We Opened Fallow… Then COVID Shut Us Down 3 Days Later

19:10Will Murray:Felt like it, but then, yeah, we found the next thing. We opened it. We put all of our money in at the time, which was...

19:16Jack Croft:It wasn't a lot at the time. It's 8K each.

19:18Will Murray:It's important to mention we have another business partner as well who's been along this journey with us. Very experienced guy called James Robson, who's helped us, guide us along the way and still active in the business at the moment, growing it with us. He's not allowed on camera, though. No, he's in Dubai. He's once in. He's having a great time. So we're not feeling too sorry for him. But yeah, so we managed to get a pop-up on Hedden Street. Right. invested 8k each and that was our life savings at the time and then 10 days before the first lockdown so and we were genuinely just like I genuinely we don't even remember.

19:57Jack Croft:10th of March you got the keys and it was a pop up so it was meant to be a three month pop up where they give you the restaurant it was hosted by the Crown Estate.

20:06Will Murray:Wow okay lovely

20:06Jack Croft:they give you the restaurant they service some of the bills and you basically run the restaurant for three months. So we were basically in there, as Will said, we were just cleaning, scrubbing walls, deep cleaning the space, ready to open it. And all the stuff was on the news about COVID-19. We weren't watching the news. We were just cleaning the kitchen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I remember James came into the restaurant. He's like, this is getting pretty serious. You know, this might be something. We were like, yeah, yeah, nice one. You can bring those eggs in from outside. It was just like literally not a clue.

20:34Jack Croft:How old were we? 28, 27, 28. Yeah. And then we managed, I think we opened for three or four days. I think we opened on the 14th, 15th. Then we were open for four days. And then James came back in and was like, no, this is actually happening. And then everything shut down, which was like 20th or so. And then I remember just then it hit us. We were like, oh, so this is really happening.

20:55Will Murray:But we had 10 staff and we couldn't – we'd been recruiting slowly, like five permanent. So we had to get rid of all of them basically. and we couldn't furlough them because we didn't, we were a new business.

21:11Jack Croft:Yeah.

21:11Will Murray:So we didn't get any furlough support. So it was just like the rudest awakening.

21:17Jack Croft:As soon as there was like, okay, you can go and start operating some sort of takeaway, whatever, we were like, okay, well, we've got to go back because we wanted to pay those four or five people that we'd had to let go.

21:27Will Murray:Yeah.

21:27Jack Croft:Because they were all, obviously, they were young chefs. Yeah. So we went back to Fallow, opened up, came up with a takeaway concept, you know Aperol spritzes in plastic cups and burgers and fries brought one of them back then we were able to bring a second one back and then basically while we're in this site in the middle of Regent Street yeah like we were just every night we'd sit there it's an amazing location we would sit there and have our dinner on the street we eat a burger and chips with nothing and we would just sit there like what the hell is going on insane but we had a lot of downtime so in that time we were able to then start planning what we wanted to do next and we came up with you know we were doing weird stuff bags of granola hampers meal kits you know the same

22:08Will Murray:weird time when you had to be a shop because it was tax-free so then we created a shop and then and then we did cooking courses and we brought another chef back and then by the time all of this had ended um and the first lockdown had sort of had happened we were just like we it was me and jack it started off genuinely you were behind the barsling and gin and tonics i was doing burgers and then the only people who are in the city at the time were builders or bankers because bankers had to go in to work because they couldn't like work from home so like by the end of it like we'd be like I'd have like VIP bankers calling me up and being like oh can I reserve the steps outside Piccolino for a lunch genuinely so we were we were just hustling people were coming

22:48Jack Croft:like the same build like we had the same builder come every night yeah the same builder would come every day and he'd be dropping like 50 quid a day

22:55Will Murray:yeah gin and tonic

22:56Jack Croft:gin and tonic Every day we're like...

22:58Will Murray:We started getting some good wines in this stuff. Genuinely, like plastic cups. At this point, we're thinking,

23:02Jack Croft:we should go into the building trade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just like, bottle of wine out of the window of the restaurant. 60 quid, please. These are very dodgy built buildings around. Yeah, yeah. Slightly wonky.

