Here's Why Your Agency Will Never Scale (The Real Problem) | Matthew Duhig

Fundamentally, I believed in our proposition, and I still do today, and that obviously the success is a part of that. That proposition that we're solving a real challenge in the industry, which is this, you know, fragmentation of connected TV, all these different operating systems that we have to support. The decision to set up and run a business is like a major life decision, and it should not be taken lightly because it is incredibly painful. And it took me so long to learn that the only way you can truly understand and create a vision is by just Getting out there, reading as much as you can, watching as much as you can, learning as much as you can. And I think it took me like a good year of immersing myself, like truly immersing myself in the industries that we operate in to be able to truly come out with like the vision that we have.

How did you get off the tools? You were billing 5 days a week when I first met you. What had to happen for that to, for you to be able to get your time back so that you could invest it?

Yeah, okay, so—

And where's, where's Tom then?

Oh mate, I haven't told you, have I? He got hit by a car.

No! Is that why he can't do it?

Um, no, I don't think so, but he's been off work yesterday and today.

Oh, what happened? He was out on his bike?

Yeah, so, well, the, the full extent of it is I got a phone call from, from him at like 5 PM And the phone call consisted of him saying, Matt, I've just got in the back of a car. There's blood everywhere. It's coming out my head. I dunno what's going on. This guy's taking me to the hospital. I need some help. And the guy in the car that was driving him was the one that had hit him. And he was saying, like, oh, Whitechapel, Royal London, Royal London. So, I jumped in an Uber, drove, got the Uber to drive me to Royal London Hospital. And obviously I've spoke to his parents on the phone as well. They're worried sick. His mum's in tears. I'm trying to tell them that I don't know what's going on. He seemed coherent, like, so I don't know how bad it is. I get into the hospital to A&E and they're like, go through there and go left. And they direct me into resuscitation, the resus ward. So I'm— and I didn't clock it straight away until the guy said, I'll just sit in there, sit there and wait for 20 minutes. And I was sitting there looking around like, you know, signs for resuscitation and stuff. I'm like, oh, like, this is serious. And I'm like slowly coming to terms with the fact that my business partner, best mate, just died. And then, uh, basically keep going up to this front desk to this guy, like, can I go and see him? Can I get an update? What's going on? Then he's like, another 20 minutes, just sit and wait. I do that like 2 or 3 times, and the more he tells me to just wait, the more worried I'm getting.

Uh-huh.

And then eventually he goes, oh, I can, I can go in and speak to the doctor now. He goes and speaks to the doctor, the doctor comes out, And then I've had him phone me, making me feel like he's gonna die. And then I had Chris phone me when he was on the floor after a paragliding accident that time.

When you thought he was dying as well?

I thought he was dead.

Yeah.

Hey, I'm Matthew Dewig. I'm the CEO and one of the co-founders of FX Digital. We're a business that build connected TV applications for all sorts of media and sports companies. And I've been running this business for 15 years with my—

Fab. Who's recovering, who's recovering, having been knocked off, who would be with us if he hadn't been knocked off a Lime bike in London. Right. Tom, get well soon.

Yeah.

Fab. Business isn't quite where you started though, 15 years ago, because you weren't doing that when you started. What was it when you started it?

No. So Tom and I set the business up at university. because at the time my sister needed a website for a bridal shop that she was setting up. And, uh, I could build websites but I couldn't design them. So I talked to Tom, was like, fancy designing this website and logo for me because I need some, some help? He designed it, I built it. We did that for free, obviously, because it's my sister. As you do. And then it was a good website, great success. And she referred us to another bridal shop and we did their website. I think we charged like £300. And then after about 4 or 5 years of doing websites and bits like that on the side here and there, we eventually found our way into the world of TV, which is where we are now. So I would say in about 2015, we kind of stumbled across connected TV, which for those that don't know is essentially you can create applications in the same way you can create mobile applications, but for TV and then launch 'em onto TV. which today is mostly for like streaming companies. Yeah. And that's what really kind of propelled our growth. So finding that niche and then kind of doubling down on it and yeah, reducing the clutter and the noise from—

And just to give people a sense of perspective, you've gone from what to what over the last however many years?

