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Welcome to Two Commas, the podcast where we explore how people exited their business for

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multi millions of dollars.

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Today I'm really excited to have a good personal friend of mine on the show.

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He's a serial entrepreneur.

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He's a raconteur and an all-around good character to know.

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So William Palmer has been the founder of a number of different tech ventures.

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He's been active in the investment space for quite some years and he's got a particularly

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interesting story to share with us amongst many.

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But this one's really around the listing journey as he took a business from inception all the

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way through to a public boss listing in the New Zealand stock market.

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So without further ado, please welcome along to the show, Will Palmer.

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Thanks for joining us, Will.

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Thanks Josh.

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Nice to be here.

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Yeah.

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I always like to start off with a bit of a backstory.

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So I know that you're a Wellington boy.

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Born, I think bred as well.

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Close, yeah.

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Close, close enough.

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So I'm curious about kind of the way that you came into the commercial world, what your

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start was, the start of your entrepreneurial journey particularly.

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Yeah.

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I mean, if you go right back, the first time I knew that there might be some hope for me

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in sales, which I think is the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, we had to do a

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fundraiser at school for our first 15 trip to Australia.

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And we decided what we're going to do is make pizzas and sell them.

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And so most people sold to their aunties and their uncles and friends and neighbours.

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And somebody came in with 10 pizzas sold and another came in with 20.

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I didn't know that's what everybody did.

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So I decided to go knock on doors and I picked the wealthiest part of town I could find.

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And I sold 168 pizzas and came back and sort of no one was really mentally prepared for

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this effort we're going to have to go to making and freezing 168 pizzas.

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So that was the first time I thought, you know, maybe there's something to that skill.

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And then I was all about trying to work out what I could do with that skill.

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And then the second time I sort of started recognising an alternative path, you know,

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like when you're young, you are you think a successful job is going to come off the

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back of a degree, it's probably going to be something that's familiar, a lawyer, an accountant,

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a doctor, an engineer.

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And I was definitely heading down the engineering path was where I was sort of, you know, physics

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and science and all these sort of things, but not because I liked them, because I thought

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that was the right career path for me.

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And then I my girlfriend's mum was a real estate agent.

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And she started off as a part time administrator with two kids, and ended up becoming the

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top real estate agent in the country.

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And I got to watch unfold in front of my eyes.

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And I got to watch her net worth go from, you know, absolutely nothing, almost destitute

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to becoming exceedingly wealthy.

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And she did it entirely on work ethic, energy, attitude, and sales.

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And I got was kind of the those I guess those two things together laid a bit of a foundation

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for me.

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And then fast forward to my holiday break at the end of my first year at university,

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I was looking for a job and I got a sales job in Wellington.

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And it was door to door sales selling Sky Television, I think might have been the first

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thing that we were doing.

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And I immediately just started to transform my skill set on the back of this incredible

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job, which I mean, I'd encourage nearly anyone to do this job if they're wanting to learn

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sales.

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Because what happens in door to door sales in particular, is that you're speaking to

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80 to 100 new people every day.

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And if you don't get the tone right, if you don't get the body language right, if you

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don't get the messaging right, you're going to get the door slammed in your face.

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And so you start learning to adapt to every type of person that you're speaking to.

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And as you get better at it, you start being able to work out I can almost sell anything

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if I get my story right.

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And so once you've sort of got that confidence, then it comes down to okay, I know I can sell

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now, what is the right thing to apply that skill to?

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And it took me a while to work out that it shouldn't be someone else's business, it should

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be my own.

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Once I worked that bit out, then the pieces fell together and you know, my career started.

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I love it.

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So it's interesting, there's a often spoken about tension that sits in technology organisations

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of sales versus delivery.

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And you had super early exposure to that of overselling 168 pieces.

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And then the oh shit, how are we going to go about delivering those things and manufacturing

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them.

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So I'm curious, I don't want to get diverted with this conversation.

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But did that has that gone about informing how you've gone about interacting with other

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parts of the organisations that you've built over time?

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Yeah, definitely.

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I think what you get out of that process is the ability to interact with whatever kind

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of persons in front of you.

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So I mean, one of the businesses that I was involved with early was HRV, which is a ventilation

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home ventilation company.

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I was there right at the very early stages, I think the business was at about a million

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dollars, they hadn't quite worked out how they were going to grow the company.

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I was good friends with one of the founders.

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And I got involved at that point.

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We grew up from that point through to about 76 million by the time I'd left.

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So things really took off.

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But we had very different types of people in our teams.

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So our sales team were generally quite technical, soft spoken, clever type sales folk.

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Our core centre were generally younger, more energetic, more female dominant, different

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energy.

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And then we had an installer team, they were very tactile.

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They were electricians and installers and roofers.

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And they were a little bit more gruff and a little bit more rough.

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And then we had our accounts team and they were the bean counters.

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And every one of them almost represented a different New Zealand demographic.

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And when you're managing those, you're working with those groups, you learn how to interact,

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talk, speak their language.

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And I think that comes from sales.

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Because when you're out knocking on doors, you're meeting all these different people

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all the time.

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And so I definitely did apply it.

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And one I think one of the things that probably really helped me with was being able to interact

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with anyone in the company at any time.

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And hopefully I've kept that.

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Yeah, yeah, I think most people describe you as being quite approachable.

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Well, so thank you.

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Yeah, I'll take that.

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One must.

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So I'm curious.

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So there's various facets and traits that denote someone likely to succeed or not succeed

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in the space of entrepreneurship.

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One of those is definitely hard work and the ability to go further for longer than other

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people are prepared to do quite often.

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Another one is growth.

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And so you mentioned that you had the door to door selling job at there was the high

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school fundraising.

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But then there was the the girlfriend's mum at that point as well.

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And so back in those days, this is I don't want to age you, but this is definitely pre

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YouTube, right?

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah, definitely.

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So how did you go about developing that skill set and age where I mean, we are awash with

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information now and it's all freely available as to how to become an expert and almost anything

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that you apply yourself to.

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You can go to one of the massive open online courses, the MOOCs and and spend 20 to $40

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on something if you define that the YouTube stuff's not appropriate, you know, podcasts,

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you know, there's these white papers, there's just so much free information.

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So how did you as a late teens, early 20s guy go about the business of becoming a super,

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super capable person in a space where you couldn't get access to that free free insight?

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I had some great mentors.

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That was the starting point.

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I had some and these people are still coming to my closest friends today who took me under

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their wing and showed me how sales is done.

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And that made an enormous difference to how I mean, if they hadn't been so electric in

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the way that they sort of showed me how things were working and to generous with their time.

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I don't think I would have been anything like what I've been ended up doing.

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They just gave me the confidence that it was entirely possible.

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So yeah, I think that having really, really, really strong mentors is probably one of the

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keys.

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But the other thing in terms of education is very early in my career, I just stumbled

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upon a book by a guy by the name of Alan Pease, a body language book.

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Yeah.

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And I got the video set.

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The box set.

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And I watched this thing on loop.

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But the message that I remember that stuck through my mind the whole time was if you

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break down a sale, and I might have these percentages wrong, but 10% of it came down

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to the product and your knowledge of that product, i.e. how you sort of, you know, understood

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the features and benefits, 20% came down to the tone, your delivery, how you said what

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it is that you how did you deliver these features and benefits in a way that was compelling.

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And then the balance 70% came down to the body language.

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How did you interact with the cues that you were given by the customer along the way through

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that journey?

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How did you make them feel through that entire journey?

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And when you recognize that 70% of sales comes down to the body language, that's the area

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that I double double clicked on.

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And that's the part you can't learn online.

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You know, I think sales is one of those very few disciplines that is very unlikely to get

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taken over by AI or by any sort of digital medium, it'll be supported by sure.

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But the real art of connecting with human to human is quite special.

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And that's the piece I think I honed in on very, very early.

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I recognize that there was a talent and being able to read how people felt about the thing

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you just said, and be able to interpret whether that we're meant that happy sad further down

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the buying path or further away and be able to adjust your story, your pattern, your body

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language, derail, diffuse, whatever you needed to do to try and make things work.

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And so, you know, I think an obsession with body language early was probably one of my

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clues.

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Yeah, yeah.

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It's really helpful because it talks to being able to qualify a sale really effectively.

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I've long believed that that's probably one of the, if not the most important skill in

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a salesperson, not opening, not closing, not pitching, but rather being able to assess

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who's most likely to buy the thing that you have to offer 100%.

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And so looking at people's nonverbal cues, or their body language is just such a super

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simple and effective superpower to have.

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So you know, really like that.

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No, it is.

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So you came through the sales track.

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Yeah, I did.

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And you live, went and lived and worked in the UK and Australia running kind of ever

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growing sales teams.

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And then at what stage did you get into tech?

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My first sort of, I mean, proper fire into tech, we got into a company called Connect

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Now in New Zealand.

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It was an Australian company that belonged to a guy that I've befriended over there who

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had developed a sort of back office for power companies and gas companies and water companies

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to run all their back office.

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So if you wanted to set up a retailer doing power, he had a back office that would manage

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that for you.

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And we'd meet him through this process of setting up our companies.

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And one of the businesses that he'd had as sort of a side hustle was this concept called

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Connect Now, which was where if you were to move house, he'd get a referral from a real

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estate agent.

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And then somebody from Connect Now would contact that person and connect their phone, their

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power, their internet, you know, like unified kind of approach to.

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Yeah, and it was a real benefit to the to the purchaser because they were getting the

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acquisition rates.

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So getting all the deals they wouldn't have got if they'd run themselves.

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And Connect Now getting paid a connection fee for every single thing that you connected.

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So and because you're connecting everything when you first moved in, that menu was quite

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large.

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So that was my like, and it was relatively technical product, albeit I wasn't heavily

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involved in the tech side, what I did get to see was how a tech business was built,

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how it was iterated, how features were captured and eventually became product.

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That interaction between the sales and marketing and the product teams, it was something that

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was always a bit of attention.

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And I was on the sales and marketing side, product was all made out of Australia.

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And so I sort of got to observe how it all worked.

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But I also got to observe quite a lot of success.

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He ended up having a massive exit out of that business.

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And I sort of saw the sort of multiples, I think it was over 50 million.

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And I was sort of 50 million.

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Like that's a that's a really big number.

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You can achieve that.

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And he did it, you know, you know, in a relatively quick process.

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So yeah, I think that for me was quite a quite a big moment as to why I thought text the

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answer, I need to know more about the space, I need to be able to build products myself

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and sell them myself.

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I think the evolution was first learning how to sell, then realising I shouldn't be selling

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other people's products, I should be selling my own.

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And then realising I shouldn't be selling my own product that I've kind of bought, I

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should be building my own product and selling it.

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And I think that was the last bit, and that's why I sort of spent the rest of my, you know,

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my career in that bucket.

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Yeah, yeah.

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But personally, I think it's quite helpful to have that evolution, because the the true

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startup, which is I define it as being solving a problem in a way that hasn't been solved

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before, and building a solution, like a product or a platform or a marketplace to solve that

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problem.

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And so you have to educate the market and the world that they need that thing.

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They need to part with their money and continue to part with their money to allow you to achieve

235
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your dream and maybe alleviate some of their pain as well.

236
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And so you're really building everything from the from the ground up.

237
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And so personally, I think that if you've cut your teeth in selling someone else's thing,

238
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,440
you make a fist in a success of that, then you sell your own thing.

239
00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:11,080
But it's the thing that you've gotten from from a third party source.

240
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And then you go about the building of the thing.

241
00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:15,720
So do you think that you could have circumvented that journey in any way?

242
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:17,440
Or do you also kind of agree with that principle?

243
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,040
No, there's so many lessons along the way, like, you know, it doesn't matter whether

244
00:13:20,040 --> 00:13:21,920
it was my product or otherwise.

245
00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:25,280
One of the things that I realized is that there was sort of two parts to a sale.

246
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:29,800
One part was who the hell are you when you knock on that door or meet that person in

247
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business?

248
00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:31,800
And then what have you got for me?

249
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:35,040
And now the two questions that somebody's asking themselves, who are you and what have

250
00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:36,840
you got for me?

251
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:40,920
And when they already know who you are, like when I knocked on the door with Sky TV, now

252
00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:43,720
I know you're Sky TV, what deal are you going to give me?

253
00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:46,800
And that's a very easy conversation, because you're only having to deal with the second

254
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:48,240
part of the story.

255
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:51,680
When you've got to deal with the who the hell are you, you've got to somehow make sure

256
00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:54,240
that you can build a brand and you've got to be able to build a reputation.

257
00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:58,600
And you've got to do all these things that are kind of slightly more intangible and slightly

258
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:02,760
longer in time, sort of time to execute than just that man that's coming in and closing

259
00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:03,760
a deal.

260
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:08,240
And so I think that that evolution sort of taught me that there is two parts and that

261
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,640
first part has a whole nother dynamic that I had to learn about, which was the connection

262
00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:15,080
between brand marketing and sales.

263
00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:19,240
And when you get that all together, these beautiful things happen.

264
00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:21,600
Yeah, yeah, I understand and agree.

265
00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:24,240
So was it around about the 90s that was Connect now?

266
00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:25,240
Was it a little bit later than that?

267
00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:26,240
No, it was later than that.

268
00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:29,360
We sort of maybe around the GFC.

269
00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:31,880
Yeah, we sold out just after the GFC.

270
00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:32,880
Right.

271
00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:33,880
2009.

272
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:35,360
Yes, it's interesting.

273
00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:39,920
So I was just a little bit earlier than that kind of Y2K era.

274
00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:44,720
And it's worth it to point it out, because if you've been around for a while and we've

275
00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:50,480
of a similar kind of vintage, then what you know is that tech wasn't always the dominant

276
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:52,200
industry that it is today.

277
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:55,480
You know, the biggest stocks that were listed in the world were Coca-Cola and General Electric

278
00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:58,080
and Boeing and those sorts of companies.

279
00:14:58,080 --> 00:15:00,520
It wasn't the the FAMG kind of stocks.

280
00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:07,760
And so Y2K as a point in time and as a event and occurrence that happened, propelled it

281
00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:12,240
from being 1% of company spends to being 11% of the company spend.

282
00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:16,720
So it came from basically being this minnow of industry to being something that people

283
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:17,720
were paying attention to.

284
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,240
We had the tech wreck, of course, you know, the dot com crash era.

285
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:25,560
And then gradually people started to kind of turn across to this as the advent of fibre

286
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:28,680
to the door and cloud computing, all those sorts of things came about.

287
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:33,760
But it's interesting that the industry that people now gravitate towards is, you know,

288
00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:37,520
graduates and is even kind of coming through high school is something that wasn't there

289
00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:39,000
kind of 20, 25 years ago.