23:14Will Murray:It was good fun and simpler times.

23:18Jack Croft:But at that stage, though, for both of you to have to pivot, be so agile with a business when you had such a sort of a huge idea about what it was going to be. And then it ended up having to be, by nature of what was going on globally, something completely different. That must have been such a steep learning curve. At the time, we were just so heads down, just focused on right, what's next, that we weren't really reflecting on the business at that point. It wasn't until afterwards that we would then look back and reflect on it. When we could open again as a restaurant, I think it was outside first.

23:50Jack Croft:We were then just trying to capitalize on anyone that wanted to come, because we were so grateful that anyone was coming. So we were basically just becoming, we basically had the mentality of whatever the customer was, we're going to give to them. Yeah. And that's when the whole menu pivoted. As Will said from before, the biggest change for us was we're fine dining chefs. We've trained in Michelin star restaurants for 10 years. We're going to open a Michelin star concept to, you want to come in our restaurant? What do you want to eat? We'll cook it for you. Yeah. Pretty much.

24:16Will Murray:So the other thing to mention is off the back of that. So the leases were finally a little bit more approachable. So whilst we were doing this, James was helping us like, well, working out what site is, do you go big after lockdown? What's going to happen? We don't know. We just decided, right, let's just go for it. And James found the biggest site you could possibly find. At the time, I was, you know, I was nervous about the site. You were more, definitely more on board with it. I took a bit of convincing. And the site that we took over was Duck and Waffle. and it was owned by the same, basically the same landlord, Crown Estate.

24:54Will Murray:And they really helped us out. They were really supportive. Wow. And then we opened, you know, essentially what was, I think, sort of approachable brasserie style, but like upmarket food with a bit of creativity.

25:07Jack Croft:I think it's a very unique style at the time. Yeah. We thought that that restaurant, when we took it, we were like, if we take this, this is it. This is bigger than we're ever going to need. we're really going to have to hanker down here and just, will everyone be on this for the next 10 years? And when we opened, I think it was, I think circling back to what we were sort of doing through lockdown, we would just try to take the same ethos and just expand the menu slightly. But still, like, I always like to describe it as the neighbourhood restaurant in central London. Like, you know, we want it to be a restaurant for every occasion.

25:39Jack Croft:If you're just doing your shopping and you want to just pop in for a quick portion of fries and a gin and tonic, fine. If you want to come for a date night, we've got you. If you want to come with your family on a Sunday, and have a full-on roast, we've got you. Business lunch, whatever. Everyone talks about the roast. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and we just love that. We never wanted to say, like, even to this day now, almost coming up to five years there, I hate to want someone to say, oh, I couldn't go there for that. Like, we want to do everything for everyone. And I think that's, it adds to the atmosphere, I think.

26:09Jack Croft:And that's the key thing that we're learning now as we're progressing through being restauranteurs now, is that it's not just about the food, which is what it was when we first started. now we're trying to build the culture we're trying to build the atmosphere and for us the atmosphere is huge yeah that's what we really focus on understanding our restaurants understanding

26:25Will Murray:that restaurant is is 50 food and the rest is that we the team is huge but but like service is so so

26:33Jack Croft:important it's really infectious listening to you talk about it's lovely i think that going back to what you were saying about the waste from fine dining restaurants because they don't sell that you don't serve the fish heads and stuff your usp is no waste right that's something that is a real driver in what you're doing yeah i think it's it's it's very hard yeah yes of course it's a driver in terms of it started off as trying to be a usp in terms of marketing but then it becomes a usp in terms of how you just run your business yeah because why would you ever it makes perfect sense and it's not a new thing it's been around for centuries you know if you buy a leak you're not just going to throw off it away you're going to use it for some other dish right and that's For us, having a big ecosystem as the restaurant and also being open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, we're open from pretty much 6.30am until midnight.

27:22Jack Croft:Yeah. Basically, a 24-7 restaurant. It means that you can buy a product and utilize it all across the menu and it's only good for your bottom line. So it makes sense from a business perspective as well as an economic perspective.

