WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.360 about innovators, both in business and real life. 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:08.419 Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona. 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.660 This podcast is sponsored by openexperts .com. 00:00:11.919 --> 00:00:14.140 OpenExperts is a place to go if you're looking 00:00:14.140 --> 00:00:16.339 to talk with top experts from around the world. 00:00:16.539 --> 00:00:20.879 That is open -experts .com. This podcast is also 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:24.539 sponsored by startupnetworks .co .uk. Startup 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:26.820 Networks, it's an online forum where you can 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:28.739 find all the resources you need to learn your 00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:50.340 startup. Hi and welcome to another episode of 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:52.679 the Innovation Conversation. Today we are joined 00:00:52.679 --> 00:00:55.939 by Daniel Pitcock. Daniel, welcome. Thank you 00:00:55.939 --> 00:00:57.640 so much. Thank you for inviting me, Ricardo. 00:00:58.480 --> 00:01:00.579 It's a pleasure having you here. Daniel, would 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:02.039 you like to tell the audience a little bit more 00:01:02.039 --> 00:01:08.439 about yourself? So I am a designer and UX researcher. 00:01:08.739 --> 00:01:11.780 My background is graphic design. I always wanted 00:01:11.780 --> 00:01:13.620 to be a designer from a very young age. In fact, 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.140 I got my very first paid design gig when I was 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:20.989 just 14. And throughout my career, I worked through 00:01:20.989 --> 00:01:23.750 four companies, big companies like Justy and 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:27.209 Honda, Royal Navy and such like a lot of startups. 00:01:27.269 --> 00:01:31.549 I've also founded and built my own companies 00:01:31.549 --> 00:01:33.989 and startups over time as well. I'm currently 00:01:33.989 --> 00:01:37.230 the founder of Cleanly, which is the UX repository, 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:43.109 storing knowledge and the form of Atomic UX research, 00:01:43.189 --> 00:01:45.090 which is a process I invented while I was at 00:01:45.090 --> 00:01:49.810 Justy. In all your years in this industry, I'm 00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:52.349 sure you've seen a lot. So when you launched 00:01:52.349 --> 00:01:54.209 your own company, how was that journey? Was it 00:01:54.209 --> 00:01:55.930 a bit scary or actually you knew exactly what 00:01:55.930 --> 00:01:57.670 you're doing and everything went perfect from 00:01:57.670 --> 00:02:01.790 day one? I founded quite a few in my time and 00:02:01.790 --> 00:02:04.150 some of them deliberately and some of them accidentally. 00:02:04.549 --> 00:02:06.769 So there's two companies, Cleanly being one, 00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:09.430 where there wasn't an intention to build a company. 00:02:09.889 --> 00:02:14.479 In fact, so we built Cleanly as a tool to help 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:17.580 people who are using the Atomic UX research process 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:20.319 better deliver it, right? And actually I was 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.180 quite dogmatic at the beginning to say we shouldn't 00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:25.159 ever have specific tooling. The process should 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:27.300 always be able to use whatever you've got on 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:29.020 hand. And I still think that's true, but there 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:31.479 was a few things we just wanted to be able to 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:34.900 achieve and we ended up building a tool. So yeah, 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:37.400 I wouldn't say it was scary. It was kind of just, 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.599 it was a natural progression. And yeah, there 00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:43.319 was another situation in the past where once 00:02:43.319 --> 00:02:45.860 again, I accidentally built a business. I wasn't 00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:48.659 intending to, I was, you know, kind of my problem 00:02:48.659 --> 00:02:52.699 is I'm ADHD and a creative. And if there's a 00:02:52.699 --> 00:02:56.539 problem, I want to solve it. And sometimes. I 00:02:56.539 --> 00:02:58.719 can do that through my role, whoever I'm working 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.620 for, wherever I'm working. Sometimes it's something 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.240 you can do as more like a societal, you know, 00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:08.000 society thing. Or sometimes you know, there needs 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:09.840 to be a tool built for this or there needs to 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:11.580 be a product that does this or service that does 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:13.500 this. No one else is going to do it. So I suppose 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:16.240 I'll have to do it now. But I can't leave it 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:19.939 alone. That's the problem. It's quite interesting 00:03:19.939 --> 00:03:22.900 because most of the people I talk to are either 00:03:22.900 --> 00:03:25.400 investors or startups, right? And a lot of the 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:28.259 startups, they haven't done that many startups 00:03:28.259 --> 00:03:29.979 before. They're probably on the second startup 00:03:29.979 --> 00:03:32.419 at best, but you've gone through multiple startups. 00:03:32.699 --> 00:03:37.139 So I guess the big question is what makes it 00:03:37.139 --> 00:03:38.699 successful? Like, how do you know you're going 00:03:38.699 --> 00:03:40.479 to be successful in a startup? Is there any tips 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:41.840 or tricks you can give to the audience? I don't 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:44.719 think you can. I think the number one thing is 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:47.699 being passionate about the subject matter. You 00:03:47.699 --> 00:03:50.539 know, you have to have love for whatever you're 00:03:50.539 --> 00:03:52.259 building or whatever you're creating, whatever 00:03:52.259 --> 00:03:56.659 the company is. I know people have been successful 00:03:56.659 --> 00:03:58.539 depending on how you measure that through things 00:03:58.539 --> 00:04:01.080 that they're maybe not particularly excited by 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:02.879 and they're just doing it to make money. I'm 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:05.919 sure that's the case. But I suppose, well, first 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:08.020 of all, is that a measure of success? And secondly, 00:04:08.379 --> 00:04:12.659 for me at least, I find that You know, it's difficult. 00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:14.780 You know, it's a stressful thing. It can be, 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:17.680 you have ups and downs. It's like a roller coaster 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:19.980 with a startup. And if you're not fundamentally 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:22.439 in love with what you're doing and passionate 00:04:22.439 --> 00:04:24.939 about delivering that thing, you know, as soon 00:04:24.939 --> 00:04:26.319 as it gets difficult, it's going to be hard to 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:28.079 carry on. I think for a lot of people, especially 00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:33.180 myself. So yeah, I think that's that for me, 00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:36.089 that's the fundamental thing is to love. The 00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:39.649 problem with that is for myself, I don't really 00:04:39.649 --> 00:04:41.870 consider myself as a business person. I see myself 00:04:41.870 --> 00:04:43.750 as like a product designer or as a creator in 00:04:43.750 --> 00:04:48.649 that way. And so sometimes my decisions can be 00:04:48.649 --> 00:04:51.949 more focused on the product or delivering something 00:04:51.949 --> 00:04:54.449 rather than necessarily what's financially the 00:04:54.449 --> 00:04:57.290 correct thing to do. And I think that's sometimes 00:04:57.290 --> 00:05:01.649 been a challenge for me personally. Do you drive 00:05:01.649 --> 00:05:04.870 your investors to like command? The fact that 00:05:04.870 --> 00:05:07.589 you focus on everything but profitability. How 00:05:07.589 --> 00:05:10.629 do you manage that relationship? Why are we still 00:05:10.629 --> 00:05:13.449 spending so much money on developers when the 00:05:13.449 --> 00:05:15.610 product works? People are buying it, it's selling. 00:05:16.769 --> 00:05:19.649 Stop building new features and pushing it forward. 00:05:19.930 --> 00:05:21.529 But I've got a vision. I know where I want it 00:05:21.529 --> 00:05:24.589 to be and I know that we can drive value with 00:05:24.589 --> 00:05:27.350 a better product. And if you set on your laurels, 00:05:27.569 --> 00:05:30.110 if you're not pushing forward and someone's going 00:05:30.110 --> 00:05:32.689 to come along and do it better. do it cheaper 00:05:32.689 --> 00:05:37.110 or just have more of a marketing budget and be 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:41.930 able to overtake you. That's how we drive forward. 