So we've gone from about 1.5 million was when I first met you, I think, must have been about 6 or 7 years ago, To encroaching on about $10 million now.

Okay. Not far off that.

So yeah, quite significant growth. And in terms of headcount, from about 20 people to, yes, sort of touching on 80 now. So yeah, quite considerable growth. So we've been through, when you speak to people about a business that's growing quickly, they talk about these like step changes along the way. Like either that's a revenue point or a headcount point. I would say we've been through a few of those and have the scars to show for it. So yeah, part of the fun.

How many times in that period do you reckon you had a business near-death experience? I can think of one. Was it just the one? Or do you, or do you, do you, you, you'll have a much clearer memory.

Yeah, no, I, I, uh, yeah, there was one major one. Um, you know, like a lot of businesses, I learned, I learned along the way, um, their initial growth comes from, in our world anyway, in the agency world, one, one primary client account that, you know, you service really well, do amazing work for, and it just grows. And you get into this position whereby you, you don't want to turn the work down because you're delivering great value and it's silly to turn the work down, but But at the same time, it's physically impossible to try and fill the other half of the agency with another half of, or another equivalent amount of work. So I think there was a time where we had about 80% of our revenue coming from one customer, which was massive. And we always knew this customer wanted to in-house the work that we did for them, and we were kind of supporting them on that journey. But as much as we tried, we just couldn't find the equivalent amount of work outside of that customer to kind of bring the revenue attribution down quickly enough before they did in-house. And I think when they in-housed the work, they were about 60% of our revenue. And that was when I learned that I should pay into a pension scheme. Because me and Tom were looking kind of down the barrel going, ah, this could be pretty bad, mate. We didn't really have anything to show for it. We were the 2 founders that, you know, leaders eat last, right? So we were the 2 that were probably paid some of the lowest in the business at the time. And we just didn't really have anything to show for it individually. Yeah, no personal wealth or assets or anything like that. And yeah, it was a pretty dark, dark moment. Luckily, Tom and I lived with each other at the time. And, you know, it was a shared—

And, you know, I'm gonna shift gears in a second. But one of the things that you did was you hung on, right? So not only did you not have anything to show for it, but you had a cash balance. And you took the deliberate decision to bleed through it, because you thought salvation was around the corner. And so that—

Yeah.

Well, and it was, but—

I think It was, right? And I think fundamentally I believed in our proposition, and I still do today. And that obviously the success is a part of that, um, that, that proposition that we're solving a real challenge in the industry, which is this, you know, fragmentation of connected TV, all these different operating systems that we have to support. And it is really complex for clients of ours to, to launch onto those platforms. And, um, they, they kind of need agencies like us that are navigating that world. And I believed so profoundly in that proposition that we looked at it and we looked at our pipeline and there was lots of exciting opportunities we were bidding for. And we just backed ourselves and went, you know, we need to, I think it was 4 of these like 5 or 6 projects that we had to win in order to not have to like go through redundancies and stuff like that. And we did it. We won all, I think we won 4 of them, 4 of like 5 or 6, like I said. Um, and that, that gave us a launching pad to then go on and win work with a major tech company. Um, and then that, that set us up for probably one of our best years of revenue and profit, um, at the time.

Fab. So Matt, what, what is it that you now believe that other people probably don't believe?

Um, from that experience, the, probably the, the biggest one is The decision to set up and run a business is like a major life decision, and it should not be taken lightly because it is incredibly painful. Don't get me wrong, there are moments of like sheer joy, and the ups definitely outweigh the downs, but the downs can be pretty dark. So I think, you know, maybe because I set my business up so young with Tom, I think I was like 20, right?

Yeah.

Maybe I was ignorant and ignorance is bliss and we just cracked on.

But also I think having a co-founder, what a massive difference that has made. Because as you said, it's a shared experience. You're not, it's not dark and lonely on your own.

No, I would not wish doing it alone on anybody. It must be really tough.

