Navigating Success and Resilience: Tony Nash's Journey from Bankruptcy to Booktopia

been bankrupt as well, so, um, I learned a lot about losing everything. You are not your car, and you are not your wife or your husband. You are not your sporting team, and you are not your business. Back in those days, people said to me, what do you want to start a bookstore for? You're too late. There's Borders, Angus& Robertson, Amazon, Dymocks. Finance, accounting, learning how to do a presentation in front of other people— all those things are all good skills, but At the end of the day, what's driving the essence of who you are?

Can you expand more on sort of how you identify opportunity?

Yeah, so there's 2 things there. So one is that—

Tony, welcome to the Mentor List podcast. It's a pleasure to have you on today.

Thank you for having me.

Hey, it's been great. And I'm just going to jump straight in, as we mentioned. Tony, could you give us a little bit of background in terms of how Booktopia started and how you managed to build such a, you know, a vast business and scale it up from, uh, your $10 a day, your starting budget?

Yeah, so it was a, it was a side project at the time. My brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, and I, we all had a digital marketing agency, and before that we had an internet software business, and before that we had a recruitment company. So we had done a job to get Angus and Robertson to the top of Google as part of the digital marketing work that we had come up with, and that introduced us to the book industry. They used a company in Sydney to start to run their website and to fulfill their orders, and Booktopia started using the same company that Angus and Robertson was using because they did 80 companies', um, books, 80 bookstores' websites. So we used them to get going, and, and from there my brother gave me a budget of $10 per day. He's very generous. And from, from that I used all of my digital marketing expertise. So I didn't have a website or fulfillment to worry about. Yeah, I just had to get traffic to the site. And it took me 3 days to get my first sale. That was the total sales for the day, 1 book. And by the end of the month, it was $2,000. And that was back in February of 2004. So it's 20 years ago to the day since we're having this conversation. And, and by the 4th month, I was up to $30,000 a month. And by the end of the year, $100,000 a month in book sales. So I kept reinvesting, building the, the campaigns and doing SEO and lots of other things. And so Booktopia started that way, but there was no light bulb moment. There was nothing that said, oh, here's an opportunity, here's a gap in the market. It was one breadcrumb led to another breadcrumb led to— like, it was just following the breadcrumbs. And so in the beginning, we didn't know what we were on to, but after about 3 years, we, we figured it out. And, and back in those days, people said to me, what do you want to start a bookstore for? You're too late. There's Borders, Angus& Robertson, Amazon, Dimmocks. And now people say to me, oh, it's like you got in early.

Yeah, exactly.

So if I listened to them, where would have we been? I didn't listen to them. I just kept persisting.

Excellent. Would you say that's a common trait in your business career, not listening to the advice?

I like disrupting. I do. And I love it when others do that as well. Um, I think that's being an entrepreneur. There's a little bit of not accepting the status quo, thinking outside the cube, looking from different perspectives. So for me, um, it's, it's definitely part and parcel of, of many success stories. But what was great in the book industry, it's a centuries-old industry. And in the book trade, there were people that were stuck looking at the industry from the same vantage point that they had. And I went all over the place. I looked from the valley, I looked from above, I looked over there. So my perspective was very flexible, very nimble, and I could see things that other people couldn't see.

And dare I ask, sort of coming back to that initial stage, were you doing a lot of your own market research before you launched into this? Was that part of the process, or would you— was it more of just, yeah, let's give it a go?

Yeah, let's give it a go.

Yeah.

So it was, it was like, um, you know, test feedback. That worked, that didn't work. Things that I thought might work didn't work, other things worked really well. Um, there were surprises along the way. For example, um, I was selling a lot of books with bare-chested men in kilts in the Scottish Highlands on the front cover.

Right.

And I thought, you know, romance. I didn't have any discerning position on it or thoughts about it, but I could tell that a lot of our customers were buying it. And why is because bookshops weren't stocking it. And the reason they wouldn't stock it is they're bibliophiles passionate about books, and they would never ever hand on heart go, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, back that book. Someone's gonna walk in and I'm gonna say this is a great book. Because it's not part of their personal interests and beliefs.

Or image.

That's right. So those kind of things came as a surprise and we just kept— it's almost like mining. It's just like working that vein of gold and you keep digging and digging and then you go, oh, there you go. There's something right there.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And I guess I'd also like to address the pace of scale because it seems like it grew exponentially almost. How did you keep up with that in terms of capability for yourself, your family who works in the business, and hiring other staff?

Yeah, I didn't keep up with it. I compressed our growth.

Okay.

So it's interesting. You think that because we had 25% annual growth on our revenue year on year, and we're the only company ever to make the AFR Fast 100 8 times.

Yeah.

I aimed for 25% to 30% growth, and I curtailed it if I felt that we were going to overgrow, because I didn't want to have lumpy growth where you do 60% one year, 10% the next. It's very hard to get the team to get into the rhythm of that kind of growth, more customer service calls, more orders going out.

Yeah.