00:05:42.509 --> 00:05:44.730 But mostly the reason is that that's less of 00:05:44.730 --> 00:05:46.550 a rational thing than I'm making out is because 00:05:46.550 --> 00:05:48.850 that's what I'm interested in. That's what I'm 00:05:48.850 --> 00:05:53.949 focused on. I've been quite open that at some 00:05:53.949 --> 00:05:56.769 point I'll be replaced as CEO. I know that would 00:05:56.769 --> 00:05:59.939 be the case because I'm not a CEO. I'm and the 00:05:59.939 --> 00:06:01.439 person is passionate about the product, I'll 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:03.800 always be passionate about that. But maybe, you 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:05.699 know, at some stage, it will be the right time 00:06:05.699 --> 00:06:07.879 to bring someone in who's more focused on the 00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:12.160 business. Interesting. You mentioned something 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:14.319 quite interesting, which is the, I guess, the 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:17.990 combination of passion and vision. Now, multiple 00:06:17.990 --> 00:06:21.250 businesses, you obviously have quite a lot of 00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:24.250 baggage in this and know your stuff, but did 00:06:24.250 --> 00:06:27.629 you find that it is easier to go and ask for 00:06:27.629 --> 00:06:30.089 investment from investors when you bring these 00:06:30.089 --> 00:06:32.050 two things to the table? Like you're passionate 00:06:32.050 --> 00:06:34.810 about it, you have a vision, do you think that's 00:06:34.810 --> 00:06:37.290 often the deciding factor between them investing 00:06:37.290 --> 00:06:40.970 or not? No, I'd maybe even say the opposite. 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:44.860 We've got this really cool idea. We know we can 00:06:44.860 --> 00:06:47.220 do this. We know this is a problem that needs 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:50.759 solving and we believe we've got the evidence 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:55.860 to show that we're capable of doing that. But 00:06:55.860 --> 00:06:58.439 I think for a lot of investors that I've spoken 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:01.620 to, there are some that are excited about that 00:07:01.620 --> 00:07:03.779 as well and they can see the opportunity there. 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:05.839 But what they really want to know, I suppose, 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:07.899 is well, you know, what's going to happen to 00:07:07.899 --> 00:07:09.639 my investment? How quickly will I get that back? 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:11.339 How much will it grow, et cetera? What's the 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:12.839 next step? Are you going to get more investment 00:07:12.839 --> 00:07:15.879 later on? And it may be slightly controversial 00:07:15.879 --> 00:07:19.019 to say, but I don't think there's many investment 00:07:19.019 --> 00:07:21.519 organizations that I've met that are actually 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:24.879 interested in creating a product or a stable 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:26.819 business. You know, what they're looking for 00:07:26.819 --> 00:07:30.639 is to get to the next round. And sometimes, maybe 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.000 even commonly, that isn't necessarily what's 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:35.019 right for the business or the organization or 00:07:35.019 --> 00:07:37.339 the customers. You know, there's a famous phrase 00:07:37.339 --> 00:07:39.079 at the moment, I'm sure you heard, like the end 00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:42.120 shittening of technology, where, you know, the 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:45.560 only growth can be got by making products worse, 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:48.399 you know, putting more ads on Spotify or pushing, 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:50.360 you know, on Netflix, even if you're paying, 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:52.300 pointing at my TV there, but you're paying for 00:07:52.300 --> 00:07:54.180 Netflix and now you're showing me ads. Surely 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:56.800 that was the entire point of having Netflix in 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:58.839 the first place. There's so many examples I can 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:01.879 give, right? And that's all coming from driving 00:08:01.879 --> 00:08:04.879 growth. You know and what's gonna happen and 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:07.240 i'm starting to see that with a few organizations 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.100 they're getting to the point i've cancelled my 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:12.199 spotify subscription recently due to political 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:16.639 reasons and uh but mostly fundamentally the product 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:19.740 quality has dropped so severely and they're not 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:21.740 there's not like they're playing paying musicians 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:23.819 and such like so where's that money going it's 00:08:23.819 --> 00:08:26.939 just i think spotify is going to fold at some 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:28.740 point because someone will come along and go 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:31.540 actually we can do spotify but better which is 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:35.019 what Spotify was, right? So I think there's almost 00:08:35.019 --> 00:08:37.299 like too much of a short -term vision. Now this 00:08:37.299 --> 00:08:39.440 is someone speaking who isn't a billionaire, 00:08:39.620 --> 00:08:42.000 hasn't created a product of that size and that 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.559 scale, but have worked within businesses that 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:46.139 are, you know, some of the work that I did with 00:08:46.139 --> 00:08:49.039 Just Eat got it to FTSE 100 a year earlier than 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:51.580 it was estimated to, which I'm quite proud of. 00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:54.299 But the things that I'm most proud of is where 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:57.389 we fundamentally move that product forward. as 00:08:57.389 --> 00:09:00.610 a good quality product and protected it from 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:03.610 the kind of polarization and shitifying. You 00:09:03.610 --> 00:09:06.110 know, for example, bringing in like better accessibility, 00:09:06.529 --> 00:09:09.470 which was profitable for them, but it was costly 00:09:09.470 --> 00:09:14.049 and it was maybe a bit dry and maybe not what 00:09:14.049 --> 00:09:17.289 investors and stakeholders would have been interested 00:09:17.289 --> 00:09:18.830 in, but it was important and it was the right 00:09:18.830 --> 00:09:23.330 thing to do. And I think it protects them long 00:09:23.330 --> 00:09:27.379 -term. This is actually quite interesting because 00:09:27.379 --> 00:09:32.360 you touched on a very interesting topic which 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:36.220 is the things that investors look for in a company 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:39.440 and in a product might not necessarily be what's 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:41.080 best for the company, the product or even the 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:42.840 consumers because they're just looking at the 00:09:42.840 --> 00:09:44.440 bottom line. The bottom line is are you increasing 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:47.340 revenue or not? Am I getting my money in a hundred 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:49.720 X or a thousand X or not? So it comes down to 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.250 that, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, there's a good 00:09:52.250 --> 00:09:54.129 example is, you know, obviously this is a world 00:09:54.129 --> 00:09:56.029 I know fairly well from work. I mentioned just 00:09:56.029 --> 00:09:59.429 earlier, but when COVID hit, we saw companies 00:09:59.429 --> 00:10:02.549 like Deliveroo really start to struggle because 00:10:02.549 --> 00:10:05.450 suddenly so many people were ordering food and 00:10:05.450 --> 00:10:07.330 Deliveroo was having so many more orders. Well, 00:10:07.389 --> 00:10:08.629 surely that's a good thing. Surely that makes 00:10:08.629 --> 00:10:11.129 them more profitable. No, because they lost money 00:10:11.129 --> 00:10:14.179 on every single order. And they basically had 00:10:14.179 --> 00:10:16.220 investment, they had money, they were looking 00:10:16.220 --> 00:10:18.340 for growth, looking for scale and such like, 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:21.340 and they had money to, you know, their burn rate 00:10:21.340 --> 00:10:24.259 to go. And then suddenly COVID hit and they were 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:26.259 burning through that cash so much quicker than 00:10:26.259 --> 00:10:29.320 they were expecting. Now to me, and this is me 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.379 not being an investor, maybe being quite naive, 00:10:31.659 --> 00:10:34.509 that doesn't sound like a business to me. That 00:10:34.509 --> 00:10:36.929 sounds like some kind of food charity where we're 00:10:36.929 --> 00:10:38.710 going to pay you to have food delivered. It doesn't 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:41.970 make sense to me, right? And I understand kind 00:10:41.970 --> 00:10:44.830 of the scales. You know, one thing Just Eat always 00:10:44.830 --> 00:10:47.690 said is that if they couldn't be number one in 00:10:47.690 --> 00:10:49.669 the market, they would either buy number two 00:10:49.669 --> 00:10:51.570 or leave the market. They always need to be number 00:10:51.570 --> 00:10:54.629 one. What they defined as number one was at least 00:10:54.629 --> 00:10:57.669 40 % bigger than number two. And the reason for 00:10:57.669 --> 00:10:59.450 that is they just couldn't be profitable otherwise. 