Ask Us Anything: Finding enough time to do it all + Starting a business in 2026 vs 2006

0:00I'm Adam Schwab. I'm Adir Shifflin. And this is The Contrarians with Adam and Adir.

0:08And we're back. Episode 194, Ask Us Anything, where the smartest listeners in Australia give us questions that often stump us. So over to you, Mike, question number one. All right. First question today comes in from Hugo. Hugo asks, how does Adam manage to run luxury escapes, be involved in other companies as a director and investor, record two awesome podcasts a week, run and play golf, spend time with his family, and yet still find time to listen to long-form podcasts like Acquired and All In. Busiest man in Australia, let us know. Well, you have to say, don't compare yourself to Adam might be the beginning of that answer.

0:51what are you going to say? You're going to say some answer about how you managed to pack everything in by time management. So you should say that, but I'll say a bit of an answer for you, which is you're a very efficient and smart person and maybe a very high bar for a lot of people to compare themselves to. Very kind. I'm certainly not alone in getting a lot of stuff. There's a lot of people who get a lot of stuff done. I just try and make the most of every minute. I think if you could work backwards, the long form content, like the quiet episodes and the sort of 10 or so podcasts I listen to each week.

1:24That's just whether I'm cooking, walking, running in the car, on the bike, I'm pretty much always listening to something. So I try and make the most of every second. If I'm brushing the teeth, I'm listening to a podcast. I'm always sort of trying to do something. So that's just a big part of it, just not being idle. I don't think I'm doing anything exceptional. Also, I'm pretty lucky now. I've got an incredible team at Luxury Escape. So that when you're starting a business, as you no idea and Mike as well you've got your own business when you're starting a business you don't have 650 people around you it's much harder because you're doing 15 jobs and you're working seven till 10 it's just much harder once I've got this sort of scale business with incredible team it's not that I'm not doing work at all but I'm not working 15 hours a day like I used to so it's just it definitely changed which is let me do stuff like this podcast which I wouldn't have been able to do in no way would I'm able to do this 10 years ago I think it's a combination of well I guess the stage in my life that I'm at which I've just got this incredible team now who can take a lot of weight off for me I've got a wife who's incredible with with the kids and takes them places and does a lot of stuff and I try and help where I can but I'm probably not as helpful as I should be but I just try and make the most of every minute I do what do you do because you're a pretty pretty busy guy well I'll ask you these questions so if you're doing something like cycling somewhere will you always be like listening to something at the same time like is that how you how it works like what about when you're playing golf are you listening to a podcast while you're playing golf so i'm playing golf by myself which i do probably half time i'm always listening to a podcast for sure and if i'm riding i'm generally listening i don't have noise cancelling headphones and i tend to have not played super loud so i can still hear cars obviously but yeah i'll try and be listening pretty much whatever i'm doing running obviously listen to us when we're running because sometimes you know people will often will say there's only 24 hours in a day everyone's only got 24 hours in a day and like it's obviously strictly true but it's not necessarily true in the same way for everyone and for example when you say you do those two things at once it means that you're spending that one hour doing two hours worth of stuff if you're doing it in series but because you're doing it in parallel you get two hours out of that one hour totally like how much do you socialize it's a weird question to ask you i mean i've caught up with you a few times, but like I don't socialize very much.

3:39Yeah, not that much. I would rather spend time with my kids. Yeah. And so when people say, how do you find time to spend with your kids? I say, it's because I don't really socialize with friends that much. A bit, like I do a bit, but I know people that I'm friends with, they can't be at home on a Saturday night. I mean, they can't be at home some other nights as well, but like, I think they would kind of feel depressed if they were at home on a Saturday night. Whereas I'm happy to spend my Saturday nights with my kids when they're with me yeah totally 100 i'm the same as you so we will we actually very rarely go out when we go out we tend to go with the kids so it's not as if we don't like seeing people because we do like seeing people it's just you sort of have to choose one or the other uh and it's obviously great if you can bring the kids and then you sort of again parallel paralleling that as well so the kids have can obviously play with someone and we can see see the parents but um yeah no 100 that's definitely the thing that now versus 15 years ago that's copped it more But I've got lots of friends at work, so I consider that part socializing.