290
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,520
Yeah, there's an enormous cost barrier to write like this.

291
00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:47,560
I mean, when we started our first tech company in earnest, that was sort of 2006 or 2007.

292
00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:50,240
We went to cloud computing because we couldn't afford the hardware.

293
00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:56,280
But cloud computing was, you know, probably 50 times more than costed as it is today.

294
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:59,480
Everything that you needed in terms of tooling, you either built yourself and or you paid

295
00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:00,480
someone to build for you.

296
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:04,960
There was not these dozens and dozens of apps that you can buy, you know, for a very small

297
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:10,320
license fee that can do bug detection or security or repository management or all these things

298
00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:13,440
that you can now just be done for you kind of take it for granted.

299
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,200
So the barrier to entry at that point was extremely high.

300
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:19,560
I mean, both financially, but technically, it was extremely high.

301
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,720
The other thing that was different at that point as well as there was no ecosystem or

302
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:24,840
stories of success to follow.

303
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:30,360
You know, so you didn't have all of these sort of, you know, zeros, pushpays, VINs,

304
00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:32,200
these stories just weren't a thing yet.

305
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:33,200
Yeah.

306
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:36,560
And so no one had made money in the space yet in this country, nor in Australia, actually.

307
00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:40,880
And so it was kind of a crazy pursuit to go down this road.

308
00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:44,640
Like you kind of I don't think it was clear that this was the way to make money at that

309
00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:45,640
point.

310
00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:46,640
Yeah.

311
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:47,640
Yeah.

312
00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:52,080
I remember in I think it was 2000, 2001, the first kind of meaningful exit in New Zealand

313
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:53,720
was Mail Marshall.

314
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:57,120
And I know the founders quite well of that company then and now.

315
00:16:57,120 --> 00:16:58,960
And it was a $55 million exit.

316
00:16:58,960 --> 00:16:59,960
So thank you, sir.

317
00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:02,880
Which, you know, that's kind of double that to get to today's dollars, give or take, maybe

318
00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:05,440
even slightly more, maybe $150 million in today's money.

319
00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:08,520
So still a meaningful and a really good sum.

320
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,400
But it was such an aberration for the time.

321
00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:15,000
It was people started to wake up and pay attention and go, you can kind of really make a fist

322
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,600
out of this kind of technology thing, I think, in tech.

323
00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:21,320
But then it took another few years for it to kind of bleed into the rest of the market

324
00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:22,760
and people to get perspective on it.

325
00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:27,400
So when did you get into so we had to talk about exits.

326
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:31,880
So Movio was the kind of the big main thrust of our conversation.

327
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:33,440
Yeah, definitely.

328
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:39,000
So talk me through the founding journey of Movio and what opportunities you saw in the

329
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:40,760
marketplace and how you scaled the company.

330
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:46,080
Yeah, well, I mean, so that that tech business we set up in 2006 was the genesis of Movio,

331
00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:47,640
really, it was a company called Virtual Concepts.

332
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:51,360
It's kind of funny name really concept that's virtual.

333
00:17:51,360 --> 00:17:56,040
But anyway, they were my strong point at that point.

334
00:17:56,040 --> 00:18:00,320
But so what we did is we kind of built Grab One before there was Grab One.

335
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:05,400
And so we had a whole bunch of promotions that we were doing for restaurants and video

336
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:09,480
stores and pizza chains and cinemas.

337
00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:15,440
And we would go out and we'd have a door to sales team go sell these loyalty cards and

338
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:19,320
these loyalty cards to work across these different promotions that we had.

339
00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:23,200
And what became really apparent is that only one of the things that we were working on

340
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:24,200
had real legs.

341
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:25,460
And that was the cinema side.

342
00:18:25,460 --> 00:18:30,160
So there was definite customer interest in any promotion we did that involves cinema.

343
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:33,360
So we knew that there was a need on that side.

344
00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:36,880
And we were sitting in a cinema myself and my business partner, Peter, and we just sort

345
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:38,760
of looked around and the film was fantastic.

346
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,440
It was I think it was taken actually was the film.

347
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,760
And we were sitting there and it was down on Queen Street.

348
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:49,400
Amazing movie, peak time, and it must have been 10% occupancy.

349
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:51,320
And we said, this is crazy.

350
00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:54,600
We know that there's all these people out there that want to go to the movies.

351
00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:57,920
And we know that there's a great film on in the cinema right now.

352
00:18:57,920 --> 00:18:59,460
And 90% of the seats are vacant.

353
00:18:59,460 --> 00:19:02,400
And if they were sitting in here even paying half the price, it's better than zero because

354
00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,320
I'll buy some popcorn and I'll buy a Coke and I'll do some other things.

355
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:07,400
Surely we can do something about this.

356
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,600
And so we sort of repurposed our business, focused everything on the cinema space.

357
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:17,000
Pete had come out of an equivalent of Netflix.

358
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,160
They created Movie Shack, which became Fatso.

359
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,000
And they had an amazing product.

360
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:28,000
What they did for those that didn't know is that Netflix used to be a DVD home delivery

361
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,360
business.

362
00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:33,000
And these guys saw the business opportunity and thought, well, we should go get a license

363
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:35,200
for the Netflix business in New Zealand.

364
00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:36,520
And Netflix wouldn't grant that.

365
00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:37,800
They were fairly early at this time.

366
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:39,800
And so they thought, we'll build it ourselves.

367
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:40,800
But they ran into a hurdle.

368
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:46,400
And the hurdle they ran into was that the cost of new release content here was governed

369
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,160
by Village Roadshow in Australia.

370
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:53,320
And so when you bought a DVD, instead of costing the $30 that we would remember buying it at

371
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,360
the warehouse for, it was actually $130 if you got it as a new release.

372
00:19:56,360 --> 00:20:00,980
So they charged four times as much, which meant that only the DVD stores could really

373
00:20:00,980 --> 00:20:02,880
afford this sort of rental model.

374
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:07,560
That's why that rental model was so prolific, where you paid $10, got your DVD, returned

375
00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:11,760
it the next day, probably paid some lay fees, next person related it.

376
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:15,440
They wanted to have a delivery model where you basically got your three DVDs, you returned

377
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:17,680
them, you got another three DVDs, you returned them.

378
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:18,800
But they wanted new releases.

379
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:19,800
So here was the problem.

380
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:20,800
The customers wanted new releases.

381
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:22,800
They couldn't afford to buy the new releases.

382
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:24,500
Their entire model was broken.

383
00:20:24,500 --> 00:20:28,600
And one of the guys in the team decided to develop a recommendations engine that recommended

384
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:32,880
films to people that they hadn't seen to try and get them to want to watch something other

385
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:33,880
than the new releases.

386
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:34,880
And it worked.

387
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,240
And it's the first time I'd ever seen a recommendations engine.

388
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:39,440
I mean, Amazon didn't have one at this moment in time.

389
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:44,520
So I was like, oh my god, you're recommending content because you have inventory and because

390
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:45,920
it's priced well for you.

391
00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:50,200
And it'll supposedly, according to the customer's preferences, help them as well.

392
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:51,280
This is incredible.

393
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:53,520
So I knew that they had some real smarts.

394
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:55,440
And we were like, okay, you've got these smarts.

395
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,880
You've got this insight about cinema goers and we've got this vacant cinema.

396
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:01,880
How do we put these things together and make a business out of it?

397
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:04,120
And movie O was born out of that.

398
00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:10,880
And the objective of movie O was to essentially increase box office and fill those seats up.

399
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:13,960
That was really the earliest goal.

400
00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:17,680
And how we went about doing that was we built a platform that pulled through all of the

401
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:22,860
loyalty data, eventually all the social data, online ticket purchases, and built a profile

402
00:21:22,860 --> 00:21:25,040
of every person who goes to the movies.

403
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:29,040
And then what we did was target those people with SMS or email or some form of targeted

404
00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:32,800
message to get them to go to another movie.

405
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:35,280
And we started trialing all sorts of different things.

406
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:40,600
We did competitions and we did upgrades and we did concession packages.

407
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:43,920
And we did, if you like this director, you'll like this director, kind of collaborative

408
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:44,920
filtering.

409
00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,760
And we eventually worked out a playbook, a playbook of campaigns that we could run that

410
00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:51,640
would fill a cinema almost instantaneously.

411
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:56,320
We could have it done if you gave us an opportunity at five o'clock in the evening on a Tuesday,

412
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:58,640
by seven o'clock that night we'd have the theater filled.

413
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:00,640
So we had a very, very powerful playbook.

414
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:02,640
We knew we had something really, really cool.

415
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:05,840
Now the question was, how do we make this into a business?

416
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:09,800
And so we were trucking along really nicely.

417
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:14,200
We're running the Barclay Cinema Chains campaigns over that time.

418
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:16,920
They were pushing us to do more and more because they were getting more and more incremental

419
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:17,920
box office.

420
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:22,000
They were starting to rank higher on the sort of list of performers for each of these films.

421
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,680
So we were clearly making a big difference in their business.

422
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,560
So much of a difference that they sold.

423
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:30,240
Hoyt's actually acquired them, unbeknownst to us at that moment.

424
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:35,200
Hoyt's worked with another New Zealand company we had not heard of at this time called Vista.

425
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:41,040
And Vista was at that point, and still is, the global leader in cinema point of sale

426
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:45,000
and many sort of cinema ERP systems.

427
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,040
And we looked at that and went, oh well, we're out.

428
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:50,280
They're going to go use Vista, and they did.

429
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:54,360
A few months passed, and we sort of sat there with our software and no customers and went,

430
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:55,360
what do we do?

431
00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:58,280
And we get a call from Murray Holdaway, the CEO of Vista.

432
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,520
And he said, look, we've had some words with Hoyt's.

433
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,560
Their sales aren't performing the way that they were prior to the acquisition.

434
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,120
There's a belief that it might be your software that's the difference.

435
00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:10,720
Well, let's talk.

436
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:16,960
And through a series of hilarious conversations, Murray and I reached a deal and we took an

437
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,520
investment from Vista.

438
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:24,740
And the condition of that investment was that we would continue to run completely independently.

439
00:23:24,740 --> 00:23:27,280
We would have access to their customer base.

440
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:28,800
They'd do introductions for us.

441
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,200
They'd give us a small amount of capital, but most importantly, they'd give us a really

442
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:35,120
clean integration into their software.

443
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:38,920
So we did the integration, did all the work, got the introductions, everything played out.

444
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:44,120
And we just went about our merry way, starting to build our company up.

445
00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:47,000
And I might just jump in and ask a question if that's okay.

446
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,240
So were they treating that as like a venture investment for them?

447
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,840
So you're in the same space, you're related to us, or were they more kind of going, becoming

448
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:58,160
a part of our stable of brands kind of thing or something in the middle?

449
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:02,720
We were very much a venture investment at that time, a strategic venture investment.

450
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:07,920
But at that time, we had gone down when we were cloud, they were on prem.

451
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:12,360
We were AWS, they were Azure slash Microsoft.

452
00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:13,760
Everything was different about our two businesses.

453
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,960
Bringing the two together was not ever going to be particularly easy at that time.

454
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:18,680
What scale were you at that stage in terms of?

455
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:19,680
I mean, we were two people.

456
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:20,680
Right.

457
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:21,680
Okay.

458
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:23,760
So you had a cool product, you had a great customer success story.

459
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:24,760
We had one story.

460
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:25,760
And then you got cut out.

461
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:26,760
Yeah, got it.

462
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:27,760
Yeah.

463
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:28,760
And we had one story, we had a lot of IP.

464
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:29,760
We knew we had a playbook.

465
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:34,600
And so we basically talked to them and said, look, we won't compete with you guys, you won't

466
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:35,600
compete with us.

467
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:38,520
We'll carve out the data analytics and the campaign management component.

468
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,160
We'll let you keep the loyalty part and the ticketing.

469
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,040
We'll get away from that part.

470
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:45,160
And we'll just go in our own directions.

471
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:48,440
We'll be selling to the marketing department, you guys will be selling to IT.

472
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:49,440
We'll just keep rolling along.

473
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,120
And whenever we need something off each other, we've always got a really cordial, friendly

474
00:24:53,120 --> 00:24:54,120
relationship.

475
00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:55,760
And it worked beautifully.

476
00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:00,200
So we head up to the US a couple of years into our journey.

477
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:09,480
And we book a suite at Caesar's Palace for CinemaCon, the biggest cinema convention in

478
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:10,480
the US.

479
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:16,520
And we couldn't afford to actually set up a trade booth.

480
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,600
And so we managed to get about 15 or 16 meetings.

481
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:26,160
I think 12 or 13 of them decided to become customers of ours after those meetings.

482
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,120
And we went, oh, wow, we've really got something.

483
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:31,760
And so we instantaneously opened an office in the US.

484
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:33,680
That was 2012.

485
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,840
And things started to expand rapidly.

486
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:37,840
We kind of skipped the world.

487
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,440
We've gone New Zealand prototype straight to the US.

488
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,800
All of a sudden, we had the number one cinema chain in the world, the number one in Canada,

489
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,080
the number one in Latin America.

490
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:47,680
We were literally on fire.

491
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,880
ARR, we'd gone already up to $5 or $6 million by then.

492
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,040
And we were just flying.

493
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:58,280
So we get to this point where things are going pretty well.

494
00:25:58,280 --> 00:25:59,280
We're feeling pretty bullish.

495
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:00,280
I think it's 2013.

496
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,480
We decide we're going to raise some capital.

497
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:07,280
Other than the Vista investment that was the first time that you'd gone out to market to

498
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:08,280
raise?

499
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:09,280
Yeah.

500
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,280
Vista's investment was a small six-figure number.

501
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:12,640
Right, small percentage points.

502
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:13,640
Yeah, totally.

503
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:16,920
And it was at a time, you've got to remember, when we raised that money, it was 2009.

504
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,320
It's pretty early days for cap raising on NZ.

505
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:20,880
Well, and the GFC had just happened.

506
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:22,520
I mean, you couldn't beg people for money.

507
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:23,520
No one had any money.

508
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,560
I mean, Vista, which are kind enough to give that much, which is a lot more than anyone

509
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:27,560
else would have.

510
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:31,360
So it was a very, very small sum, but very, very important because I don't think we would

511
00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:33,040
have gone any further without it.

512
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,120
Anyway, so we go do a capital raise.

513
00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:36,120
We head up to Silicon Valley.

514
00:26:36,120 --> 00:26:38,520
We go on this tour with NZTE.

515
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,680
We see all the Sandhill Road.