00:11:00.049 --> 00:11:02.169 But there's so many, especially tech businesses 00:11:02.169 --> 00:11:05.600 out there, And that seems to be really endemic 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:09.740 in the tech world, where there is no monetization 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:11.720 side. It is a case of getting scale, getting 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:14.039 scale, and then going through an engineering 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:16.879 process where we give, we give, we give, we lose 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:19.080 money, we lose money. Right now we've got market 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:22.139 share. What we do now is we just ring out those 00:11:22.139 --> 00:11:23.700 customers for the profit that we haven't been 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:28.100 having. Why not instead just build a profitable 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:33.789 business? When Gleanly, my business, live in, 00:11:33.789 --> 00:11:37.750 I think it was September we went live. Within 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:40.250 three months, we were technically profitable, 00:11:40.309 --> 00:11:42.370 not by a big amount, but we could cover our own 00:11:42.370 --> 00:11:46.370 costs. Now, last year, last year was the COVID 00:11:46.370 --> 00:11:50.190 of the UX world. And, you know, we knew something 00:11:50.190 --> 00:11:54.409 was going on in December 2022, because we had 00:11:54.409 --> 00:11:57.700 some, we had December is our, Christmas is our 00:11:57.700 --> 00:12:00.799 biggest busy period, weirdly. It's when there's 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.100 less projects going on and people can focus on 00:12:03.100 --> 00:12:05.799 stuff like knowledge management and such, like 00:12:05.799 --> 00:12:08.580 they put their projects down for a bit. And we 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:11.320 didn't have the, you know, weren't as quite as 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:13.539 busy as we were expecting. Some of the deals 00:12:13.539 --> 00:12:15.659 that we were hoping to close didn't seem to be. 00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:17.679 And then we noticed that some of the renewals 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.080 that we were hoping for weren't happening. We're 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:22.899 like, oh, what's going on here? Over the next 00:12:22.899 --> 00:12:25.700 month or so, especially March was the peak time. 00:12:25.870 --> 00:12:30.250 companies just started wiping out, not just UX, 00:12:30.470 --> 00:12:32.629 but I think when I've looked at the numbers, 00:12:32.830 --> 00:12:35.769 it looks like UX was less affected because, you 00:12:35.769 --> 00:12:37.870 know, for every five developers that were fired, 00:12:37.990 --> 00:12:40.250 one UX was. But then most companies, there's 00:12:40.250 --> 00:12:42.549 normally about 20 developers to one UX. So I 00:12:42.549 --> 00:12:44.590 think there was about four times more UX people 00:12:44.590 --> 00:12:47.389 and research designers, those kind of people, 00:12:47.450 --> 00:12:50.190 those people adjacent to knowledge and research 00:12:50.190 --> 00:12:54.669 getting fired. And certainly I know of many of 00:12:54.669 --> 00:12:56.769 the companies we worked with, whole teams disappeared. 00:12:57.690 --> 00:13:01.110 They had no UX people left anymore. Fundamentally 00:13:01.110 --> 00:13:02.669 speaks, I think this is going slightly off subject, 00:13:02.870 --> 00:13:05.629 but fundamentally speaks to a failure within 00:13:05.629 --> 00:13:08.250 my industry for not really showing its value 00:13:08.250 --> 00:13:10.409 and not proving itself that they've felt that 00:13:10.409 --> 00:13:12.809 they're practically done. But from our business 00:13:12.809 --> 00:13:15.809 point of view, Suddenbush is a subscription -based 00:13:15.809 --> 00:13:18.629 business and relies on that renewal and either 00:13:18.629 --> 00:13:21.240 monthly or annual renewal. And it meant that 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:23.259 not only were we not closing, we're not getting 00:13:23.259 --> 00:13:28.100 new business as much, but a lot of the companies 00:13:28.100 --> 00:13:30.080 that have been with us from day one, if not even 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:31.899 before that, suddenly weren't renewing. There's 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:33.360 literally nothing we could do about it because 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:35.620 they weren't there anymore. There was no failure 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:38.279 from our side. It doesn't matter what product 00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:41.159 or what a price it was or anything like that. 00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:42.879 Just literally there weren't people there who 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:45.740 needed it anymore. Now we were able to bear that 00:13:45.740 --> 00:13:48.379 out. bloody difficult, but we were able to bear 00:13:48.379 --> 00:13:50.360 that out because we built a sustainable business. 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:55.919 We weren't debt -based. We weren't based on projected 00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:59.019 growth. We were hoping for growth. We had a really 00:13:59.019 --> 00:14:01.600 good year planned out and I'm glad to say that 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:03.259 we're back on track with that now, better than 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:05.440 ever in fact. But it meant that suddenly for 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:08.000 a year, we had to kind of shore up a little bit. 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:10.759 Now, this is where My investors were going, stop 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:13.039 spending money on product and probably that would 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:14.460 have been a better thing to do. We'd probably 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:16.559 have more money in the bank, but I would have 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:18.720 lost all that knowledge and all that talent and 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:21.639 all of the people who, luckily I'd built a really 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:24.220 good relationship with my team that when there 00:14:24.220 --> 00:14:26.580 was a couple of months that we did have a shortfall 00:14:26.580 --> 00:14:28.000 and I said, guys, look, we're not going to be 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:30.460 able to make the next round of invoices. They 00:14:30.460 --> 00:14:32.320 were able to go, it's all right. You're fine. 00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:34.720 We can hold off for a month or two. In fact, 00:14:34.779 --> 00:14:36.379 the first time I remember, I went to my developers 00:14:36.379 --> 00:14:39.100 and said, Yeah, it's good. We've got some scary 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:40.679 months coming up. There's a big renewal happening 00:14:40.679 --> 00:14:43.139 this month But if that doesn't come in for any 00:14:43.139 --> 00:14:45.240 reason we might have a trouble and then this 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.500 next month It looks like it's gonna be sure I 00:14:47.500 --> 00:14:49.799 was really open and honest with them. And anyway, 00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:51.539 so I said there may be a chance next month I 00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:53.240 won't be able to pay your bills this month. It 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:54.639 might be a month or two afterwards But we've 00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:56.399 got this one which I've already guaranteed is 00:14:56.399 --> 00:15:00.340 coming in in two months time Anyway, they went 00:15:00.340 --> 00:15:01.759 back and said, we just have to go and think about 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:03.200 this. I was like, oh no, I'm going to lose them. 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:04.539 I'm going to lose them. They came back and they 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:05.899 said, right, we've looked at it. We looked at 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:08.460 our figures. We can go six months without being 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:12.519 paid. I was like, what? Wow. That is, that's 00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:14.419 a lot of commitment right there. Yeah. And I 00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:15.419 was like, I don't need that. They went, no, no, 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:16.980 we know that. We know you don't need it. Hopefully 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:18.419 it will come in the next two months. So anyway, 00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:20.120 just to let you know, we can go six months and 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:21.679 we're willing to go six months. We can afford 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:24.600 to go six months. And you know, if that's okay. 00:15:24.679 --> 00:15:28.320 And I was like, yeah. Did they have shares in 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.580 the business or? Because that's a really big, 00:15:30.779 --> 00:15:34.100 do they have shares in the business? Yeah. Wow. 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:41.679 Their rationale was they trusted me. I'd always 00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:44.220 been open to them. I'd been really clear all 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:47.259 the way before that. I'll move on to another 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.220 story with the opposite of this after, but the, 00:15:50.220 --> 00:15:51.700 um, you know, I'd always been really open to 00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:53.620 them about, you know, financially, how we're 00:15:53.620 --> 00:15:55.679 doing, what's happening and you know, they're 00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:58.120 included in all of that. It's completely transparent. 