And what do you think about work-life balance or 996 or, you know, do you have any hobbies? Or is this it? Or is this it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what, I often say that I kind of sacrificed my 20s for the company, basically. I remember I had this really, like, this real awakening where I was speaking to someone and they were asking me all these difficult questions I couldn't answer, like, what's your hobby? And what do you like to eat? Yeah. And I just never thought about the things I enjoy to do in life because I was just so focused on this one thing, which was growing this business with Tom. Um, and it wasn't until we got over that particular period and started to, you know, enjoy a bit of success and started to look after ourselves a bit better that I allowed myself the time and focused on it, which was like, you know, understanding what, what I do and don't like in life, which is a bit crazy.

Okay. And do you feel like you've got work-life balance now, or do you think you're still—

No, I would say hobbies and escapism, like exercise, for example, are a really important thing because whilst you can feel like you've got work-life balance, the reality is your head is always consumed with stuff. You're always thinking. I often write things down when I go to bed because otherwise they just stay in my head and I'll just not be able to sleep, basically. So yeah, there's a real art in trying to find a work-life balance because it's not just about not being in the office, it's about being present when you're out of the office.

Yeah.

And I have so many failed relationships that are a testament to my inability to be present outside of work. So yeah, hopefully I'm getting better at that because it is good practice.

What else do you believe?

Don't make promises you can't control. That was a good one. So yeah, there are so many times, there's a very fine line between inspiring and setting a vision as a leader and making promises you can't keep. Good examples are like, you know, when you hire somebody into a role, you could believe in your heart of heart that they are going to become this, you know, maybe it's like the lead designer or the lead engineer, or they're going to run the business one day. And like, you can't really control that. So be careful making that promise. So be careful saying to them, this is your path and this is where you're going to be. You know, because I think what I learned over the years is that resentment can really grow in individuals because understandably, you've made promises to them about things that you want them to achieve. And if they're not quite achieving what you need them to and they feel like they've been promised something, it can cause resentment. And resentment in team members is like the most difficult thing to ever overcome. Like, it really is.

It's funny, isn't it? it's there and then you can't change it. And ultimately, they have to leave. I think I see in lots of ways where people get promoted to be a manager and they were happy to do it because they quite liked the status or more money. And then they're terrible at it. And because they've now been promoted, they can't go back and be— they can't be demoted again, right? And so, I quite often say, if you're going to promote somebody and they've not done it before, just do it as a project, do it as an experiment, because then everybody can save face and you don't have to lose them. Because so often, you end up losing good people that you didn't need to lose. And good people are hard to find.

Yeah, they really are. You know, we, and I think we've generally done quite a good job of that. So we've always been the type that will say to a team member, like, we're gonna give you this 3-month period testing this role out, or however long you wanna do it for before making a decision on things. So I think generally we've done well at that, but there's definitely been times in the agency where we've promoted people too quickly or made the wrong decisions about putting people in certain positions.

What's your last Belief?

I would say the job of an entrepreneur is to reduce risk before you take it. There's a lot of that, especially when I was growing up and learning at university and immersing myself in the world of entrepreneurship. A lot of people would say, oh yeah, entrepreneurs are risk takers. Entrepreneurs just take risks. And, you know, it's quite a dangerous A dangerous little idiom, that, because the reality is, like, my job, most of my job today is about reducing risk. It's about, you know, looking at numbers, understanding the pipeline, knowing what's coming around the corner, and just trying to manage things and reduce risk so that we can take calculated bets on our future. And if we were just, you know, running around taking risks, it would be absolutely terrible.

Okay. Not that it is. And the vision comes from consumption. Come back to that then. What's that?

Yeah, so I think when I, about 2 years ago, we found ourselves in a really nice spot. We were about, I think, £5 million revenue, probably somewhere between £5 and £6 million. And I had a really epic team. I still do, but a really great team that were really on all the projects that we had. And essentially it gave me the ability to step back from the role and go, right, where am I needed? And what I learned is that I needed to do more work in setting the vision for the company. And I was like, you know, a rabbit in headlights kind of looking at it going, how can I just pluck a vision out of the air? And it took me so long to learn that the only way you can truly understand and create a vision is by just getting out there, reading as much as you can, watching as much as you can, learning as much as you can. And I think it took me like a good year of immersing myself, like truly immersing myself in the industries that we operate in to be able to truly come out with like the vision that we have, which is today is all around the living room and that as a shared experience and how we distribute content and other experiences into that living room. Yeah. And it took me a long time to come to that because before then I'd been so involved in project work, I didn't have that exposure to the wider industry. So yeah, that was, yeah. If you're struggling to come up with a vision, start reading, consuming, listening, watching.