516
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,240
We don't do the whole gambit.

517
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:45,460
And then on the last day, it was America's Cup.

518
00:26:45,460 --> 00:26:47,560
We go back to the Kiwi landing pad.

519
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,360
And the guys from Movac are there.

520
00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:51,360
Stephen Tindall's there.

521
00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:52,640
And all the New Zealand who's who.

522
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:53,640
The luminaries.

523
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:54,640
The luminaries are all there.

524
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:55,880
We start talking about what we're doing.

525
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,800
And most of them are like, we'd be really interested in investing.

526
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:01,160
So there's us going all the way up to Silicon Valley and realizing, oh, actually, I could

527
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:02,160
have done this in my backyard.

528
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,080
They're all they're all in the market for this.

529
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,160
It was the first time I realized it was actually an ecosystem in New Zealand that we could

530
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:09,160
have gone to.

531
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,200
It was small, but there was one and it was investing.

532
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,080
And so we started moving down the road with Movac and talking to them.

533
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:18,680
And things were moving along really nicely.

534
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:23,720
And we looked like we were going to put a deal together for a Series A.

535
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,560
And I took the deal, the draft of that deal to Vista.

536
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:33,640
And I said, look, guys, just giving you the cursory note that we're very excited.

537
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,520
We've managed to raise this large sum of money.

538
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:36,960
And it's all looking wonderful.

539
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:38,720
And hopefully, you guys are all happy about that.

540
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:39,720
And they said, no, we're not.

541
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:40,720
I was like, what?

542
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:41,720
No, we don't want you to do it.

543
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:42,720
I'm like, what?

544
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:43,720
Hang on.

545
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:44,720
Hang on.

546
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:45,720
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

547
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,680
A few years ago, you gave us a small six-figure number.

548
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,600
This is now a large seven-figure number.

549
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,320
And you're not OK with this.

550
00:27:55,320 --> 00:28:00,200
And so this was a cause of a lot of heat, as you can probably imagine.

551
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,360
Did they have any right to be able to do that?

552
00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:06,160
Or was it more like them flexing a little bit?

553
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,360
I don't entirely know whether they had rights to stop it.

554
00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,760
We never went legal on it.

555
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:14,680
But it would have been difficult without them.

556
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,280
Because we did have a tight integration with them.

557
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:19,080
There was a good symbiotic relationship.

558
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,160
We didn't really want to rustle the feathers more than we needed to.

559
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,080
To that point, it had been really productive for us.

560
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,760
So it was sitting there to go contrary to what their wishes were.

561
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:29,760
Exactly.

562
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:30,760
And it's not like we really needed the money.

563
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:31,760
Yeah.

564
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:32,760
We were actually profitable at that time.

565
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:33,760
So it was like, yeah.

566
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:34,760
Yeah.

567
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,880
So there's a whole bunch of reasons why they were probably like, this is unnecessary.

568
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,640
And it sort of came out over the next couple of months why it was unnecessary.

569
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,920
They were considering going public.

570
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,080
They hadn't really considered including us into the mix because we were a minority holding

571
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:49,640
that they had.

572
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,600
But nevertheless, they didn't want to have it excluded and having a venture partner as

573
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:54,600
an investor.

574
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:55,600
Makes it tricky.

575
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:56,600
Would have made it tricky.

576
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:02,120
And so the conversation then started between us and the Vista guys around, could we do

577
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:03,720
this together?

578
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:10,280
We were the young, sexy, cloud, you know, buzzword, big tech, you know, big data, blah,

579
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:11,280
blah, blah.

580
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,680
Business that was growing at a rate of knots, winning awards, doing all the things.

581
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:22,680
They were really established, globally successful, profitable, quite profitable company with a

582
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,760
very long standing customer base.

583
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,240
And for all intents and purposes, looked like they were on track to be the dominant player

584
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,280
globally in that space.

585
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,960
And so you looked at when you got this established on prem, but profitable, albeit growing relatively

586
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:43,100
slowly, you know, tech company, and then you've got this hot startup, put the two together,

587
00:29:43,100 --> 00:29:46,080
and you've got the perfect investor story.

588
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,760
And so NewCo was formed initially, obviously, and they didn't have a name for it.

589
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,520
But there was Vista Cinema and Movio were the two companies that formed Vista Group.

590
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,640
And Vista Group was eventually the company or the organization that went public on the

591
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,160
Australian and New Zealand exchanges in 2014.

592
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,480
So we did a dual listing.

593
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:10,760
And we swapped out a good portion where our shares in both Movio and Vista for shares

594
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:11,760
in NewCo.

595
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,080
Okay, so you didn't take cash off the table at that stage?

596
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:15,080
No, we did.

597
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:16,080
You took it?

598
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:17,080
Oh, great.

599
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:18,080
Great deal.

600
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:19,080
So you flipped a proportion and you took some cash out?

601
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:20,760
Yeah, we took about a third, all of us.

602
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,840
Took a third of the total value off the table straight away.

603
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,720
We raised a bunch of cash.

604
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,680
And that was sort of the first big exit for me, really.

605
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,720
I mean, at that point, you know, I probably had enough to stop.

606
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:34,400
It was pretty exciting times.

607
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,480
You know, five years into the journey with Vista, that's where we'd ended up.

608
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,680
They'd done extremely well out of it as well.

609
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,400
But yeah, that was sort of the beginning of the listing journey.

610
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,400
So let's talk about the listing journey.

611
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:51,560
So you got involved when it was a notion that was around Vista Group.

612
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:56,520
So you would have been partying and contributing and driving a lot of those conversations to

613
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:57,980
be able to make it happen.

614
00:30:57,980 --> 00:31:04,200
So what does a listing journey look like in NZ and in Australia from the inception of

615
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:05,200
the conversations?

616
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,200
And then what types of things do you have to do to both comply and then go through the

617
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:10,200
journey?

618
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:11,200
So that's a multi-part question.

619
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:12,200
There's a lot going on there.

620
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:13,200
Yeah.

621
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:14,320
So let's just break this down to its requisite elements.

622
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:20,640
So talk me through the journey of building something which could be ready to go through

623
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:21,640
listing.

624
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:22,640
What does that need to look like?

625
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:30,280
Yeah, I mean, I think you have to have a very solid financial backing in terms of, you

626
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,280
know, obviously, you've been audited, you've gone through the process, you're working with

627
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:38,920
one of the big four to make sure that everything is, you know, T's across, I's are dotted.

628
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:43,360
From that standpoint, there's a massive amount of compliance that's done across the entire

629
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:50,760
business so that people are able to sign off that you are suitable to be a public company.

630
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,320
And that rigour and process is probably not too dissimilar to going through like a SOC

631
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,120
2 type scenario for those companies out there that have gone through that.

632
00:31:58,120 --> 00:31:59,120
For those that are unfamiliar with SOC 2?

633
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:05,120
For those that are unfamiliar, there is a level of compliance that you can achieve called

634
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:10,000
SOC 2, which we've just done for our Debrant business, which I think for us had about 95

635
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,320
different processes that you had to basically prove that you did to a very high standard

636
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:18,120
and have that sort of signed off by an independent auditor.

637
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:23,880
And I would say that going public has very similar attributes to that.

638
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:30,840
But probably the part that is more interesting is going out there and doing the book build

639
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:36,840
and being out there and having to, you know, drum up the interest in the business and go

640
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,040
on a road show and get, you know, people to loosely commit.

641
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:46,480
And that all just sort of happens sort of quite randomly with the merchant bank that

642
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:47,880
sort of underwrites what's going on.

643
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,040
And eventually, you know, you're ringing a bell and the whole thing feels like a blur.

644
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,400
It's sort of a crazy old time.

645
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,520
The big things to note about it is not so much the listing process.

646
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:01,120
I think anyone could go through that if you've got money and time, you could get through

647
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:02,120
it.

648
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,120
It's what it means once you've done it.

649
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:08,720
And I think that's the bit that is the most interesting about listing a company.

650
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:10,600
I'd love to delve into that conversation.

651
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,560
Just a couple more questions about the pre-listing journey.

652
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,840
So if there's anything that you've missed, what were the key milestones for you in getting

653
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,240
everything ready, you know, you've talked about getting the financials, getting the

654
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,480
compliance, getting the books audited, that sort of stuff.

655
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,080
Is there a sequence of events that you have to run through?

656
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,240
And is there a like a is there a playbook for it?

657
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,280
Yeah, there is.

658
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:36,560
Yeah, there is.

659
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:39,480
I mean, I think there's, you know, like, obviously, you've got you've got all your financials

660
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:40,480
in order.

661
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,240
You've got your business plan in check.

662
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,720
You've got all of your legal sides, contracts, employment contracts, all better down.

663
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:51,800
It's basically just making sure that you've crossed your t's and dotted your i's.

664
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:58,080
You've provided all of your customer contracts like it's just that very deep level of audit

665
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,520
that you've made sure that everything is set up to the, you know, to the nth degree.

666
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,600
And I think as an organisation, it's good practice to do all this already.

667
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:08,160
In this scenario, you're getting other people to sign off at a pretty high level before

668
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:09,760
you've got the green light to move forward.

669
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,760
It's effectively akin to a deep DD process.

670
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:13,760
Oh, yeah.

671
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:14,760
Enterprise level company.

672
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,920
But you need to get some independent bodies to come in and sign all those things off on

673
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:19,920
your behalf.

674
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:20,920
Yeah.

675
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,600
So that you've got some certainty that there's some some standards that have been applied

676
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:24,600
to that work.

677
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:25,600
Absolutely.

678
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:27,080
Big, standard based independent third parties.

679
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:28,400
Would that be a fair synopsis of it?

680
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,000
I think that's I think that's fair.

681
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:31,000
Yeah.

682
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,000
Yeah.

683
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Great.

684
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,080
And so when you're going through the road shows, you're talking to institutional investors,

685
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:40,360
you're talking to funds, you're talking to a little bit of mums and dads, maybe in a

686
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:41,360
big public event.

687
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:42,720
So what's that experience like?

688
00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:45,120
Yeah, most of it was for us was was funds.

689
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,800
So we go these road shows continue, by the way, which you don't not told at the time

690
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:50,360
when you first go public.

691
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:55,000
So we were doing at least two a year, generally three.

692
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,720
So we do the Macquarie Conference in Sydney, and then we do one after a half year and one

693
00:34:59,720 --> 00:35:01,320
after a full year result.

694
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:03,400
But also we did the road show leading up.

695
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,460
And essentially what you're doing is it's a it's an investor pitch.

696
00:35:06,460 --> 00:35:11,080
You're going in and you are selling a room full of fund managers on why your IPO is going

697
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,440
to be success and where it's going to go.

698
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:17,560
And then they are helping build the book as to a range that you've given them and a quoted

699
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:18,920
range.

700
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,160
And then eventually you've got enough interest to go right.

701
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:22,840
We've got enough to go.

702
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,760
And and you're off to the races.

703
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,720
And it happens like lightning from that point.

704
00:35:27,720 --> 00:35:28,720
Yeah.

705
00:35:28,720 --> 00:35:35,760
With a private raising and that that kind of goes from angel through to VC type raising.

706
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:36,760
Yeah.

707
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,720
One of the notions is that investors are like sheep.

708
00:35:40,720 --> 00:35:46,600
And so once you land the whale, someone who takes, you know, 20, 30, 50 percent of that

709
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:51,240
issued capital that's available, then people tend to fall over themselves to get there.

710
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:52,240
Yeah, that's right.

711
00:35:52,240 --> 00:35:53,240
Is the road so pretty similar?

712
00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:54,240
Yeah, it is.

713
00:35:54,240 --> 00:35:56,800
I don't know exactly how the Merchant Bank does it behind the scenes, but you've got

714
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,520
a bank that has to sign off basically underwrites the round.

715
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,200
But the bank is only going to underwrite the round if they think the round is going to

716
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:04,200
succeed.

717
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:05,200
Right.

718
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:07,280
So they've obviously already spoken to a number of different funds who have indicated

719
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:11,320
that, you know, subject X, Y and Z that they will participate at whatever level that is.

720
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,080
Once that Merchant Bank has that confidence, they essentially are like your lead investor

721
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:16,880
in a private round.

722
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:17,920
But they don't hold the stock.

723
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:22,560
All they do is they hold it and sort of for that short period of time until such time

724
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,320
as they're listing a successful of which case the funds are then going to take that underwritten

725
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,440
stock off their hands.

726
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:33,160
So that's that's what you've got to get the you know, the the the Merchant Banks up to

727
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:38,120
is that point of confidence that they can underwrite the round.

728
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,460
And that comes from you going on a roadshow, selling your wares, making sure the story

729
00:36:42,460 --> 00:36:45,980
is cohesive and exciting enough to get the funds on board.

730
00:36:45,980 --> 00:36:48,440
And then you know, you're ringing a bell.

731
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:49,600
So that's your operations.

732
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,360
So you're not underwritten until after you've gone through that roadshow event and you've

733
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:54,360
got expressions.

734
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:55,880
Yeah, I think it happens at different moments.

735
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,000
But generally, by the time you're on that roadshow, they're reasonably confident that

736
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:00,000
things are going to happen.

737
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,000
It's to what level?

738
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,600
So you've got a range and now you're trying to work out where in that range are you going

739
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:04,600
to land?

740
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:05,600
Yeah.

741
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,080
And and they're going to underwrite it at any point in that range.

742
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:09,240
Yeah, great.

743
00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:11,200
So reasons for listing.

744
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:16,640
So you know, the often quoted reasons are liquidity and access to bigger capital markets

745
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:18,640
potentially as well.

746
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:23,920
And the ability to potentially achieve a higher multiple for your business as well.

747
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,280
I think there's a few others that I've missed off there.

748
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,040
So what are the what was the driver behind Vista doing it?

749
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:30,040
Yeah.

750
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,880
So for Vista, I think what it did is it provided some liquidity for the founders.

751
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,320
They'd worked a long time on the Vista side in particular.

752
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:37,320
It was like 20 years old.

753
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,080
Yeah, it probably was.

754
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,480
And so they I think were needed or not need that.

755
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,600
I mean, it was time to get some liquidity.

756
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:45,560
But they didn't want to give up control of their business either.

757
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:47,000
They still had lots they wanted to do.

758
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,280
They had massive ambitions.

759
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:54,200
They were thinking about a lot of acquisition and they needed capital to do the acquisition.

760
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:57,040
And so this kind of ticked a lot of boxes.

761
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:58,960
You know, it allowed you to get some money off the table.

762
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,680
It allowed you to put some money into the company to be able to do acquisitions.

763
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:04,200
And so it sort of worked.

