E30: Flight Story CEO: Balancing High Ambitions with Mental Health - Oliver Yonchev

0:00I think everybody should try. You hear it on Deathbed Stories, regret is the thing that really burns away at people. Oliver Yonchef, an entrepreneur, speaker and co-founder and CEO of Flight Story, a marketing strategy, content and media company that you founded in 2021 with Stephen Bartlett. Welcome to the podcast, Oli. You're coming out firing. I started my career as a musician, had some moderate success, got a record deal, those types of things. But then that didn't work out. What are the key learnings from leading and scaling social change? It's very hard to detach what you do from who you are.

0:35No one likes change. And actually, if you're an organization that can lean into change and help companies turn all the confusion into opportunity, I think that's good business. Do you hold crypto in your portfolio? I think the Web3 space is fascinating. When I think of Web3, I think of blockchain. I think about more immersive digital experiences, whether that's AR, VR and the real world application of machine learning and artificial intelligence. I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say that my career and what I do isn't a big part of my identity. Have you ever struggled with mental health? I don't think I've ever been depressed.

1:14It's a bit of a curse. My mind doesn't stop. I don't get downtime. I'm uncomfortable in situations where I have too much time on my hands. I always think you need to set yourself some goals. That fulfillment you get from working towards those things, combining that with good fortune, luck, having a great family and great relationships, I think those things have kept me sane and happy.

1:42Welcome to the podcast, Oli. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. Very excited too. So someone would define you as a young, successful and pretty laid back entrepreneur. So why don't we start with some context about your background? What are the key moments in your life that led you to being here today and founding Flight Story Group at such a young age? So, yeah, my background, big moments in my life. So I am a failed indie rocker. I started my career as a musician. Before that, I was a failed football player. It gets better, though. It starts. I grew up, always wanted to be a football player.

2:20My mother was a dancer. She was very musically inclined. I pursued a career in music, had some moderate success, got a record deal, those types of things. And then that didn't work out. So I went back to university, studied. That took me on a path into media, worked for a large media owner, left that business and joined a startup in Manchester called Social Chain, which went on to be an incredible success story in marketing and advertising, and which then led me to starting Flight Story in 2021 with Stephen. So that's a snapshot of about 15 years. What are the key learnings from a leading and scaling social chain?

3:07Yeah, there are many learnings. I think foundationally what I learned through that entire process is optimism and ambition are precursors to success. You know, it seems really obvious that you have to have ambition if you want to achieve great things. But social chain was 100 % that. There was this fundamental belief within the walls of the organization that we could take on the world. And that momentum carried us through the highs. It carried us through the lows and it was self-fulfilling. Other things I thought that were incredibly important was culture, over-investing in culture. And everybody talks about culture in an organization.

3:50And culture is this kind of fugazi term. Is it how you act? Is it the people? Is it what leadership say? And it's a collection of everything. What I think is important for organizations to be truly intentional. they have to be intentional with what they want their culture to be and culture can mean many things you can just say we want to be the highest performing team in the world we want to achieve mastery at this thing we want to be the most knowledgeable business and the intention you put around the culture will often determine that and then the final thing i would say is there's a build on culture is people.

4:28I think the definition of an organization or a company is a group of people. So it's so important that when you find great people, you create an environment that great people can thrive, you give them the freedom to do so. And they're my big three lessons through social change. For the culture side, especially when you're that young, how do you even go about it yeah read books do you have mentors you know what so you just try out things and hope it works out for the best i think it's a combination of all of those things for me culture is i don't think it has to be all very complicated ask yourself what do i want out of employment and a career and we all kind of want the same things we all want to um feel feel fulfilled we all want like an element of challenge.

5:22We all want to be working towards something bigger than the day job. It's to have a bigger mission. We want to feel secure. We want growth. So you create a culture that can provide those things. I don't think you have to overthink it. It's like, what would I and how would I like to spend my time with? And that should determine how your culture forms. But again, intention and being very putting a lot of effort into maintaining and not making compromises it's very easy to erode a culture you know if you have five people in a room and one person doesn't fit the culture that's 20 of your culture that's a huge erosion so defend it be intentional you know, and don't overthink it.