So I aimed for 25 to 30 and I got that. So it was very, it was very, um, kind of planned and it was a stretch sometimes. Like, I even remember going, how the hell can we even do that? Like, but you start, um, getting your brain into an inquisitive state of mind where you go, well, maybe I could do this, or maybe I needed to do that, maybe I needed to do all these things to to get to that 25 to 30%. So I liked that. It worked for me. It worked for us at that time as well.

Yeah, pushing those stretch targets at times and smoothing out the lumps.

Well, I remember talking to a publisher, the CEO of Oxford University Press, and he was— he's retired now, but he asked me, how come you're growing so quickly? And I said, well, I Aim for 25% to 30% growth, and that's what we get. And he goes, geez, I need to change my thinking. I said, why? What do you guys do? We aim for 3% growth. And of course, they're a hundreds-year-old business. But it was a paradigm, it was a mindset, it was focusing on something and having a good go at it.

Yeah, I can imagine. How did you go about finding the people, the right people to work with you as well?

I was lucky to a degree. So I was in recruitment for 14 years.

Hmm.

So I am very confident and comfortable with my recruiting skills. I kind of always looked at who we needed. And I was, if I said, oh, I need a sales director, but I can't afford a sales director, it's like, well, how many orders do we need to be on per day to have that sales director? So I would then kick into gear and go, all right, we've got to get to that number and that will pay for that person.

Right.

So there's that aspect. But also in a company that was growing so much for so long, opportunities came their way to people who were working with us. So I've seen people within the organization grow in their skills, capability, and then their personal value and therefore I was able to attract good people. I was also patient. So sometimes certain roles take a while for them to get up to speed. They don't always— maybe there's a nervousness or an urgency about trying to get someone up to speed. But you've got to allow them to go through that process. I always found that a senior person in a senior role took 2 years.

Really?

To really feel like they're on their own. And that proved to be the case. And I was patient. I invested my time in them so they got to know everything. And the other thing counter to that is that I have a very particular approach to when someone resigns.

Okay.

First of all, I never ever— like, if they've resigned to take another job and that salary that they're going to is better, I never ever match the salary. And I counsel other entrepreneurs and businesses Never do that. It's the most insulting thing you can do.

Yeah.

Because why the hell didn't you give it to them in the first place?

Yeah.

So don't go down that path. Make sure you're paying the market rates, what you can afford, etc., etc. And if, if they get a better, better rate, great.

Yeah.

The other thing I do is when someone comes in and resigns, it's like, wow, where are you going next? Because if you don't want to be here, you want to be somewhere really incredible. And I'm really excited about what you're doing next. And That is different to most people. And what it does is it means that I'm— I never feel like I'm holding on to anyone longer than I need.

Yeah.

And, and so the way that that plays out, it's kind of like people who are in relationships that, you know, have ended, but they're just trying to hang on to keep it together, and the other person's already ended, or you're not feeling in it either. And so you just know that it's becoming hollow, and there are— it's the same with employment. So if someone's ready to move on, wow, where are you going next? I wish you well. And they've created a space for someone else to step in to carry the business further. So it's— I never ever— that way I don't feel like I'm trying to hold on to people and I'm trying to keep them by doing things that are not negative to them and to me and the organization.

Yeah, that's pretty positive. It leans into a lot of the statistics I've been reading about As you say, if you're counter-offering someone who's leaving, then I think statistically they're only likely to stay for another sort of 12 months, or 80% of people or something. So yeah, that's fun. That's interesting. Coming back to your recruitment though, do you have any tips or techniques in terms of when you're in the interview and you're asking those questions? Like, what do you typically look for?

Um, I really— that's a great question actually. I really—

when I—

what I think about is that I want expectation to be exceeded or matched by reality. The worst thing you can have is that someone takes on a job or you go on a holiday or you go and see a show or something and you had an expectation, but I was like, the food in the restaurant was not as good as they said.

Yeah.

And then there's that gap is really noticeable. So for me, I'm quite often trying to drill down into what the job really is, also what their career is like, what they've done, whether they— what are they looking for, what's the next thing for them, to work out whether this is going to be like an emotional, spiritual match as well as the functional component. So I don't worry about degrees. I never, I never got a degree myself, so I'm not worried about their qualifications.

Yeah.

I'm not worried about any of those things. I want to know, and one of the things I did really well as a recruiter back over 20 years ago was to do a cultural and technical match. So who are you?

Yeah.

Do you like the idea of having drinks on a Friday with the rest of the team? Is that normal? Does that suit you? Um, are you into the same pastimes and sports or books or whatever? I just want to know whether you're going to fit in and enjoy your, your colleagues.

Yeah.

Now times have changed and people work from home, and there's a lot of other aspects to the world that we live in today compared to when I was doing recruiting.

Yeah.

But I still feel that those fundamental matchmaking kind of processes are worth investing in.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. I guess touching on, on that point about working from home, obviously you, you had your first capital raising just before COVID and then it was all locked down and, and there must have been a lot of working from home in that time in Australia. Do you think, where do you think the future of, of the business is? Should it be more geared towards sort of a flexible work, you know, set up, or is it— should it be all back in the office? What's your sort of views there?