764
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,560
So I think that was their main driver.

765
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,000
What was your other question there, Josh?

766
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:18,480
So it was confirmation of the liquidity, access to bigger capital markets and the higher multiples

767
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:19,480
as well.

768
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:20,800
Yeah, the higher multiples is a dangerous one.

769
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:21,800
Right.

770
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,640
I think if you talk to a lot of publicly listed CEOs, there will have been a moment in time

771
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,320
where they achieved a much higher multiple than what they might have achieved had they

772
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,320
tried to do something privately.

773
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:36,440
But the offside of that is that it can easily go down as well to horrible levels on the

774
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,440
back of some bad press, bad news, whereas in a private company, that doesn't really

775
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:44,080
circulate in the same way and it can't be acted upon when that information gets out

776
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:45,080
there.

777
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:46,080
Yeah.

778
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,760
And that has a really interesting effect, not just on you as the founder, because you're

779
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,880
under a lot of pressure from investors to go, what's just happened?

780
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:53,080
You know, why is the stock falling?

781
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,920
And it kind of clambers on itself, but from the staff.

782
00:38:55,920 --> 00:39:00,840
And that was one of the big revelations I had was that your staff who are on your employee

783
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:06,440
incentive programs or have family members that have invested in the public's company

784
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,360
are on this roller coaster with you.

785
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:09,360
And it's going up and down.

786
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,520
And when it goes up, everyone's feeling positive at work.

787
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,600
And when it's going down, everyone's feeling negative.

788
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,920
And sometimes it goes down because of macro conditions that have absolutely nothing to

789
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:18,080
do with you.

790
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,040
And the whole company's in a depression.

791
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:25,800
So I think that's one of the sort of sides that is often not spoken of that much is that

792
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,640
your staff are on this roller coaster with you.

793
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,800
And it's an extremely public branding when things go bad.

794
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:35,280
You know, when you go home and mom and dad are angry because they've lost 60% of their

795
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,440
net worth in the last three days because your company stocks fallen.

796
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:39,440
And that happened.

797
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:40,440
Yeah.

798
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:41,440
You know, that's a tough pill to swallow.

799
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,120
It's hard enough to handle it at work.

800
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:45,240
But at home, it can be quite difficult as well.

801
00:39:45,240 --> 00:39:48,440
So I think that was one thing that I found interesting.

802
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:51,880
I've heard other people say that when they go public, it's the day that the founders

803
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,920
should exit because that going through that roller coaster is pretty hard.

804
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,040
But yeah, so you talked about liquidity.

805
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,360
That's definitely we've got instantaneous liquidity.

806
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,560
And I think the really nice thing is you have ongoing liquidity.

807
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:07,160
So when you have something you need money for, you generally can get it.

808
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:11,040
But that also is a bit of a misnomer because you generally can't trade during blackout

809
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:12,040
periods.

810
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,320
And a blackout period happens either side of any significant announcement.

811
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:17,560
So you have half year or full year result.

812
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:18,560
What's a blackout period?

813
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:21,120
A period where you can't trade.

814
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:22,120
So you've got a period.

815
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:23,320
As an individual, you can't trade.

816
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:24,560
The stock still traded, but you can't trade.

817
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:26,480
The stock still trading, but you can't trade.

818
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,040
Every time Vista hit peaks, we were in a blackout.

819
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:30,040
Every single time.

820
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:31,240
It was like Murphy's Law.

821
00:40:31,240 --> 00:40:32,240
So that's really hard.

822
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:36,600
But also you can't trade if you have any information that the public doesn't have.

823
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:37,600
That's really hard.

824
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,080
As a CEO, you've always got information the public doesn't have because you're in the

825
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:42,760
middle of 20 deals at once.

826
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,120
You're hiring some people.

827
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:45,120
You've got all sorts of stuff.

828
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:46,600
You've got new features coming out.

829
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,560
You've got so much going on that you could argue you're the only person who has all

830
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,280
the pieces in your head.

831
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,640
Then trading the stock becomes extremely difficult.

832
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:56,960
So now it's not only the blackout period.

833
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,960
It's the periods where you may have had information, material information, that other people didn't

834
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:02,280
have access to.

835
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,000
And so that's quite challenging.

836
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:12,120
And even if you can satisfy the clause, it does sometimes feel like it's going to come

837
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:13,120
back.

838
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:14,120
You know what I mean?

839
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:15,200
You're always worried about it.

840
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:16,560
So I think that's really interesting.

841
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:21,680
But one of the real benefits of listing is the prestige that comes with it.

842
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:25,920
And obviously, other than the invites to things and the places that you get to go and things

843
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:32,160
that you get to do, it does help you attract incredible talent to your organization.

844
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,800
People like working with companies that are visible.

845
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:38,720
And I think what makes a public company interesting is if you're a potential employee, you can

846
00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:44,080
see exactly what state that organization is in with a fairly high level of confidence.

847
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:49,800
And so we were able to bring on a lot of very good talent during that period of time because

848
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,800
we were able to demonstrate that we were a pretty robust company.

849
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,480
So I think that was definitely a huge benefit.

850
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:06,320
Another benefit that I think is really fascinating, when the COVID occurred, we went through Hell

851
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,160
and back at Vista.

852
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:10,160
Everybody has a COVID story, right?

853
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,000
And all of them are probably pretty bad.

854
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:13,640
And I'm sure there's many that had much worse than ours.

855
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,760
But ours wasn't great.

856
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:20,720
We got wind of it early.

857
00:42:20,720 --> 00:42:25,760
Our Chinese office had some really interesting things happen during box office sales over

858
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,440
Chinese New Year, normally a really high point for movies.

859
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:29,940
And it hadn't happened.

860
00:42:29,940 --> 00:42:34,960
And so we got wind that people over there knew of a virus that was causing lots of problems.

861
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,580
By early March, we were pretty sure we could see the writing on the wall.

862
00:42:38,580 --> 00:42:41,080
And so we were sort of steps ahead of how this might play out.

863
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,640
We were scenario planning very soon after everything was shut down.

864
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,420
At that moment in time, we were due to pay a dividend out a few days later.

865
00:42:49,420 --> 00:42:53,280
We pulled back the dividend because we were like, we might need this cash to get through

866
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:54,760
the next week period.

867
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:59,480
All of our customers globally, like Domino's closed, 100% of them.

868
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,240
Then soon after that, all of the studios stopped committing to building or creating more content

869
00:43:03,240 --> 00:43:05,800
because they couldn't get onto sets.

870
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:10,360
And then obviously downstream, lots of the talent ended up going to the streaming side

871
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:12,020
versus the theatrical side.

872
00:43:12,020 --> 00:43:14,520
So the business was in really, really dark place.

873
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,280
And had we been privately held, raising money at that moment in time would have been almost

874
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:20,000
impossible.

875
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,720
We were able to think a period of nine days to raise sufficient money to get us through

876
00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:29,840
18 months runway as a large organization with about 600 staff.

877
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:31,520
You couldn't do that in a private market.

878
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:38,360
So public market gives you, albeit at a price, access to capital pretty instantaneously.

879
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,180
There's not the need for tons of DD every single time.

880
00:43:41,180 --> 00:43:42,720
You need to come back to the well.

881
00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:48,400
So I think if you've got scenarios where you're looking to acquire, you've got scenarios where

882
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:52,240
there could be something in the pipeline that might change materially what happens in your

883
00:43:52,240 --> 00:43:57,760
business, having the ability to be able to access capital can be a pretty massive benefit.

884
00:43:57,760 --> 00:43:58,760
Yeah.

885
00:43:58,760 --> 00:43:59,760
Yeah.

886
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:04,240
So we've started to lead into the subject of what it's like to be a listed company.

887
00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:06,560
No, no, no, no, it's perfect.

888
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:08,560
So let's kind of extend that conversation out.

889
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,720
So things like, you know, what is the reporting like?

890
00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:15,280
What are the obligations to communicate with people like, you know, what's the what's the

891
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:16,400
level of visibility like?

892
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,800
So bring it to life for us a little bit in terms of what that experience as a CEO is

893
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:21,800
like.

894
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:26,760
Yeah, look, I think if you were a company that had built a product and that product

895
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,560
was, you know, well established, albeit it's going to evolve, but fundamentally is the

896
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:35,360
same and you're selling it successfully with a system and you need to supercharge that

897
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:36,360
system, right?

898
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,120
You need to put more money into marketing, you need to open up more territories, you

899
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:43,520
need to translate it, then going public makes complete sense because you're putting fuel

900
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:44,520
on the fire.

901
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,360
The fire is very well established.

902
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,080
You're just trying to sort of supercharge it.

903
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,040
You're not changing direction every week.

904
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,440
Nothing's materially different about the business.

905
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:57,560
And so in that scenario, going public makes complete sense.

906
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,880
When you're a company like Movio, which was still a startup, you know, it was at series

907
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:04,320
A level, you're still changing direction all the time.

908
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:08,880
You're still trying to get the product to a point where it appeals to the studios or

909
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:10,860
whoever else that we were trying to work with.

910
00:45:10,860 --> 00:45:12,800
And we hadn't landed that yet.

911
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:18,200
It's a really, really difficult place to be because you're you're always having to go

912
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:22,360
back to the market and tell them that you've pivoted or changed your plan.

913
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,500
And the market takes a lot turning the Titanic.

914
00:45:25,500 --> 00:45:29,720
It takes a long time for everyone to get on board with your change that you've made.

915
00:45:29,720 --> 00:45:31,900
And that's generally viewed as quite flighty.

916
00:45:31,900 --> 00:45:33,860
They want consistency.

917
00:45:33,860 --> 00:45:37,800
They want you to say you're going to create a plan and to stick to that plan.

918
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,720
They want to build their models to measure against that plan every quarter, every, you

919
00:45:41,720 --> 00:45:43,860
know, every six months, every year.

920
00:45:43,860 --> 00:45:48,800
When you are changing the goalposts on them continuously, as you will as a startup, they

921
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,600
get frustrated and punish you as a consequence.

922
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:52,600
And they punish you.

923
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:53,600
Yeah.

924
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:59,480
And the punishment comes in in generally, you know, a self a stock sell off.

925
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,600
And that can happen quite frequently when you think the news that you've delivered is

926
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:06,260
good, but in reality, it was not what they were expecting.

927
00:46:06,260 --> 00:46:11,560
And I think what that what being public is all about is about meeting expectations.

928
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:14,500
And so you see the expectations and you meet those expectations.

929
00:46:14,500 --> 00:46:16,000
And that's the whole game.

930
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:21,700
And if you change even food, even for the better, that's not what I expected.

931
00:46:21,700 --> 00:46:23,700
And so, you know, there's a bit of a freak out.

932
00:46:23,700 --> 00:46:24,700
Yeah.

933
00:46:24,700 --> 00:46:30,040
So I think that's one thing that is really hard as a CEO of a publicly traded company

934
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,000
is that you've got to be able to stay the course.

935
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,000
You've got to be a master at PR.

936
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:42,720
You know, I mean about managing the narrative and making sure that your comms are very well

937
00:46:42,720 --> 00:46:43,720
considered.

938
00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:48,920
So one of the things we probably could have done a lot better is if we had a, you know,

939
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:53,080
a big initiative that we're working on that once we made the decision to move forward

940
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:57,480
to this initiative, and it was a high probability of moving forward, that we had a very clear

941
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:01,640
plan of what was the moments we were going to communicate the progress towards this initiative.

942
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:04,440
And assuming we achieve those milestones, what will we say?

943
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:09,680
So instead of going next idea, next idea, next idea, it was big idea.

944
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:13,040
What are the steps we need to explain of how we're progressing towards that idea?

945
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:19,680
And so there's lots of sort of, I think, PR practice that you would want to be, you know,

946
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:23,240
certainly have a very good person in your corner that can help you nail that, because

947
00:47:23,240 --> 00:47:28,600
you are continuously trying to weave a narrative that people support.

948
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:29,600
Much more so than a private company.

949
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:35,040
A private company, you're emailing 10, 20, 30, 40 investors, and it's generally a far

950
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:36,040
more informal play.

951
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:37,040
Yeah.

952
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:38,760
In public, it's just a different game.

953
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,600
You've also got analysts to deal with.

954
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,640
So you've got, you want people to cover your stock.

955
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,240
That's a really important thing, because once you get coverage, you can get, you know, more

956
00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:49,240
visibility.

957
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:52,720
Once you get more visibility, more people have confidence in buying your stock.

958
00:47:52,720 --> 00:47:55,760
Once more people have confidence buying your stock, you've created liquidity for the other

959
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:57,760
people who own the stock.

960
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:04,040
And so you want to make sure that people are covering your, you know, what you're doing.

961
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:08,080
But that's also very difficult, because you've got to manage those people particularly carefully,

962
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:09,960
because they've got to get all of the information.

963
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:14,120
I mean, they're effectively doing due diligence on you, or whatever new idea you've got every

964
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:15,440
time you come up with one.

965
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,560
So you say, I'm going to start working in Latam and cinema, and we think we can make

966
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:20,520
$3 million in revenue there.

967
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,400
They will literally look into the Latam market and understand whether there is $3 million

968
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:27,960
in revenue in there and how that plays out and what it looks like, and what the adjacencies

969
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:28,960
might be after that.

970
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:31,800
Like they're thinking ahead of where you are in a lot of cases.

971
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:38,200
So you're managing the general narrative, you're double clicking on the narrative with

972
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,280
those that are covering your stock.

973
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:45,520
And all of the time as a new startup, as we were, you're trying to make sure that you're

974
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,520
staying on the same track, or a narrative that people can handle.

975
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,280
And so you're always just managing this narrative.

976
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:57,720
And I think one of the things as a startup founder of a Series A level company, you should

977
00:48:57,720 --> 00:49:00,760
be focused as much as you possibly can on the business.

978
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,040
And you're always having to do investor relations, whether you've gone down the private or the

979
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:05,280
public path.

980
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:09,160
I think when you're going down the public path, though, it never ends, it almost is

981
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:10,520
your full time job.

982
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:13,040
Like, because there's so many more players involved.

983
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:17,760
You know, like we had 40 funds, I think, invested in our stock.

984
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,240
Those 40 funds all had their own models.

985
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:22,240
We had a handful of analysts covering it.

986
00:49:22,240 --> 00:49:24,680
Those people all needed to be updated all the time.

987
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,520
We had set in stone reporting dates, they had to have road shows with them.

988
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:33,220
You know, so there was always this preparation for the next announcement.

989
00:49:33,220 --> 00:49:36,960
We had to manage all the comms internally to make sure that the team knew enough that

990
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,960
they could do their job, but not too much that they ever find themselves in a situation

991
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:41,480
where they were inside of trading.

