact with your audience. If it was me on the street, how would I know? I would have to spend hundreds, thousands of pounds trying to get audience research and market research and find out what people are doing. The great thing about this is you've got an audience here. Let's test it with them and let's hear. I think, unfortunately, a lot of the time people don't listen to that. And there's been celebrity world, there's been some great successes and there's been many failures because people decide they know better. So you've got a great opportunity to use that.

12:03and the way I think the process of doing that is to come up with an idea you know you come up with this idea you you know you formulate it you you work through it you work you know you're going to talk about your name and brand and what is the essence of that and what's the product and you know you try and work out what the things you articulated before then let's test it let's let's send that out and uh let's engage with your audience to find out whether they like that or not if they say great that's great but if they don't listen and then do something else yeah Be agile. Or somebody might come back and go, look, have you ever thought of just doing this?

12:34And a lot of times people go, no, no, I can't do that. I've got to do this thing. And in the startup world, particularly you see around technology and stuff, they call it pivoting. You pivot all the time. So you get to one thing, you get a block, actually it's not worked. They pivot again and they move and then they pivot again. And finally they find the way where they meet what they want to do or what they're creating with the customer wants. And that's where it works. Pivot! Pivot! Pivot! Do we have to say it out loud to each other? You can ring a bell maybe if you want to. That would be fantastic.

13:03I think that's quite nice. One of my favorite Friends episodes. Pivot! Oh, you're in the sofa. Trying to get the sofa down the stairs. Can I ask a question? Because I genuinely don't know this. And I don't know if we've even discussed this or thought about it. How much money do we need? I've got no idea how much money. We've just gone, let's do this. But is it tens of thousands? Is it hundreds of thousands? I would say it's something like, you know, maybe 150 for the business and 100 for me. That would be a good balance. That's cheap for that jawline. A hundred. For this type of advice. For this type of advice.

13:37So, no, genuinely though, to launch. No. So if somebody, I mean, you understand what we're trying to do. Yes. But if someone wants to launch a business and they're going to do it sort of via TikTok or Instagram or Facebook. So that's, I think that's called direct to consumer. Is that D2C? D2C, yeah. D2C. D2C. Good stuff. B2B or D2C. B2B. Business to business. Business to business. Okay. So if they're going to do that. then how much money really are we talking about? I mean, it's, you know, how long speaks the string? It depends what you want to do. When you're going through a growth sort of journey, what you want to do is to have success along the way.

14:13You want to raise enough money to do whatever you need to do in the next phase. You need to deliver the next phase. So that could be you go to investors and say, I need, we need to raise£50 ,000 to develop a minimum viable product, which is a product that works. You know, let's say it's a toy and it does that. Okay, it works. If we deliver that, that success, that means that we can go back to investors and go, we've had success. What you don't want to do is try and go to investors and raise$500 ,000. We haven't done anything and then be a failure. So start with smaller amounts, incremental successes along the way that we're more inclined to.

14:52And what happens to that in your business is you build value in your business because people see success and the value of your business goes up. if you want so we haven't talked about is how much you value your business so you have an idea what's the value of that idea at the moment you know it's whatever someone's prepared to invest into it as you as you hit milestones and as you develop and uh the business you got the value of your business goes up so when people invest into it they don't take such a bigger share and of course you want to keep more of the business um value yourself so you you need to work out i don't I can't tell you because I don't know exactly what's needed.

15:28I mean, you've got a product idea. You need to take it out to the audience. You need to validate it. Yes. So there's a certain amount of money that's needed about that, doing surveys, maybe developing the product, developing the brand. There's a certain amount of money. You raise that amount of money. You are successful in developing that. Then you can go back to your investor base and go, it's great. We've developed that. We've tested it. people really like it but we need another 200 000 because we need to now make a load of the product and sell it you get that out into the marketplace if you sell that people go great people are really buying this now and they say now we want to go and put it into you know into high street into boots or super drag or somebody okay but you need a million pounds now to to build to um manufacture all of that okay but we've seen you had success all the way then you you've got a much more incredible story to tell people about raising the money.