I, I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna go back to the core of what I honestly believe in, and anyone who's listening to this or mulling over it, their choice. And that is, I learned a lot about the businesses that I worked in when I was young and an employee by osmosis. I was near other great salespeople, or I was a computer programmer as well, near other developers. And having them close to me, I was listening and learning by hearing what they were saying. And if you're at home and working hard and doing what you're doing You, you're not picking up on any of that, so therefore you are curtailing, stalling your career, the potential of your growth. So as you can tell, get to the office. The other thing about getting to the office is that quite often the leaders of the organization, the managers of the organization, are there. Not always, but a lot of the time in most organizations they are. And if they see you with working hard, they'll probably give you an opportunity because you were visible to them or they remembered you or whatever it might be. So my thing is, if I was young and I'd be in that situation, I'd be encouraging myself to go get to the office, work in the office. I know there's extra travel and so forth.

Yeah.

The only thing about working from home, in my opinion, is that if you're more effective, meaning you're working on spreadsheets or you're doing something that you don't want to be distracted and you can be more effective, get through more stuff because being at the office is going to be more distracting, then do that work from home. That, that's my, my feeling.

Yeah. And coming back to what you were saying about learning from osmosis, you know, when you're, when you're sort of setting out, it seems to me that sort of the, the entrepreneur and the CEO, they're actually fairly— well, they're perceived as fairly lonely roles. Like how would you go about your learning in those spaces?

Well, I was fortunate that I had my brother and my brother-in-law. My sister was also in the company, but she mostly did operational roles. But in terms of the decision team, there was always 3 of us, which I think had served us very well. Yeah, I don't see it as lonely. I mean, there's clients, There's suppliers, there's people coming on board. It's a good question, but it's an odd question. It's like people who complain about the weather, I guess.

Yes.

It's like they're just kind of thinking of the weather, and therefore if it's rainy and they want it to be sunny, or if it's I don't even— like, I love weather.

Yeah.

You know, today in Melbourne it's really hot, like Sydney. It's like, wow, I wasn't expecting that. Um, if it's rainy, if it's, if it's cold, if it's warm. So, so, um, I just don't even— I just don't even think about that being alone. Um, I think the one thing there is to think about the network of people that you have at your disposal in terms of being able to call someone to have a chat about something that you feel you've got their trust. The only thing I found is that you have a certain amount of credits. So if your uncle or aunt or cousin was a great business person or a lawyer and you want to ask them a question and you kind of feel like you're dipping into your points too much, Versus a commercial arrangement where you know you've got a lawyer on tap or you've got a business advisor on call because it's a commercial agreement. That's why I'm an advisor now for a lot of boards or a lot of founders and a lot of C-suite executives is because they want to be able to ask me anything continually. And that, yeah, I get the difference there. So Yeah, it's interesting what you say, but I've never experienced that.

No, fair enough. I think certainly from speaking to a few other CEOs and things, I think it's more about maybe the decision-making process and then the sense checking, who do you turn to? And so on that point, I guess, what's your decision-making process?

Well, I was the older of all the siblings and I started it. So there was a bit of— I had a fairly strong intuition and gut feel.

Yeah.

But there was always consensus.

Sure.

Yeah, that's, it's a bit cheeky, my answer, but the, you gotta trust your intuition.

Okay.

And intuition, I like to break that up into 2 words.

Yeah.

In-tuition. So you're in, Tuition, training, tuition. It's the fee that you pay to learn something, your tuition. And whether it's a great experience or a learning experience, you're putting it in your gut for the future. So for me, a lot of my intuition was based on things working, things not working.

Yeah.

So the more experience you have and the more that you can accumulate, the more intuition you're working from. Unfortunately, this is not The Matrix where you can plug a cord into the back of your neck and download all of your intuitions. You literally have to go through every experience. From that perspective, when something comes from left field and takes you by surprise and it's costly, whatever it is, it's like, bring it on. You got to be able to say, I wasn't expecting that. it's going to cost me this, it's going to cost me that, or it's going to cost me time, or I was disappointed with that recruitment, that didn't work out. But you just put it in your gut and go, I'm gonna— I'm better, I'm, I'm better informed.

Yeah, absolutely. And you've had an extraordinary sort of background in terms of before you got to Booktopia as well, before you founded Booktopia. So to have that experience traveling and, you know, sort of the different industries as well, I'm sure that's all helped.

Yeah, um, I mean, I've been bankrupt as well, so, um, I learned a lot about losing everything. And even though that wasn't through business, that was through the tax office doing a retrospective thing on a tax film scheme that was there for going back 7 years that put me in that position. And there was a class action, but there was no way of getting out of it. And in the end, my best decision was to declare bankruptcy. So—

Yeah.

the tax office goes, that $250,000 bill that you owe us. I said, oh, here's my tax file number. And they said, oh, thank you very much. And then it gets just written off.

Right.

So having the experience of losing it means that I knew what risk was and what you were risking if you kind of put all your money down on 21 black or whatever. red or whatever it is. I don't go and play the roulette wheel at the casino. But it's like, are you going to take a big risk or are you going to be more conservative with that risk?

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Tony. Obviously, I heard you sort of talk about the fact that bring it on and up for it and sort of taking those risks. What would you say would be your other sort of mantras or traits for success in that respect?