992
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,840
So there's a lot more to manage.

993
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:51,160
I think one of the things that probably really sort of surprised me is this idea that as

994
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:57,040
a founder of a company that's gone public, one of your jobs is to help investors achieve

995
00:49:57,040 --> 00:50:00,480
liquidity, not just yourself.

996
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:06,640
And so when you create this sort of pool of people that invest initially at the IPO, those

997
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,920
people at some point are going to want to sell their stock and make a profit.

998
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:12,640
Who do they sell that stock to?

999
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:18,440
This was something I only understood incredibly late into the game, maybe five years as a

1000
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:23,400
CEO in a public company, was that you actually have to continuously work to create a secondary

1001
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,100
market for people to offload to.

1002
00:50:26,100 --> 00:50:29,080
And so we had a primary market, but it was funds.

1003
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:32,480
And those funds wanted to sell, but when they did, they generally were only sold to each

1004
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:33,860
other.

1005
00:50:33,860 --> 00:50:37,760
What they needed was a retail market of investors that could be sold to.

1006
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:42,880
So the role that we had to play to help with that was to go out to all the brokerages and

1007
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:48,560
talk to all of the groups, the sales houses, et cetera, that sell stocks to their client

1008
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:52,960
portfolio on the virtues of Vista.

1009
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,000
And that was a really interesting process to have to go through as well.

1010
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:59,360
You're sitting out there going, you're not even somebody who's investing in us.

1011
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:04,920
By helping and explaining the narrative to your people, we're not actually directly benefiting

1012
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,760
from this, but it is going to help our stock because the first people who bought our stock

1013
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:10,120
has someone to sell it to.

1014
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:11,760
And they're all complaining about liquidity all the time.

1015
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:13,240
So we've got to help them get it.

1016
00:51:13,240 --> 00:51:17,600
And so you end up having this project which runs for years, trying to create liquidity

1017
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:18,600
in your stock.

1018
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,080
So there's like layers of liquidity in the market that you've got to be aware of as well.

1019
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,080
Yeah, people are going to have places to put things.

1020
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,760
And so when you add all these complexities together, so you've got to make sure you're

1021
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:29,760
reporting all the time.

1022
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:34,400
You've got to make sure you've got your analysts that are on side with you and providing the

1023
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:35,400
right information.

1024
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:36,720
You want to make sure you've got analysts covering you.

1025
00:51:36,720 --> 00:51:37,880
That's really important.

1026
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:41,080
You've got to make sure that you've got a primary supported base of investors, but you

1027
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,120
want to make sure that those investors have liquidity if they ever need it.

1028
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:48,440
There's a lot going on and none of that involves running a software company.

1029
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:50,760
It's all being a public CEO.

1030
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:51,960
Yes.

1031
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:54,560
Would you do it again?

1032
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:56,280
Probably I would.

1033
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:57,280
Which is a caveat.

1034
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:58,800
There is a caveat to that.

1035
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:00,400
I would do it again.

1036
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:01,960
There are some beautiful things about it, right?

1037
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:04,720
Like we achieved a very large exit very early.

1038
00:52:04,720 --> 00:52:07,120
And I don't think that would have happened on the private model.

1039
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,800
We might have raised a good amount of money around that time.

1040
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:12,920
But in terms of physically getting cash off the table, I don't think it would have been

1041
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,000
a better way than the way that we did it.

1042
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,560
Even better than that, we managed to get cash off the table and still maintain control of

1043
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:19,560
our company.

1044
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:21,960
So that was extremely exciting for us.

1045
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,600
So for those reasons, absolutely, you would do it again.

1046
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:29,480
What would be different is that I'd walk into it with a very clear playbook of what my company

1047
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:34,440
needed to look like first, and exactly how I'd manage the things I didn't manage very

1048
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:36,080
well the first time.

1049
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:41,880
So the company would need to look like an organization that has got a very, very clear

1050
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:47,440
plan, has got a very well defined product, very well defined go to market strategy.

1051
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:50,880
And what it needs is capital to grow that go to market strategy.

1052
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,960
But it's not really going to move far off the line towards the target.

1053
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:57,040
It just needs fuel, right?

1054
00:52:57,040 --> 00:52:58,040
Zero.

1055
00:52:58,040 --> 00:52:59,040
Right.

1056
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,560
So I started my business and I was running along and I was at sort of 10 million ARR

1057
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,840
and I was and it was looking pretty predictable and it really just needed fuel and I had a

1058
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,360
choice and my choice was either to go raise venture or go public and do it the way I did

1059
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:12,360
before.

1060
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:14,080
I'd probably choose go public.

1061
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:15,080
Interesting.

1062
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:16,080
Yeah.

1063
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,640
And then the second part of that is that I would make sure that I had somebody that was

1064
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:23,800
managing the public part of the business and somebody that was managing the business.

1065
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,600
Kind of CECO kind of kind of role split.

1066
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:27,600
Yeah, definitely.

1067
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:31,640
And I would be making sure that there was a clear plan around what is our goal as a

1068
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:33,000
publicly listed company?

1069
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:34,000
What do we want to do?

1070
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:37,440
And obviously the goal is to increase the value for the shareholders.

1071
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:40,920
But that takes some real thinking of how are you going to actually do that?

1072
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,520
And so what we need these five people to analyze our stock.

1073
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:44,640
How do we get that?

1074
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:49,040
We need to make sure that we attract the right people at the IPO from the beginning that

1075
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:50,640
are the right type of holders.

1076
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,120
We need to make sure that we're automatically thinking about liquidity from the start, which

1077
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,060
means that we need to have a very good PR strategy that's a lot wider than just a bunch

1078
00:53:58,060 --> 00:54:02,320
of funds that has to go more out to the retail investor.

1079
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:06,160
You know, I've even thought before that one of the great ways to be able to sort of build

1080
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:11,120
towards a public listing might be going down the crowdfunding road where you know, you

1081
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:16,960
you do a crowdfunding process, you know, early on your run, you get your awareness out there

1082
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:21,000
amongst a large proportion of people that are likely investors and things like public

1083
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:22,340
companies.

1084
00:54:22,340 --> 00:54:25,920
And then as you progress along, you keep those people abreast of your progress, regardless

1085
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:27,400
of the fact that they haven't invested.

1086
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:32,520
But you've created this big pool of potentially interested people that will talk about you.

1087
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:36,800
At which point, by the time you go public, there's more interest than just those in the

1088
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:37,920
financial markets.

1089
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:41,960
There's people who are, you know, mom and pop investors.

1090
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:47,040
And once you get layers, things can really happen for you in terms of, you know, creating

1091
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,080
liquidity for your shareholders.

1092
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:54,160
You're talking about the NZX and the ASX listing.

1093
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,240
We've got the secondary board in New Zealand as well.

1094
00:54:56,240 --> 00:55:00,440
Do you have much exposure or visibility to that sports?

1095
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:01,440
Not really.

1096
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:02,440
I haven't had a lot to do.

1097
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:03,440
We were on the main board.

1098
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,720
We were the NZX 50 for a period there as well.

1099
00:55:06,720 --> 00:55:11,040
I think one of the things I'd say about being on the Australian board, and actually the

1100
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:17,400
New Zealand board as well, is that you can easily get lost, even in NZ, if there's not

1101
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:20,720
enough knowledge of what you're doing.

1102
00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:25,200
And there can be a scenario where just that lack of knowledge can make your stock price

1103
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:26,200
spiral down.

1104
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:30,320
And there has been some good companies with good results that haven't had a great stock

1105
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:35,000
appreciation because they've kind of got lost in the ether and they haven't been able to,

1106
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,320
you know, making a thing happen.

1107
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:41,920
So I think you have to think about where do you want to be on those boards?

1108
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:45,640
There is a really interesting direct listing option that you could do as an alternative

1109
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:51,080
to venture if you're willing to spend the sort of few hundred thousand dollars it takes

1110
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:52,600
to do that.

1111
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:57,760
And that gives you a great way for people who do invest in your startup to be able to

1112
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,160
offload their stock.

1113
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:04,240
Secondary sales of privately held companies are still relatively difficult.

1114
00:56:04,240 --> 00:56:06,800
So there is a pathway, but the compliance is high.

1115
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:07,800
You know what I mean?

1116
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,680
When you're doing 10 million in revenue and you've spent three or four hundred thousand

1117
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:14,640
dollars a year on compliance, I don't know that that really makes sense.

1118
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:17,880
Is that the primary board NZX, the three or four hundred or is that significantly more?

1119
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:20,760
I don't know what the difference in costs are these days, but the number we always used

1120
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,440
to work towards, and I think it's pretty close to the mark now, is around that number.

1121
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:25,440
Yeah, okay.

1122
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:26,440
Yeah, that's quite significant.

1123
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:27,440
It is significant.

1124
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:30,360
Because if you're doing 10 million bucks and let's say you're making a profit, then you

1125
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:31,720
might be making a million bucks of profit.

1126
00:56:31,720 --> 00:56:35,920
And if you spend close to half of that on stock market listing compliance costs, that's

1127
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:38,360
a please explain kind of thing potentially.

1128
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:39,360
Yeah, it is.

1129
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:40,360
And in Australia, it's more again.

1130
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:41,360
You know what I mean?

1131
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:45,360
Back to my point, if you have to have a pretty clear path to the direction you're heading

1132
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:51,280
on and this is creating rocket fuel for you to keep moving quickly and you're not moving

1133
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,120
off into a different direction, you're not changing your ideal customer profile, you've

1134
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,160
kind of got all that worked out and it's just going hard at something.

1135
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:00,960
I think that's a really great path to take.

1136
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:01,960
Yeah.

1137
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:04,240
You're a reasonably private person.

1138
00:57:04,240 --> 00:57:08,160
You haven't done a great deal of kind of press related things that are outside of business.

1139
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:10,360
You haven't really done anything outside of business.

1140
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:14,400
And you're part of a couple, Erica's your wife and she's had a very successful business

1141
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:18,120
and you've got a new startup venture together with three or four years into coupler.

1142
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,360
You've got this next thing with DevRamp.

1143
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:28,040
So how did you deal with the very visible nature of being a CEO of a public listed company?

1144
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,560
So the fact that you're the person that's always kind of quoted and talked about?

1145
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:32,560
How was that?

1146
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:36,240
Well, Murray was mainly quoted who was the group CEO through that period.

1147
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:37,880
And so that I think helped.

1148
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:43,120
I was put out there quite a lot because we were the hot growth story.

1149
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:47,560
And so I went on all the road shows because the view at the time was that movie could

1150
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:49,400
be bigger than Vista Cinema.

1151
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:53,000
And therefore we needed to keep that sort of promotion and hype going about what we

1152
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:54,600
were doing.

1153
00:57:54,600 --> 00:58:01,500
And so that came with its benefits in that I got a really good profile amongst the Vista

1154
00:58:01,500 --> 00:58:03,080
community during that time.

1155
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:08,360
But it came with its negatives because I was under a lot of pressure to deliver a lot of

1156
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:13,000
things that were untested and unproven that probably shouldn't have been said to a public

1157
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:14,280
group of people.

1158
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:20,000
So yeah, it was a funny old time the way that we were structured because we had this sort

1159
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:24,440
of established successful but slow growing company in Vista and we were kind of the cool

1160
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:30,080
story and sort of sent out in front to sort of wave the flag and tell an amazing growth

1161
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:36,920
story which has its pros but it definitely had its cons.

1162
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,520
You ultimately parted ways with the Vista group.

1163
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:41,800
What was the catalyst if we can talk about that?

1164
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,240
I stayed a lot longer than I intended.

1165
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:49,080
So as part of a listing or as part of a sale of any business you often have a lock up period

1166
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:51,680
or an earn out, whatever you want to call it.

1167
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:56,040
And I had one of those that ran for three years where I basically had the potential

1168
00:58:56,040 --> 00:59:00,880
to double the amount of I ended up with if I hung in there for three years and did a

1169
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:03,160
reasonable job, which we did.

1170
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:08,960
And I got out the other end of that and things were looking very good from a financial standpoint.

1171
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:13,560
But there was stuff that we still were trying to do that I was still really excited about.

1172
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:18,480
And so we were building a new platform at the time that was designed to help studios

1173
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:22,520
basically access user data in a really good compliant way.

1174
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:23,520
And we built this cool platform.

1175
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:25,160
I was really excited.

1176
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:29,360
And then I was going to sort of go off and my plan was to hand the sort of CEO reins

1177
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:30,880
over to somebody else.

1178
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:34,680
And I was going to take this new feature and kind of run it like another startup under

1179
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:37,920
the group in some capacity.

1180
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:42,000
And the day that we went to go release that we had a road trip plan to sell that into

1181
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:44,240
all the big studios in Australia.

1182
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:46,220
And we were leaving that Thursday.

1183
00:59:46,220 --> 00:59:51,000
And I think it was that Thursday that just under closed the borders.

1184
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,000
So I hung around a little longer than I'd intended.

1185
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:58,000
I was literally on the precipice of moving on to doing the next venture, albeit as part

1186
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:01,040
of the group, but in a slightly adjacent area.

1187
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:04,440
But then when that happened, we were new we were going to have to do a restructure.

1188
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:08,440
There's no way I was going to hand the restructure to the next person coming and it would be

1189
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:10,440
the most evil thing I could have done.

1190
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:12,040
Yeah, that's a horrible hospital pass.

1191
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:13,040
No.

1192
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:14,520
And so we made the decision there.

1193
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,640
And then I sort of said to the guys, I am committed to this 100% until we get out the

1194
01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:21,640
other side of this crisis.

1195
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:23,600
I'm there with you all and we're going to do this together.

1196
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:27,720
And so we all rallied massively.

1197
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:33,000
We went through I think a couple of hundred staff total ended up being laid off between

1198
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:37,800
the time of the lockdown and I think it was July the first, which was an incredibly difficult

1199
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,760
process.

1200
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:41,160
We always had to raise capital during that period.

1201
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:44,160
But part of the conditions of raising that capital was we'd reduce our costs.

1202
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:46,580
So we really had no choice to do but to do that.

1203
01:00:46,580 --> 01:00:51,200
We had to manage the relationship with all of our clients who were all suffering enormously

1204
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:57,000
through the fact that most of them had invested massively in CapEx the previous years.

1205
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:03,100
So they had no war chest to be able to withstand this amazing amount of time without any revenue.

1206
01:01:03,100 --> 01:01:07,000
We had to deal with all the pessimism of all of the analysts saying that the cinema business

1207
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:12,440
is over because not just because there was no revenue and half the cinemas were on the

1208
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:15,560
brink of bankruptcy, but because the studios have stopped making content.