27:33Will Murray:I think that's, I think we have, because our training, I mean, your training was very different. My training was very like, you use this, it comes in a package and then you cut it in half to the right portion and you cook it. But like if you're working with whole animals now, we're getting through what? Like seven whole deer a week. Yeah. We get through, we buy all our beef whole. So we buy whole roasters, which is, so that's the sirloin, the ribeye, the rump and the fillet attached all at the same time. It's much more cost effective, but it's so much more labor and skill to break down. So then you have to hire an in-house butcher.

28:04Will Murray:You know, we have three in-house pastry chefs, you know. Wow. So from a business point of view, what happens is your margins, your food cost is way better. but your labor cost is more. And at the moment, with the new policies that are coming in, labor's more expensive. But having said that, there is a different approach, which is from a retention point of view, from a staff retention point of view, there's very few restaurants you can go to in this day and age and you can learn how to butcher a whole animal, use every different part for a different thing on the menu. So the shank goes on our roast, the tartar from the haunch goes on our on our um lunch menu the fillet goes on the ala car with like with a beautiful bone on it polish you know all of the the trim goes to make a little croquette and then the stock the bones go to make a stock and then there's no way you can learn that and you like basically you know basically double the yeah the margin from from all of these products so the labor is more expensive the training is more expensive but i would argue that the retention that you get from your staff who are learning all these amazing skills is is so so much so much better and it's not an easier business to run that's for sure no you need more skill more more senior management um but it's so much more it is so much more rewarding

29:26Jack Croft:one of the things that that sort of really interests us as well with regards to what we're doing is your your two great mates that had worked together and had got to know each other and then took this leap to launch a business a bit like us two really good friends that had sort of bit of an idea, crazy idea, and are trying to put into practice this idea. Can we turn that into a business? We don't know yet what's going to happen down the road. We've got a long way to go, but it's been a fascinating experience so far than what we've learned. What do you think are the key elements of your friendship and how's that been tested?

29:56Jack Croft:How do you deal with disagreements? How valuable has it been having a really great mate to lean on, particularly when things have been tough? the value it's almost um the value is is priceless to be honest with you is it's um i'd say it makes the whole process a million times easier um and purely from the spec fact that it's great to have someone who's going to tell you when something's terrible but also you value their opinion so much that when they say it's right you know it's right And this is quite, I mean, purely talking from a chef perspective here, but I often think that sometimes the worst thing with restaurants is that you have a head chef or an executive chef or whatever, and then they go, yeah, that's good, put it on the menu.

30:43Jack Croft:But for us, still every dish goes through this rigorous process where we both sign it off, whether he's made it or I've made it or whether someone in the team's made it, that we have so many levels of checking and scrutinizing that by the time we know it's going on, we're like, okay, we've thought of every angle. yeah and if i am because of we're different different people we have different likes and dislikes like we're not like two peas in a pod at all we're two very different characters but i know that if he likes something and i like something it's usually pretty well-rounded as a thing and that's not and that that now goes way beyond food that goes to social media ideas that goes to marketing ideas it goes to business development it could be any aspect of our business yeah but we're scrutinizing each other more fiercely than we would scrutinize anyone else um because we know the standard we can hold each other to.

31:28Jack Croft:The friendship does almost go a little bit out of it and it becomes morally, I must honestly, it becomes more professional. Like, you know, because the stuff that you were talking to as friends just becomes 100 % work. You don't ring them up and go, oh, hey, what did you get up to last night? You ring them up and say, what are we doing about this? Because you know what he got up to last night because he was probably in the restaurant. It just does become 100 % business, but that's the way we are. Do you know what I mean? This is our life. It matters your lifestyle. Live and breathe it.

32:00Will Murray:As we've grown, and now just Fallow alone is 160 staff just to make Fallow work.

32:05Jack Croft:Oh my God. And then we've got Fallow as well.

32:08Will Murray:We've got a media team and we've got Row, which is also an amazing restaurant in its own right, in Canary Wharf. Not quite as busy as Fallow, but still a really big team and a huge site, almost double the size of Fallow. so you know a team there to manage as well so we've now been able to you know they say like the first hundred employees is really tough I think that's for me that was the hardest time in the business yeah in terms of like the most challenging like emotionally like in terms of like how many catch-ups you have to have with every different person but now we've got an incredible MD we've got an amazing CFO we've got you know we've got an exec chef basically who's between the sites and then we've got head chefs below.

