Inside Hubscale’s Growth Journey: Strategy, Culture & World-Class Talent with Elliot Fielding

Elliot, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Hishem. Thanks for having me.

Cool to be sitting down and doing this in Austin together.

Yeah, pleasure to have you, man.

Obviously you've, uh, you're now building a business, building a life out in Austin. Yeah, pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Where did you grow up?

Stoke, actually. Um, and then I went uni in Nottingham, went up to Leeds for my first recruitment job, down to Manchester, and now sunny Austin.

It is I think honestly I'm a huge advocate of our industry, huge advocate of recruitment. But I think one of the other things that I think is unmatched about it is like where it can take you.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think it's really cool that you're over here doing what you're doing. So we've got two real sort of goals in this conversation. One, we really want to get into the detail of what you believe Hubscale has done this year. That's really enabled the success this year. There's a couple of things that we've identified that we think have really made an impact. And then two, you guys have ambitious plans and ambitious goals, and we're going to talk about what you guys believe that you need to be doing to facilitate that. Yeah, really have the best chance in achieving that. Sat down with your co-founder Elliot maybe 6 or so months ago now. So for people that may not know, so you're the business partner that joined him on this journey. So that was around June 2023. But to give everyone a bit of context, let me know if I get any of this wrong, but year to date, billings-wise, we'll do it in pounds. Currently at £2.25 million, tracking to end up at £3.2, £3.5 by the end of the year. Your world and your market, which we would have discussed last time, is cybersecurity, but there's a couple of business units within that. So We've now got this Exact Search brand that's fully launched. We have go-to-market, particularly with startup and growth companies. And then we have tech, product, enterprise, end users. I feel like we've got AI in there as well.

Yes. Yeah. So tech and product is the same business unit. End user enterprise with your good friend James Dean in Austin. And then we've just hired Sophie Nivern into AI as well. Yeah.

Cool. And then I know we're going to talk about it, but we then also have contracts on the way down the stretch as well. So other thing to add here as well is, and I'm seeing this more and more now, but 95% of your revenue is in the US. But in terms of currently the amount of you that are out here, team of 4, rest in the UK, Manchester particularly.

Yeah.

Right. The other thing that's interesting here, we're speaking about this, it will sort of vary across business unit, but currently average fee across the business around £28K. Obviously doing it in pounds again, but there's higher-end products, for example, hiring an exec, but that's what that sort of averages out. And then this is the bit I just want to make sure that I get right today because there's a few things that might have changed, but I've got here 22 people have signed to join the business, 20 currently in the business, we've got 3 in non-billing, So we've got ops, marketing, soon have someone in finance, and then the rest are actual salespeople, billers. Yeah.

So we've got 2 people in like delivery/client services, then the rest are 360s. Yeah.

Love it. So let's just get into the detail of what we think has enabled some of the success this year. The first thing I want us to start with, which when you sort of started to break this down with me, I knew this is something that people are going to be excited about. What I wanted to start with before we go into the, into the detail, where, where did this— this might have just been something that maybe picked up in the industry, I don't know, maybe it's something that organically grew inside, but where does this Golden Circle come from, this, this phrase? Or yeah, tell us a bit about where this originated from and then we'll get into what that actually means.

Yeah, yeah, I think, uh, it's important to note, I'm sure you went through it with, with Elliot as well, but the growth of the business over the last 2 and a half years to date. So we— when I joined Elliot, it was me, Elliot, and Katie back in Manchester in a windowless office space. Couldn't tell what time of day it was, what month or year it was. It was proper early grind startup vibes. We grew the business from 3 of us and £400K last year, 7 of us, £1.6M. And then this year we've just continued to scale and grow. We've well passed the numbers already. Where the growth has come from really is, I think myself and Elliot have a real, and this ties into the golden circle, but Myself and Elliot have just this ruthless mentality of we want to grow, we want to be the best. We've got one life, let's just live it and do whatever we can to make it successful. And that aligns to me and Elliot working together back at Strativ 4 or 5 years ago where we would share this common interest of one day we're going to set up a business together, one day we're going to grow. And the first businesses that we got into were super grad-heavy model, super transactional. You'd speak to a candidate once. If you didn't have a job for them or they didn't have a job for you, you'd never speak to them again. Or maybe you'd spec them out, you don't get any replies on it, you just forget about them. Me and Elliot thought that there was a different approach that we could take to that, where rather than being that, like, super heavy volume, high transactional recruiter, we wanted to be, like, like a value-driven, like, thought leader within our market. And that aligns exactly to what our golden circle is. So I'm sure there's a lot of businesses out there that, or a lot of recruiters out there that do do it, but maybe subconsciously do it without tracking what they're doing. But what we have in the business, and for every 360 that's in our company, we have this rule, which is like a golden circle, which is tracked through our CRM. Basically, it's every hiring manager within your core market that you have at least 4 conversations with. These can be anything from just a quick catch-up with them about how they're seeing the market or how their kids are getting on at football or whatever it may be. It can also be obviously about working them into the market, inviting them to some of the events that we're doing, etc., etc. But what we wanted to do when we were building the business was have that like salesy mentality, but also like a value-driven thought leadership mentality for every 360 that's in our business to have as many of those relationships as they can. So all of our consultants are targeted on having X amount of people within their golden circle. So they have to have 4 conversations, basically.