And it doesn't feel like work, whereas doing project delivery feels like work. So you hate yourself because you feel as though everybody else is working hard and you're not. So How did you overcome that?

Well, it was easy for me. It was easy for me because I would say I'm the best generalist in the company. Like, I've never been like the best at anything since we hired our first modeler, basically. I've always been like, I've always been the one that can just do the stuff that we need to do, but then very quickly hire experts when things get bigger and, you know, need more than what I can provide. So Whenever I try to step back in, the team are normally like, Matt, we don't need you, we don't need you, step aside. So yeah, it's been quite easy for me to step back. Well, I would say what my role today, I think I get involved when I need to get involved, and that generally is with things like supporting teams in complex situations or trying to ensure that high-profile projects are delivered. when the team need me. And I also think that from a client's perspective, it's reassuring when they see that I'm across big projects and kind of making sure that the team are crossing T's and dotting I's. So yeah.

Well, I mean, you are speaking to me now from Spain. You opened a Spanish office, you were in Spain back end of last year, then you were planning to go to the US and instead you haven't done that. You've stepped into a delivery role, you know, that, you know.

Yeah, things change all the time. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think, um, you know, we, we, we've grown significantly as a business. And it's funny because I'll— in preparation for this, I was researching a book that I'd previously read just to remind myself of the, the key takeaways. And they identified this, this in this book, um, this particular part of growth between like I think it was like £4 and £8 million where you're needing to suddenly hire lots of senior leaders into the business. But when you're at the beginning of that revenue, you haven't quite got the clout to afford them. So you're kind of, you're pushing ahead of yourselves. And in that process, that's where I've come in and basically gone, right, we're a much bigger company now, so we need some real heavy hitters. And we've gone out and we've hired some great people across, actually, like across technology, marketing, and delivery. And I think that's where it needs— sometimes a founder needs to get back involved. And it's generally during those step changes that I mentioned earlier.

Yeah.

Like the whole AI change management is another great one now where founders need to get back involved because the team need a licence to explore this stuff. But they also need the boundaries to be able to feel safe in doing it. And unless the founder gets back involved and starts articulating what they're comfortable with, it can be really challenging for a team. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the founder. It needs to be the leader of the business.

I mean, it's interesting because you're a technical founder, that your ability to step in and pick up AI and say, right, here's what we're going to do as a business. This is what the capabilities are. This is what my expectations are. It's even harder if you're a non-technical founder because You just, you've all the time in the past, this technology shift, IT saved you, or you had somebody else to lean on. And now actually, IT aren't necessarily on it, over it. It's happening so quickly. If even if you're a non-technical founder, you need to be up to your armpits in it and doing it yourself. Yeah.

But even as a technical founder, and any other technical founders out there, I would encourage them to go and do the training. So I've done— there's like a Claude 101 training course that I've taken just to familiarize myself with the various workings of Claude as AI. And there's loads of concepts in there that were new to me. And I'm a technical person, so I would be doing the training either way. And I'm on the path to go through all the engineering training that Anthropic put out. So yeah, I would encourage them to do it because it's new for everyone.

Yeah.

It's new for everyone. I think in using Claude, I'm able to make probably better decisions during those moments where it's writing code or asking for decisions. And I can spot things like if it's not using the right access rights and API keys and stuff like that. But I would say training's important. And that's a big thing I've learned recently, is that especially in this AI world, we should all be putting our team on the training that's available, and it's all free.

Yeah.

So like all this training that Claude and, and, um, you know, OpenAI and Gemini put out is all free. Yeah. So we should be doing it.