6:09So basically it's starting with, I mean, common sense. 100 % of what you want. Start with what you want. Who do you want to be around? How do you get fulfillment is a good starting place. What's one of the hardest problems that you've ever solved? The hardest problem. The hardest problem I have ever solved. I think probably the hardest problem for me has been figuring out how you stay really present when you're very ambitious. And you may be able to empathize with that. That's a good one. Yeah, for me, I think that's a huge problem because I think a lot that ambition has been a huge part of why I've gone on to try things or maybe achieve things.

7:00But fundamentally, it comes at a cost. It's a bit of a curse. My mind doesn't stop, you know, and I don't get downtime. I'm uncomfortable in situations where I have too much time on my hands. That's not always a good thing. So I would say that's a problem I'm working at, but I'm very aware of. What are you doing for that? So you mean, for example, with a partner, with friends or even in business situations? yeah all all of the above um i think if if you've embarked on any entrepreneurial journey or you're independent in any any respect um i think you can empathize with the fact that it's very hard to detach what you do from who you are so it was funny i was asked um i was asked the other day who is oliver like it's like okay and i started just talking about like flight story yeah So it just shows how attached I am to what I do.

7:59And I feel I'm probably more than that, but like there's layers to me, but my default reaction. So I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say that my career and what I do isn't a big part of my identity. So I talk more in the context of how do I deal with being present? I just be at peace with, you know, this is who I am. Try and reframe it not as a problem, but as just this is the price of entry. And I'm almost at peace with it, if that makes sense. Do you think you're at the point? There's a lot of people who are very successful financially or building businesses, but they're not happy, basically, because they're completely tying their personality to their business and then you have there is always going to be shit happening in business or you might fail a company or you might lose a lot of money quickly and this might impact you a lot do you think you are you are detached enough so that if something bad happens you still have a good foundation yeah and you still think you know highly of yourself or yeah 100 i um um i think the the bit one of the biggest coping mechanisms i've had around is ensuring that i have balance or i feel successful in other elements of my life so when work goes wrong i have to i feel good about the sports i'm doing or i'm feeling good about my health or my friendships or my relationships my family um that gives you balance because inevitably things will go wrong in work.

9:41Things will go wrong in relationships. Things will go wrong around your passions. So I think not being anchored to just this one thing is probably a helpful coping mechanism. And the biggest thing I probably found helping in times of stress is having other things that I'm like deeply passionate about, still obsessed with. I love kickboxing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I love kickboxing, love fitness. Yeah, I have an amazing family, really good, you know, relationships. So, yeah, I think I've managed to maintain my happiness through darker times in a career, simply by having a bit more balance and investing energy in those things as well.

10:22You seem like a pretty calm, collected dude. Have you ever struggled with mental health? um have i ever struggled with mental health um i definitely feel low i would i don't think i've ever been depressed i'm pretty i don't think i have i've had low moments um i've had low motive you know weeks where i'm not as motivated as others but generally speaking i feel blessed that I feel happy most of the time. So yeah, I have a lot of empathy for people that go through mental struggles, but I can't say I have. That's awesome. But you also have the entire setup. You said you're doing kickboxing, you go to gym, you do a bunch of stuff.

11:11What do you do during the day to make sure that you feel good? Yeah, I think my diet needs to be better. I don't eat as healthy as I'd like to. I'm sure everyone can relate to that. But I stay incredibly active in different things. So fitness has been a foundation in different, whether it's different sports, playing football, kickboxing, boxing, different things. I've always had that as a foundation. I've always had an anchor point in a career. I think it's so important that you have something you're working towards. And these don't have to be monumental goals, but I always think you need to set yourself some goals.

11:48and, you know, that fulfillment you get from working towards those things. And I think combining that with good fortune, luck, having a great family and great relationships, I think those things have kept me sane and happy. How important is personal branding to you? Personal branding. I've long been a preacher of the value of personal branding. And increasingly, as our teams get bigger and my responsibilities shift more from doing the work to communicating and selling the vision, whether that's selling it to new team members or selling it to, you know, a lender, selling it to a company that we want to invest in.