Yeah, I just really like this because like you said, there, there'll probably be a lot of people out there doing this sort of stuff. But what's really helpful when, when you break this down with me, it's just so helpful to have like a framework and it'd be really intentional because then that makes it a lot more easier for people to understand how you're achieving what you're achieving, or the person that I'm working with is doing what they're doing when we have these types of frameworks in place. Because you shared with me, right, this year and why this is one of the, the big ones on why we've been able to achieve what we've achieved this year is like 80% of your wins you can draw back to this framework of the Golden Circle. So does this— we'll go into exactly what that looks like, but is it, is it finite? Is it infinite? Do you know what I mean? Is it always ever evolving? Like, what, what would make it— if one of your 360s in your team says, I've got 30 people in my Golden Circle at the moment, is that good? Or I don't know, I know it might vary, but what does good look like?

Yeah, definitely. So it depends on how long you've been in your market and how long you've been in the business, but generally speaking, we say you want to add at least 30 people per quarter into your Golden Circle. Yeah, the, the amount of client wins that we get is insane, but I think, uh, just in terms of ratios versus other methods that we use, but I think what's really important to mention with the golden circle is this is just like an ever-evolving, ever-growing thing where you don't, you know, you shouldn't always be focusing on new people to add in. You should always be like tapping up your current network. For example, where it works really, really well, you could be wanting to get into a certain client. You've got a top 10 client. Someone within your golden circle is a mutual connection to the CEO there or the CRO there or whoever the hiring manager may be. If that person is in your golden circle and they're truly like a valued member of your network, you can just ask that person, hey, can you introduce me into Josh or John? They look great. Like, I think that we would be a brilliant match. And the idea is, is that everybody in your golden circle is so bought into your success and the value that you've added to them so far that they will always return a favor, or most of the time return a favor. So it makes BD great. It's good because you build good relationships, but also If you ever need to win jobs or you're ever behind on X amount of jobs for the month or the quarter as a business, we always just say, guys, first thing you do, rather than reaching out to a load of brand new people that you've never met who don't have a clue who you are, look at your Golden Circle, look at when you last spoke to them. We track that through our system as well of when the last activity was done for these people that are in your Golden Circle, and press them. Ask them, can you make any intros for me? Are they looking to hire in any of their businesses? Can they, if you've got certain targets you want to get into, they can introduce you to, et cetera. So it works really, really well.

Yeah, and we've got a bit of a story and an example here which I think will really paint a picture, but I just wanted to ask you, and it might really depend on the type of person you are, how you communicate, maybe what market you're in, but if I, let's say I join Hubscale tomorrow, and maybe even part of the onboarding, we've sort of mapped out what those initial 30 people might be in that, that could be in that golden circle in my, in the market I'm going to be focusing on. What have you— because I think this is where sometimes if people haven't really had that approach before and they associate, I can give Elliot, he's in my golden circle, value when I can speak to them about a job, or like something like that. I feel like this is a bit different.

Yeah.