There's quite a few. Yeah. So obviously, bring it on. One of the ones that I really— that served me very well is like— and I'll just tell you a little story. Please. Yeah. So imagine you own a Maserati and it's an Italian sports car, so it's prone to be at the mechanic quite often. And on this particular day, you have You got to drop the car off to the mechanic and you get given the loaner. And the loaner is a 15-year-old 2-door Fiat. And you got a very important meeting at 9:00 AM with a new client down in Toorak, or if you're in Sydney, Double Bay, or wherever you are in the city where all those exclusive little restaurants are. And you think to yourself, well, I'll park in one of the back streets and just walk around.

Right.

Right, and meet my new client. for whatever reason on that day, every spot is taken and you only have one spot available right in front of the cafe restaurant. And you think, on time is on time and late is late, so I better be on time. So you park your Fiat, the loaner, in front of the cafe. And as you're getting out of the car, the new client sees you, and then they look at the car and you see them, and you're thinking to yourself, yep, but I own a $400,000 Maserati. This is just this is not my car, right? Don't judge me on my car, right? You've got to get out of that car as you, because you are not your car, and you are not your wife or your husband or your, or your kids, their academic or sporting results. You are not your sporting team. Even though a mate of mine thinks he's the Richmond Tigers, he is not the Richmond Tigers.

Yeah, right.

And you are not your business. So The idea of separating yourself, and I'm not Booktopia, I am Tony Nash, Booktopia is Booktopia.

Yeah.

So one of the things that always served me is that I saw Booktopia as its own organism. I remember it taking its first steps, I remember when it went to kindy, I remember when it went to primary school, high school, university, and went out on its own. those stages of a business and how I could look at it as a parent.

Yes.

Or as a supporter and go, I think this is what it needs, rather than identifying myself. And I met someone, I told that at an event I was speaking at, and a woman came up to me afterwards and she goes, I love that one about the Maserati. When I go home, I'm going to tell my husband, right? Because I kept telling him. And she goes, we sold out our wholesale business and He thought that the reason why he was being invited to the footy and the cricket and the concerts and the Formula 1 was because of him. But as soon as they sold their business, the phone went quiet.

Right.

And she— it was such a classic example that you are not your business. And I can tell you that if I overlaid my identity into Booktopia, Booktopia would never have been as successful. All my limiting beliefs or values or whatever, that if I thought that was me, Booktopia would have probably been $50 million or $60 million, not $250 million.

Right.

And so still a very good business, but it would have been limited in its success. So that idea of separating, in particular for entrepreneurs, right? And I meet a lot of kind of C-suite executives. They move from one company to the other. At one time they've got a business card that says this title, and then they're at another company and it has this title. Like, you're not your title either. So that idea of separating has served me very well.

Yeah.

But so that bring it on is definitely, you mentioned bring it on. Bring it on for me has always been like things coming outta left field and you least expect it.

Yeah.

So there was, There was a time when we'd spent a year trying to find a warehouse in 2013 to 2014, wanted this size and this location, and we looked at tons of them. And in the end, we finally got one and we signed the heads of agreement, paid the $10,000 holding so we could draw up the contracts. And then on Christmas Eve 2013, The real estate agent that was working with us rang me and he said, Tony, I've got the worst possible news. He said, the CEO of Fujitsu has rung the CEO of Goodman and they want that unit. They're going to have that unit because they rent all over Australia and we're an important client and you must give us that unit. Apparently, he was sweating bullets before he made the call. I said to him, mate, Sean, relax. The only reason you're telling me this is there's a better opportunity waiting around the corner. And because I was very reasonable, because I didn't shout and scream and swear, and they were very, very accommodating to do whatever they could to help us find that. And we ended up getting space for the same amount that was about 30% bigger than what we were gonna get.

Oh wow.

And so— That's a great result. It's like, bring it on. Oh, I wasn't expecting that, but bring it on. Because if I'm gonna be on the field playing the game, Then I'm gonna expect to be tackled and hit hard, right? That's what it is when you're in business. And if you think, oh, it's gonna be some easy gliding, like get in a gondola and go down the rivers of the avenues of Venice, like good luck with that because that's not how business works. You are in the rapids and things are coming at you left, right and center.

Yeah, that's a great story as well, Tony.

Yeah, thanks.

And it's almost that sort of Taoist belief in sort of whatever the future holds whilst working hard.

Yeah, that's right.

Keeping calm, I might add.

Yeah.

And respectful. Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in. If you're loving this podcast, please give us a 5-star review. Again, when you're talking about sort of bring it on and the sky's falling in terms of making the most out of the current environment or sort of what's coming down the pipe in terms of themes and everything else like that, Can you expand more on sort of, you know, how you identify opportunity or how you'd sort of cultivate the mindset to do so?

So just to be clear on that question, so you're talking more about looking at opportunities of maybe expansion or doing something different, or are you thinking more of like tougher times that we're in right now and how are people responding to the time? Because there's 2 ways I could, I could kind of look at that.

I guess more generally it was about identifying opportunities probably related to the current tough times.