12:43as my responsibility has shifted to being a communicator of what we do um i've got an increased appreciation for it i think the link between it's interesting personal brand has got a bit of a it's almost been wrapped up as a dirty word and it's been associated in in certain negative connotations for me personal brand is just your online reputation when you strip it back to that, who doesn't want to have a far-reaching, robust, great online reputation? Yeah. Like, who wouldn't want that? Especially when you know what everything that derives from that and all the opportunities it brings to you. Yeah.

13:29And there's another thing, right? I started primarily on LinkedIn. I started creating content to promote flight story. And one of the things that I learned, I did it purely as a selfish motive to help promote the business. And inadvertently, what that forced me to do was just learn so much about forming ideas and learning new things. Because I gave myself a commitment, every day I'm going to post something on LinkedIn. And in doing that, I have to think of new things to post. I have to learn. I have to seek out knowledge. You're also in putting your ideas out into the world. Most people struggle with that, the fear of repercussion or getting it wrong or looking silly.

14:10And what I've tend to find is in putting your ideas into the world, you either A, gain more conviction. Like I say something out there and people applaud it and say, it's a great idea or people disagree and your opinion evolves or shapes. So I generally think putting your ideas into the world is really beneficial. And that's very interlinked with this idea of personal brand reputation. So I think there's a huge amount of learning you can gain from embarking on a personal brand journey what's the most efficient way to do personal branding today for entrepreneurs who you know are building new businesses and realize oh this is very important and who wants to start because there's so many different ways of doing it for example podcasting is a great one because you just come on the podcast and you have these video clips and you can just use them like that but what what would you say is the most efficient.

15:04I mean, I know you're doing these videos. So what would you recommend people want to be as efficient as possible? Chat GPT. No, I'm joking. No, I actually think, look, there's a couple of things here. I think you just have to lean into what's really natural. I want to be a better writer than I am, but I'm quite slow. If I type, I'm quite slow at typing. So for me to articulate my ideas in written form, it takes me a lot longer than it does to point a camera and say, what do you think about this? So all I've done is leaned in person. I think the foundation is leaning to something that you're more comfortable doing.

15:42And if that's writing, lean into that. If it's video, if it's the art of conversation, lean into that and then figure out a system where you just be consistent. Give your say, I don't like mandates around marketing. Like you have to do this many posts a week or, But there is something about the discipline and consistency and that commitment you make to yourself to say, I'm going to do four podcasts a month and you just don't compromise and force. And so I think that discipline is a foundation. And then finally is just do it. Don't hesitate. Don't overthink. Don't pursue perfection. Everyone hates their own voice.

16:21Everyone hates aspects about themselves. Just get over it. Just do it. i think like the discipline to just do it is actually the two ingredients of everything in life building a business all this stuff personal branding whatever you do and it's what most people just don't do they don't start and if they start they do it for the same as gym same as meditation they just do it for a couple of days a couple of weeks and then they just get tired of it and just stop yeah i i watched uh i think it was chris williamson just did a podcast recently and he basically said uh i think the data point was some obscene number if you do more than three podcast episodes it's something like um you're in the top 10 of all podcasts because fewer people get past three if you do 21 episodes you're in the top one percentile of all podcasters in the history of podcasting just by doing 21 episodes that point around discipline and consistency you can win just on that basis yeah i think there was also a harry stebbings from a 2020 vc was saying he's been doing that for eight years and a half and 90 percent of the downloads are within the last 12 months yeah so you just see the how long it takes and then and then the exponential effect at some point i've seen it time and time again steven's been doing the podcast for several years you look at the last two years it looks like a rocket ship chris williamson meteoric success been doing it for years, same again, Harry Sebbins.

17:48Any podcaster you admire started. It's the classic overnight success story that took 10 years. Exactly. I remember having a chat with Stephen about two years ago and he said he would never launch a marketing or media company again because building a media and strategy agency is very hard. You need a lot of people. It's not very scalable. You have a lot of high fixed costs. So what are you guys doing differently with Flight Story when compared to social chain? Yeah, when we launched Flight Story, that was the intention, not to be a marketing business. And for the longest time, for a year, we resisted calling ourselves a marketing business.