So what would be— where does your mind go there in terms of like, if that's maybe what I've been used to, how can people, or how can I start making the other person feel like, yeah, this is a good use of my time, I'm glad I'm speaking with Elliot the recruiter, when maybe in the past I've associated value as if I've got something to speak to them about?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think first of all, it helps when you're a specialist within your market because you just know what's moving and etc. So I don't know if you'd be able to do it as much if you weren't a specialist. But the idea is that you want to change your relationship with hiring managers away from being a recruiter and being like a thought leader within your market. So people, when they hear from me, it's not always going to be about a job that we're hiring for, whatever it may be. It's going to be about industry news or Hubscale hosting an event in Austin or New York. Do you know anyone who would want to come, or would you want to fly in for it? It's going to be about a podcast. Cast that we've just done with a competitor, we can send over to them so they can get tips on it. The way that we like tell our team or like coach our team and help our team with it is when you're having that initial conversation with a hiring manager or whoever it may be, just saying to them, hey, look, I'm a relationship-driven recruiter, I'm not a transactional recruiter. You're not just going to hear from me when I've got a job, and I— you're not just going to hear from me when I've got a candidate for you. I like to stay close to the people that I work with. Most relationships and most the leaders that I work with I've known for X amount of years, I'll reach out to you if I hear anything in the news. If we, if we work with any new businesses, whether they have a role for you, whether they don't, I'm happy to share the name with you so you can have a look at them, etc., etc. And then the idea is, is actually following up with that, making sure that you're not just saying all this on the call and then they never hear from you again. Yeah, well, you don't have a job for them, but that's the quickest way to not build relationships. Exactly.

So you're going— what you're going to do—

and I think it's important to note as well, like, we— how we've positioned it with our guys is like they should want— they should think that you are the best recruiter in the market. Like, every single conversation that you have, you should leave it with them thinking that you're the best recruiter in your niche in the market. Become the known person for your small niche within the space. And you only get that through years and years of consistently, like, following the Golden Circle, branding on LinkedIn, or all these types of things. Definitely.

Yeah, it's definitely a process, isn't it? Okay, so why don't we tie that together then? Because I think example stories always help with these things. So I've got it on here because I asked you if there's any like good examples of this, but got an example here of a successful win, uh, that Tom had— Tom Evans— that probably followed this process. So do you want to talk through that? Obviously I've got the bits here. I don't know if you're going to be able to remember it all. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, tell us a bit about it because I think this is a good example. So let's talk through that.

Yeah, yeah, shout out to Tom Evans as well, he's a top guy. Yeah, so we have like different methods of reaching out to people and like touch points for Golden Circle. It's all built around our business and like our brand, but podcasts would be the first one. So Tom reached out to a CMO of like a target top 10 account for him asking if he wanted to be on a podcast. And the guy said, yeah, happy to come on it. They recorded the podcast. We then— because we work with a couple of venture capital firms where it's really good actually for Golden Circles to fund, also just for credibility. We have relationships with a certain amount of venture capital firms where they will happily meet with any VP or C-suite that's good in the market just to know each other. Like, they're not necessarily looking for something immediate, but it may be something in the future. So we leverage that really, really well with like the top VPs and CISOs where we're helping them out and opening the door to a potential VC that they want to get into for opportunities. So Tom had the podcast with him. He then introduced them into this venture capital firm. They had a conversation. Didn't go anywhere, but it may do in 2, 3 years' time. But he was really appreciative of that. We do a ton of events. So we went to Black Hat this year, which is like a huge cyber conference in Vegas. Tom met him there, went out for drinks with him, schmoozed him a little bit there. So he had 3 touchpoints by that point. They then arranged to have a follow-up call whilst they were at Vegas, where Tom would talk about hiring plans and growth for his business. Tom then had that 4th meeting with him, pulled on a director of growth marketing and a director of product marketing. They're both like relative, like mid-senior roles, like 40, to $45K fees, and Tom filled the PMM role, the product marketing role, I think in the first 4 weeks. He closed it last week. So that process has gone on since—

5 months, yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought I'd give you a bit of an example of, yeah.

I think as well, one thing to note with the Golden Circle stuff as well is, not to like labour it too, too much, but the relationships, the client relationships that you win off the back of it, these people are like true champions for you. It's not like, you get a transactional spec reply, you jump on a call with the hiring manager. It's the first time you ever speak to them. You sign terms and win a job. Like, this person's been wanting to work with you for the best part of 3, 4 months. The second that they get you in and you've got terms signed with them, the doors are open. So he's now got a strategy where he's expanding across the account and the guy's like a proper champion for him now, which is great.