00:15:58.919 --> 00:16:02.019 Um, they, but more than anything, they enjoyed 00:16:02.019 --> 00:16:05.179 and love, love working on the product, you know, 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:06.840 so they enjoy working in the business with the 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:08.580 team, but they also cared about the product and 00:16:08.580 --> 00:16:11.039 they believe in the product and they know they 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:13.240 understood the situation. It wasn't a failure 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:15.559 and they realized that this would, you know, 00:16:16.170 --> 00:16:18.950 We saw March was a massive drop down and then 00:16:18.950 --> 00:16:21.210 from March started climbing up. So there were 00:16:21.210 --> 00:16:23.529 still people firing, but people were starting 00:16:23.529 --> 00:16:26.129 to get rehired slowly. And actually in the end, 00:16:26.169 --> 00:16:29.730 that ended up being a boom for us because the 00:16:29.730 --> 00:16:32.909 product is good enough. One of our biggest growth 00:16:32.909 --> 00:16:35.590 areas is people leaving a business and taking 00:16:35.590 --> 00:16:38.159 us elsewhere. And it's one of my proudest metrics 00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:40.200 is that so often on a sales call, we see someone 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:42.120 who was in a different business. They've joined 00:16:42.120 --> 00:16:43.399 a new company. One of the first things they've 00:16:43.399 --> 00:16:46.379 done is to set what we need to use neatly. Well, 00:16:46.759 --> 00:16:48.700 you know, that wouldn't have happened if we treated 00:16:48.700 --> 00:16:50.960 them like shit or took advantage of them and 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:53.259 didn't look, you know, try and always build the 00:16:53.259 --> 00:16:55.039 best product we could for them. Not to say a 00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:56.840 product is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, 00:16:57.240 --> 00:17:00.360 but yeah, that's, I kind of feel that that's 00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:03.879 what saved our lives is. caring about products 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:07.019 in the first place and our team and caring about 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:08.559 our customers and delivering a good product to 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.819 them. So, you know, but then we're not the size 00:17:11.819 --> 00:17:15.440 of Spotify either. So maybe I'm wrong. I don't 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:16.759 think you are. It's actually quite interesting 00:17:16.759 --> 00:17:20.299 because I was just thinking about what leadership 00:17:20.299 --> 00:17:23.640 tricks and tips you can give to people because 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.880 this, this is I guess that yeah. It's a testament 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:30.319 to a true leader when you get people coming back 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:31.759 to you and say, hey, we can go for six months 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:33.839 without pay because we believe in what we're 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:36.279 doing and we believe in everything that we stand 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:39.599 for. That speaks volumes, right? I'd like to 00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:41.559 think so. I was shocked by it. I was blown away. 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:44.880 It was really quite an emotional thing to happen 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.819 as well. It wasn't something I was ashamed of. 00:17:47.869 --> 00:17:49.869 There was even going to be a month where we would 00:17:49.869 --> 00:17:52.829 be able to cover them. And there was a few months 00:17:52.829 --> 00:17:55.289 then and afterwards where that happened. And 00:17:55.289 --> 00:17:56.930 it was nice that I had that to fall back on. 00:17:57.009 --> 00:17:59.769 We never had to borrow money extra. We didn't 00:17:59.769 --> 00:18:01.289 have to do like bridge loans or anything like 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:04.170 that, or sell off shares, you know, too low to 00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:07.089 cover us over or anything like that. So it literally, 00:18:07.089 --> 00:18:10.369 they saved our businesses life, I would say. 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:14.210 I'll always be grateful for that. But, you know, 00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:18.039 you could also make the argument that They shouldn't 00:18:18.039 --> 00:18:19.460 necessarily have been in the business at all 00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:21.599 at the time. That burn rate could have been so 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:23.359 much lower. We could have more money in the bank 00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:26.660 if we had just focused on growth and reinvesting 00:18:26.660 --> 00:18:29.380 into marketing and stuff rather than building 00:18:29.380 --> 00:18:31.619 the product. I don't know. It's a difficult one. 00:18:32.019 --> 00:18:36.079 As a researcher, what's really difficult is I 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:38.799 can tell anecdotes, but that might have been 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:41.779 fairly specific to them. I don't have a control 00:18:41.779 --> 00:18:43.619 to say, well, actually, if we'd done it the opposite 00:18:43.619 --> 00:18:45.119 way around, it would have been less successful 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:50.990 and more successful. So yeah, I think my policy 00:18:50.990 --> 00:18:54.549 has always been transparency and honesty. And 00:18:54.549 --> 00:18:56.210 I've seen the opposite. So I said, I'll show 00:18:56.210 --> 00:18:58.349 you an example of the opposite of that happening. 00:18:59.230 --> 00:19:01.049 I remember when I was working, I'm not going 00:19:01.049 --> 00:19:02.950 to mention your names very carefully here, but 00:19:02.950 --> 00:19:05.109 for a lot of my career, I've worked as a contractor. 00:19:06.109 --> 00:19:10.869 And quite often, because you're a contractor, 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:13.700 brought in to deal with certain problems, you're 00:19:13.700 --> 00:19:16.700 quite exposed to kind of the inner workings of 00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:18.559 an organization, but still kind of slightly from 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:20.539 the outside, which is interesting. So it was 00:19:20.539 --> 00:19:22.359 a company I was working for, and I'd been there 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:25.420 for about three months to six on contract. And 00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:28.500 they said that I was in a meeting with the board 00:19:28.500 --> 00:19:31.119 and senior people there. And they said, look, 00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:34.079 we've got cashflow issues coming up. What we're 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:37.000 going to do is just fire a load of people. We 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:40.279 need to get rid of about 50 people from our organization. 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:42.160 And it's a medium sized organization. I think 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.119 they would say they had about 250 people. So 00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:48.940 it's significant portions. Now to do that in 00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:52.319 the UK, you can't have contractors and fire permanent 00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:53.680 staff. You have to get rid of the contractors 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:57.960 first, because obviously that role must be available. 00:19:58.160 --> 00:19:59.880 Otherwise you wouldn't be contracting people 00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:02.240 for it. So they said, sorry Dan, you guys are 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:04.140 going to have to go. So don't tell anyone we're 00:20:04.140 --> 00:20:06.000 going to announce it next Thursday. So keep this 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.250 under your hat. Next Thursday rolls around, they 00:20:09.250 --> 00:20:10.490 have a big announcement, they say, well, we've 00:20:10.490 --> 00:20:12.230 got good news. Errol's been complaining we're 00:20:12.230 --> 00:20:14.009 spending too much on contractors and we should 00:20:14.009 --> 00:20:16.430 be hiring perm staff, investing on perm staff. 00:20:16.630 --> 00:20:17.990 So we've made the decision we're getting rid 00:20:17.990 --> 00:20:20.890 of contractors. And I was like, hold up, no, 00:20:20.910 --> 00:20:22.309 you're getting rid of contractors so you can 00:20:22.309 --> 00:20:26.650 fire them. It was just the most, but the thing 00:20:26.650 --> 00:20:29.210 is, of course, that didn't work. They completely 00:20:29.210 --> 00:20:32.250 lied through their teeth and word quickly got 00:20:32.250 --> 00:20:34.980 around the truth of the matter. You know, someone 00:20:34.980 --> 00:20:36.940 blabbed and someone told someone like, yeah, 00:20:37.059 --> 00:20:39.019 just between you and I update your CV and they 00:20:39.019 --> 00:20:40.900 told someone else they know it's between you 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:43.059 and I update your CV. Before you know it, at 00:20:43.059 --> 00:20:45.000 the end of the, you know, there was a month then 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.359 they'd already lost about 40 % of their staff. 