16:23So the more we validate, the more we de-risk for the next bit of investment. There you go. There we are. Did I sound like a businessman? You're getting there, mate. I think my couple of episodes are behind you, but I think you're out. But that is a good way for startups to do it because you're minimizing your risk as well because there's a high chance of failure. So you've always got a chance of failure. So you don't want to risk so much of your money or other people's money. you need to you know you're custodians of the people's money when you invest it you know you are custodian of that so you need to try and make that as low a risk as possible with a greater chance of success big brands are different you know l 'oreal or big brands they will do some you know they could throw something in the marketplace and you know they've got huge distribution huge marketing budgets it's a different it's a different thing so we have to be very careful in making sure that we try and you know as you said you know lower the risk make the chances of success much greater and validate all the way.

17:20And that's our sort of process to do that. Now, so you've got a lot of notes. Is there a to-do list that we should be concentrating on that you can give us, James? Because I think that we work best to guidance, don't we? We are brilliant being produced. When we left our own devices, we can waste a lot of time and run down the high street topless with our bins because we haven't been organized. That's something I can't now get out of my mind. Same for the old lady on the bus. No, no, no. There you go, there's Ben Topless. Not again. Just in case you needed any reminding, that's Ben Topless. So what's our to-do list?

17:52To-do list, James. Of what to do next? Or first. Or first or last. What is? So if I'm going to look at this from an investor perspective, because that's where you will hopefully be going to, I think it's understanding your commitment to this whole venture, your passion for it, what you're going to bring to it. That's really, really important because in the end, when people invest, they invest in people. Yes, you have ideas, but they always invest behind people. And I think part of that is you obviously both have busy lives. Well, who are the team that's going to help you? Because you need other people to help you.

18:38As you said, you're not necessarily expert entrepreneurs already. Who are the people behind you who are going to help deliver? some of these things so that's there's that what sort of people do we need on the team what what would be the expertise or the sort of that so i mean for your for your business you're going to need a product person aren't you you're going to need somebody who knows i'll just call it cosmetics more broadly but you need someone who knows that it needs how to put the ingredients together of a so product developer of some sort yeah product development person yeah and they need to you know they need to be ingrained in the business um in in the whole industry so you need someone like that you need someone on the other end who's an expert at reaching out to the audience and doing the validation exercise you know how is somebody who's very familiar with surveys and asking the right questions you know you ask ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answer so yeah you know shit in shit out but you know so you need the right you need someone who's did you write that down shit in shit out yeah yeah yeah good and finance you need finance guy so right from the start you're spending money so you yeah this is the interesting thing so like so with these so say that's three people right you've got product person shit and shit out man and uh finance man right and um uh which is that's going to be the name of that person's uh job title can we just put shit and shout on lickedin is that something that comes back mr shit and shit out we're looking for a shit and shit out cc um yeah c-o yeah something like that and um so we've got three people there just as a minimum right do we pay them as a salary do we pay them in future shares percentage is but i see most people want need to be paid so so it depends you know you can use people like we we work with you can use people who can provide those services up front on a on an agency on a sort of freelance basis to get things going you don't you certainly it's very early for you to think about hiring people in.

20:37That's a big cost and it's very risky for somebody. That's what I was thinking costs already. We've already spent a fortune just writing those people down. Yeah, exactly. Shit and shower people are not cheap. They are not cheap. They are not. And in your situation, you need a team because you've got other things you're doing. So the classic entrepreneur will probably, you know, will be bootstrapping their business. So they'll be working for free effectively and spending their own money. so they will have had a job or done something or other usually and then they effectively be funding themselves over a period of time to get the business up and running.

21:11So here, I would suggest using some freelance people to help get that going, keep the cost as low as possible. And when you get through into a funding round, then you would start to build more of a temporary interim team and then when you get into the next round, if it's working and you're selling product, then you can start to hire people in over time. James, what sort of, I'm going to get down to the nitty gritty of it here. What can I get away with putting as an expense on our business account? Give me an example. I'll give you yes or no. I don't know what your sort of lifestyle is. Well, the honest answer is business expenses.

21:50Business expenses. This is the thing. It's like we have a lot of need for cake. We have a lot of cake. Does cake count as a business expense? I'm not an accountant. Protein bars. I'm not an accountant necessarily, so you can talk to your accountant. Protein, yes. Protein, important. What do they call it? Subsidence. Subsidence? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meals and stuff like that. Yeah. Holidays, no. Holidays, no. No, sadly. Entertaining. If you go on a holiday and you have a meeting, is that a business expense? I couldn't comment on that. Can we talk about clothing? Because you are always suited and booted.