4:36So again, that's another parallel instance where you sort of, the beauty of being the boss is you can choose who you work with. And I choose to work with people I consider friends. You know, there's lots of people who leave work and then they go and they want to hang out with their friends or on the weekend they hang out with their friends. And for me, like I would actually see friends, the people that I do businesses with are often the people I like to hang out with. Not entirely, but often. Yeah. And so maybe I'll hang out with my friend Leonard Hammersfeld. Then we'll talk about business stuff while we're hanging out and having coffee and talking about other stuff.

5:09And so you kind of merge the social stuff into the business. It's not entirely true. I'm friends with a guy who's a teacher and I really love hanging out with him. He actually used to work for me a while ago. And his name's Brad Smith. And so I'll talk about a bit businessy stuff with him because in the good old days, but that doesn't fit that mold. But a lot of my social interactions do fit that mold. And so I think ultimately it is true you can't have everything, but probably... you can have a lot more than most people have. I'm, I'm scared to raise this. You should be like, I'm not at all. I don't spend any of my time watching other people play sport.

5:41Whereas I know people that watch every footy match on a weekend. Yeah. And so that's another way that I get this time. Like I just don't have that. That would be six hours or seven hours or more of time, probably more being chewed up on a weekend. And so I don't have that. So I have time to play sport. And so I think it's just about prioritization. You can't have everything. You can choose what you do want to have. And you have to kind of find the balance, basically. And definitely multitasking is one way to fit more into your day. And for example, people don't know necessarily when we're recording a podcast, but it's actually a public holiday today.

6:17And so we're recording on a public holiday, and you're going to go and hang out with your family after this. And so a lot of people would just be out doing whatever they do on a public holiday, but you chose to spend a couple of hours recording episodes on a public holiday. yeah having great fun it uh i guess the one exception probably my social comms have morphed i'm not saying this is a good thing but really to whatsapp so i'm probably on whatsapp with with friends some of which live overseas some of which in melbourne australia like constantly so i'll be whatsapping 10 20 friends every day usually through groups uh so my i'm not saying this is great but my interactions have probably morphed from being in person to over over message which is much more regular but obviously probably lower quality in some ways.

7:02WhatsApp is the medium that I'm most reliable on. Now, that might be a pretty low bar and you might say, you think you're reliable on WhatsApp? It's a low bar. But generally, I won't take calls. It's pretty rare that I'll take a call. No, you're pretty good. Yeah, you're pretty good. I actually find you're pretty good with calls. Well, you shouldn't say that publicly because that's because it's you that's calling me. I'm not good with calls at all. I have only a handful of people who don't answer. I might call people back, but I very rarely answer the phone. I'm bad at email. Like I get, you must be the same.

7:33You get three or four or 500 emails a day. My email's crazy. No, I'm good with email. My email replies times. I know, that is a strength of yours. Like usually. Yeah, for sure. And like LinkedIn, I get all these messages on LinkedIn and like LinkedIn quarantines half the messages. I can't even find them half the time. And you miss it because you get so much spam. LinkedIn, like some people have to contact me by LinkedIn, but it's not a good way because I just miss stuff that I don't want to miss, but you just can't help it. Yep. LinkedIn's bad. Let's move on question number two. Thank you, Hugo.

7:59Great question. All right. Travis sends in question number two. Travis asks, starting a small business in 2026 compared to starting a small business in 2006, which was slash is more difficult? Well, what do you think we'll say the same person? We'll fix all other variables except, I guess the year of starting. So I can't remember 2006, what was going on then? Yeah, pre-GFC. So GFC happened about two years later. So we were in a nice window between the dot-com crash and the GFC. That's basically when we started our business. We started in 2005, but effectively when we started our first backpack apartments business.

8:40What was the internet like then? So lots of people were using the World Wide Web and email? Yeah, but there was no Google. So there was basically no Meta. Meta had just started. You couldn't advertise on it. And Google AdWords was in its infancy. So basically, the main difference, in my view, the main difference is the way you acquire customers was old school. It was whatever kind of radio, TV, newspaper, whatever it was, you had no digital way to acquire customers other than maybe some sort of affiliate co-reg stuff, which was really, again, pretty wild west. So you basically had to acquire customers the old-fashioned way.