32:52Will Murray:So there's just this layer of management that - The framework really starts working. Yeah, and it is working now better than it's ever worked for.

32:58Jack Croft:You said about your media team, there's something about you guys as a restaurant and as restaurateurs, you've been so brilliant at putting together the Fallow Instagram, so good and it's so unique on YouTube. And I think it's so big. Like, where did it start with that? Where did you sort of see it being like,

33:19Will Murray:oh my god this is really turning into something uh so we were passionate from the beginning we we used to like followed uh tom brown you know yeah yeah i used to love like the he was just doing beautiful sexy shots of food like and it was really it was they were impactful like they were great and that was what we were sending each other when we were working and we we definitely had that idea um my business partner who's he's like a lot older than us uh you won't mind me saying that um he gave us like some proper stick when we first met him he was like why is my social media following bigger than yours.

33:49Will Murray:And what you've got to understand about dinner is that you're not allowed to share anything there. It's a completely different culture. And we were keen as soon as we came out of that to really sort of just strip back the whole business. And there was a pivotal point, a pivotal service where we were brainstorming about why Saturday brunch was so Saturday breakfast was so low and Saturday lunchtime, which seemed really strange. But yeah, we came up with the Royale, which was a, and at the time reels weren't on Instagram. It was just a photo. I think it got something like 11 ,000 likes, 380 ,000 views.

34:30Will Murray:Tell us what the Royale is. It's a laminated croissant puck. It's a Royale with cheese, which is just like - From Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction reference. But like, it's just like the most -

34:41Jack Croft:Croissant sandwich. Decadent croissant sandwich. Baked in a ring, so it's cylindrical. I've got croissant tad in my arm. That's how much I like croissant. Yeah.

34:49Will Murray:Well, it's with a pork patty, like American cheese. It's just proper dirty food. Stuff you want. I'm at market with muffins, sort of.

34:57Jack Croft:Yeah. Nice. Nice.

34:59Will Murray:Yeah. So we posted that, and then we were booked out for three months. And Fala's a big restaurant to book out. And then -

35:07Jack Croft:So one picture. One picture. Taken brilliantly and positioned in the right place. booked the restaurant for three months. So we basically posted it and we said, we are now launching brunch. This will be available. Come and try it. Yeah, effectively. Isn't that incredible? Bookings flooded in for Saturdays and Saturdays became our busiest day. Wow. It's been like that ever since. That was three years ago.

35:25Will Murray:So whereas chefs are often creating menus based on seasonality or, you know, we do seasonal changes for sure, but that was the first time that we've been like, we really need to engage social media to fill the restaurant.

35:39Jack Croft:Yeah.

35:39Will Murray:and it worked and then we were like right let's go we hired a social media media manager and she was awesome creating reels and then the change onto YouTube happened when my friend used to work for the BBC managed don't know how to convince him to come and work for us and he strapped a GoPro onto Jack on service you know we did a few like classic things that you would do as chefs like we went to go to a smoked salmon smokery and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah great hi we are here it was just so bad they're still on YouTube you can watch them but and then strapped a GoPro on Jack Jack did service and then it went viral on Reddit with all the Americans being like oh my god man he's not wearing gloves

36:24Jack Croft:that's on what

36:25Will Murray:7 million 8 million views

36:26Jack Croft:that's great you just don't know what's going to hit but that's the thing it's such a it's so hard to navigate but you just got to be on it all the time but because we double down on the POV services there Okay. We did a couple more. So when you say POV for people who don't know, that's the point of view. So what you're looking at. Exactly. So you're wearing the GoPro. It's stretched to my upper chest. So we see what you as the head chef is looking at, whether that's other members of the team, the food that's going out, the customers coming in, all of that. So for us, it was the perfect format because we don't have to leave our daily bits and bobs.