Yeah. So there's 2 things there. So one is that in 2015, we bought Angus& Robertson. They were bought, as most people know, they went into administration with Borders in 2012. They were bought by Penguin, the publisher, and then they were offloading it. So we bought them. And we also bought an online camera business.

Okay.

And I wanted to prove that we could expand into our category and do that well. And I wanted to prove that we could expand into other categories and do that well. And when I was doing my research in Europe and North America online and also traveling, I was curious, why were there some companies flourishing when Amazon was already in quite a mature state? And by that time, 2015-16, Amazon hadn't come to Australia.

Yeah.

And so, and everywhere I looked, it's because they focused on one thing and did it really, really well. And so I decided to sell the camera business to focus more on books. And so I got into distribution. So yeah, that meant that We were dealing with the publisher directly. We became the distributor of books in Australia for certain publishers. That's how the book industry works. You've got to win the distribution rights. So then companies like Amazon and Dymocks and all bookstores have to buy their books from us because we're the distributor and we get a deeper discount. We hold all the stock. So it was a better customer experience. And so for me, focusing on the vertical and doing it really, really well and some Some things that were more like one deviation away. So puzzles, calendars, games, things like that that were not illogical for— like if we had raincoats on our website, it was like— or even clicks through to other sections or other, you know, like Clothetopia.

Yeah.

Like we just needed to really look at that. The other thing with regard to tough times, I love it when times get tough. Because most people are talking about it's tougher than it was rather than looking at the opportunities that are out there. I remember coming back from my travels. We— you mentioned I traveled. I traveled from 1987 to 1990. When I came back to Australia, I'd been recruiting for IT people in London, and in the beginning of '91, I started recruiting for IT people in Australia, and I never knew the '80s in Australia, but apparently there were some massive heyday of placing people and going nuts.

Yeah.

But by the early '90s, it was the recession that we had to have according to Paul Keating. And so, so I never knew that, and I could see that people were just lamenting on the tough times, but I just went out and started chasing down opportunities because I didn't know any different. And I could see that having a certain mindset around that impacted their efforts and their results.

Yeah.

So I just realized that in tough times is when you get a real opportunity to get stronger. So when you come to good times, you're in an unbelievable position. If you think of it more like of a long running race or a competition, you're miles ahead of the competition. As you come out into the good times.

Absolutely. I know you're saying as well, Tony, that you've really enjoyed reading the self-help genre, and you've worked a lot on yourself and your own traits. What would you say would be the most useful that you've had to implement, talking about tough times and identifying opportunities?

Boy, that's a really— You can't actually put a point on any one thing. There's a myriad of things that are going on, I think, in terms of your thinking, your approach. The most important thing, I think, is to be really stable. It's like if we were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it's a beautiful calm day, the ocean is like a lake, and you say, here, take the helm. Well, sure, I can sail it. In fact, when I was in Germany traveling, I was in a little 2-seater plane, and the guy was a pilot with Lufthansa, and he just for fun would fly planes on the weekend, and he took me up. And he goes, here, do you want to fly? So I flew for 10 minutes, just going in one direction. I didn't turn anyway, but I was flying the plane. I had my hand on the control. He didn't.

Yeah.

But in the eye of a storm, in the middle of the ocean, the captain's going to take the helm. And most likely, they're very rock solid. They're looking at everything. They're calling out the shots. You need to do this. You need to do that. And they are as calm as they need to be because everyone's looking at the captain to go, what do we got to do next? And that's how it is in business. And And that's how I've dealt with a lot of the flux that happens in the business world. So now with times are tougher than they were during the pandemic, even though during the pandemic for Booktopia, I mean, we were up 60 to 70% and we had turned off all our marketing.

Yeah.

So it was pretty chaotic then as well, especially in the Delta outbreak because that was tougher because people were teams 14 people in our warehouse had to stay home because one person had a relative who had got COVID. And because of— even though they may not have had it, everyone had to stay home.

Yes.

So it was— that was really chaotic when that happened. But you, you know, that would be one of the most important things when, when, you know, when the proverbial is hitting the fan, how, how centered are you?

Yeah. I guess that's not just for your team's benefit in terms of them seeing a steady hand, but I guess for your own decision-making.

Yeah, I mean, it goes hand in hand. You don't even— that's your— so you've— you automatically go into that mode. You're not thinking about, oh, I've got to go into— I'm sure when athletes are playing a game of footy, they, they get in this— they talk about being in the zone, I guess. So it's a bit like being in the zone.

That makes sense. Coming, I guess, away from that a little bit, but still the same, when you're talking about sort of personal capabilities and skill sets and obviously working on yourself, but that probably implies identifying your own strengths and weaknesses and building a team which sort of complements you in that. Can you talk a little bit more about how you went about that and sort of what you learned, maybe?

So When I was a recruiter, I did a workshop with Robert Kiyosaki called Money and You. And it was years before he wrote the book Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Sure.

And I did it because it had the word money in it. I was in sales, but actually I found out it was more about you than it was about the money, to be fair. And as a recruiter, I had contractors working for me and I At that time, I had 15 contractors and I would get to 15, then I'd drop back down to 11, and then I'd get back up to 15 and drop back down to 11. And it was just this cycle was just driving me nuts.

Yeah.