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:49.880 Good news, they didn't have to fire people. The 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:53.460 bad news is that was mostly the best people they 00:20:53.460 --> 00:20:55.019 had, you know, the people who could easily just 00:20:55.019 --> 00:20:58.269 turn around and get a job somewhere else. drain 00:20:58.269 --> 00:21:00.210 of the knowledge out of it. I mean, obviously 00:21:00.210 --> 00:21:02.470 that's kind of my subject matter as well is recording 00:21:02.470 --> 00:21:05.650 knowledge. So when you lose people, you know, 00:21:05.990 --> 00:21:08.390 they didn't have a good knowledge management 00:21:08.390 --> 00:21:10.569 system. And even if you did, you still all that 00:21:10.569 --> 00:21:14.890 talent and people that had left a perfectly functional 00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:17.569 business, they weren't even, it wasn't that they 00:21:17.569 --> 00:21:19.430 had a cashflow problem that they were going in 00:21:19.430 --> 00:21:21.349 debt. It was just that they, you know, they wanted 00:21:21.349 --> 00:21:22.970 to balance out a little bit more, maybe have 00:21:22.970 --> 00:21:24.890 a little, you know, show a little bit more profit 00:21:24.890 --> 00:21:28.069 to the investors. And they turned what could 00:21:28.069 --> 00:21:31.309 have been a little bit of a difficult conversation 00:21:31.309 --> 00:21:35.269 with the shareholders into a dramatic issue which 00:21:35.269 --> 00:21:38.170 nearly killed the business. Isn't that what happened 00:21:38.170 --> 00:21:40.670 with Boeing, for example? We've seen that happen 00:21:40.670 --> 00:21:43.390 lately in the news and everyone's criticizing 00:21:43.390 --> 00:21:45.690 Boeing CEO. They say, actually, you've done great 00:21:45.690 --> 00:21:47.690 for the shareholders because you massively reduced 00:21:47.690 --> 00:21:51.730 costs, but that did come at, you know, It had 00:21:51.730 --> 00:21:55.170 some really bad results as a consequence. So 00:21:55.170 --> 00:21:57.069 you kind of see that happening where you have 00:21:57.069 --> 00:21:59.309 someone who was very good finances just looking 00:21:59.309 --> 00:22:02.170 at the finances of the business and then not 00:22:02.170 --> 00:22:03.950 actually focusing on actually does matter for 00:22:03.950 --> 00:22:06.269 the business. So I guess it happens all the time. 00:22:07.470 --> 00:22:09.250 There's another company I can talk about this 00:22:09.250 --> 00:22:10.690 because it was long ago and also that company 00:22:10.690 --> 00:22:13.309 doesn't exist anymore but I used to work for 00:22:13.309 --> 00:22:17.619 a car retailer. And they retailed several brands, 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:20.619 including Fiat, Renault, and such like. And the 00:22:20.619 --> 00:22:23.740 way that that deal works is you get so much for 00:22:23.740 --> 00:22:25.400 selling a car, you get so much for the finance, 00:22:25.539 --> 00:22:27.940 but also you get a bonus for hitting certain 00:22:27.940 --> 00:22:31.119 targets for the manufacturer. Now, this company, 00:22:31.400 --> 00:22:32.859 they kept their costs, I think it was quite a 00:22:32.859 --> 00:22:34.559 standard thing to practice at the time, but they 00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:36.599 kept their prices really low and their sales 00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:39.500 very high and relied on the bonuses as the profits. 00:22:39.579 --> 00:22:41.700 They made no profit on selling a car, they made 00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:44.259 it all on hitting these bonuses. So one quarter, 00:22:44.299 --> 00:22:46.339 they didn't make their bonuses. And what they 00:22:46.339 --> 00:22:50.640 did then is say, well, we're a big retail of 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:53.240 yours. You either pay us the bonus we just missed. 00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:55.599 We're only a little bit off. So just pay us that. 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:57.579 Otherwise, we're going to stop selling your cars. 00:22:57.700 --> 00:22:59.460 And they went, no, that's the deal. It's black 00:22:59.460 --> 00:23:01.000 and white. You don't hit that target. You don't 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:02.740 get the bonus. They went, okay, well, we're not 00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:04.099 going to pay you for the cars that we bought. 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:06.400 They went, okay, well, we won't supply the cars 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.779 that you've bought. And they were so pigment 00:23:08.779 --> 00:23:11.700 about this that they, and they started trying 00:23:11.700 --> 00:23:14.289 to You know, they basically were pushing and 00:23:14.289 --> 00:23:17.329 pushing, pushing. They fell flat. Because they 00:23:17.329 --> 00:23:18.869 were so focused on this, they ended up missing, 00:23:18.990 --> 00:23:20.269 I don't know whether it's because of that, but 00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:21.950 my belief is because they were so focused on 00:23:21.950 --> 00:23:24.230 this argument with one manufacturer. The next 00:23:24.230 --> 00:23:26.390 quarter, they ended up missing three bonus from 00:23:26.390 --> 00:23:29.410 three different manufacturers. And suddenly they 00:23:29.410 --> 00:23:31.690 were basically on stock with most of their suppliers. 00:23:32.829 --> 00:23:34.710 Liquidators came in and took three fives for 00:23:34.710 --> 00:23:37.730 the second -hand cars on the lot as well. The 00:23:37.730 --> 00:23:40.269 company kept on selling. they were still taking 00:23:40.269 --> 00:23:43.329 deposits for cars, new cars and they kept selling 00:23:43.329 --> 00:23:45.329 the second -hand cars they didn't even legally 00:23:45.329 --> 00:23:47.950 own anymore. Now I remember the day that they 00:23:47.950 --> 00:23:50.509 actually made us all redundant and because they 00:23:50.509 --> 00:23:52.869 were got very nasty trying to force people out 00:23:52.869 --> 00:23:55.329 and leave but you know in the end there was enough 00:23:55.329 --> 00:23:57.589 people stuck around that they had to give redundancy. 00:23:57.720 --> 00:24:01.119 payments out and the guy flew in on his helicopter 00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:03.960 landed came in told us that we were all fired 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:05.599 and then flew off with his helicopter again and 00:24:05.599 --> 00:24:06.920 it's like one of those where you're like this 00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:09.279 is so stupid you've got to listen so about this 00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:11.400 but also you're like and then you've just flown 00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:13.640 home in your helicopter whereas you know i no 00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:16.240 longer have my my even my business car anymore 00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:22.900 so it was yeah okay yeah strange situation Well, 00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:24.759 it kind of brings me to another question when 00:24:24.759 --> 00:24:27.279 she is, how do you see the UK market? Because 00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:29.539 all these companies have been in UK, you had 00:24:29.539 --> 00:24:32.619 tons of experience. Do you see it as a good place 00:24:32.619 --> 00:24:36.039 to launch a startup to grow business? Or do you 00:24:36.039 --> 00:24:39.619 see there's a lot of, you know, gatekeepers and 00:24:39.619 --> 00:24:44.220 it's quite hard to do a business in the UK? So 00:24:44.220 --> 00:24:49.440 do you mean to sell products in the UK or to 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:51.819 get investments as being a base of operations? 00:24:52.190 --> 00:24:54.789 I mean it as to actually launch the business 00:24:54.789 --> 00:24:56.910 and for the business to be successful. That's 00:24:56.910 --> 00:24:59.410 a combination of reaching out to investors and 00:24:59.410 --> 00:25:02.170 them investing in your company, but also to actually 00:25:02.170 --> 00:25:04.410 launch a new product and making sure that the 00:25:04.410 --> 00:25:08.349 product is successful. I would say there's positive 00:25:08.349 --> 00:25:10.990 and negatives and some just kind of I'm not sure 00:25:10.990 --> 00:25:12.809 whether it's anything particularly unique about 00:25:12.809 --> 00:25:20.720 the UK. So the positives are that There are a 00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:23.039 lot of government incentives and things like 00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:27.059 that for investors and therefore people seeking 00:25:27.059 --> 00:25:30.400 investment. So like SEIS and EIS, which do you 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:32.900 know what they are? Is it worth giving a brief 00:25:32.900 --> 00:25:37.720 overview? We actually had an entire podcast on 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:43.299 SEIS from my founders catalyst. Go and look up 00:25:43.299 --> 00:25:46.559 that podcast listeners, especially if you're 00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:49.000 looking for investment. have investment because 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:51.559 it's a damn good deal if you've got money to 00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:54.420 put down, right? And yeah, so there's benefits 00:25:54.420 --> 00:25:57.740 like that. There's all sorts of things like UK 00:25:57.740 --> 00:26:00.519 Innovation Fund and grants and stuff that's available. 00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:03.579 We've had, especially in the early days, we did 00:26:03.579 --> 00:26:06.660 a lot of work with the universities, which gave 00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:09.319 us a bit of a blast forward because we were quite 00:26:09.319 --> 00:26:12.579 a research and innovation based business. So 00:26:12.579 --> 00:26:18.009 until recently, the tax, what's it called? R 00:26:18.009 --> 00:26:20.630 &D tax credits were really good. It's now almost 00:26:20.630 --> 00:26:22.890 impossible to actually get that money. As a business 00:26:22.890 --> 00:26:25.670 that actually does real R &D, obviously so many 00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:27.549 organisations are taking the mickey with it. 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:29.569 But they made it so difficult now, it's just 00:26:29.569 --> 00:26:31.210 not even worth spending the time on, I don't 00:26:31.210 --> 00:26:35.490 think. Unless you maybe are, I'm sure the situation 00:26:35.490 --> 00:26:39.630 is where it is. So there are some benefits. I 00:26:39.630 --> 00:26:42.210 would say that the investment culture here, and 00:26:42.210 --> 00:26:44.190 I don't know how that is different to other countries. 00:26:44.809 --> 00:26:46.690 The easiest one I compare it to because it's 00:26:46.690 --> 00:26:49.269 the only one I know in any amount is like the 00:26:49.269 --> 00:26:52.430 US investment world, especially tech investment 00:26:52.430 --> 00:26:55.410 world, where money seems to be a lot easier to 00:26:55.410 --> 00:26:57.569 get hold of and you can get a lot more earlier. 