One bad hire could cost you £50,000 and 6 months of momentum. And if you're turning over more than £5 million, you've definitely lived this. Not because the person was bad, because look, you've hired off a vague spec and you've trusted your gut feel in the interview. We all have. You bring them in, you carry them for months, and then you're back to square one. CEO fixes that before you post the role. You tell it where the bottleneck is. It gives you a role profile. to test in the interview and what good looks like in the first 90 days. One bad hire is going to cost you 50 grand. CEOFriend is going to cost you £145 a month. Get your first month free and have a play. stwtrialceofriend.ai. Link's in the description. Just another quick question. If you went back in time, would you go to university again? Or would you, or would you not? What if somebody asks you for advice today? What are you thinking?

I had a great time.

Did you learn anything or was it just, it doesn't matter? Because like, you're going to spend, you're going to work hard for the next 10 years. So why do it so soon?

Yeah, I'm not going to like bash ULE. It was a great experience. One caveat is that it was significantly cheaper for me than it is nowadays. So I think when I went, it was £3,000 a term and it was £3,000 for like maintenance grant, I think I got, to pay rent and stuff like that. So the cost was significantly cheaper. I would say the vast majority of like the truly useful learning that I did at university was all independent learning. So it was me like jumping on a topic that had been raised in a module or by a particular lecturer and then going away and figuring it out. So that's why I learned to build like LAMP stack servers at uni because the lecturer was like, oh, you need to create a website and you've got to host it somewhere. And I was like, cool, okay, well, I better dual boot this laptop I've got into a Linux server at the same time. So I figured that one out. And I think that's what uni taught me. It taught me that I'm quite capable of learning things myself. And I think, yeah, because of that, I would go back and do it again.

Very good. Very good.

So look, let's—

I just want to try and pick your brains on some stuff as you've gone through this rapid growth. How did you get off the tools? Right? That, you know, you were billing 5 days a week when I first met you. And what had to happen for that, for you to be able to get get your time back so that you could invest it? And then we can get into what did you invest your time in?

Yeah. Okay. So I would say that I'm like a delegator, an absolute delegator. And sometimes it's great and sometimes it backfires on me. I have like complete faith and confidence in everyone in my team and have a tendency to just hand things off quite quickly. And sometimes that can happen and it can be amazing. Team members pick it up and things are exceptional. And sometimes I might have done a bit of a shitty job of delegating it and it comes back and hits me in the face. But I'm that way and I have team members that are completely the opposite way. that I am trying to coach to be a little bit more like me, but not entirely like me. Because the opposite of that is that you don't trust people, you don't hand anything off, you are a massive bottleneck in the setup of the business. And, you know, that ultimately stops the business and people within it from growing. So yeah, I've always been like someone that's quite comfortable with delegating, but I definitely think I could be better at it. I can be better at like setting people up for success, but I'm learning that, you know, we're all coached and—

And when you were billing 5 days a week, you were doing project management or were you actually writing code?

Right, initially writing code, but then over time doing that less and less. And I would say my role on most projects, if I think around that time, we were probably building Eurosport, the CTV application for Eurosport. And I would say I was the technical director on the CTV project. And what that essentially meant is that I was coordinating engineers on the project. I was working with the PM and the client to make sure that things were getting briefed in, tickets were created, and then the right people were being given the right stuff to work on. And I have quite a knack for knowing where different engineers are best placed in a project. And yeah, that was the role I was playing.

And so how did you backfill that? Did you hire somebody, promote somebody?

Yeah, so hires, basically. I would say hires and promotions, a bit of a blend. So I'm really fortunate that in my life, as I've gone through my, yeah, through the journey with this business, to have met exceptional people along the way. And I have a knack for meeting someone and, you know, store it in the back of my brain, like, oh, one day maybe they'll be a good hire for this role.

Yeah.

for example. And one of the people I hired at the time was a good friend of mine that I'd met because our business was friends with a business that he run. And then we hired him after he exited that business, which was a huge success. So yeah, and that's happened multiple times throughout the business's journey. Like, one of my jobs now is, and always has been, like recruitment. And, you know, my recruitment doesn't typically—

I was gonna say, you're, When we have conversations about senior hires, it's your— you seem to be able to manifest them out of thin air. Because you say to me, right, I'm going to hire a technical director in the next 6 months. And then that just means all you've done is you've opened your brain to either people in the memory or people you meet. And then within 6 months, you go, oh, look, I've hired a technical director because I was— that's what I— Yeah.