I went and did this course and I learned a lot about myself, how I operated, how I was sabotaging all these things. And within 3 months, I went from 15 contractors to 30 contractors. And then I got stuck at 30 and I dropped back down to 24 and I get back up to 30. And then I went and did another course. And I popped to 45, and then I dropped back down to 40, and then up to 45. And then I did another course and continued to work on myself and work on how I operated, how I thought. Ultimately, after a few years, I ended up with 130 contractors working for me.

Wow.

You know, almost 10 times as much as, as I had earlier. And so there's things there about learning how you operate, what you do, which impacts your success but also impacts your ability to build a team. how you communicate with others, lots of things that are going on. So that it's a bit of— your question is quite extensive, but if you were to nut it down and go, I worked on myself. And a lot of people who, when I give a tour of Booktopia and they meet me and they go, do you do meditation? I say no. And they expect me to have done meditation because I have this kind of reflective thinking or have a sense of that I've thought things through. But it's kind of meditation. Meditation is about finding inner peace and thinking about what's going on and how, how resourceful are you when, when crazy things are going on. So yeah, so that would be, um, the most— like, it's good to learn practical, tactical things like finance, accounting, spreadsheeting, like doing PowerPoints and learning how to do a presentation in front of other people. All those things are all good skills, but at the end of the day, you know, what's your operating system? Where— what's driving your— the essence of who you are is, is really the key.

Yeah, that sounds it. And if people were to be encouraged to, to help them find that, where would you point them?

Everyone's different. I mean, I, I did personal development because I have ADHD, right? I didn't know that at the time. I only got diagnosed 7 years ago, 8 years ago when my son got diagnosed, and my wife said, I think you've got it as well. It was her stepson, so she had the, the perspective to see that something was going on. And it made a huge difference when he got diagnosed. I was being called up to the school every month because he had humiliated a teacher or a kid and someone had gone out of the room crying.

Right.

And to him being diagnosed, and I never heard from the school again. And he went from a straight B student to a straight A student. So it was quite remarkable in terms of the impact. So off I go to the psychiatrist because she was right about my son, and I spent an hour with him, and we talked about my travels and Booktopia and how I, you know, what I've done in my life. And he goes, no, I don't think you've got it. He goes, but could your wife come in? I'd like to have a chat with her. So a week later we go in, and after about 20 minutes of him asking her questions, he looks at me and he goes, you definitely have ADHD. And so what I learned having been diagnosed was that you love doing what you want to do and you hate doing the things you don't want to do. If you find something that you love, for me, selling or Booktopia or whatever it was, I get obsessed. There is no stopping me on doing something to be successful or win. There is no limitation there. But it comes at cost. It comes at cost with the relationships and the people at home. I learned a lot about myself by doing that. When you ask, well, where would you go? Well, my circumstances were slightly different, and that I was pretty bad in the classroom. I got 56% on my high school certificate. So learning in a typical traditional learning style, which is, here's a classroom, here's the books, go away and study, was not great for me. But going to a personal development workshop or running a business and working with people in my teams and being in in a marriage, it's all happening in, in the room and I'm learning. So my learning style is very different to other learning styles. And that's why, um, and I was talking to, um, someone at, um, TAFE the other day about that, and he goes, well, I don't want to put you in front of my students because you're only going to discourage them not to learn or not to go to, you know, I need students. And I said, look, it's not how I know that that's works for some people and for them to learn skills. It just wasn't great for me. But I'm, I'm very good at financial statements. I'm very good at spreadsheets. I'm very good at lots of different things that you would historically would have had to learn going through and sitting in a course. But yeah, it's not my learning style.

No, that makes sense.

Thanks, Tony.

How else would you say that your ADHD diagnosis has helped you in with Biketopia or in other parts of your life?

Well, it was more that it gave me— it was kind of like saying that we're going to take— we're going to take a moment and we're going to look at your operating system. Now, we know that your operating system has been running in the background handling things and processes things. Who looks at Microsoft Office or Apple operating system? No one does except some geeks and boffins who— that's their job or that's what they do, right?

Yeah.

But most of us don't even look at the operating system. It knows how to print, it knows how to open a file, it knows how to do all these things. But when you take a moment to go, let's have a look at this operating system, and by the way, you've had this ADHD, which is quite frankly just the name of a program, it's— everyone's different. ADHD is really important, or all— any kind of mental health diagnosis, it's not an on-off switch. switch. ADHD, you've got ADHD, that means everyone is the same. No, it's more like a dimmer switch where someone's at 0, someone's at 10, you're at different levels. Maybe it's even a 3-dimensional switch, like a gyro.

Yeah.

So, so it's a— it's very important to understand that. But so for me to understand how I operated, oh, that's why I did that in school, that's why I dropped out of uni and, and didn't do well. It— the penny dropped in many ways once I got diagnosed. And, and so therefore, when I, when I understood myself a bit better, the whole mystery of why I operated a certain way became clearer, and therefore I could work with it a little better. I didn't use it as an excuse, like, oh, don't blame me, I've got ADHD.

No.