00:26:58.009 --> 00:27:00.289 In the UK, I'd say it's more conservative in 00:27:00.289 --> 00:27:02.849 terms of how much they're looking to put down 00:27:02.849 --> 00:27:06.289 and invest and risk. And it seems to be a lot 00:27:06.289 --> 00:27:08.170 more focused on who you know rather than what 00:27:08.170 --> 00:27:11.670 you know. Um, so that can be good or bad depending 00:27:11.670 --> 00:27:14.430 on your situation. You know, the amount of products 00:27:14.430 --> 00:27:17.690 I see funded that are fundamentally failed at 00:27:17.690 --> 00:27:20.450 the most basic level, um, in my opinion, of course, 00:27:20.890 --> 00:27:22.670 but, um, you know, then go on and completely 00:27:22.670 --> 00:27:26.670 fail. So, um, the, you know, and, and it's because 00:27:26.670 --> 00:27:29.009 they, they, they know the right people and they, 00:27:29.109 --> 00:27:31.690 you know, they, It's not like some secretive 00:27:31.690 --> 00:27:33.990 thing, it's just that people trust who they know 00:27:33.990 --> 00:27:36.029 and if you can help your friend out, you're going 00:27:36.029 --> 00:27:38.369 to, right? And I think there's maybe that little 00:27:38.369 --> 00:27:41.750 bit of an old school thing. So probably being 00:27:41.750 --> 00:27:45.250 white and male and going to school in certain 00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:48.490 schools, especially in particular universities 00:27:48.490 --> 00:27:51.670 and stuff probably doesn't do any harm or having 00:27:51.670 --> 00:27:54.029 worked in a company in some blue chip with someone 00:27:54.029 --> 00:27:55.789 who's moved on to be an investor, all that kind 00:27:55.789 --> 00:27:59.099 of thing that helps. So as someone who doesn't 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:01.279 know those people, though, as just white males, 00:28:01.480 --> 00:28:06.579 I have some benefits there. Yeah, I'd say that 00:28:06.579 --> 00:28:10.539 can be a challenge. Though saying that there 00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:13.039 are some great funds set up for like women -owned 00:28:13.039 --> 00:28:15.759 or being BAME -owned businesses and stuff now. 00:28:16.299 --> 00:28:18.180 So I think that is changing in a really positive 00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:22.079 way. Yes so i think it's a bit more conservative 00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:24.240 here i don't think that's a bad thing and some 00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:26.819 of some there's been some startups i've worked 00:28:26.819 --> 00:28:28.779 with where the biggest problem they had is they 00:28:28.779 --> 00:28:31.380 have too much money too early there's one organization 00:28:31.380 --> 00:28:34.940 in particular that's um uh raised 50 million 00:28:34.940 --> 00:28:37.440 without a product you know it's 50 million seed 00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:40.779 level and well that's very impressive they were 00:28:40.779 --> 00:28:44.750 gone within eight months yeah i don't It was 00:28:44.750 --> 00:28:47.369 actually a genuinely good idea as well and great 00:28:47.369 --> 00:28:49.430 people behind it. There was no actual real thing. 00:28:49.890 --> 00:28:51.769 I'm not going to go into the details of why it 00:28:51.769 --> 00:28:55.150 failed. What didn't help is that money came so 00:28:55.150 --> 00:28:57.569 easy to them and there were so many noughts on 00:28:57.569 --> 00:28:59.809 the end that they kind of just, you know, every 00:28:59.809 --> 00:29:02.309 Friday, right, we're going down the pub now, 00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:04.670 cast behind the bar, eat and drink as much as 00:29:04.670 --> 00:29:07.630 you like, you know? And I'm sure it barely put 00:29:07.630 --> 00:29:10.150 a dent into it. But I kind of do believe in that 00:29:10.150 --> 00:29:12.450 adage, if you don't look after pennies, you know, 00:29:12.930 --> 00:29:14.569 you have to look for pennies and pounds of hollow 00:29:14.569 --> 00:29:16.970 kind of thing. And there's even if you've got 00:29:16.970 --> 00:29:19.690 50 million in the bank. Yeah, of course, let's 00:29:19.690 --> 00:29:21.730 let's celebrate things. Let's have a treat for 00:29:21.730 --> 00:29:23.470 the, you know, we need to get people motivated. 00:29:23.890 --> 00:29:25.609 You know, that there's no negative than that. 00:29:25.869 --> 00:29:29.130 But also, you know, probably you shouldn't be 00:29:29.130 --> 00:29:32.710 looking up Bentleys and such like and buying 00:29:32.710 --> 00:29:37.480 yourselves nice cars. My dad, so I'm from kind 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:40.039 of an entrepreneur family, every single member 00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:43.759 of my direct family has or has had their own 00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:49.960 business and my dad who's a retailer has always 00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:52.440 said like the biggest sign a company is going 00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:54.099 to go under is when they go out and buy themselves 00:29:54.099 --> 00:29:57.369 fancy cars. I don't know if i completely as someone 00:29:57.369 --> 00:29:59.630 who buys themselves fancy cars not fancy ones 00:29:59.630 --> 00:30:02.630 maybe but because i love anyway um i don't know 00:30:02.630 --> 00:30:04.150 whether i agree with that but his point was is 00:30:04.150 --> 00:30:05.890 when they start spending frivolously they think 00:30:05.890 --> 00:30:08.490 they've made it and thinks they can't fail that's 00:30:08.490 --> 00:30:10.589 normally when they start to lose grip you know 00:30:10.589 --> 00:30:12.490 they haven't actually established themselves 00:30:12.490 --> 00:30:14.630 enough to be able to go out and make these purchases 00:30:14.630 --> 00:30:17.809 um so um yeah i don't think it's as simple as 00:30:17.809 --> 00:30:19.809 he makes out but it's not a bad point right it's 00:30:19.809 --> 00:30:23.059 good but it's hard isn't it i think When you're 00:30:23.059 --> 00:30:25.059 an entrepreneur, if you think about it, it's 00:30:25.059 --> 00:30:28.160 the fine balance between having a strong enough 00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:30.900 ego to deal with all the blows you're gonna get 00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:33.000 along the way and then to actually say, you know 00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:35.779 what, I could spend this money on a nice Bentley 00:30:35.779 --> 00:30:38.480 or whatever it might be, or I can just keep it 00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:41.140 for a rainy day, continue driving my Honda or 00:30:41.140 --> 00:30:43.920 something. It's a really hard thing to do. I 00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.019 mean, I've only seen one person do that, which 00:30:46.019 --> 00:30:48.799 actually Jeff Bezos was famously interviewed 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:53.059 in his Honda Accord, I think in 1999. And people 00:30:53.059 --> 00:30:55.000 say you have so much money in your bank, why 00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:56.279 are you still driving the Honda? And they said, 00:30:56.299 --> 00:30:58.220 well, still drives, why would I change my car? 00:30:59.299 --> 00:31:02.099 But it's it's a hard thing. No, that's someone 00:31:02.099 --> 00:31:05.099 who really loves their cars is I mean, I sold 00:31:05.099 --> 00:31:09.119 my car to start cleanly. And that made me to 00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:12.400 not work for about six months. And, you know, 00:31:13.180 --> 00:31:14.759 just as COVID hit as well, which didn't help. 00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:20.109 But the but yeah, like, Of course, you know, 00:31:20.150 --> 00:31:21.529 if there's something you're passionate about 00:31:21.529 --> 00:31:23.329 and it makes your life richer and such like, 00:31:23.470 --> 00:31:25.789 I think it's when it's to show off. And yeah, 00:31:25.910 --> 00:31:27.490 there's that kind of phrase like fake it till 00:31:27.490 --> 00:31:33.190 you make it. what's better to do. Or maybe if 00:31:33.190 --> 00:31:35.329 things are looking good, there is this perception 00:31:35.329 --> 00:31:41.769 that it's always going to be like that. It's 00:31:41.769 --> 00:31:44.450 the same as people who win the lottery or maybe 00:31:44.450 --> 00:31:47.289 they get a job that's a lot of money at the time 00:31:47.289 --> 00:31:52.609 and they spend it all. It's not that you shouldn't 00:31:52.609 --> 00:31:54.450 enjoy life while you've got it. Absolutely, you 00:31:54.450 --> 00:31:56.250 should. And perhaps I should be a little bit 00:31:56.250 --> 00:31:57.710 more like that. I'm a bit more of a tight ass, 00:31:57.750 --> 00:32:02.759 unfortunately. Parents are both northern. So 00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:07.480 maybe there's a cliche. Short arms, long pockets. 00:32:07.930 --> 00:32:12.410 But at the same time, I'm someone who's quite 00:32:12.410 --> 00:32:15.869 money anxious, which is difficult as an entrepreneur 00:32:15.869 --> 00:32:18.069 because the thing I find most stressful is not 00:32:18.069 --> 00:32:21.049 having enough cash in the bank. I think everyone 00:32:21.049 --> 00:32:24.390 finds it stressful, but I think I probably struggle 00:32:24.390 --> 00:32:26.589 with it more than a lot of people who are willing 00:32:26.589 --> 00:32:28.829 to remortgage their house. I would never remortgage 00:32:28.829 --> 00:32:30.630 my house. I've never put my family at risk for 00:32:30.630 --> 00:32:33.019 business. my family is more important. Whereas 00:32:33.019 --> 00:32:34.940 a proper ultra now I think would probably take 00:32:34.940 --> 00:32:36.819 that risk and take that gamble on themselves. 00:32:37.980 --> 00:32:40.039 So I always have a backup. It's a big gamble. 00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:42.619 But it's always a big gamble, isn't it? Because 00:32:42.619 --> 00:32:44.640 it's one thing when you're taking a risk, it's 00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:46.460 one thing like you said, they have a backup of 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:49.500 a backup. And it's another thing to gamble things 00:32:49.500 --> 00:32:54.619 that are are your I guess your Necessity is your 00:32:54.619 --> 00:32:57.079 bare necessity. So if you put in the house into 00:32:57.079 --> 00:32:58.900 a second mortgage on house to get money to invest 00:32:58.900 --> 00:33:00.500 in the business, that's a really big gamble. 