22:27You always look at the business. I know you take great pride in your... Do you like the tie? Look at his tie. It's unbelievable. What's this tie? It's little horses. They've got the horses on there. Little Hermes horses. Little Hermes horses. Is it Hermes tie? It is. Oh, Christ, I lied. Why do people wear suits? Is that a stupid question? Because they look smart. Yeah, and you look fantastic. I trusted you as soon as you came in. It's quite intimidating buying them. Do you think that is? Yeah, I think a suit carries a certain sort of charisma and position. So if you were advising a company on a£10 million deal and you turned up in flip-flops and trainers, you might not, you know, people wouldn't assume.

23:09Take them as seriously. It's a nature of the beast. I told you not to wear flip-flops. People expect that sort of thing. I wear it sometimes because I work at home most of the time. Actually, I don't wear a suit most of the time. But, you know, I like wearing a suit in time. When I put a jacket on for like Masked Singer, something like that, that feels like you're putting like a suit of armor on. Do you know what I mean? There's something about when you sort of do it up, you're just like getting ready for battle. I mean, the outfits you wear there are sensational. They're too far in terms of suits.

23:37If I took that to a business acquisition, people would be like, okay, I don't think I like these ones. Why is there a matador in the room? You like wearing, you like wearing, I don't know, maybe you don't like wearing. Yeah, you put black tie on. You look the business at the NTAs, don't you? You do, you do, you do, you do. I genuinely think I'm the person that wears a tuxedo the most in the UK. I'm not even kidding. I wear it on so many of my jobs. I do at least one gig a week. When you're waiting. When I'm a waiter. Basically, me and waiters. I told you you could leave the waiting alone now. You're doing all right.

24:11This is my side hustle. Bringing us back slightly to this conversation. Oh, sorry. Sorry, James. You carry on. Sorry, James. You know, I always think it depends. I think you guys are all media guys, so people would expect you not to be necessarily dressed up. I think it shows respect. If I'm going to somebody and I'm saying to you, can you invest£100 ,000 of your money? I sort of want to respect them by showing, if I turn up in a T-shirt and it shows I think I'm a bit sloppy and I'm not really respecting them. Is there anything that we've missed? Yes, an awful lot, but we haven't got time for that.

24:41But will you come back, James? If wanted. I feel like James can keep us on the straight and narrow, crack the whip occasionally, remind us that we still don't look smart enough. but if we go to a pitch meeting for some investment at some point then we will refer to our sartorial guru about what we need to wear for that occasion I think James you're going to be really important to us if you don't mind us sort of calling upon you as many times as possible but when we've got a bit more of an idea of what this thing is and we're a bit further down the line we can come to you and you can tell us sort of what to do or how to conduct ourselves because I'll be honest, James, I'm f***ing petrified of you.

25:28That's what being an entrepreneur is about. I'm absolutely petrified of you and I think you're fantastic. Not about me. I'm petrified of you. I think the way you look at me, I can't. You haven't made eye contact yet. No, no, no. It's like Medusa. You're very serious and you're a very serious man. I'm very cuddly, really. and I we're from different sides of the tracks James it's what we need though and you're exactly what we need and I genuinely I'm really appreciative that you've come in today and I really really appreciate your time and I'm so sorry that I'm here

26:11I'm really sorry if I ever asked stupid questions there's that moment isn't there in Star Wars where Princess Leia loads up R2-D2 with a message for Obi-Wan and she says help us Obi-Wan you're our only hope I feel like we are playing that message to James right now yeah and I think in all of that I feel slightly offended by being Obi-Wan he was Ali Guinness for 70 at the time now but he was indestructible and I think in that I'm Princess Leia so I think and I'm the little droid he has a lot of information for us, didn't he? A lot of knowledge. A lot of knowledge, a lot of experience. Yeah. And I'm very pleased he's in our corner.

26:57Yes. Yeah. We need someone like that, I think. But also throughout this whole process just to come back to, I'm absolutely petrified of him. There is a little bit of Darth Vader about him, isn't there? He's very head teacher. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know about you, but I feel like we might need a firm hand. I feel like we might need a bit of that. Oh, 100%. And he's not going to let us cut corners. He's not going to let us get away with trying to get some of your dodgy suits through on expenses. Exactly. I feel like I'm going to get called into his office quite a few times.