From Love Island to Business: Curtis & AJ Pritchard's Best Advice | Backed by Funding Circle

0:00AJ Pritchard:We're going to make money here. All these entrepreneurs. And the cards are. This episode is brought to you by Funding Circle. Business finance that backs you. Welcome to the We Have A Meeting podcast. Who are you and what problem do you solve?

0:15Curtis Pritchard:I'm Curtis Pritchard. I'm AJ Pritchard. And what problem do we solve is a really interesting one. We would be usually on TV, so we'd usually be people's guilty pleasure. But what problem do we actually solve here? Our ideas sounds really weird. i'm just being honest most people are like oh my god my gran loves you or my daughter loves you from watching you dance on strictly or the same for you because like i love watching you on uh love iron but what are you doing at ideas fest like why are you here like that's literally the

0:42AJ Pritchard:question i've got all day well we've actually got a iron market and fint tent which is actually you can't see on camera right next door to these guys to be fair that's how we've ended up meeting

0:51Curtis Pritchard:the finance and growth tent so what we aim to solve fundamentally is like i'm a dancer you work on tv and everything rolls around money but for me it was always about i can only dance for so many years and so many hours a day how can i make my money work for me so we're co-founders of fin invest with wes wilks and we are an investment platform so you set up your direct debit 50 quid a month we invest that money for you you choose a portfolio that's actively managed and therefore the problem we solve is actually taking all of the stress out of investing all the kind of like the darkness of i don't know i'm worried i it's a scary world we take all that out and make it easy for you you download the app you set your direct debit up we do all the investing for you we find a risk profile you set your goal and we help you achieve that goal and we offer education

1:40AJ Pritchard:this is one of the biggest things we want people to understand and learn and educate themselves on financial literacy and finance itself so that's one big thing and i used to be i used to be very bad with money and stuff um never ended up with very bad so i teamed up with wes who is at iron market and i started learning so i'd understanding it a little bit and then this is where fin tool came about and this is why i'm really avid on the educating as many people as possible on how to use their money wisely and smartly and that's what fin offers as well so yeah it's really really cool nice okay so you guys are probably can answer this in in two different ways in terms of being at the coalface of starting a business and also talking about money all the

2:22Curtis Pritchard:time what do you think most business owners get wrong about cash flow i think like each business is very different like if i'm going to sell like a coffee stand i know i buy the products and i need to sell them like the cost is exactly what it is and the profit is very quite clear but for us somebody with a an investment company we know that we're not going to see a profit for a long long time it's as much as actually making sure that i have a business where i can go teach lessons and make my money to fund my life to invest into a company that's going to help other people and i think when it comes down to cash flow itself people have different opinions of it but this same time in this modern day it's really hard for somebody like us and our industry even for us i I know this is not exactly your question.

3:11Curtis Pritchard:No, please. But we could get hired the whole year to do different TV shows. Or I could get one week's worth of work. I don't know when my next job is. I don't know when my next paycheck is. So it's really important. I'm kicked out of my phone. It's really important to actually know what your money is doing for you. And cash flow is, I think, the hardest thing for actually entrepreneurs and people that are creative in the TV industry. And it's one thing that we've always struggled with. But the one thing that we've always been like with Finters, how do you make your money work for you when you've got it?

3:48Curtis Pritchard:And the cash flow side, it's a hard conversation for somebody like in our industry because it's just like, nothing's guaranteed.

3:57AJ Pritchard:And when you are starting off businesses or you're in that area, it's what do you spend the money on first? This is the thing because you have so many ideas in your head, hundreds of different ideas as an entrepreneur. And it's like, which one do I go with? And sometimes you choose the wrong decision. Sometimes you choose the right decision. And that's sort of like the hard thing. What you actually put your money onto first to help the growth, to help complete the project, the goal you have in front of you. That's where it can be quite hard sometimes, I'd say. You know, what is the right way forward sometimes?

4:28AJ Pritchard:And sometimes there isn't. You just have to move forward and go with it and find out if it is or it isn't really. What do you think someone should know before they borrow money?

4:39Curtis Pritchard:when it needs to be paid back back i'd say take that first i think it's funny like when you say borrowing money like what's the purpose of what are we talking about is it like i'm going to take

4:49AJ Pritchard:a mortgage out is that maybe for a business like i'm in a business now when should i take some

4:54Curtis Pritchard:money to like kickstart the always been there's a talk going on right now in our tent and it's about actually how is your personal brand get you into corporate room and we've always been very prominent about bootstrapping companies rather than taking money on board and making sure you use what you've got i know that we've got platforms that we've built through tv we can really leverage our opportunity to actually speak to millions of people and use that rather than being like okay i need to spend money on ads or wherever that is and it's actually money is one thing that people always kind of talk about but actually how can you use be frugal in what you can do because most of the time if you look around you whether that be friends your own socials things that you can do that cost you absolutely nothing but it takes up so much time and effort do the time and effort first before you're going to think about taking on money