00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:02.640 Not everyone can actually do that. Even mentally, 00:33:03.319 --> 00:33:06.720 the stress must be unbelievable. For this business, 00:33:07.019 --> 00:33:12.079 I sold my car at M6 and BMW and it was a lovely 00:33:12.079 --> 00:33:13.759 car and such. Not that I'm really passionate 00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:17.880 about it. And I sold that to Libom for the first 00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:23.339 three, four, five months. And I left a very reasonably 00:33:23.339 --> 00:33:27.259 well, pretty well paying job to, to work on the 00:33:27.259 --> 00:33:29.039 business. So I missed out on that income for 00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:32.039 that period of time. And for business that I 00:33:32.039 --> 00:33:33.440 knew wasn't going to be able to pay me for at 00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:36.420 least a good few years, if at all. And so that 00:33:36.420 --> 00:33:39.599 was a gamble. That was a risk. But I never ever 00:33:39.599 --> 00:33:41.400 put my family at risk. They, you know, we could 00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:43.700 live without that car. We had, you know, an old 00:33:43.700 --> 00:33:45.759 banger that we could drive around and you know, 00:33:46.619 --> 00:33:48.660 the mortgage was still going to get paid and 00:33:48.660 --> 00:33:50.799 I could always go back. and find another job, 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:52.460 you know, and I would have missed out on that 00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:55.319 income in the meantime. That is my level of risk. 00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:58.359 But there's some people who will, you know, sell, 00:33:58.740 --> 00:34:00.599 remortgage their house and if it doesn't work 00:34:00.599 --> 00:34:02.099 out, that's, you know, we lost the roof over 00:34:02.099 --> 00:34:04.220 our head and people like that. That for me is 00:34:04.220 --> 00:34:06.859 the definition of what is an entrepreneur, someone 00:34:06.859 --> 00:34:09.380 who, you know, is actually risked, you know, 00:34:09.380 --> 00:34:11.719 goes out and I don't necessarily think it's the 00:34:11.719 --> 00:34:13.780 right thing to do or something that's necessary 00:34:13.780 --> 00:34:16.519 or you won't be successful without that. You 00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:18.539 know, Warren Buffett, for example, is a good 00:34:18.539 --> 00:34:21.619 example of someone who, you know, famously he 00:34:21.619 --> 00:34:23.719 still goes and gets his McDonald's in the morning 00:34:23.719 --> 00:34:26.340 and if the markets are down, he doesn't get, 00:34:26.679 --> 00:34:28.579 is it something like he doesn't get like a drink? 00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:31.039 He only gets, he doesn't get a side or something 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:32.920 like that if the markets are down. So he saves 00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:36.460 that extra 79 cents. So maybe that's a bit much. 00:34:38.199 --> 00:34:40.260 He's quite well off. I think he can probably 00:34:40.260 --> 00:34:43.579 afford that extra thing. And I don't know how 00:34:43.579 --> 00:34:45.360 much of that is like marketing, like kind of 00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:48.019 personal marketing as well, you know, so maybe 00:34:48.019 --> 00:34:50.219 that's because he also owns a share in all those 00:34:50.219 --> 00:34:51.940 companies, doesn't it? Because I think he owns 00:34:51.940 --> 00:34:54.199 a share in McDonald's and Coca Cola and Dairy 00:34:54.199 --> 00:34:56.139 Queen and all those. So every time he goes and 00:34:56.139 --> 00:34:58.380 say, oh, this is what I eat every day. Is it? 00:34:59.279 --> 00:35:01.139 Yeah, I think that's probably the definition 00:35:01.139 --> 00:35:04.300 of built different, but probably not particularly 00:35:04.300 --> 00:35:07.519 healthy way of living either. But I think, because 00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:09.860 on the flip side, who was the other chap was 00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:12.199 it Sam Altman, who also was driving around in 00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:14.460 Old Bangor, it's company's worth billions. At 00:35:14.460 --> 00:35:18.440 the end of the day, it was all a scam. So I don't 00:35:18.440 --> 00:35:21.679 know how much of that was actually real. Maybe 00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:24.099 he just didn't care about cars, but you know, 00:35:24.099 --> 00:35:27.760 because he still had 12 million house in the 00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:29.820 Bahamas and such like. So it obviously was a 00:35:29.820 --> 00:35:33.900 completely anti luxury. So yeah, I'm kind of 00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:38.280 a little bit, I don't think there's a set way 00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:40.260 of coming back to your original question, what 00:35:40.260 --> 00:35:43.219 makes a good leader? For me, what makes a good 00:35:43.219 --> 00:35:46.869 leader is someone who's honest, who really cares, 00:35:46.869 --> 00:35:49.670 not just about themselves, but about the team 00:35:49.670 --> 00:35:52.010 and the product they're building. The best people 00:35:52.010 --> 00:35:54.510 I've ever worked for have been passionate about 00:35:54.510 --> 00:35:57.750 delivering something, right? And you want to 00:35:57.750 --> 00:35:59.869 do that with them. You want to be part of that. 00:35:59.949 --> 00:36:03.409 You want to help them. You'll maybe push a little 00:36:03.409 --> 00:36:07.969 bit harder and go a bit further. Because if you 00:36:07.969 --> 00:36:11.090 think you're just paying for their then you Mercedes 00:36:11.090 --> 00:36:13.610 or whatever, probably won't be so focused on 00:36:13.610 --> 00:36:17.610 it. But if you can tell that you can fake, you 00:36:17.610 --> 00:36:19.210 know, you're either passionate about it or you're 00:36:19.210 --> 00:36:23.969 not. And yeah, that's, that is a big motivator. 00:36:24.230 --> 00:36:27.050 I was reading somewhere on LinkedIn that someone 00:36:27.050 --> 00:36:29.050 said that in the beginning of a startup, you 00:36:29.050 --> 00:36:31.920 need to be not only passionate, but it can be 00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:34.219 crazy hours. And if you're not willing to either 00:36:34.219 --> 00:36:36.679 one of these two things, the startup will fail 00:36:36.679 --> 00:36:39.179 because the requirements you will have in the 00:36:39.179 --> 00:36:41.420 beginning are absolutely ludicrous. Have you 00:36:41.420 --> 00:36:44.360 found this to be true as well? That intensity, 00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:47.840 that passion, that crazy hours? Well, the thing 00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:49.679 is that in that regard, if you're, if you're 00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:51.260 passionate about it, it probably doesn't feel 00:36:51.260 --> 00:36:52.900 like work. You might be working on it in the 00:36:52.900 --> 00:36:55.360 evening or, you know, at the weekends and such 00:36:55.360 --> 00:36:57.639 like that. It's because you want to. I think 00:36:57.639 --> 00:36:59.989 there's a danger with, you know, Um, as long 00:36:59.989 --> 00:37:03.309 as ADHD, I've got a great risk of burning out. 00:37:03.929 --> 00:37:05.989 And I think a lot of people are, you know, burnout 00:37:05.989 --> 00:37:09.369 is a real, real problem. And, you know, so for 00:37:09.369 --> 00:37:11.150 instance, with my, with my stuff, it may sound 00:37:11.150 --> 00:37:13.949 like a bit hokey, but, um, I say, look, I'm paying 00:37:13.949 --> 00:37:17.190 you for six hours a day. And, um, so we don't 00:37:17.190 --> 00:37:19.670 do like a four day week or five day week. I'm 00:37:19.670 --> 00:37:22.079 paying you for six hours, five days a week. You 00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:24.099 can do those all on three days or you can do 00:37:24.099 --> 00:37:27.460 them across seven days. I expect four good quality 00:37:27.460 --> 00:37:29.880 hours per six hours, basically what I'm asking 00:37:29.880 --> 00:37:32.440 for. I don't expect you to be fully productive 00:37:32.440 --> 00:37:37.019 for those six hours, but I want you to be productive. 00:37:37.260 --> 00:37:41.260 And what I have found is that there is only so 00:37:41.260 --> 00:37:44.639 much time. These aren't business owners, of course, 00:37:45.099 --> 00:37:49.199 these are staff. But realistically, a human can 00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:53.000 only produced for so much time. Now for me, as 00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:56.420 I mentioned ADHD, I am super productive for two 00:37:56.420 --> 00:37:58.420 weeks, absolutely shit for two or three weeks, 00:37:58.460 --> 00:38:02.619 right? So I also suffer from that amazing quality. 00:38:02.619 --> 00:38:04.300 So I know exactly what you're talking about. 00:38:04.840 --> 00:38:06.699 It's like, Oh my God, he can do everything to 00:38:06.699 --> 00:38:08.840 he hasn't left the couch. What's wrong with him? 00:38:08.860 --> 00:38:12.869 So I know that. I used to say, I'm the most productive, 00:38:12.909 --> 00:38:15.570 lazy person in the world. What's going on? And 00:38:15.570 --> 00:38:19.510 yeah, there's pre -diagnosis. So yeah, I know 00:38:19.510 --> 00:38:21.949 that I'm on it at the moment. I'll work through, 00:38:22.110 --> 00:38:24.090 yeah, of course I will. But I've got two kids 00:38:24.090 --> 00:38:26.309 as well and a fat wife and you know, there's 00:38:26.309 --> 00:38:27.630 the stuff that needs to be done and you need 00:38:27.630 --> 00:38:29.989 to balance those things out. But actually being 00:38:29.989 --> 00:38:32.630 more aware of that and not pushing myself too 00:38:32.630 --> 00:38:34.730 hard when I'm, or saying yes to everything when 00:38:34.730 --> 00:38:38.309 I'm on, means that for those three weeks, then 00:38:38.309 --> 00:38:40.579 maybe become more like one week, or maybe actually 00:38:40.579 --> 00:38:42.420 I'd be quite productive through that period as 00:38:42.420 --> 00:38:43.900 well. So I think there needs to be a balance 00:38:43.900 --> 00:38:46.039 and individuals are different, right? Some people 00:38:46.039 --> 00:38:50.260 want to and can do. I wouldn't want to be somebody 00:38:50.260 --> 00:38:55.699 like, um, you know, uh, uh, I've forgotten his 00:38:55.699 --> 00:38:58.940 name, Thingy Gates from Microsoft. How have I 00:38:58.940 --> 00:39:01.969 forgotten his name? Bill Gates? No. Bill Gates, 00:39:02.170 --> 00:39:04.909 that's it. I can remember his first name. Famous, 00:39:05.070 --> 00:39:07.250 he used to sleep underneath the desk and such. 00:39:07.710 --> 00:39:10.670 I don't know how true these stories are, but 00:39:10.670 --> 00:39:15.909 this is what we hear. He obviously built one 00:39:15.909 --> 00:39:17.730 of the most valuable businesses in the world 00:39:17.730 --> 00:39:20.710 and it seemed probably to do that. He was