36:57Jack Croft:We can literally just do our job, whack the GoPro on, edit it, post it. So we did a few more. We did one on the grill. We did one on the garnish section. We did some on the bar. And then a lot of them did well for a couple of months, but then it just dropped off a cliff, didn't it? They started getting like, went from seven million views, four million views down to then when the last ones we posted were like 50 ,000 views. But then it's just like, it just showed you how the market, how the trends just changed. And then we now, then we need to start to work on new formats and new ideas, which is why we have to have a team working on it, you know, and always thinking of new ideas.

37:32Jack Croft:And, but it's now a pivotal part of our business.

37:34Will Murray:It's pivotal, but I mean, it's essentially we do just teach people how to cook. There's not like a, I don't think now there's, you know, it's quite like we do some, I don't want to use like a proper TV term because I don't know much about it in terms of like TV, but it's edutainment really. Like we're just delivering something that's probably like hopefully really educational and valuable, but in an approachable way and stripping back some of the sort of pomp that you often get with like food science and stuff like that or food history or so you know we just put what you actually just need to know to be a better cook yeah um and that's what that's what the youtube is about it's simple ingredients that you can buy in the supermarket that you can

38:14Jack Croft:cook for your family should we try some of this food and then we can keep talking oh my god go for it i'm so happy you said that ben because i've been looking at it

38:24Will Murray:cheese was here just to scoop the parfait with that yeah yeah go for it uh so you got some marinated chitake is on there as well.

38:31Jack Croft:I absolutely love parfait, man. Pickle shallots. Oh, my God. Beer parfait. Like, because we are in here, like this very, it's quite a stuffy podcast studio, and we're sort of marinating in these smells. So we're okay because we don't notice the smell that's happening right now. Whoever walks in here first is going to get such an array of scent. it's going to be four men plus food do you know what those mushrooms on the top of that

39:04Will Murray:marinated shiitake so just like mainly secret to this is just like lots of shiitakes which

39:09Jack Croft:give you this like meaty flavor uh so you obviously got get got investment with your business marketer in order to open fallow and your other restaurant and did you not get that's

39:21Will Murray:That's the funny thing. So, I mean, we can't take credit for this. I think James is probably one of the most impressive cash flow managers in the world. But essentially there's a combination of things which helped us get to that, which was Crown Estate. There was so much support that, I mean, quite frankly, they didn't want to -

39:41Jack Croft:Turf us out. Turf us out. Turf us out after lockdown.

39:44Will Murray:Our original, remember we said that Edding Street last was a three month pop up.

39:47Jack Croft:Yeah.

39:47Will Murray:It ended up running, wow, long.

39:48Jack Croft:Year and a half.

39:49Will Murray:A year and a half. In that time, I remember when we bought a frozen margarita machine and we were absolutely terrified. We were like, James, this is£1 ,400. What are we going to do? We can't spend that.

40:00Jack Croft:But at the time, we had like, you know. And was James agreeing with you? So there's a lot of money. James bought the frozen margarita machine. Don't worry about this. Don't worry about this. At the time, at the time, it was the biggest business. So, you know, we kind of missed it. So after lockdown, we reopened and then it was outside and we were trading. But where we were in central London at that time, nothing else was open. on that whole street. So we just capitalised and had tables all the way down the street. It was comical. It was about maybe 50 metres of tables. If you don't know Headon Street, it's a street just parallel to, it's pedestrianised street, isn't it?

40:30Jack Croft:Just parallel to Regent Street. Momo's. Momo's was there. So Moran. He lent us his kitchen. Yeah. So Momo's, which is a very famous Moroccan. Yeah, it's now closed. It's now Ambassadors Club. There was an ice bar at the top for a while, where you'd go and you'd get drinks and ice. At the bottom, there was a place called Strawberry... Head and Street Kitchens at the bottom. Years ago, and there was a Head and Street... Strawberry Moon? Strawberry Moon, yes. But it's a pedestrian, actually. It's a really cool area. But unless... There's no passing trade, right? If you don't know it's there, you've got to go there or discover it because you're wandering around Regent Street, Oxford Street, anyway.