Yeah, I know. I think that that's just such a really good example and I think a great way to end that point? Because that, that can look different per maybe type of win that you end up happening. But what's consistent there is you're not just speaking to them about, have you, are you hiring on your team, and those types of conversations. Within all those different touch points, there would have been loads of different types of conversations, right? Understanding more about their career, maybe what they care about, their goals in the future, what's going on in their life. You've hopefully got a bit of credit with them because you've done a podcast with them and helped elevate their brand. You've got them on the radar of a VC firm that might also then accelerate their career. You're then actually meeting them in person, so that adds a whole nother element as well. And then if you're going out for drinks with someone, probably going to learn more about each other as actual individuals, not just a hiring manager conversation. So if you think like all, all of that's happened before we've got anywhere near speaking about what salary you're going to pay this head of product marketing do you know what I mean? Yeah. So that, that, that may always look a bit different, but ultimately there's a lot of things there that are happening that then can result in, uh, you being the person that they want to work with or speak to when they go, actually, I've just got budget for growing my team, can I speak to you about it?

Yeah. And I guarantee, because this, this is like a top 10 business, like one of the billion dollar valuation, one of the best businesses in the market, one of the, yeah, most sought after. I guarantee if Tom had that first call with him and just opened up and said, hi, I've got you on the phone, have you got any jobs for me? The guy just would never have spoke to him again. Um, don't get wrong, there is a time and a place for quick win, like there 100% is. I'm not saying that there isn't. We need to be selective with like this strategy that you're going after and be really intentional with it. And that is just like a perfect example.

Love it. So I think what, what sort of builds on this, and I do think what's important here, is and it's just the, the truth of it. Like, you're gonna find this sort of stuff difficult, but hopefully this podcast can help if you're in an environment where none of this is championed, or you join an organization and they're not giving you a strategy around this is the market you're going to go— you're going to be focused on, this is what you're going to be doing. Because then it brings us to the next part, which is community. Uh, and I know there's sometimes people in organizations where they want to do this sort of stuff, but it they're not enabled, it's not advocated. But again, we've got another story here, and I'm seeing this more and more continue to take place in our industry where, where you took an action on an idea. I think that's where it'd be a good place to start because I think that, I think that's for me the insight for people. Because when you start to tell me about this, I'll let you explain it, but you had a couple of conversations and then you were like, hang on a minute, why don't these people know each other.

Yeah.

So tell us a bit about where this community, which is called Keep Austin Secure, the sort of birth of that, where that came from, and then we can just talk a bit about that.