probably 00:39:20.710 --> 00:39:23.210 hyper -focused for a very long amount of time 00:39:23.210 --> 00:39:28.880 and now is doing things very differently. I think 00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:31.539 I'm probably this is one of the reasons I'm not 00:39:31.539 --> 00:39:33.960 a business person in my mind is probably once 00:39:33.960 --> 00:39:37.559 I'd made 10, 50 million, I would probably gone 00:39:37.559 --> 00:39:40.000 like, well, that's probably enough now. You know, 00:39:40.300 --> 00:39:42.579 I'm probably just turn it down a little bit and 00:39:42.579 --> 00:39:45.260 enjoy, you know, before I have an aneurysm, you 00:39:45.260 --> 00:39:48.539 know, maybe not because you like cars. So I'm 00:39:48.539 --> 00:39:50.340 sure you can find a car for that amount of money 00:39:50.340 --> 00:39:53.210 that you want to buy, right? But if you gave 00:39:53.210 --> 00:39:56.489 me a few million pounds now, I would still work 00:39:56.489 --> 00:40:00.630 because I love what I do. During COVID, I was 00:40:00.630 --> 00:40:03.670 starting cleanly. So we got our first round of 00:40:03.670 --> 00:40:07.250 funding at the peak of COVID, which was a really 00:40:07.250 --> 00:40:09.610 interesting time for that to be happening. Do 00:40:09.610 --> 00:40:11.250 you remember when the stock markets were crashing 00:40:11.250 --> 00:40:13.809 and the lawyers are on the phone going, well, 00:40:13.889 --> 00:40:17.280 we're not sure about this. get this closed because 00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.559 they're going to pull tomorrow or money will 00:40:19.559 --> 00:40:21.820 be worthless. So, you know, we don't know what's 00:40:21.820 --> 00:40:24.179 going to happen. Let's just get it closed. And, 00:40:24.179 --> 00:40:27.780 but, you know, there was still, my wife suddenly 00:40:27.780 --> 00:40:30.320 was looking after her mum who was in terminal 00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:33.860 care and such like. And so I had quite a new 00:40:33.860 --> 00:40:36.679 baby under one arm sorting out the investment 00:40:36.679 --> 00:40:38.440 on the other. But there was still good big periods 00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:40.480 at night where I was like, I put a film on, I'm 00:40:40.480 --> 00:40:43.360 not really interested. And a friend of mine, 00:40:43.619 --> 00:40:47.010 we started a charity platform. called Wishy and 00:40:47.010 --> 00:40:48.550 it was just because we were discussing one day 00:40:48.550 --> 00:40:49.889 that kind of I was talking about the philosophy 00:40:49.889 --> 00:40:52.250 of giving and some of the challenges there is 00:40:52.250 --> 00:40:54.289 around charities and we kind of came up with 00:40:54.289 --> 00:40:58.190 an idea about this over the phone. Let's build 00:40:58.190 --> 00:41:00.750 it you know and it only took us two weeks but 00:41:00.750 --> 00:41:02.929 like once again it's that thing of like there's 00:41:02.929 --> 00:41:04.710 a problem there I think I know how to solve it 00:41:04.710 --> 00:41:06.329 well let's just go and give it a go I can't let 00:41:06.329 --> 00:41:09.590 it go now like a dog with a bone so I can kind 00:41:09.590 --> 00:41:11.409 of understand that you know working even if you 00:41:11.409 --> 00:41:13.849 don't need to but there has to be a balance doesn't 00:41:13.849 --> 00:41:17.099 there? I was just about to ask you, how do you 00:41:17.099 --> 00:41:19.440 manage that? How do you create balance? Even 00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:23.059 having ADHD, it's hard to have that balance. 00:41:26.719 --> 00:41:28.960 What support do you have around you that makes 00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:31.460 you keep that balance? Because it's not easy, 00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:36.139 is it? No, no, absolutely. And I think things 00:41:36.139 --> 00:41:39.550 were a lot different before I had a family. I 00:41:39.550 --> 00:41:43.730 used to have a design agency years ago and I'd 00:41:43.730 --> 00:41:45.750 quite often be there till 10, 11 o 'clock at 00:41:45.750 --> 00:41:48.329 night and maybe regret it the next day, maybe 00:41:48.329 --> 00:41:50.510 not be productive the next day, but I was quite 00:41:50.510 --> 00:41:53.750 young as well. But yeah, it wasn't like I didn't 00:41:53.750 --> 00:41:56.329 have kids or work to go home to and that was 00:41:56.329 --> 00:42:01.570 different. So I think then your friends become 00:42:01.570 --> 00:42:04.170 very important and having hobbies and interests 00:42:04.170 --> 00:42:08.289 outside of that. Even when it comes to work, 00:42:08.349 --> 00:42:10.110 I've always tried to have two projects on the 00:42:10.110 --> 00:42:12.389 go at the same time. And one of the reasons for 00:42:12.389 --> 00:42:15.630 that is, you know, part of ADHD is procrastination. 00:42:15.849 --> 00:42:17.449 If there's something I need to do for cleanly 00:42:17.449 --> 00:42:19.630 and I just can't bring myself to do it. Normally 00:42:19.630 --> 00:42:23.170 the crazy security force you have to fill out 00:42:23.170 --> 00:42:26.630 just so many forms, right? I hate forms at the 00:42:26.630 --> 00:42:28.250 best of time and these are the most boring things 00:42:28.250 --> 00:42:30.750 and so repetitive. I hate them. So they're really 00:42:30.750 --> 00:42:32.730 challenged and they're a blocker to me. So luckily 00:42:32.730 --> 00:42:34.349 I've got a good team around me now so they do 00:42:34.349 --> 00:42:37.210 most of this. So that's the other thing is offloading 00:42:37.210 --> 00:42:39.110 stuff, like knowing when you're just not the 00:42:39.110 --> 00:42:40.769 right person to do it, which is not always possible 00:42:40.769 --> 00:42:42.269 when you're a startup and you haven't got the 00:42:42.269 --> 00:42:45.630 cash to bring into other people. But yeah, moving 00:42:45.630 --> 00:42:49.210 on to something else. So if it's very easy to 00:42:49.210 --> 00:42:52.090 go onto YouTube or whatever you're interested 00:42:52.090 --> 00:42:56.449 in and be... Do that instead and feel unproductive. 00:42:57.349 --> 00:42:59.010 And I think, you know, actually sometimes you 00:42:59.010 --> 00:43:00.949 need to do that and it's not necessarily a negative. 00:43:01.170 --> 00:43:03.210 Let's be unproductive for a bit. And, you know, 00:43:03.269 --> 00:43:05.510 if it allows one of the things I'm doing, I'm 00:43:05.510 --> 00:43:08.369 being kind to myself now, now understanding ADHD 00:43:08.369 --> 00:43:11.070 and how it affects me is if I'm stuck with something, 00:43:11.389 --> 00:43:13.130 we'll just go and sit out in the garden or get 00:43:13.130 --> 00:43:15.070 a hot tub or go for a walk or something. And, 00:43:15.190 --> 00:43:16.570 you know, it's not productive at all, but it 00:43:16.570 --> 00:43:20.650 lets my, my role that though is my My punishment 00:43:20.650 --> 00:43:22.849 for being unproductive is I'm not allowed any 00:43:22.849 --> 00:43:25.869 phones or digital or anything, but I have to 00:43:25.869 --> 00:43:31.730 go in there with no inputs. I'll go and sit in 00:43:31.730 --> 00:43:34.550 the garden for an hour because I can't work right 00:43:34.550 --> 00:43:36.949 now. My brain's not letting me, but my punishment 00:43:36.949 --> 00:43:39.730 is I'm not allowed any distractions. The good 00:43:39.730 --> 00:43:42.909 thing there is positive boredom. One of the biggest 00:43:42.909 --> 00:43:45.610 problems with this, with our age now, the world 00:43:45.610 --> 00:43:47.170 we're in now, is there's always some kind of 00:43:47.170 --> 00:43:48.670 entertainment, there's always some kind of stimuli. 00:43:51.050 --> 00:43:54.929 The best ideas, the things that get me going 00:43:54.929 --> 00:43:58.429 are things when I force myself to be bored. Not 00:43:58.429 --> 00:44:00.409 every day, it used to be I used to make time 00:44:00.409 --> 00:44:02.090 every day, but I've completely failed on that 00:44:02.090 --> 00:44:05.369 recently. Now it tends to be if I'm procrastinating, 00:44:05.730 --> 00:44:08.210 I'll go, okay, you're fine not to work right 00:44:08.210 --> 00:44:10.070 now, but you're not allowed anything else either. 00:44:10.170 --> 00:44:12.420 So I'll sit there. And then of course, five minutes 00:44:12.420 --> 00:44:15.440 later, I might just go and fill in that form. 00:44:15.739 --> 00:44:17.780 I think that's called meditation. Why do you 00:44:17.780 --> 00:44:19.840 have to do that? It just sit around someone. 00:44:20.539 --> 00:44:23.099 Maybe it's like an informal form of meditation. 00:44:23.199 --> 00:44:27.699 That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I treat it as a 00:44:27.699 --> 00:44:29.280 punishment, but actually, it's quite enjoyable. 00:44:29.539 --> 00:44:31.119 And I'll normally come up with, you know, I'll 00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:32.599 have some idea of Oh, God, I'm not going to do 00:44:32.599 --> 00:44:37.260 this now. Daniel, as we're reaching the end of 00:44:37.260 --> 00:44:39.900 the podcast, if people want to reach out to you, 00:44:39.900 --> 00:44:41.800 how can you do so and find more about all the 00:44:41.800 --> 00:44:45.760 exciting things you're doing? So well, you can 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.480 you can catch me on on here and but also on LinkedIn 00:44:50.480 --> 00:44:54.260 as well or through click cleanly that's glen 00:44:54.260 --> 00:45:01.619 .ly is my website. On the floor. Daniel, thank 00:45:01.619 --> 00:45:03.400 you so much for your time. I really enjoyed our 00:45:03.400 --> 00:45:08.280 conversation. Thank you. I should have said OpenExperts, 00:45:08.440 --> 00:45:14.480 I just said on here. This podcast is sponsored 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:17.780 by OpenExperts .com. OpenExperts is a place to 00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:19.900 go if you're looking to talk with top experts 00:45:19.900 --> 00:45:23.380 from around the world. That is open -experts 00:45:23.380 --> 00:45:27.280 .com. This podcast is also sponsored by startupnetworks 00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:30.860 .co .uk. Startup networks, it's an online forum 00:45:30.860 --> 00:45:32.860 where you can find all the resources you need 00:45:32.860 --> 00:45:35.409 to run your startup. from grants to investors 00:45:35.409 --> 00:45:37.570 to tips and tricks on how to be successful in 00:45:37.570 --> 00:45:40.309 your startup. This podcast is also sponsored 00:45:40.309 --> 00:45:43.889 by ODEV Tech. ODEV Tech is your premier software 00:45:43.889 --> 00:45:45.789 development partner. Make sure you check them 00:45:45.789 --> 00:45:48.550 out at odev .tech.