18:28But for me, marketing is a vehicle to solve a lot of problems for companies, whether that's helping companies build their brand and their reputation, whether that's helping them grow, whether that's helping them innovate or try new things. and ultimately marketing creates value for organizations. So when we first launched Flight Story, we geared our efforts towards either re-engineering how agencies work with clients. So our first thesis was that, you know, there are certain things you should lean on an agency for and there are certain things that the skills and tools that you should harness yourself.

19:06So our job was to work with organizations in a consulting capacity, to help them build the teams and infrastructure, to then help them solve their business problems. That's where we started. We got kind of nine months into the business and we looked inwards and 60 % of what we were doing was we were helping big fashion brand launch an NFT project. We were helping large exchange re-engineer their digital strategy. We were helping X, Y, and Z with a creator strategy. So we looked inwards and went as much as on the outside, we resisted calling ourselves a marketing company. We found ourselves and we just accepted our fate and went, you know what, we're very good at this.

19:51We understand the dynamics of business and we think there's room for something new, different and interesting. And what I will say is I won't over I won't over engineer what is new about us because fundamentally service businesses and marketing companies all kind of do the same thing. What I would say sets us apart is I believe we have higher standards than most marketing agencies. I believe we pull talent and the people from such varied backgrounds, whether it's consulting, finance, you know, people that just understand the Internet intimately. I think we think differently about teams and how teams collaborate.

20:30And finally, our sort of thirst for knowledge and technology and understanding how technology can help and aid companies. I guarantee we can work with businesses and probably make their marketing five times more efficient today if they listen to us. I'm not even saying better. And I'm confident to say we can make marketing efforts better because that's fundamentally what we do. But yeah, I'd say there are big points of difference where we pay a lot of attention. Do you think this is also linked to your age? And you are pretty much out there, like everywhere on social media, people see you everywhere.

21:06So you probably sometimes come across the age factor. You know, these guys are too young. They can't understand how to do business or how to invest money because you need to have more experience, etc. But on the other hand, which is not necessarily true, obviously. on the other hand you can also use this as your advantage and say hey look like we understand we are mature or old enough to understand to understand business but young enough to still be very flexible with new technologies and yeah i do the best out of it i am the biggest believer in the curse of knowledge you can know too much about any one thing and actually experience as much as it's a value add in many respects it can be limiting it comes with preconceptions of how things should be done, you'll tend to find experienced people aren't usually the innovators.

21:55They're not the ones that shift the tectonic plates of society and fabric, usually younger people, right? And what I'd say on the experience point is what Jeff Basis was an investment banker. What did he know about selling books? Not a lot, right? Went on to be, you know, Amazon. So I think just because you have an evidence you've done something doesn't mean you're not capable. but over time I definitely think I have as long as we structure our teams and have the experience around us and we can inject our version of the world of what we think will be successful I think we stand a good chance of succeeding.

22:34So you recently launched a 100 million fund why? A number of reasons so from a flight story so we have flight story which is our services we do strategy content media and flight fund, which is an investment vehicle. And there was a number of reasons. So on one hand, Stephen has a phenomenal network of entrepreneurs. And when we looked at the European funding market, money and capital tends not to come from entrepreneurs. I think it's some staggering statistic. It's over, I think it's 97 % of funding, only 3 % of funding comes from entrepreneur-backed entities. And that to me is a massive injustice, very different in the US.

23:22Entrepreneurs and capital, it's much more interlinked. But when you look in Europe, so I think the foundation was a huge opportunity to bring together a collective of entrepreneurs that can add value, can empathize, that are active to support businesses. The other was from a service standpoint, we get a ton of visibility on amazing companies. So for us to not only support them, help them grow, but able to at some point maybe take a position or invest capital into business, that was part of the process. And then the final piece was opportunity, bringing to connecting the dots between we can really help companies build a brand and grow.

23:59Alongside if we can put a meaningful investment and benefit from the upside of seeing their growth, that's good business. Yeah, absolutely. One of the key focus that you have with this fund and even with your agency in general is Web3. What do you make of this Web3 thing? What do you think about it? Yeah, it's funny. The Web3 term, I'm not the biggest fan of the Web3 term. It's a softened term because crypto became dirty, blockchain's too complicated, and Web3 felt like a nice catch-all for a few things, right? But what I just generally believe is I think we're at this fascinating time where technology is shifting, is just disrupting everything.