I never did that. I owned it, but I I know how it worked for me. ADHD is a superpower. If you have ADHD, you can do a lot of things that others can't do. You can— it gives you great resilience, great persistence. You want to succeed. If you love something that you want to do, you can, you can really be very, very successful. Yeah. And yeah.

And do you encourage— if— well, let me rephrase that. In your, in your business, or now as sort of when you do your consulting on boards and with other entrepreneurs, is it something that you sort of talk about and encourage? And is there any sort of special framework that you, you provide people?

No, I don't. But I do talk about having ADHD, and it's quite liberating for people because, um, it's a stigma to some. Like, for— there was a guy that I spoke here in Melbourne a number of years ago. There was 3,000 people in the audience, and I told everyone I have ADHD and I've been bankrupt and all the other things, 56% of my HSE, etc. And a guy came up to me a year later who I was speaking at another event, and he said, Tony, you, you told everyone, 3,000 people, you have ADHD. He, he was probably about 29 or 30 years old, something around that age, I think, something like that. And he'd obviously grown up with it. He'd been diagnosed in school, probably had meds and all these other things. And he was doing— he told me he was doing everything he could to ensure that nobody at work knew that he had it.

Right.

Because he didn't want people to judge him or pigeonhole him for some reason. And, and I said, I've got ADHD and it's a superpower. And he said he went back to the office and declared to everyone, I've got ADHD and it's a superpower. And he said a year later, he said to me, it was so liberating.

Yeah.

It was, it was really— so that to me is important. And I love it when politicians and sports people and whoever else who are in the public eye and they say to, to people, I'm having a mental health break, I'm just taking time out, right? We need to make it more mainstream conversation so people don't take their lives or impact their relationships, walk out of relationships, abandon kids, whatever happens, whatever they do because they haven't— they feel like they're a failure or that they're useless or whatever. It's like we've got to try and intervene that that kind of languaging so people can take care of themselves. It's normal.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's great impact you had on that, that person's life just through that. Thanks, Tony. So Tony, we're going to come across to the, uh, the second part of the conversation today, and that's all about these— so the questions I'm going to pose to you now, and please feel free to expand on your answers as to why you've chosen that. Do you have a favorite book?

I do. It's To Kill a Mockingbird. I've read it a number of times. I love the movie. There's everything about it that, um, it's like the injustice.

Yeah.

And, um, the, the role that Atticus Finch plays and the kid plays and Boo Radley plays. I just love all the characters and the fact that It was written— there was only one book that she wrote until another one was found very late in her life. But it's just so— it's monumental. So I love that one.

Yeah.

But I also love anything written by Brené Brown. She's incredible in leadership and her honesty and her thoughtfulness and her her deep understanding of what leadership is. I mostly listen. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird many times physically, but I listen to a lot of books.

Right.

I love listening to those books. But from a personal perspective, the ones that have really been almost like a guiding light or a constellation of stars have been more the business parables.

Okay.

So, The Alchemist, The One Minute Manager, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, even a book like The Prophet. I have all those books near me and next to me, and they, they are to me the most empowering of them all because they are They are books that changed my— have changed my thinking and given me perspective and the lessons, the life lessons.

And you still refer back to them?

I do. Yeah.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Tony, do you have a favorite quote?

Well, there is a good one from Seinfeld, and that's if public speaking is the number one fear and death is number 2, that means at a funeral you prefer to be in the casket than delivering the eulogy. And I do love that. There's plenty of others. I mean, there's some great quotes. Oscar Wilde, Emerson, there's just so many people that for some reason have Unbelievable amount of quotes, but I like that one because when it comes to public speaking, which is something that I do, um, it's just enjoyable to, to, you know, get in touch with the humor of it, of it all.

Yeah, reflect on.

Yeah.

Yeah. Would you say you typically bring humor into your, into your workday often?

I think so, yeah.

That's cool. Yeah, yeah.

I remember doing that in the classroom I think it's probably an ADHD thing. Um, I see, you know, I like, I like to have fun.

Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. Tony, if you could meet your younger self, what advice would you give yourself?

Um, having a son who's 20, there's a lot of advice that I've given him.

Oh.

Over the years, the nuggets from my keynotes and things like that. So I kind of observed myself doing it with him, less so with my stepdaughter, but still with her as well. And there's so many things, but I think in terms of mostly letting go of, The— it's kind of like, um, just because you're in the valley and you, you want to get to the top of the mountain, it's just one step at a time. And if you're determined to get there, you'll get there. Um, and any fears or beliefs or reasoning that you may have to why you wouldn't get there, then You can hold on to that, and that may, that may be true in the end. But if you can persevere, then you can really overcome most things that you put your mind to.

Yeah, excellent. Thank you, Tony. Have you found an activity or a pursuit recently which we wouldn't necessarily guess which you're actively enjoying?

Well, I've just given it up. And we had a farm about 2 hours outside of Sydney, and I love my— using my ride-on mower. It was one of the most blissful things to do. I loved it. I'd have my Bluetooth headphones on listening to AC/DC or other music, rock and roll music that I enjoyed, and And when you turn the corner and you look back at the car, the grass perfectly cut, and you just keep working your way at it and you have a lawn at the end. And in Australia and in the summer, it grows so quickly.