5:45AJ Pritchard:like because there's always clauses with it i'm going to have to hold you there aj because i do think time wise we may need to be back at our tent i know i think we have a couple of interviews that we may need to be getting done in a second we'll do quick fire have you got have you got a few

5:58Curtis Pritchard:more minutes yeah quick fire what's the first thing someone should do in their first year of starting a business one thing that we kind of spoke about is like i say first year or pre first year the opportunity depending on what you're doing and what you're trying to sell if you can't start a wait list you can't get that excitement that that encouragement to show like oh my god if i had the product today i could sell it to this amount of people or i can cater this audience like so it's kind of like pre first year or in first year like make sure that what you're doing

6:27AJ Pritchard:there's an audience there for you yeah and make sure when you are starting off first thing you need to do is know what your goal is know what your driving point is so you have something to strive and drive for otherwise you literally are just driving into the open and you've got a clue where you're going what direction to take or when you've even got there so have your little points where you need to focus on and go for it i say that is the main thing when you're starting because it gives you that excitement to actually then achieve your your goals and stuff and the direction to go in so yeah that's great yeah best business advice you'd pass on to somebody don't start one

7:02Curtis Pritchard:no um don't expect it to happen overnight yeah actually that is one of the best but don't expect

7:11AJ Pritchard:it to happen overnight and if it does well i'll take you out for dinner and high five there you go but um do something you love because i always find it's much easier to work hard at something you love than you don't love so i'm going to say try and if you are going to business or wanting to move that way into business it depends on what you love start a business that you love something in yes it all does depend what you love but yeah you disagreed with that i love numbers i'm very

7:41Curtis Pritchard:dyslexic like one plus one is two nobody can argue with that like finance like i can make my money work for me like there's certain things that like you don't you did not love numbers but you're doing that because this is this is a business so i know i i don't like numbers i don't like being in

7:55AJ Pritchard:an office and people talk well around your space but i i like helping people educating people and making a difference yes but a lot of people love a lot of things i'm like wow you're in an argument

8:05Curtis Pritchard:here now this is the bitch i've just been i'm just being genuine like this day and age like you sell a dream like we all have a dream but how are we going to achieve that like you be realistic these days that's good advice as well what advice should people ignore i think it's really hard and i i'm maybe this is a positive or negative for me i'm very once i've set my sights on something i will go for it even if it's like okay maybe it's a bit wrong but you have to be a bit narrow-minded you you if you take on information from everybody around you they don't know what your own goal is too much information from like noise that noise

8:42AJ Pritchard:is not helpful always it is and that is very true but i always think never ignore any information whatsoever because it could be absolutely useless information but then you know okay that's useless information i now don't need to deal with that you still learn from every bit of information someone's gives you whether it's good or bad and then you take on board what you need to but like aj says you need to know your goals need to know what you want what the business is then you take on all them bits of information that you feel will work for you. So yeah, don't like shut yourself off to information.

9:14AJ Pritchard:Just navigate yourself through it as best as you can to your goals.

9:19Curtis Pritchard:As you can tell, we have two very different opinions on different things. I'm getting a vibe here, yeah. It's a positive because we're both open-minded on that side. But I think it's very intriguing that... We have the same end goal. We have the same end goal. But I think it's important because I would do something and I'd be like, because you as a normal person, would you like this or not? Me as being like so narrow minded but like I love this but I know other people aren't going to like that and you have to be open to that yeah yeah

9:45AJ Pritchard:you'll keep each other honest though in that way I just agree with each other all the time

9:48Curtis Pritchard:I think that's the one thing like in any relationship business whole friendship just speak yeah people are afraid to speak sometimes I'm like well if you don't say anything how am I supposed to know what you're thinking just speak

10:04AJ Pritchard:final question let's see if we can get you to agree on one point together so you can do a joint answer. Never. Never. What's the most underrated skill in business? Somebody that has an amazing drive and willpower to move forwards when you really don't want to sometimes. That's an amazing skill in business and someone that perhaps doesn't overthink the situations and just does. Because you can get caught up in so many different thoughts and overthinking things and you never move forwards or people that just don't attack the situation. So it's having that ability to not overthink and just drive with an absolute attitude that even when you don't want to, you'll bloody do it.

10:44AJ Pritchard:That's what I think. Do you agree? I agree with you.

10:48Curtis Pritchard:But I would say a lot of people love to talk. Just do it. Yeah, I think it is just do it. I hate talking. Just do it. All right, Niche. I'm serious. You see an office. Just do it. They're like, okay, I'm thinking about this. you could have done that you didn't need to tell me just do that

11:07AJ Pritchard:yeah paralysis by analysis basically guys just do it just do it there you go the new Nike thank you so much guys thank you for joining us this episode is brought to you by Funding Circle to find out how you can get fast fair and hassle free finance for your business visit FundingCircle.com