Yeah, yeah. Shout out to James Dean for the name as well. Nice. Yeah, so I think, and me and Elliot both think this, is like the community-driven approach is like the next generation now for recruitment. I think particularly in the type of recruitment that we do, like a lot of exec search stuff, like all the top VCs, all the top CEOs, they're only really going to buy into you on either community or obviously referrals and reputation. But that also ties into it a little bit. So when I first came to Austin, I met with 10 CEOs, founders, CROs, like just hiring managers who I knew who were already out here, who I'd worked with before, or etc. When I was there, I was asking people, oh, I work with they would be like, oh, who do you know, who do you work with over here, etc. I'd say, oh, I know I work with Chris, um, he works at this company in this role. And the guy would be with this guy called Jay, they didn't have a clue who he was. Turns out they live 7 minutes away from each other, their kids go to similar schools or like rival schools, they work in the same role in direct competitors, and they didn't know either of them existed. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And there's got— I said, there's got to be value in me and HubScale creating a platform where these people can meet each other. So what we did was we launched a brand and a community called Keep Austin Secure. One thing that's really important is we do this with JP Morgan. So there's a lady out here called Ashley who's great, and she basically works with early-stage startups from JP Morgan in Austin, and then a founder of a security company called Greg, who's, who's class as well. Us three and James have built Keep Austin Secure. It's a community where we have bi-weekly networking events, uh, monthly in-person, uh, and then monthly, uh, like webinars. And we do like pickleball events where people will turn up on a Friday early morning, just grab a coffee and some breakfast tacos, very Austin, and play pickleball for 2 hours. We do happy hours, we do like roundtables. We're actually doing an event with Antler, which is a venture capital firm out here, where we're bringing 15 CISOs into a room, they're bringing 4 founders of AI startups into the room, and the AI founders are going to pitch to the CISOs in like a Shark Tank or like Dragon's Den style pitch. Just to add value, like, and what we've found is We've been building this community for the best part of 6 months now. We've got, I think, around 170 founders, VP, or C-suite in cyber in Austin in this group. And it's just amazing to see the amount of value that we're adding to people over here. It's great. It goes along with the golden circle stuff because we also target our team in Manchester to get people into the group. So we say, look, I'm not going to take away any credit from you. This is your relationship. But if you know anybody in Austin, if you run against a hiring manager in Austin, introduce them to us, get them in the group, get them to come to an event where they can meet us, but also meet other founders and CEOs in Austin. And they just absolutely love it. Like now we're having conversations with people not about recruitment. We're having conversations with them about their business and about the growth of the business and the challenges that they're having. But yeah, our style of recruitment has just changed a lot as it comes to that keep us insecure stuff. To— I was having like a pinch-me moment, I think it was maybe like a month ago, where we had a pickleball event and it was me, the CEO of one business, playing two CEOs of two other security companies. And I'm there giving one of the CEOs shit for missing the ball. And I was thinking how we were playing, and these are like guys who I've been wanting to get in front of for like 7, 8 years. I've never been able to. And they're like hugging me, shaking hands with me, like thanking me for the— for setting it up and stuff like that. and that is like proper value-add and like proper relationship. And that's what we're, we're driving, uh, towards now. We've just come back from New York last week where we met with, uh, JP Morgan over there, uh, and they want to do something similar in, in New York with some of the events. So they love it. I think one thing that I would say is don't be afraid to do it. It definitely is going to take time to do it. If your goal is to make revenue out of it, it's going to be difficult because, and if you're under pressure from your manager or something to like bill this week or next month off the back of it, wouldn't even bother. You can't ask people for business. You can't like drive and try and sell to people in a community because the reason why people join is because you're not doing that. So, you would just underpin the whole like authenticity of why you're doing it, which is actually, to add value to your community and to add value to the members that are in it.

Yeah.

So that's what I would say is like, it's one of the best branding tools that we've ever done. I think that's where recruitment is going to go, particularly at an exec search level. But you've got to be careful with how you set this stuff up, because if you're in it just to try and win jobs out of people, you'll just ruin relationships.

I think, yeah, the— I'm glad that you said that. I think the bit that I take from the story is one, I think this is sometimes recruiters sort of miss this, that they sometimes don't see that you're speaking to multiple people every week, maybe sometimes a day, who may not know other people like them. So I think that that's the bit that like, if you have that moment, it's like, hang on a minute, I just spoke to so-and-so and they're great, and I spoke to so-and-so and they're also great, and they're on a similar career trajectory or they have similar career ambitions. And they're at competing companies and they don't know each other, like, absolutely, you, you can be the person that sort of connects those people, even if it is just an introduction as a starting point. But I think people need to recognize those moments. So actually, can we do something here? Because I think that's a great place for that to be born from, you know what I mean? It wasn't born from, right, we need new ways to speak to CISOs, like, let's start a community. It was born from that. And then the other part that I think I'd from what you've shared how that happened. I think if you can also do something like this, build something like this with industry people, I think that goes a long way as well. Yeah, not just because of how that looks, but more so I'm sure they've come up with ideas and suggestions that maybe you wouldn't have thought of.

Yeah.

And then the final thing for me with all this is like, just imagine obviously, yeah, relationships and everything like that, but just the access to like industry knowledge, understanding that you're going to get by being in these rooms, it's just huge.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's, that's just massive in, in our industry now, like, especially technology, AI. Like, you need to really understand the nuances of what's going on in your industry. If you're taking, uh, you're part of a community or you've helped build a community where you can actually learn this stuff, meet these people, be interested, that's just going to be a lot easier for that to happen.