1209
01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:18,440
So even when they came back online, it was a very high chance there wasn't going to be

1210
01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:19,720
anything to play.

1211
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,880
So everything looked pretty dire and pretty doom and gloom.

1212
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:27,240
And during this period of time, we'd sort of worked with our customers and I'm extremely

1213
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:28,740
proud of that actually.

1214
01:01:28,740 --> 01:01:32,160
We worked with our customers hand in hand to try and say, look, we've both got to stay

1215
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:33,160
in business together.

1216
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:34,720
We've both got to survive.

1217
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:35,720
How do we do this?

1218
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:36,720
What's got to happen?

1219
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:38,680
Forget what the agreement says.

1220
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:39,960
How do we get to the other side?

1221
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:41,720
When we do, how do we look after each other?

1222
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:42,720
I love this.

1223
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:45,760
And I don't know that we lost a customer through the entire period.

1224
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,240
There were a couple that had closed down.

1225
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,760
Only a very, very small number though.

1226
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:54,780
And it was just an amazing sort of survival story and see the business sort of rejuvenating

1227
01:01:54,780 --> 01:01:57,840
now and Vista start to do really well again.

1228
01:01:57,840 --> 01:01:58,840
It feels good.

1229
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:01,400
It feels really, really good that it got through that.

1230
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,960
And actually being public was the reason it probably did because it was able to access

1231
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:06,280
money when there wasn't any around.

1232
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:07,280
Yes.

1233
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:08,280
It was a big number.

1234
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:09,280
Yes.

1235
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:11,200
That period, that COVID period sounds absolutely brutal.

1236
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:12,200
It was awful.

1237
01:02:12,200 --> 01:02:16,400
And speaking of brutal, a startup in and of themselves are quite brutal experiences to

1238
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,120
go through, whether or not they succeed.

1239
01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:20,880
Almost the pain is the same.

1240
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:25,480
You get a little bit less of the satisfaction, the joy from a lack of success if that's the

1241
01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:27,600
path that you end up ultimately on.

1242
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:33,440
In fact, often when I've spoken to founders post the journey, they say that they probably

1243
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:35,080
wouldn't do it again.

1244
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:38,000
And one of the reasons they did it in the first place is through naivety.

1245
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,040
They didn't know what they were going to be in store for.

1246
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:41,880
You've gone and started two additional companies.

1247
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:46,240
I'd like to get to what they are in a second, but why have you waited back into the fray?

1248
01:02:46,240 --> 01:02:48,840
I felt like there was unfinished business.

1249
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:49,840
I really did.

1250
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:57,160
I regretted letting go of Movio as early as I did and not being able to set the path and

1251
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:01,160
having to deal with all of this sort of massaging and compliance with everybody that needed

1252
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:06,560
to know what was going on all the time and not being able to just go with my instinct.

1253
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,120
And so I think that was really, really hard for me.

1254
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:14,040
I regretted the formality that I'd ended up in and not the joy of being in a startup and

1255
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:17,760
inventing things and having fun and sort of flying by the seat of your pants.

1256
01:03:17,760 --> 01:03:22,520
That whole part, I kind of felt like I missed quite dramatically.

1257
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:24,640
So I think that was probably part of it.

1258
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:26,840
I'm probably unemployable.

1259
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:29,680
So that's probably another part to it as well.

1260
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:35,480
So I really just thought my only option is either to wither away on the couch or start

1261
01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:36,480
another business.

1262
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:43,360
And a couple had been running through our minds during the COVID era.

1263
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:50,000
We my wife started Synthony, which is obviously extremely successful business in her own right.

1264
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:52,200
But just like the movie business, it was live events.

1265
01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:54,520
And so her business went to zero as well.

1266
01:03:54,520 --> 01:03:56,600
And so we had time.

1267
01:03:56,600 --> 01:03:59,400
And we had we were stuck at home.

1268
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:04,980
And it became really apparent that there was things that we could do to help our relationship.

1269
01:04:04,980 --> 01:04:08,040
And we started talking about those things and we wanted to improve them.

1270
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:12,440
And this idea had been sort of circulating around of, you know, if we just went on more

1271
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:14,480
date nights, we'd be way happier.

1272
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:16,640
It was really where it came from.

1273
01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:18,280
Why don't we go on more date nights?

1274
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:20,240
Because every time we do it, we come back and we're glowing.

1275
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:23,240
And there's that we feel great and feel loved up and all the rest of it.

1276
01:04:23,240 --> 01:04:25,360
Why don't we keep doing it?

1277
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:27,440
And the answer became because we're just too busy.

1278
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:30,640
You know, we've both got businesses, we've got kids, we've got all this stuff going on.

1279
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:32,480
Got a busy social life.

1280
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:35,260
How do you ever find time for each other?

1281
01:04:35,260 --> 01:04:41,120
And so we sort of, I don't know why, engaged a designer to go, you know, why don't we try

1282
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:44,640
and build an app or at least a designer one that might do this?

1283
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:46,240
And I think you're one of the first people we interviewed about it.

1284
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:47,240
That's correct.

1285
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:51,440
And so, you know, we've got this idea, you know, we think that it can replace the calendar

1286
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:54,820
on the fridge, you know, that'd be really, really cool if everyone was in sync and they

1287
01:04:54,820 --> 01:04:58,980
prioritised date night and the whole, you know, could this be a thing?

1288
01:04:58,980 --> 01:05:03,880
And we probably wouldn't have gone any further with it had COVID not carried on and made

1289
01:05:03,880 --> 01:05:10,120
our movie business and the symphony business so dire that we thought, well, we've got nothing

1290
01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:11,120
else to do.

1291
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:12,960
We might as well keep pulling this thread for a bit longer.

1292
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:17,520
And then all of a sudden, like we kind of found that we were deep into a new startup.

1293
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:21,640
And I think when you get into a startup, you imagine what it takes to get it going.

1294
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:25,480
And you can't think of the thousand things that you haven't thought of yet.

1295
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:26,480
There is a thousand.

1296
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:30,320
All I'm going to do is I'm going to pay an app builder to make this app look like this

1297
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:31,360
design.

1298
01:05:31,360 --> 01:05:33,480
And then I'm going to put it on the app store.

1299
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:35,480
And I'm going to pay for some ad words.

1300
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:36,480
And that's the end of it.

1301
01:05:36,480 --> 01:05:37,480
Straightforward, easy.

1302
01:05:37,480 --> 01:05:38,480
Straightforward.

1303
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:39,480
That's the business done.

1304
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:40,480
And I'm not sure that at all, it turns out.

1305
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:41,480
No, and I should have known better.

1306
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:42,480
You did.

1307
01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:45,720
But it was a logical conclusion thing.

1308
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:50,720
The only logical conclusion thing is a wonderful documentary about the modern space race, Wild,

1309
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:51,720
Wild Space.

1310
01:05:51,720 --> 01:05:52,720
Have you caught that?

1311
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:53,720
I haven't watched it yet, but I have heard about it.

1312
01:05:53,720 --> 01:05:54,720
Must see.

1313
01:05:54,720 --> 01:05:55,720
Must see.

1314
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:59,880
So I've met Sir Peter Beck, but not in a detailed observation of the backstory, the way that

1315
01:05:59,880 --> 01:06:02,560
this movie documentary goes into.

1316
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:07,720
He travels around the states as a basically uncredentialed, unqualified individual that

1317
01:06:07,720 --> 01:06:12,800
had launched some rockets out of his backyard to endeavor to get a job with one of the Boeing,

1318
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:15,120
NASA, Lockheed Martin, et cetera.

1319
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,720
And unsurprisingly, he didn't get a job from any of these people.

1320
01:06:18,720 --> 01:06:19,960
So he's flying back on the aircraft.

1321
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:25,200
And he's clearly not expressing his depression, but he was skirting around that.

1322
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:28,880
And so he kind of gets to the stage of going, well, I can't get a job.

1323
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:30,320
And I've got this passion and enthusiasm.

1324
01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:32,560
I have this quite rare set of skills.

1325
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:36,400
And so the only logical conclusion is, fuck it.

1326
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:37,400
Let's start a company.

1327
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:40,000
So kind of that's the story that you've just told.

1328
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:43,000
But in a different company.

1329
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:44,960
Yeah, I guess that's what we did.

1330
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:48,560
And then I got the kind of I guess I kind of got the bug again, but I also knew where

1331
01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:50,160
I was good and where I wasn't.

1332
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:52,400
Tell us about DevRamp, which is the you've talked about Couples.

1333
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:53,400
So let's talk about DevRamp.

1334
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:55,560
I mean, Couples is a consumer app for couples, right?

1335
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:57,640
So if we just wanted to put it into a bucket, it's an app.

1336
01:06:57,640 --> 01:06:58,640
It's consumer.

1337
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:04,080
Consumer is a very unique beast that is difficult and different to doing B2B SaaS.

1338
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:06,720
I came from B2B SaaS.

1339
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:10,760
One of the businesses that one of the products or ideas that we had whilst we were at Movio

1340
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:15,600
that we used to do manually was map the code knowledge that we had inside our organization.

1341
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:20,520
And the reason we used to do that is because if we wanted to move one engineer from one

1342
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:23,800
team to another, we needed to see the effect that was going to have on the on the original

1343
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:24,800
team.

1344
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:28,840
If we wanted to hire somebody, we needed to know what they needed to pick up to be valuable

1345
01:07:28,840 --> 01:07:30,080
to the organization.

1346
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:33,400
If we wanted to identify where the risk was in terms of key person risk, we needed to

1347
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:36,000
know who knew stuff exclusively.

1348
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:42,080
If we wanted to go through a rewrite or a refactoring of some code, we needed to know

1349
01:07:42,080 --> 01:07:45,920
where the areas where there was lost knowledge, where code had been written by people who

1350
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:46,920
had long left.

1351
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:49,720
And so we used to use this manual tool internally.

1352
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:53,760
And it was like a superpower for us as a company.

1353
01:07:53,760 --> 01:07:57,840
Fast forward and we've found a way of being able to build this into a product that can

1354
01:07:57,840 --> 01:08:00,240
be sold to anybody.

1355
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:06,240
And the whole premise behind behind dev ramp is to help software teams be able to transfer

1356
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:08,840
knowledge effectively between each other.

1357
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:13,640
And so how we do that is we map the knowledge of a code base from the very first commit

1358
01:08:13,640 --> 01:08:15,840
that was ever created right through to today.

1359
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:20,080
And we put it into buckets, we go, what code is known by two or more people?

1360
01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:22,320
Shared, that's what you want everything to be.

1361
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:24,600
What code is exclusively known by one person?

1362
01:08:24,600 --> 01:08:26,300
And what code is lost?

1363
01:08:26,300 --> 01:08:30,860
And what that enables you to do is kind of see exactly where your organization is at.

1364
01:08:30,860 --> 01:08:37,040
And then from that we can see that an objective or in a target for each person, each team

1365
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:40,400
and each organization as to what would be the optimum level of code knowledge for that

1366
01:08:40,400 --> 01:08:45,040
team to have or that person to have to get the maximum benefits and the initial benefits

1367
01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:50,560
are a spread knowledge, but the long term benefits are a big uplift in productivity.

1368
01:08:50,560 --> 01:08:55,480
And then the final part to it is augmenting their existing review process to make sure

1369
01:08:55,480 --> 01:09:01,620
that the right people are reviewing the right pull requests to progress forward and increase

1370
01:09:01,620 --> 01:09:03,640
the familiarity of the company.

1371
01:09:03,640 --> 01:09:07,440
And so we played with this for a wee while.

1372
01:09:07,440 --> 01:09:11,640
My former CTO at Movio, it was his brainchild, Nick McKett.

1373
01:09:11,640 --> 01:09:14,360
And then eventually he came in and he sort of saw us last year and he says, look, I think

1374
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:16,120
I've worked out how to do this.

1375
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:17,980
I think I know how to automate the whole process.

1376
01:09:17,980 --> 01:09:19,740
He showed us a prototype.

1377
01:09:19,740 --> 01:09:23,720
We send him away and said, look, if you can do one more thing for us, we're going to be

1378
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:24,720
in.

1379
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:33,440
And what we wanted to be able to see him do was, can we get an AI to review some code

1380
01:09:33,440 --> 01:09:37,800
and then create a tutorial in the context of the person reviewing it?

1381
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:40,960
So if the person was super knowledgeable of the code, they'd get a very simple tutorial.

1382
01:09:40,960 --> 01:09:45,000
If they'd never seen it before, they'd get one that was more fully fledged.

1383
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:48,160
He showed us that and we went, we looked at each other and went, we've got to go.

1384
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:51,200
And so Pete hadn't actually worked in another startup since 2016.

1385
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:52,840
He'd been off investing.

1386
01:09:52,840 --> 01:09:57,120
I'd obviously been off doing coupler and was already to sort of hand that over fully to

1387
01:09:57,120 --> 01:09:58,120
Erica.

1388
01:09:58,120 --> 01:10:00,800
And so it became, let's do this.

1389
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:03,120
It was kind of, we looked at each other and we kind of backed ourselves into a corner

1390
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:05,760
of all the things we'd asked for, we'd delivered.

1391
01:10:05,760 --> 01:10:06,760
We better make this happen.

1392
01:10:06,760 --> 01:10:07,760
The only logical conclusion.

1393
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:10,880
The only logical conclusion is to start a company.

1394
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:18,600
And so here we are, one year into that journey, having just raised a reasonably good pre-seed

1395
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:20,960
round to take it to the next level.

1396
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:24,040
So yeah, look, it's a crazy old process.

1397
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:26,280
And would I go public with either of those two companies?

1398
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:33,400
I think again, if the premise was right and we were wanting to put fuel on a very clear

1399
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:38,600
plan and we wanted to create some liquidity without handing over complete control, I think

1400
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:40,360
we probably would play that playbook again.

1401
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:41,360
Yeah, great.

1402
01:10:41,360 --> 01:10:46,280
I'd like to step up a couple of levels and talk in kind of general terms.

1403
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:52,160
So if there was kind of a couple, maybe three principles or philosophies that guide you

1404
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:54,160
in business, what would those things be?

1405
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:56,640
Philosophies that guide you in business.

1406
01:10:56,640 --> 01:10:59,480
It's a tough question, that one there.

1407
01:10:59,480 --> 01:11:07,240
I mean, I think one of my philosophies that I sort of live by personally is that you must

1408
01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:10,560
work out how to sell whatever it is that you're creating.

1409
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:14,120
And you as the founder or one of your founding group must be that person.