It, yeah, it gets me into trouble sometimes because I'll bring someone into the, into the company and the team, and I'll be like, yeah, yeah, don't worry. I've met, I met them like 2 years ago and I've been chatting to them for 2 years. I've got to know them. They're really good at this and they want a new opportunity. They're ready for it.

And so what, but I just pick up just that because that's a chat to them for 2 years, right? So that's the thing. It's you, you go, ah, I think we could work together. I'm gonna— so how many people are you, would you say you are keeping in touch with because you think they might be future hires? Like, is it 10? Is it 50?

Well, that's a good question. Probably more than I'd like to admit. Yeah. So, I don't know, quite a few. I would say, yeah, anywhere between 5 and 10 at any one time. And some of them are like, you know, maybe there's a small outside chance that one day, Or maybe there's someone—

They know.

That left the business a long time ago to join another company that's, you know, and they've done incredibly well there. So I keep checking in with them. So yeah, maybe like 5, somewhere between 5 and 10. But it does work. Like, and it's, for me, the best, most recent example of it is the, we've hired a fractional operations director, like a, or a COO for a better word. And I met them because the person that manages mine and Tom's pension, I was chatting to him about some of the scaling challenges in operations that we were having. And it turns out that his wife was an operations or managing director at Accenture and looking for a new challenge. So I was like—

And she's magic.

So yeah, exceptional. Like exceptional. It's brilliant. Yeah. And our commercial director, like I met him 2 years before we hired him. He was a very senior commercial exec at a SaaS company. And then I remember chatting to him for 2 years and it was like, should we, shouldn't we? We couldn't quite afford him. He didn't quite want to make the jump. And then there was one Christmas where we were in a better place and we could probably afford him. And then he was also sufficiently annoyed at his current role for me to go, Why don't you give it a go, mate? Yeah. And he joined and he's been a— he's made a huge impact on the company. A huge impact.

Well, and you've got the fractional CEO, but you've also got— you did a fractional marketing director to sort of temp to perm as well, which I think is also really interesting.

Yeah, I can't speak highly enough for hiring fractional leaders into the business. What we've done in the past that has added value but not worked as effectively is hired, say, consultants for a 1 or 2 week blast of work. Now, the problem with that is that they come in, do loads of amazing work, but then when they go, everyone else has got their day jobs, so no one's picking it up. Whereas with someone that operates on a longer-term basis, like the CMO, for example, they'll work with us for, say, 12 months and make sure that things are continuing to move along.

Yeah.

And then the great thing about that situation is that Claire, who you're talking about, actually then joined us full-time. And Claire's another one that was kind of manifested, I would say, not necessarily by me. I can't remember, but it was through connections in the industry because we were talking about our ambitions in marketing and our ambitions as a company. And yeah, we were put in touch with Claire through a partner of ours. And then we started working with her as a fractional CMO and then we're so impressed with the work that she did. And I think she vibed with the company and it was just a perfect match.

Yeah.

Yeah. Super.

And what the people who were on your leadership team when you were 20, or that you thought were your leadership team when you were 20, and now when you are 80, how many of the people on the team are on the team still? Or was it just you and Tom?

Well, the team was a lot bigger, I would say. At one point we had a massive leadership team. I probably remember us coming down to visit you and there's like—

And you're not the only client to have everyone who has sort of management, anyone who has a team is sort of on the leadership team. That is a very natural thing that happens. And it's like, okay, well, this is a bit unwieldy. How are we going to cull this down without losing people and damaging their egos?

Exactly. Yeah. Well, I think when we were 20, I would say there was probably about 6 or 7 people on the leadership team, and we were all probably in our 20s, and we were all learning together. And it was like a continuously improving environment, which was really healthy, actually, like a really great environment. I think in that team, we all learned stacks more. That made us much better leaders in the business. But as you grow, some of the team either need to adapt or suit something different better, and that's okay. Some of them want to leave for a new challenge, and that's okay. But generally, we started to realize that the more people you have in that leadership team, the more difficult it becomes to make decisions, essentially.

Yes.