Yeah.

So you're constantly being challenged. But so yes, but we just sold the farm and so I've sold my ride-on mower and Maybe those days are numbered, but I absolutely enjoy that. And I'm hoping as I now have gone past 60 that I'll get to play a little bit more golf.

Right.

Played it when I was younger, and it's just so much fun being out there and just with a bit more worldly experience, kind of taking that same kind of thinking like we're talking about today. When I was younger, it was almost like I'll swing as fast and as hard as I can and I'll try and hit the ball as hard and as far as I can.

Yeah.

But to bring a little bit more of that countenance and control and, and finesse and, and just playing within, like instead of trying to hit a driver on a windy thing with the lake on your left is like, now I'm going to play a 7-iron to there, which in the past 30 years ago, there's no way I would have just taken out the driver. And who cares if you lose the ball?

Yeah.

Or hit it on the road or, you know, into a house. So yeah, so I'm hoping for that.

That'd be great.

Yeah. Yeah.

Best of luck. What do you currently play off?

I don't know because I've not got my membership. I've applied for a membership. It's probably in the mid-20s, something like that.

Excellent.

Which is not much different to when I played 25 years ago.

Excellent. It'll be fun to work on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you. Tony, before we wrap up today, is there any other topic or points that you'd like to put across to our listeners?

I hadn't thought about that. Let's just see where my intuition takes me on that one. Um, look, I think, um, I think when you're— if you're— if you're— the main thing about entrepreneurship is that you make the invisible visible. And it doesn't matter whether you're working with somebody else or whether you're working for yourself, it's that idea of creating things.

Yeah.

Is, is really, is, you know, it's really inspiring. It's how we got to here, how we have fire, how we have, you know, sewage systems, why, how we have cars, electric, and fly to the moon. Like, so, so for me, I love it. And, and The word entrepreneur comes from the French, to enter and take. So it's like hacking into the universal database of stuff that, as far as the universe is concerned, already exists.

Yeah.

It's just a matter of you manifesting it because you, you had the, the thought, the thinking, the interest, the pursuit to go in there and grab it. And then as the, as the the person who did the hack, you get to enjoy some of the royalties that may come with that. Some things, they give you no money. They may give you pleasure, time, whatever. And sometimes they can actually be very rewarding in all those things. So, so, um, I think if, if people consider that, then what else is out there? It's, it's unbelievably compelling. I remember when— so my CTO has a good friend who had an online jewelry business and was turning over $3 million a year. And he used to come in and see us, and Booktopia was growing, $20 million, $30 million, I forget where we're up to, and he was at $3 million. And I said, so how's it going, Nick? What's happening? And he goes, oh, I thought this thing is that we're at the end of the checkout Instead of people having to pay with their credit card, they can pay off— pay it off in 4 easy payments. I said, Nick, that's a rip of an idea, mate. Yeah, Nick Molnar, Afterpay. And so, you know, like, yeah, so the thing, it's, it's there. It's just a matter of, of continuing to be curious.

That's it. So creating the unseen and, uh, yeah, being curious.

Yeah, that's right.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Tony.

Pleasure.

Before we wrap up, I'm going to do a series of quickfire questions, if that's okay.

Fire up.

So please just say whatever first comes to mind. Are you ready?

I'm ready. I have no idea what I'm going to say, but I'm ready.

It's part of the fun.

Yeah.

Books or podcasts?

Podcasts.

University or apprenticeships?

Apprenticeships, I guess.

Startups or corporate?

Startups.

Specialists or generalists?

Generalists.

Late to bed or early riser?

Both.

Spontaneity or careful planning?

Spontaneity.

Fiction or nonfiction?

Nonfiction.

Risk taker or risk averse?

I don't even need to— risk taker, of course.

Traditional office or remote work?

Traditional office.

Public speaking or written communication?

Public speaking.

Focus on revenue or customer satisfaction?

Can't have one without the other. I was obsessed. Booktopia's thing was whatever the customers want, you know, find out what the customers want, which are then related in revenue. So customer satisfaction does give you revenue.

That's right. I mean, that's actually something, a point we didn't cover today, but it was your obsessive—

Yeah, whatever the customer— find out what the customers want.

Yeah, following those breadcrumbs.

Yeah.

Thank you. I'll do 3 more very quickly. Introvert or extrovert?

Extrovert.

Sweet or savory?

Sweet.

Summer or winter?

Both. I love all climates. Just a question of gear. Yeah, I'd go— see, you know, you have a farm in the Highlands and a log fire in winter, incredible. Summer, you know, you're out there playing golf, it's extended hours. So yeah, I'd put it a bet each way on that one.

Excellent. I think we can wrap up there.

Yeah, good on you.

That's great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. That's great. Tony, thank you so much for coming today. Really appreciate you giving us your time and your insights. It's been really valuable. Thank you.

I look forward to crossing paths with people who have listened. They should reach out on LinkedIn, and I'm always happy to have a chat.

Super. Thank you, Tony. Hey, this is Alex. If you enjoyed the content so far and you want us to do more, if you want to hear more, Click the subscribe button. It allows us to bring on more guests in the future. Thanks.