9:14We used to advertise in backpacker magazines. And there's one other big thing that's missing in 2006. No AWS in Australia. Yeah, no server. So you had to have servers on site. Yeah. So I would say if you were starting a tech business, if you want to start a tech business, it's much easier and cheaper to start one today. Like if you wanted to start a tech business in 2006, you needed money. Someone had to give you money because - Oh, and that's why we talk about Alassian being like, when we're really complimentary about Alassian. Alassian started in 2003. That just shows how impressive the guys were to start so early.

9:46before any of this stuff. They had no AWS, no cloud-based stuff. They basically were able to create this incredible business that made money almost straight away. Yeah, I agree. And so I think it was harder to start a tech business than it is today. But one other thing, but a trading business, and I'll talk about a trading business, that means buying and selling stuff. That's much harder to start today because unfortunately there is so much transparency. It's hard to get information asymmetry. Remember I said I used to go to auctions and buy stuff and sell stuff. Like that is pretty much gone.

10:19Not entirely, but it's pretty much gone. And so that's a harder business to start today for sure. What do I think about retail? I think I'd rather start a retail business today than 2006. You're talking about online retail or offline retail? Well, I don't draw a line between them. Like I think it's all part of the same thing. And if you've got stores and no online, material online presence, that's hopeless. Okay. Let me phrase again. Because everything's omni. But as in predominantly online or predominantly? Like which channel are you going through? Like we're an online business that has stores.

10:56But we're really an online business. So like Koala, Sleeping Dark, Eva, they're all online businesses that have offline presences as well. Versus Daily Blooms, online presence. I know they're purely online. But you would say like - It's easy to reverse as well. Well, Eva's a good example. So Eva's an online business, but the stores, I think the stores will become, they are becoming increasingly more important and they will continue to become increasingly more important. But let's say your question is good. Like where do you start, right? I think it's easier to start an online retailer today than it was in 2006 for some of the reasons we've already mentioned.

11:32Like AWS is a big one. We shouldn't underestimate how consequential that and Shopify. Like Shopify. I think Shopify is bigger than AWS for online retail. Shopify does everything. Remember the old days, you couldn't even get a merchant facility. Like it took years to get like a bank to let you use credit card online. That's why PayPal started. I was getting merchant facilities in 1998. People didn't even understand. They basically said you're not allowed to do internet sales. That was what 1998. We had issues. We had a mate that helped us get an ANZ merchant facility, like a merchant facility in 2004, 2005.

12:03Without him, we wouldn't have got it. You know, you had to process like by typing in the button because there was no, like there were payment gateways, but that was so expensive. Exactly. We had the terminal. We typed it in, like physically typed in. We had it written down on a piece of paper and one of us would type in the thing and it would go through or not go through. Do you remember what that type of sale is called? There's a name for that type of sale. Oh, not card, not present. Yes. That's what it's called. Card, not present. You had to basically, it was as if somebody came into your store and didn't bring their card, but remembered their number.

12:32Yeah, exactly. And that's what you have to type in. Guaranteeing all that stuff. And so I think doing online retail is easier today. So what business is harder today do you think to do? I think offline retail is harder for sure. I think there's like, there's like think how we talked about last week, we talked about Kathmandu and Rip Curl. Like it's hard. It's hard out there. Maya is struggling. David Jones is struggling. Like it's competing against these massive, competing against incredible offline operators like the Meccas, the Costcos, et cetera. So they're really well run. then you've got all these online people as well who are really well run.

13:05So it's just really hard. And there's no arbitrage out there. How about like personal services? If I'm opening a barber today versus 2006, I think better today. Same. I don't think – you think? I think so because I think the process of – You're higher costs. I know. That's true. That's true. Well, that's actually a good point. So anything that involves people, low ticket size sales that's predominantly delivered by people, yeah, that's a nightmare because of the inflation hit that we've had over the last, I mean, you can say 20 years, but really the last five. So you're right. Like, like a cafe is harder today than it was in 2006.