And ultimately, as we've been growing, really we needed more experience in the leadership team over time. So I would say, yeah, that's kind of what happened. Now, actually, the leadership team is 5 people, and one of those people is the CMO, so super experienced. And 4 of them, 3 of them were in the original leadership team, which is me, Tom, and Clayton. And then Mike joined the leadership team, like, God, probably about— years ago, I think now, 4 or 5 years ago, not long after he joined. So yeah, it has changed somewhat, and of course it will change again in the future. We're always growing it, shrinking it, adapting it. Yeah. And I think as we've grown, we've, as a leadership team, tried to place more autonomy on the managers within the company, which has kind of worked really well for us. So we have a really great team of what we call department heads and managers that that really do take on a lot of the effort in the agency.

As you've gone from sort of 20 to 80, what are the systems that you have had to build? What are the sort of core chunks or functions that you've had to automate?

Yeah, I think I mean, for us as an agency, the way we deliver work is quite important. So like the project lifecycle, that like efficiency in delivery is important, not just from a client delivery perspective, but from a profitability perspective and from a team happiness perspective. Because if you don't get that right, the team get burnt out, the client gets frustrated, and you start to lose money on projects.

Yeah.

So that bit there. And I think it's important to note that that is always evolving. So Any of these processes I mentioned that, yeah, we've built them, but we are constantly evolving and iterating them as the company grows and changes. I think there are natural pain points between different departments. So a great example is sales and operations.

Mm-hmm.

And we are constantly working on how we can ensure that our sales and pre-sales process is effective, and not just effective at winning work, which it definitely is because we have an exceptional pitching and technical solutions process, but that it's also effective at then passing work into the delivery team, and that the delivery team have been involved in that so they know what's coming in. So that's been quite an important bridge for us to kind of— or gap for us to bridge. But again, always working on that. And then as with any business, like financial processes and systems, when we were much smaller, it's a good story actually. I used to, I had a fake email address that was my sister. I just used her name. I don't know why I did use her name. And I used to chase clients to pay invoices from that email address because I didn't want them thinking that it was me, the founder, chasing them for invoices because at the same time I was probably the one delivering the project. So they would get annoyed. See, I made up a fictional, fictional—

Very good. What, let's just, so you've got an office in Barcelona. How many, what proportion of the headcount's now in Barcelona?

About 50-50. Okay.

And so why Barcelona and how's it working out?

So Barcelona was another manifestation. So basically the person I mentioned earlier, the technical person we hired who'd previously exited his business, had ambitions to move to Barcelona. This is pre-COVID. And I was like, look, you're a great technologist, one of the best I know. I was like, go for it. We'll do what we can to have you work remotely. But ultimately, we're a company that rely on you having loads of TV devices. So if we're going to do it, we should probably try and find a permanent place to put these devices. But let's give it a go. And then not long after he started working for us from Barcelona, we hired somebody else in Barcelona who's still with us today, another exceptional technologist. And then not long after that, COVID happened. And then we were like, okay, cool. So we're not even in the office in the UK now, so maybe let's not open an office in Barcelona. I remember during COVID driving around London, dropping TV devices off to everyone's houses because they needed TVs to work. me and my little Fiat 500 with like 32-inch Samsungs in the back. And then after COVID, it kind of took a year or two before people started to kind of, you know, get back on the bandwagon of offices are a healthy, natural part of the working life. We'd already mandated, I think, 3 days in the office not long after kind of COVID the COVID lockdowns ended. And then it was our head of QA, Jack, who came to me and basically said, oh, I'm going to relocate to Barcelona. Do you think there's any chance I could keep my job? And obviously, Jack probably was understandably worried because we're such a company that are really hot on that office element of working because of these devices. And I said, I can do one better there, Jack. How about you move to Barcelona and set up an office in Barcelona? And he was up for the challenge. And that's kind of how it materialised. And I think For us as a business, along the way we were evaluating Barcelona as an opportunity from a talent perspective, from a cost perspective. So it wasn't like a, to my point earlier, we didn't just take the risk. Like, I reduced the risk as much as I could before we took it. Done loads of research on how to set up a limited company and then ultimately did it. So yeah, and that's been a huge success. I would say, yeah, the people that we found in the Barcelona team here are just, Really, really exceptional, like really great, great people. And yeah.