24:43And the internet disrupted everything. And then mobile did it again. And I actually think what's happening now is equally as disruptive, whether it's questioning conventional norms, commercial models, how companies orchestrate, where we talk about what's right, what's wrong. I think the Web3 space is fascinating. For me personally, I distill it down to three areas when I think of Web3 being the next reiteration of the Internet. I think of blockchain and the technologies and the new possibilities that the blockchain creates, whether that's crypto, NFTs, decentralization. I think about more immersive digital experiences, whether that's AR, VR, this utopia or this idea of the metaverse.

25:27I think that's part of it. And then the other piece that's now becoming more prevalent is the real world application of machine learning and artificial intelligence. I think Web3 is the catchall for those three things. And each of them are going to play a significant role in our future. It's just a matter of time. So for us to anchor our business and be highly proficient and skilled and have the knowledge in these areas. And I would say one of the things that people don't like change. Like no one likes change. If I change my Instagram UX, like it was changed today, I'd be like, what's that about?

26:03I wouldn't like it. I'd resist it. No one likes change. And actually, if you're an organization that can lean into change and help companies turn all the confusion into opportunity, I think that's good business. So we were very curious. That was kind of our anchor point in how we think about our relationship with Web3. That's a very smart way, actually. You have all this technology progress that is going way too fast for most of the companies that are there. And if you're just like in between and saying, hey, look, like we understand this stuff and we can help you embrace it. That's definitely the way to go.

26:40Do you hold crypto in your portfolio or is crypto Web3 this thing more of a business play? So personally, I hold crypto. I was an observer for a long time. I bought a domain called BitExchange like a decade ago, like quite a few. I've got quite a few different crypto related domains. And I remember my first time trying to buy crypto on Coinbase. I saw an email on my account. I tried to set up a Coinbase account like so long ago. And I just remember being confused by it. So I never actually bought anything. Then six, seven, eight years passed. And I joined, probably started maybe investing like 2017-ish.

27:24Okay. So a few years ago, but wasn't in the really early stage, but certainly somewhat peripherally aware. And I didn't fully understand it, couldn't comprehend it. But over time, my position changed and it started to evolve. And mine was, I was actually quite a cynic of crypto for a long time because I struggled to envisage a world where governments would give up control, that they would allow this to happen, the movements and the borderless movements. But as we've seen sort of regulations start to evolve and we're starting to see the foundations of what like a new world order could look like.

27:59Still many unknown unknowns. What changed your view concretely? And also like in terms of personal investment, are you big into this or it's more like one of your plays because you find it interesting? Yeah, it's probably, it's less than 10 % of what I do. But I have a reasonable property portfolio and business is a big part of what I do. So I'm like, I'm a pretty safe investor. I'm the like relatively stable. So only for the reason, not that I don't believe in it, but I tend not to overexpose myself to anything. Which is actually hard to do because I started investing in 2008. Back as I set up a Barclays stockbroker account and started investing at the height, basically, of the last recession and the last crash.

28:45And what happened is everything went up. So I went through these bull runs when I started investing. I backed winners every time and I thought I was a genius. So I'm there putting my student loans into the stock market. I think I'm a genius. So I'd seen these cyclical cycles and it's such an emotional game investing in crypto. It's a roller coaster. So I kind of came into it, even a nascent, I came into it somewhat experienced about not falling into the traps. So I've been relatively balanced with my crypto endeavors. And that's how you learn. You get burned once or twice and then you... Your biggest lessons are in the pain.

29:22The pain is where you learn the most, my man. I can definitely relate to that. What's the best advice you've ever been given? Oh, best advice. What a question. Well, I'm not going to say the best advice because I've been given so much. I'm blessed to have wisdom that I think I've retained. I'm going to say my favorite quote. And my favorite quote is the, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Okay, awesome. Good one. That for me is, I think it's, I don't know if it's Henry Ford originally, but I'm pretty sure he's credited with it. I just love that thesis because I fundamentally believe that.