41:06Jack Croft:I mean, you had the whole... So we could... Basically, we had... Every time... We basically kept filling up the tables we had and we were just buying more tables. So James would literally walk to the shop in Soho, buy three tables and then they drop them off that afternoon and we just serve them that night but none of the rest because all these restaurants that are on there are big chain restaurants so for them to come back from lockdown it took their machines months to mobilise again whereas for us it's like hey do you want to come and work mate yep alright and that was it I absolutely love the idea of someone coming to a restaurant and then being like have you got a table for two please and then people are like wait a second have you got a table for two and then someone's walking around the corner and they're on table that's exactly it it's exactly what I do

41:44Will Murray:Yeah, so by the end of it, Momo had no table. Like, Morad, by the way, is an amazing French. He owns, what's the Michelin? Sketch. He owns Sketch. Okay, yeah. So he's obviously, like, a different class. And I think he just saw us hustling, and he was just like, oh, these boys deserve a little chance. And I remember we were walking downstairs once, and I was in his kitchen, and he just walked down, and he was like, oh, okay. And then just walked up, and I was like, oh, we got another kitchen.

42:09Jack Croft:We were like, we were proper hustling. It was ridiculous. we were cooking in his kitchen and like I mean we were just we were trying every trick in a book you know we had the one of my favourite ones it was we bought we bought gazebos just online and so basically some of the buildings had had awnings yeah and basically what we were doing is we were buying gazebos and patchwork quilting the awnings together so to avoid the rain because this was this was like September time right after lockdown so when we were reopening so then the waiters were going out with the food and they were having to walk like in a maze to follow the cover.

42:47Jack Croft:Following the pageant to keep it dry. And the problem is all the waiters,

42:49Will Murray:there was a new table every time they arrived at their section. So they were like, what table's this one? And we always had this policy and it was James who always used to do it. It was like, always sit the furthest table first. And then one day we had, do you know who Daniel Humm is? He's like the most, at the time he was, ran 11 Madison Park.

43:05Jack Croft:Best restaurant in the world around the time.

43:07Will Murray:It was the best restaurant in the world. And it was a miserable September. And I literally came back from the gym, it was between shift, and we opened all day, we never closed, and Daniel Hum was on the furthest table on the Momo Terrace, in a blanket in the rain, under a small little thing. I was like, does anyone know that the best chef in the world is on the terrace over there? I was like, oh, I'm really sorry, didn't spot that. I was like, how's everything with the food? He's like, oh, really nice. Give him a mug for it, he'll be fine.

43:37Jack Croft:I love that. We were basically able to trade all through that winter period, come into 2021, managed to then ride it out as a restaurant for a bit longer. And then we were able to build up enough capital to open the restaurant just around the corner. Incredible. But because it was just out of lockdown, we managed to negotiate a really good lease on a fairly low rent because no one else was going to take this 5 ,000 square foot in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. And to be honest, yes, it was like out of a bad situation. and we managed to do a few things right and capitalize on that. But it was sort of an element of right time, right place with a bit of hard work that we were able to navigate that.

44:18Jack Croft:But, you know, it's been the greatest thing that could have happened to us, really. What's next for you guys?

44:24Will Murray:Good question. We are hoping that we're going to look at to do some projects in New York. Wow, great. Yeah. So our American audience is around about 38 % on YouTube. And our main customer base that we get in Fallow is, you know, it's a lot larger than the US. Tourists that have come over. Yeah, yeah. So interesting. So yeah, so James is currently shopping around, doing some big international work. We're focusing on, we're working on some other projects as well. We've just got to the stage where we've got some chefs who are coming through. So we're hoping to try and work on their content as well.

45:05Will Murray:And yeah, we're excited. we want to keep pushing in the uk you know we want to keep investing in the in the team that we've got because we've got just the most like it's electric when you walk into the kitchen you've got these young guys who are just just absolutely pumping and they don't feel all this pessimism that is quite frankly going around at the moment there is a lot yeah there is a lot it's