So talented, sticky, salary costs, what, 10%, 15%, 20% less than London?

About that, I would say. Yeah, about that is generally the market in Barcelona. But I would say that generally costs in general are about that much lower in Barcelona. If you take, for example, the office costs are significantly cheaper in Barcelona as well. Yeah. And then anything that goes with the administration of it, essentially. Yeah. So it makes sense. But yeah, but I would say for us, the talent of the people is epic. And I think what we're finding is that in London, when we recruit, we're competing against fintechs, banks, startups. It really is tough to compete for good people in London, and we do very well to find them. In Barcelona, that competition's not there. So yes, there are some startups and companies here, but it's nothing like the scale of London. So I think whilst we're having less people apply for roles, we're finding great people a little easier. But yeah, that's my take, kind of one step back from our recruitment process. So, you know, talk to our internal recruitment, they might have a different opinion, but that's how I see it.

What books along the way have been Useful inspirational podcasts? Where do you go for your—

So the book that I read that inspired me to, at the time, quit my job and pursue this more was a book called The Intelligent Entrepreneur by a guy called Bill Murphy Jr. And it was fun. The funny thing is it was given to me by my boss at the time, and then it led to me leaving the role, which was quite hilarious. But the book is about how entrepreneurship can be learned. And it goes through, it's probably quite dated now because it was all about the dot-com boom and entrepreneurs have set up businesses around then. And it goes through a few case studies and talks about, you know, building a team and resilience and persistence and, you know, finding a sweet spot, a niche, a proposition, all that kind of stuff. So I read that and it inspired me to basically go, I should pursue this a bit more.

What else was the— Because you were talking earlier about the step changes. Is that other step change?

Oh yeah, that was Greg Crabtree's book.

Simple Numbers. Yeah, Simple Numbers and Simple Numbers 2. Greg's an accountant, he's not a marketeer. So if Simple Numbers 1 worked, then Simple Numbers 2 would be the second book.

Yeah, but that book is great because I learned, I always joke that I learned how to manage a profit and loss account on Football Manager. Because it was what I did in my childhood. Like I would take over of like Southend and I would, my, you know, yes, I wanted to win the league, but I wanted to do it with a healthy profit margin. And that was what drove me to like, you know, I think enjoy some of the things that I enjoy about business today. But then when I read that book, it kind of overlaid all the realities and all of the, you know, the truth of it. And there's, you know, there's stuff in there that is like go-to business rules now, things like how much money to keep in the bank account, like, you know, whether it's 2 or 3 months. Talks, I think it talks about things like debtor days, the step changes that I mentioned, profitability targets. So he has this thing about 10, 15, 20% profit. So yeah, there's all that stuff is like, If you just read that book and run your business financially the way that's said, that you'll have a healthy business.

So yeah, that was a good one. And where do you get YouTube podcasts? Do you get stuff regularly? Any channels you like that are—

Weirdly, I find that I can be really stubborn And my opinion is more easily changed when I read rather than consuming things quickly. Like a book that takes me like 2 or 3 weeks to read will probably change my mind more than a podcast that says the same thing in 1 hour. And I don't know why that is. It's probably just because of my stubborn nature. But yeah, I do listen to podcasts. There's a good podcast by a guy called— Only joking.

Yours is good. Yours is good.

I do listen. But the one I was going to mention, there's one by an Irish guy. I think his name's David or Dave McCormack. And it's a podcast all about finance and the economy and markets. That one's quite interesting. Talks a lot about global affairs and how that impacts the economy. Has some great episodes on things like private equity. which essentially hugely influences our industry and anyone else's industry, I'm sure, and is the big reason why money flows into certain industries and not others at certain times. So yeah, that one's worth listening. I also listen to the Business Leader Podcast, which is like a— Business Leader is like a community of business founders that I'm a part of. So yeah, listen to their podcast as well. So yeah, and then YouTube videos. Yes, YouTube. YouTube's more of like an area of escapism for me. So I'm like music videos and stuff like that. But yes, sometimes YouTube videos.

Fab. Matt, absolutely brilliant to have you on the show. Thank you for sharing your wild ride story with us.

No worries. Thanks for having me.