13:39Really hard. Yeah, absolutely. So I think labor, low ticket price, high labor intensivity, those are harder businesses today than they were in 2006. Would you rather open your business today or in 2006? Oh, 2006. Cause it was much more green field. Now it's definitely harder. And the acquisition costs are harder. And Google, like there used to be an arbitrage with Google and Meta. That's not really existing now. Like maybe you'd be slightly better, but it's largely been stashed away by the Google tax. So I think it's much easier to start this sort of business. And we had a lot of luck. We had a huge amount of luck with newspaper ads in the sort of 2011, 12, 13.

14:17That really helped us build our brand and our scale, which you just don't get that now. The arbitrage is, you can still, we still advertise newspaper all the time, but the arbitrage is gone. But having said that, it's a lot harder now. If some person comes up to you and says, I'm thinking of starting a business this year, but maybe I should wait till next year, things get better, or the year after, my answer is always going to be, if you've done the kind of research, and you're ready to go now, then do it. Like now, every day after today is worse than today. Yeah, 100%, couldn't agree more on that.

14:49We've got a super quick break, another great question, and we're back with our last question really soon.

15:02Mike, question number three. Question three this week from Daniel. Given the increased prevalence of AI in today's working landscape, can you discuss the following? How can an organization effectively select one provider to embed into their environment? i.e. Claude may be considered the top provider right now, but how easy is it to pivot to another one once embedded into the company's ecosystem? I know you're the AI expert. I'll throw to you. Well, you absolutely shouldn't pick one and stick with one. That's not the way to go. In fact, when you're building tools that require a larger language model, which is what this question refers to, the large language models, you should always make it sufficiently agnostic that you could plug a different model into it and you should always have a fallback model in the code.

15:52I talk about Steve Ford nonstop because he's just such a good developer around this AI stuff. But like when he builds stuff together with me, there's always fallback models and there's always like, how's this going to perform if Claude just wasn't available at this moment and it had to fall back to, you know, GPT-4 or something like that. So my strongest recommendation is don't overcommit to a single model because we don't know what the future holds. I don't even know what six months time holds and keep yourself relatively agnostic so you can plug in different models based on different needs or different circumstances as times change.

16:29Yeah, we're constantly changing our models. Like obviously Claude's now probably the five of the month generally for enterprise, but it's also very expensive. I was looking at the token costs for Claude code versus like they've all got a coding thing now and it's like double to triple to 4x. 4X, some of the other providers. So it's, and I'm not talking about the Chinese lightweight model, I'm talking about the other sort of frontier model. So Claude's using their pricing power to really ram it home at the moment. So it's like, whilst it's slightly better now, like you're paying for it. So 100%, I think you've got to use multiple.

17:04Like there's no way you can get away with just locking into one. Even within, like if you talk about Claude, I'm talking about Anthropic. And so Claude, even they have multiple models, right? And so probably Sonnet is the version of that that you're mostly using. But there's a more sophisticated model called Opus. We can do more complex tasks, much more expensive on a token basis if you're chewing tokens, right? And so you've got that. And then you might say, actually, what I want to do is I don't want to have to have internet access for my model to run because I'm not asking it to pull anything off the internet.

17:36I'm just trying to use its processing power and its vector space. and then you might say, well, we're going to use Llama instead and just run it locally, not even connected to the internet. Like there's all sorts of options and like this is not a – like everything is not equal. It feels equal because when you use a chat box and you ask chat GPT a question and Claude a question and Gemini a question, it kind of all feels the same but it's not at all the same. Like there is a lot of differentiation and sophistication amongst these large language models and maybe what I would say is talk to someone to understand that as you make your decisions about what to use and above all keep playing with everything i would be advising people in business to be using multiple models every day just to and to ask the same questions to different models to see how the answers differ sometimes they're going to be identical and sometimes they're going to be dramatically different very good idea thank you thank you mike uh as usual just incredible questions we get from our amazing listeners.

18:39Thank you again to the three question askers. And we'll be back on Tuesday for our big episode. We'll see you soon.