45:26Jack Croft:our job to it's our job to shield them from that it's so true you know going back to all the things that you sort of mentioned been speaking about it's for us it's it is pessimistic but we've got to find a way that the people that do want to eat out we've got to get them to come to us and why are they going to come to us because we're going to give them energy we're going to give them a great product why do the staff want to come work for us because we're going to teach them all these skills yeah and that reflects into the media side as well you know it's like we want to give value in the content we're creating um so that people are going to be attracted to the channel and then hopefully our point of sale after that is the restaurant so uh it's been brilliant boys not not least the food which is genuinely genuinely extraordinary but our business hopefully we will launch we we have lots of people that are launching small businesses and trying to get a foot up and work out what's your advice what would be your top tips to somebody no matter whether it's the world of hospitality whether it's skincare whether it's products you know when you're coming to sort of get a business up and running to find the way through what would be your your advice i think one of them i'd say would be i think you need a base when you're starting out you need a really solid base knowledge of everything okay i think everyone tries to farm off jobs too quickly and I think that's one thing that for us I found really beneficial is that we did everything at the start and although it was on a very small scale and I couldn't do it now for the size of business we are but we did the HR the hiring the firing the purchasing that we looked over the leases we did had a hand in decorating and building but we knew our business for the first two three years we knew every single element of it inside out and then once we had a very very limited knowledge of these areas, we were then able to bring on people who are very qualified in those areas.

47:05Jack Croft:And now we have the most amazing team, from group HR director and really qualified people that have then obviously taken it to a whole nother level. But I think having that base knowledge and really understanding your business and your customer and also your employee was, for me, I found that. Well, then also on the same token, letting go of the control of it and allowing someone else to

47:25Will Murray:do it, which is another skill that a lot of founders end up trying to do everything all the time it's like when you grow you can't you have to accept that you can't do everything all the time you have to trust people um and we can vent to each other if you know yeah if they if you feel like they're not doing the job probably but quite often you set a standard and people work to it and if it's a high standard then then you can grow but from my from my end i think um i think that social media is the most exciting tool because effectively i think um i got some advice one time which was like you're effectively you're not starting um a restaurant you're starting to you know you're starting you're starting a digital company that specializes in food um and i thought that i really like that resonated with me a lot at the beginning that's you know that's paying attention to your database on stage like that's something we've always grown whilst we've whilst we've been working um but essentially if you can create a viral format that people really respond to it doesn't take like a fancy camera or a flashy lens you can do it on your phone um and from that you can you can really connect to an audience that will eventually come and it'll create your point of sale for you um yeah one of the biggest questions we always get

48:35Jack Croft:like on that top following on from that is a lot of people always say you know you've got great social media you've got you've got a big youtube following oh how can i how can i get that how can i get better at that but it's almost the wrong question i need to be asking the question they should be asking is how can I make my product better because all they're really doing is you know we're just showing a window into what we're doing and that's really it but quite often you see it when they just whack a camera on what are you doing today and if the person doesn't actually want doesn't want to do it or what they're doing doesn't resonate with the viewer then it doesn't have that same effect yeah so interesting I'm going to start doing pov startup comedy that's a great idea what you imagine just watching a thousand people not laughing I think that's what people want to watch I've had the other side of that thank you so much I know you're so busy bringing the food in is amazing I'm so sorry that Joel only had a kettle for you I'm sorry I love your problem with the blame I thought it's me that's the best thing about working with the blame you can blame them for the things that didn't quite work I'm going to indulge in this brie whilst you're gone it's so fascinating we're going to get you if that's right to go over to our Patreon to answer a couple more questions for our Patreon followers if you'd like to hear more from Will and Jack, then just sign up to Patreon.

49:46Jack Croft:And there's loads of other guests on there as well, isn't there? Yes, there is. So make sure you tune in. Am I interrupting or cheesy? Bye! Thank you, gents. You're very welcome. Thanks for having us. Oh my god, that breeze is incredible. What a lovely couple of dudes, man. Remember to subscribe on YouTube to The Businessmen. You can follow us wherever you get your podcasts. If you go to the Patreon as well, Will and Jack have answered a few more of your questions. Thank you for voting on the logo. We are both really flipping excited, aren't we? We're really excited. It feels like real now. And it's only going to get more and more real.

50:24Jack Croft:Now it's like the really interesting part. It's products. It's like how we sell ourselves. It's Instagram. It's like all of that stuff. It's like, it feels real now. Yeah. And it's lovely having you along for the ride. We'll be back next week with more. We'll look forward to seeing you then. Bye. Shattering tongue.