1410
01:11:14,120 --> 01:11:15,600
So I think that's one of my first ones.

1411
01:11:15,600 --> 01:11:20,720
So whenever I'm taking on any business or any project, I look at it and I go, right,

1412
01:11:20,720 --> 01:11:21,720
how would I sell this?

1413
01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:22,720
And often I have no idea.

1414
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:24,220
In fact, generally, I have no idea.

1415
01:11:24,220 --> 01:11:29,640
And I just keep literally thousands and thousands of iterations of the story, literally thousands

1416
01:11:29,640 --> 01:11:32,480
until I finally feel like I've bedded that down.

1417
01:11:32,480 --> 01:11:36,760
And then I'm presenting that to as many test people as I possibly can until I feel like

1418
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:40,580
I get a, yes, this is getting consistent results.

1419
01:11:40,580 --> 01:11:42,320
We should run with this here.

1420
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:47,000
Once I get it to that point, I then try and build a process that others can replicate.

1421
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:52,380
So it's always about trying to discover what is that narrative that is going to get people

1422
01:11:52,380 --> 01:11:54,540
to be able to buy this product.

1423
01:11:54,540 --> 01:12:00,320
And that's not just customers, that's staff, potential staff, hires, that's investors.

1424
01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:03,280
So getting that right and working that out is really my number one thing.

1425
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:04,880
And not outsourcing that.

1426
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:07,720
That's the one thing me as the founder has to do.

1427
01:12:07,720 --> 01:12:12,840
And if I nail that one piece and I get it really, really right and I'm good at handing

1428
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:17,080
over that so others can replicate how I do it, then I've probably done the most valuable

1429
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:20,760
thing that I can do at an organization.

1430
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:22,800
So that's one.

1431
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:28,200
The second one is I strongly believe that you should have a clear pathway to profitability

1432
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:29,200
before you start.

1433
01:12:29,200 --> 01:12:33,600
Like, it's got to be very obvious when you could be profitable.

1434
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:36,700
And that has got to be the main purpose of business.

1435
01:12:36,700 --> 01:12:40,680
And I know that we've had moments in time where it's about revenue growth and growth

1436
01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:42,160
at all costs.

1437
01:12:42,160 --> 01:12:47,640
But I think the problem when you create a business like that is that you create a culture

1438
01:12:47,640 --> 01:12:49,740
or an ethos of waste.

1439
01:12:49,740 --> 01:12:53,680
And when you create that and then you finally get some lean times, you have no ability to

1440
01:12:53,680 --> 01:12:57,400
be able to turn on this new culture of efficiency.

1441
01:12:57,400 --> 01:13:01,480
It's almost impossible without literally firing everybody.

1442
01:13:01,480 --> 01:13:05,800
And I mean everybody because the culture gets so widespread that it can't be changed.

1443
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:11,360
And the only way it survives is by more and more cash being fuelling this pursuit of growth

1444
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:13,960
at all costs and this wastefulness.

1445
01:13:13,960 --> 01:13:15,960
And I have never subscribed to that.

1446
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,240
I think I thank the guys at Vista for that.

1447
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:19,920
They were always about profitability.

1448
01:13:19,920 --> 01:13:22,400
And we were profitable at Movio from the very first day.

1449
01:13:22,400 --> 01:13:28,360
And we are breakeven now with Kapla and we will be profitable with DeerRamp within probably

1450
01:13:28,360 --> 01:13:29,540
18 months.

1451
01:13:29,540 --> 01:13:35,600
And if we're not, we won't hire, grow or do the things that force that unless it's extremely

1452
01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:38,600
evident that it's going to be beneficial for us and our investors.

1453
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:43,800
So I think that idea of building a company from the get go that's got a profitable thought

1454
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:46,480
about it is really, really important.

1455
01:13:46,480 --> 01:13:50,520
And then probably the final one for me is businesses are way easier to run with less

1456
01:13:50,520 --> 01:13:51,520
people.

1457
01:13:51,520 --> 01:13:52,520
You know what I mean?

1458
01:13:52,520 --> 01:13:56,040
I always make this joke that businesses would be great without staff or customers.

1459
01:13:56,040 --> 01:13:57,040
Not really a business.

1460
01:13:57,040 --> 01:13:59,040
And I don't mean I don't love staff.

1461
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:01,760
I love working with people, but I hate managing people.

1462
01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:03,440
I love the camaraderie.

1463
01:14:03,440 --> 01:14:04,880
I love collaborating.

1464
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:06,480
I love working with talent.

1465
01:14:06,480 --> 01:14:08,160
I just adore it.

1466
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:11,920
But I despise the process of management.

1467
01:14:11,920 --> 01:14:13,640
And I'm a terrible manager.

1468
01:14:13,640 --> 01:14:15,920
I've actually found that out from a 360.

1469
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:18,600
I'm truly awful.

1470
01:14:18,600 --> 01:14:21,040
Quite an aspiring leader, bloody awful manager.

1471
01:14:21,040 --> 01:14:25,080
I used to try and learn and train and read every management book under the sun to change

1472
01:14:25,080 --> 01:14:26,080
that.

1473
01:14:26,080 --> 01:14:29,760
And now I've subscribed to a different thought, which is what if you didn't have to manage?

1474
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:33,800
What if you only hired people that were didn't need management?

1475
01:14:33,800 --> 01:14:37,800
And so now I think one of my philosophies is that whoever I work with does not need

1476
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:38,800
a manager.

1477
01:14:38,800 --> 01:14:39,800
Right.

1478
01:14:39,800 --> 01:14:40,800
They don't need one.

1479
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:44,800
They might have one in terms of like a hierarchy chart might say that I manage you, but you

1480
01:14:44,800 --> 01:14:50,960
completely sole charge and that you drive off your own steam and your own motivation.

1481
01:14:50,960 --> 01:14:53,840
And I think if you can do that, you're really going to enjoy work in the long term.

1482
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:56,120
You're probably going to answer my second point, which is you probably run a pretty

1483
01:14:56,120 --> 01:15:01,240
profitable company and you eliminate an entire layer of a business, which is that whole management

1484
01:15:01,240 --> 01:15:02,740
layer.

1485
01:15:02,740 --> 01:15:06,120
And I think it's not that I don't like like, you know, managers, I just don't want to be

1486
01:15:06,120 --> 01:15:07,120
one.

1487
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:09,280
And so I think you're keeping that really lean.

1488
01:15:09,280 --> 01:15:10,760
And how you do that is interesting.

1489
01:15:10,760 --> 01:15:15,560
Like you kind of have to go through a process of going particularly as a startup, you've

1490
01:15:15,560 --> 01:15:16,960
got 20 things you want to do.

1491
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:17,960
Right.

1492
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:19,800
And five of them are desperately urgent.

1493
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:23,080
And you've got two ways to approach the five desperately urgent things you want to do.

1494
01:15:23,080 --> 01:15:26,280
One is you hire five people to do each of the five things.

1495
01:15:26,280 --> 01:15:28,280
And that's doing them in parallel.

1496
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:29,280
Or you do them in series.

1497
01:15:29,280 --> 01:15:30,280
Right.

1498
01:15:30,280 --> 01:15:31,280
You do one after the other in order.

1499
01:15:31,280 --> 01:15:35,960
And the temptation when you just get a big check from a VC is to go do all of the things

1500
01:15:35,960 --> 01:15:36,960
in parallel.

1501
01:15:36,960 --> 01:15:38,880
And they'll probably push you to do that, too, actually.

1502
01:15:38,880 --> 01:15:42,960
But you really have to question whether that is going to ultimately get you far enough

1503
01:15:42,960 --> 01:15:43,960
ahead.

1504
01:15:43,960 --> 01:15:47,760
How many more weeks further ahead will you be if you do it this way?

1505
01:15:47,760 --> 01:15:50,600
And what will be the price you now have to pay for having this management layer that

1506
01:15:50,600 --> 01:15:53,580
you had to create to support the five staff you hired?

1507
01:15:53,580 --> 01:15:58,480
And I think having that question you always ask yourself of, you know, is there any other

1508
01:15:58,480 --> 01:16:00,200
way I could do this more efficiently?

1509
01:16:00,200 --> 01:16:01,760
Is AI a solution?

1510
01:16:01,760 --> 01:16:03,240
Is outsourcing a solution?

1511
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:04,880
Is not doing it a solution?

1512
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:07,880
Is creating a simpler skateboard version of this a solution?

1513
01:16:07,880 --> 01:16:11,800
But anything but hiring another person is really how I kind of think about it.

1514
01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:12,800
Yeah.

1515
01:16:12,800 --> 01:16:16,640
I'm going to highlight these things for a second because there's some absolute gold

1516
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:18,680
in there for everyone.

1517
01:16:18,680 --> 01:16:23,040
So you said tough question and you've crushed the answers.

1518
01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:29,280
So the narrative piece, what I made that mean is that I think that so many people are so

1519
01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:34,080
bad at explaining not just what their product is, but why people should care and why they

1520
01:16:34,080 --> 01:16:35,400
should buy it.

1521
01:16:35,400 --> 01:16:41,040
And so you being just absolutely laser focused on your ability to articulate that clearly

1522
01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:44,840
and the going out and iterating on it many, many, many times over.

1523
01:16:44,840 --> 01:16:47,720
I've been the recipient of multiple pitches from you in the past.

1524
01:16:47,720 --> 01:16:51,240
And so I know that this is something which is just an ingrained habit of yours.

1525
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:53,800
And I didn't know that that's what you're doing the outset, but now I'm really clear

1526
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:59,320
that that's just a part of your process of going about road testing an idea and seeing

1527
01:16:59,320 --> 01:17:04,280
if A, you can articulate it super clearly and in a compelling way, but B, it gets someone

1528
01:17:04,280 --> 01:17:06,880
to be motivated to take some action.

1529
01:17:06,880 --> 01:17:08,720
So I love that piece.

1530
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:15,440
The profitability bit is a, I guess two years ago, it would have been incredibly contrarian

1531
01:17:15,440 --> 01:17:19,920
to any of the way that Silicon Valley has been funded for the last 15 to 20 years, which

1532
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:23,320
is growth at all costs and forget about profitability.

1533
01:17:23,320 --> 01:17:27,600
And so I love that you're bringing that up and talking about it as a, just one of your

1534
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:31,960
absolute principles of business, because I think it's so, so important and not being

1535
01:17:31,960 --> 01:17:35,800
able to understand, you know, it's a simple answer, but there's a lot of complexity that

1536
01:17:35,800 --> 01:17:37,720
sits in behind it being able to get there.

1537
01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:42,160
You have to be very clear about all of the key metrics inside your business, the acquisition

1538
01:17:42,160 --> 01:17:48,160
costs, the retention of your customers, your churn, your ability to stay ahead of your

1539
01:17:48,160 --> 01:17:49,160
competitors.

1540
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:51,000
There's so many things that sit in behind that.

1541
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:54,800
And so, but being feverishly focused on it, it's just such an important aspect.

1542
01:17:54,800 --> 01:17:56,760
So thank you for a great term.

1543
01:17:56,760 --> 01:17:58,480
Just to put on that for a second.

1544
01:17:58,480 --> 01:18:02,880
I think that one thing that I probably didn't mention about that is that once you are profitable,

1545
01:18:02,880 --> 01:18:04,760
you have choices.

1546
01:18:04,760 --> 01:18:08,840
You're no longer, you no longer work for the potential investor.

1547
01:18:08,840 --> 01:18:10,680
You no longer work for the bank.

1548
01:18:10,680 --> 01:18:14,440
You know, you're no longer at risk of having to make a decision in a time that doesn't

1549
01:18:14,440 --> 01:18:15,760
work for you.

1550
01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:18,840
You're back in control of your destiny.

1551
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:24,040
The day that you are not profitable and generating cash, somebody else is in control.

1552
01:18:24,040 --> 01:18:28,280
Now, they might not take advantage of that control yet, but they could.

1553
01:18:28,280 --> 01:18:30,400
And I've been in that seat.

1554
01:18:30,400 --> 01:18:32,080
And that is a very uncomfortable place to be.

1555
01:18:32,080 --> 01:18:34,760
And I swore I'd never, ever, ever go there again.

1556
01:18:34,760 --> 01:18:38,520
And so I think that choices is the final part that comes off that is that you get a choice

1557
01:18:38,520 --> 01:18:42,120
to make the play when you're ready to make the play.

1558
01:18:42,120 --> 01:18:43,480
Yeah, it's important.

1559
01:18:43,480 --> 01:18:48,040
I've got some battle scars and they've clearly affect how you go about doing things in the

1560
01:18:48,040 --> 01:18:50,840
future, which is a great attribute.

1561
01:18:50,840 --> 01:18:54,360
The last one, it's kind of dual to me that the people management aspect.

1562
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:58,160
On the one hand, I suspect you'll be familiar with the icky guy approach.

1563
01:18:58,160 --> 01:18:59,560
You know, what are you great at?

1564
01:18:59,560 --> 01:19:00,560
What do you love?

1565
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:01,880
What does the world need from you?

1566
01:19:01,880 --> 01:19:06,320
And how do you deliver value with that kind of unique set of skills that you've got, you

1567
01:19:06,320 --> 01:19:08,000
know, solve some big problems.

1568
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:11,880
And so you've clearly developed a self-awareness over time, which some people go through life

1569
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:15,960
and not getting it and going, I am not good at this and I do not like doing it.

1570
01:19:15,960 --> 01:19:20,240
But then you've overlaid the whole is this really necessary?

1571
01:19:20,240 --> 01:19:23,400
And are they the right people if we need to have that overhead of management that sits

1572
01:19:23,400 --> 01:19:24,400
across it?

1573
01:19:24,400 --> 01:19:27,200
So it's a very considered approach about going about team building.

1574
01:19:27,200 --> 01:19:29,360
Yes, we do need to have some resource to do that.

1575
01:19:29,360 --> 01:19:37,000
But automation, offshoring, sharing, not doing it, doing it later, all those things are options.

1576
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:39,720
You don't necessarily need to build a team of people.

1577
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:43,520
And one of the vanity metrics, I think of early stage businesses is how many people

1578
01:19:43,520 --> 01:19:44,520
do you have?

1579
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:45,520
Yeah.

1580
01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:46,520
So I've nailed it.

1581
01:19:46,520 --> 01:19:47,520
Even better.

1582
01:19:47,520 --> 01:19:48,520
Yeah.

1583
01:19:48,520 --> 01:19:49,520
Yeah.

1584
01:19:49,520 --> 01:19:51,960
Occasionally you hear about exit stories of companies that have bootstrapped that have

1585
01:19:51,960 --> 01:19:56,200
four or five staff and they sell for seven, eight figures.

1586
01:19:56,200 --> 01:20:00,000
And it's remarkable that the discipline, the rigor that they've had to put in to get it

1587
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:01,000
to that stage.

1588
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:06,320
But the one pizza kind of team situation, five or six people, group hug, we can all

1589
01:20:06,320 --> 01:20:07,560
fit in the same place together.

1590
01:20:07,560 --> 01:20:10,520
There's just so much value and benefit to doing things that way.

1591
01:20:10,520 --> 01:20:11,520
Yeah.

1592
01:20:11,520 --> 01:20:14,600
And I think that your day, if you think about what you do during a day, you are spending

1593
01:20:14,600 --> 01:20:18,400
most of your day working on the real problems, not working on banishing people.

1594
01:20:18,400 --> 01:20:24,520
And that's, you know, like I found a CEO at Movio, we had nine direct reports and my role,

1595
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:28,240
and I understood it pretty clearly at that time, was to remove obstacles out of their

1596
01:20:28,240 --> 01:20:30,080
way so they could hit their goals.

1597
01:20:30,080 --> 01:20:33,240
And so all I did was find out what their problems were and help them remove them so they could

1598
01:20:33,240 --> 01:20:35,640
keep moving forward with what they're doing.

1599
01:20:35,640 --> 01:20:40,040
And when I had my 360 done by a big external consultancy firm to try and work out, you

1600
01:20:40,040 --> 01:20:47,320
know, whether I'm suitable to be group CEO or not, I'm not, that half of the people

1601
01:20:47,320 --> 01:20:51,680
that must have interviewed 30 or 40 people, half of them said, well, is the worst manager

1602
01:20:51,680 --> 01:20:56,640
ever, you know, great running a motivational speech, but absolutely terrible.

1603
01:20:56,640 --> 01:21:00,080
You know, one out of five, you know, manager, terrible.

1604
01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:03,600
Then the other half said, well, is the best manager ever five out of five, he gives me

1605
01:21:03,600 --> 01:21:07,080
all the space and autonomy to do whatever I want, never checks up on me, just trust

1606
01:21:07,080 --> 01:21:08,080
that I'm going to do the job.

1607
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:10,600
You know, you're like, I'm the same person, I'm just as crap.

1608
01:21:10,600 --> 01:21:12,840
Some side one side thinks I'm awful, the other side thinks I'm great.

1609
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,120
And I think what you've got to try and do is try and find people that you work with

1610
01:21:16,120 --> 01:21:17,120
that fit your style.

1611
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:20,320
Yeah, you know, and I found some people that did and some people that didn't.

1612
01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:21,320
And that wouldn't have been nice for them.

1613
01:21:21,320 --> 01:21:23,320
And it wasn't particularly good for me either.

1614
01:21:23,320 --> 01:21:27,520
So trying to find, you know, a match is a pretty important, you know, play, you know,

1615
01:21:27,520 --> 01:21:30,680
you're with these people for eight hours a day or more.

1616
01:21:30,680 --> 01:21:32,640
And you want to make sure that you get on well.

1617
01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:33,640
Was it anonymous?

1618
01:21:33,640 --> 01:21:38,520
And so what I'm asking that is, were you aware of the half that really rated your style?

1619
01:21:38,520 --> 01:21:39,520
Were they overperformers?

1620
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:40,520
Not really, not really.

1621
01:21:40,520 --> 01:21:43,960
No, I think they were more senior, because I could see the brackets they were in.

1622
01:21:43,960 --> 01:21:48,040
So the more senior people definitely liked the way I approached C level.

1623
01:21:48,040 --> 01:21:53,160
The ones that were more middle management did wanted more guidance, wanted more direction.

1624
01:21:53,160 --> 01:21:54,160
And I wasn't providing that.

1625
01:21:54,160 --> 01:21:55,160
And they're totally right.

1626
01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:56,160
I wasn't so yeah.

1627
01:21:56,160 --> 01:21:58,760
And so I used to beat myself up about it.

1628
01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:02,600
But I think I'm now sort of a bit more circumspect about it and realize that there's not a skill

1629
01:22:02,600 --> 01:22:04,200
I feel like I want to develop.

1630
01:22:04,200 --> 01:22:06,120
Yeah, I hear you.

1631
01:22:06,120 --> 01:22:07,680
So we've covered a lot of ground.

1632
01:22:07,680 --> 01:22:13,720
I have a parting question for you, and it's the alternative career question.

1633
01:22:13,720 --> 01:22:18,080
So clearly now you're a founder, an entrepreneur and an investor.

1634
01:22:18,080 --> 01:22:21,200
So I'm guessing is that how you identify as well as being husband and father?

1635
01:22:21,200 --> 01:22:22,200
Yes, I think.

1636
01:22:22,200 --> 01:22:23,200
Yeah, that's it.

1637
01:22:23,200 --> 01:22:24,200
Okay, great.

1638
01:22:24,200 --> 01:22:25,200
Founder first.

1639
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:26,200
Yeah, founder first.

1640
01:22:26,200 --> 01:22:27,200
Yeah, great.

1641
01:22:27,200 --> 01:22:28,200
That's what I thought.

1642
01:22:28,200 --> 01:22:32,040
So if you hadn't done this, what could your alternative career have been?

1643
01:22:32,040 --> 01:22:37,240
The one that you believe may have brought you a bunch of joy and fulfillment and impacted

1644
01:22:37,240 --> 01:22:38,240
the world in a positive way?

1645
01:22:38,240 --> 01:22:40,520
Yeah, I mean, I still think I will do this.

1646
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:49,160
So I have always loved the idea of identifying talent, working with that talent and mentoring

1647
01:22:49,160 --> 01:22:55,600
them through investing in that talent, and ultimately creating sort of helping create

1648
01:22:55,600 --> 01:22:56,780
new role models.

1649
01:22:56,780 --> 01:22:58,160
It's always been a thing on the back of my mind.

1650
01:22:58,160 --> 01:23:04,520
And I've been doing it to some degree, helping startups and helping entrepreneurs that gone

1651
01:23:04,520 --> 01:23:07,000
on the journey where I can help.

1652
01:23:07,000 --> 01:23:12,460
But I think there is something really incredible about getting some raw talent and working

1653
01:23:12,460 --> 01:23:15,600
with it and showing them a different pathway.

1654
01:23:15,600 --> 01:23:21,040
You know, like I talked earlier on about the path that most young people are on.

1655
01:23:21,040 --> 01:23:25,300
Generally they're told that, you know, being an accountant, a lawyer, you know, a profession

1656
01:23:25,300 --> 01:23:30,240
is the right direction to go and going down the road of being an entrepreneur is madness.

1657
01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:31,240
You know, it's scary.

1658
01:23:31,240 --> 01:23:34,240
We don't want to go down that road.

1659
01:23:34,240 --> 01:23:39,080
I'd love to be able to help those ambitious young people make that leap when there's not

1660
01:23:39,080 --> 01:23:40,080
much to lose.

1661
01:23:40,080 --> 01:23:41,080
You know what I mean?

1662
01:23:41,080 --> 01:23:46,000
And if you imagine if you took people when they're at their highest point of energy,

1663
01:23:46,000 --> 01:23:51,680
when they're the most motivated, with the most capable of learning, the biggest sponges

1664
01:23:51,680 --> 01:23:55,400
that you possibly would be, and you wrap them up and you go, right, we're going to take

1665
01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:56,400
you on a journey.

1666
01:23:56,400 --> 01:23:58,960
You know, let's, you know, let's go.

1667
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:03,880
And they find a dream, they find a vision, they go for it and help them get through that.

1668
01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:06,280
The change that you could make on so many levels is incredible.

1669
01:24:06,280 --> 01:24:09,200
And obviously you've taken them out of a profession and you've made them an entrepreneur.

1670
01:24:09,200 --> 01:24:10,720
They've become a successful entrepreneur.

1671
01:24:10,720 --> 01:24:12,720
They've probably hired lots of people.

1672
01:24:12,720 --> 01:24:15,040
Those people have also potentially become successful.

1673
01:24:15,040 --> 01:24:17,660
They may have created a new category, a new ecosystem.

1674
01:24:17,660 --> 01:24:20,480
They may have inspired a whole bunch of other kids that went to their school.

1675
01:24:20,480 --> 01:24:23,040
They've ever inspired their brothers, their sisters, their family.

1676
01:24:23,040 --> 01:24:27,880
So I get really, really excited about taking somebody off this, you know, tried and true

1677
01:24:27,880 --> 01:24:31,600
and putting them on this new, far more exciting, motivating path.

1678
01:24:31,600 --> 01:24:32,920
Not necessarily just a business.

1679
01:24:32,920 --> 01:24:38,040
Like I also feel like if it was music or if it was sports or if it was anything, grabbing

1680
01:24:38,040 --> 01:24:42,120
that talent and helping them get to being the best they could possibly be with that

1681
01:24:42,120 --> 01:24:46,960
talent I think could be the most fulfilling thing, you know, imaginable.

1682
01:24:46,960 --> 01:24:52,000
And what I need to be able to do to get there is find the financial wherewithal and the

1683
01:24:52,000 --> 01:24:54,000
time to devote everything to that.

1684
01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:58,760
Because I think that would be hugely beneficial for myself, but probably pretty beneficial

1685
01:24:58,760 --> 01:24:59,760
for society as well.

1686
01:24:59,760 --> 01:25:02,080
This is the impact piece.

1687
01:25:02,080 --> 01:25:03,880
And so this is not platitudes.

1688
01:25:03,880 --> 01:25:06,520
I know we're well enough to know that this is actually at its core.

1689
01:25:06,520 --> 01:25:11,600
You are truly a person that believes in elevating, empowering, encouraging and challenging other

1690
01:25:11,600 --> 01:25:12,760
people.

1691
01:25:12,760 --> 01:25:15,720
And so I'm really grateful for today's conversation.

1692
01:25:15,720 --> 01:25:19,480
You've delved a lot deeper into some subjects that about your history and your past that

1693
01:25:19,480 --> 01:25:23,960
I didn't know, but also you've delivered a masterclass in how to take a company from

1694
01:25:23,960 --> 01:25:28,560
inception through to product market fit and then to the stage of a listing.

1695
01:25:28,560 --> 01:25:32,720
And that listing journey is such a rich kind of a piece of experience there because you've

1696
01:25:32,720 --> 01:25:39,240
been through the cauldron, the fire of the excitement, the fun, the highs, the lows,

1697
01:25:39,240 --> 01:25:44,320
the burns and then exited your way out of that business along the way as well.

1698
01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:48,440
And so there's so many other lessons in there around leadership, around self-awareness,

1699
01:25:48,440 --> 01:25:51,680
around how to go about the business of being a better human being as well.

1700
01:25:51,680 --> 01:25:55,680
So I'm really grateful for the conversation today.

1701
01:25:55,680 --> 01:25:59,240
Just one point of note, if people go to your LinkedIn profile, I know you're not super

1702
01:25:59,240 --> 01:26:00,240
active on there.

1703
01:26:00,240 --> 01:26:06,360
It turns out What Do Women Want is one of your highlighted articles.

1704
01:26:06,360 --> 01:26:11,120
And so if you brush over your page, it seems as if the world knows what women want.

1705
01:26:11,120 --> 01:26:12,120
Different podcasts, different conversations.

1706
01:26:12,120 --> 01:26:13,120
That's interesting.

1707
01:26:13,120 --> 01:26:14,880
I actually did do a podcast on that topic.

1708
01:26:14,880 --> 01:26:15,880
Did you really?

1709
01:26:15,880 --> 01:26:16,880
Yeah, I did.

1710
01:26:16,880 --> 01:26:20,320
Yeah, it was extraordinary.

1711
01:26:20,320 --> 01:26:22,560
It was with Gina Davis.

1712
01:26:22,560 --> 01:26:23,560
Okay.

1713
01:26:23,560 --> 01:26:28,760
Yeah, she has an institute and I did a podcast on that some time ago.

1714
01:26:28,760 --> 01:26:29,760
Fascinating.

1715
01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:30,760
Yeah, yeah.

1716
01:26:30,760 --> 01:26:33,000
It was just to give the backdrop on that.

1717
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:36,600
In the movie business, the whole entire movie business for a very long time was built entirely

1718
01:26:36,600 --> 01:26:37,600
for young males.

1719
01:26:37,600 --> 01:26:41,520
Everything, every bit of content, every all the locations, the size of the screens, the

1720
01:26:41,520 --> 01:26:46,520
size of popcorn, the size of the drinks, the whole industry was built around young men.

1721
01:26:46,520 --> 01:26:51,200
And in fact, what we discovered in movie is that the vast majority of film purchasing

1722
01:26:51,200 --> 01:26:54,480
decisions were made by women, whether they be mothers, whether they be wives, whether

1723
01:26:54,480 --> 01:26:56,800
they be partners, whether they're going to films themselves.

1724
01:26:56,800 --> 01:26:59,020
And we weren't catering as industry for them at all.

1725
01:26:59,020 --> 01:27:06,040
And so what this pulled out is really an expose on what kind of content the female market

1726
01:27:06,040 --> 01:27:09,840
was looking for and how successful it could be commercially if we if we cater to it.

1727
01:27:09,840 --> 01:27:13,620
And actually started a bit of a movement where where a whole bunch of people started following

1728
01:27:13,620 --> 01:27:16,320
and going actually, this is whole space in the market.

1729
01:27:16,320 --> 01:27:18,840
We've traditionally not spent enough energy or time on.

1730
01:27:18,840 --> 01:27:20,840
Look what we could do if we did.

1731
01:27:20,840 --> 01:27:21,840
Yeah.

1732
01:27:21,840 --> 01:27:22,840
Okay.

1733
01:27:22,840 --> 01:27:23,840
Yeah.

1734
01:27:23,840 --> 01:27:24,840
Transforming things in ways that we didn't even get to talk about.

1735
01:27:24,840 --> 01:27:26,980
So no, no, no, you're all good.

1736
01:27:26,980 --> 01:27:27,980
So thanks very much.

1737
01:27:27,980 --> 01:27:30,920
We'll appreciate you being a guest today and people can look you up on LinkedIn.

1738
01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:35,440
Go follow DevRamp, go follow Kepler and look forward to our next conversation.

1739
01:27:35,440 --> 01:27:36,440
Thanks Josh.

1740
01:27:36,440 --> 01:27:54,400
Bye bye.

1741
01:27:54,400 --> 01:27:59,880
Do it again.

1742
01:27:59,880 --> 01:28:04,720
Okay.