Yeah, I think, um, It's important to note that don't be afraid to— what I was quite surprised when we started doing it was the VCs are actually so open to it. Like, they want to partner on events. And I thought, oh, we're a recruitment business, they're not going to be interested in it because we're outside of the industry and we're just like people trying to ask people for jobs like that. They were so open to it and they loved the idea that our network is just hiring managers and senior leadership. So they were really cool to do that. So don't be afraid, whatever industry it is. I would imagine they're not going to be annoyed that you're asking them. That's one thing. Second thing, yeah, if you can do it with other people who are in the industry, I'm sure everyone here, or like founders of businesses, or anyone who's like a good biller will have good relationships with like senior people in the industry. Ask them if they want to do it with you because it definitely disarms people to join the community. Like We've had it where a CEO of a business actually commented to Ashley, like, what's this Elliot guy doing? Like, what's his ulterior motive? Like, why is he building this? Like, and if I wasn't, if she wasn't in it, that guy would never be involved in it. But then I got to meet him. We actually got on really, really well and stuff like that. So I think you need to be, if you can do that, it'll disarm people away from thinking that you're just going to fill a room and ask everyone for jobs.

Yeah.

Which is like what you can't do. But yeah, it's really, really good. Like the value add is great there, definitely.

Let's talk about— I want to talk about, because I think what, you know, getting to know your business, I think what I've really found interesting is just this real intention around how you hire, who you hire. But I think just to round out the— this market stuff, and then we'll get into that, let's just talk about market strategy, because I feel like that's the other thing that both you and Elliot have been really intentional about. And this is something, being honest with you, has been something that has come up quite a bit this year. I think companies that I've met that are doing well or companies that I've met that have maybe found this year hard, I think one of the things that I've found to be common is sometimes you have to be agile with the markets that you're in or make adjacent moves. I think if you're bringing people into your business and saying, right, Elliot, yep, you're joining a high-performance culture, we're going to support you, you do the market that you want to do. I think that's going to be— I just think that's just going to be hard. So I think what I've really enjoyed learning about your guys' business is just this real intention around the business units, the market strategy. Because I do think if you're in that type of environment and you're a good recruiter and you're joining in a business that has that clear market strategy and says like, these are the companies you're going to be working with, these are the this is going to be your ecosystem, and that's how this ecosystem connects to this other ecosystem that we have, you're just stacking the odds in your favor, I really think. Versus potentially joining a business where you look around, and ultimately you've got 4 different businesses in there because you're all doing different markets where there isn't cross-selling opportunity. So I think that this is, and I know this is going to be common in a lot of conversations I have this week whilst in Austin because it's come up a lot. Talk to us a bit about this intention around the market strategy. We've got some good examples here of how people have then joined the business and benefited from that. But when— if me and, you know, if me, you, and the other Elliott were sitting down when you joined, was this all like mapped out? Was it clear? Have you built over time? Just talk to us a bit about the intention behind this and how you view it, because I do think this is quite critical.

Yeah, I think People, I think Elliot mentioned this in the last podcast, but people like underestimate how big cybersecurity as a market is. Not just from a vendor perspective, but from an end user perspective, it's huge. You could have like 200, 300 people just doing security. Whereas in like more broader recruitment businesses, you may have one guy doing security or one girl doing security, and the market is just way too big. We learned that lesson when we were setting up and building Hubscale. We'd learned the lesson from our previous company where they didn't really crack collaboration very well across the teams. And every— even in an individual team, so like a go-to-market team that me and Elliot were in, everyone's desk was so siloed away from each other because they had a certain part of the market that didn't overlap with anybody else's. Whereby is what you're saying there, it was almost like everyone was their own mini business in a company and like you'd come in and it would feel like you're part of a team, but no one's got any candidates they can share with you. You can't sell any candidates into anybody else's jobs. You're basically left on an island on your own just to try and build as much as you can. So we were really intentional with like, that was an issue. How can we overcome that? And to answer your question, we had a vision of where we wanted to grow the business. I think as we've hired good people and good leaders into the business, that vision has slightly got even bigger of like where we could scale it and what we could do with insecurity. But yeah, that was a really intentional thing. So how we've done it now is, and this is like truthfully honest, every single desk in our business, every single 360 desk in our business has the ability to pull a job for anybody else in the company. Uh, there's a, there's an area of each of the desks that overlaps with every single other desk Just through, for example, we have a go-to-market team and a product and tech team within early-stage cyber vendors, so up to 400 employees. One, for example, Callum, would be going after a certain set of 50 companies on the go-to-market side. So going into like CROs, COOs, CMOs, etc. We've mapped up in like a pod system our tech and product team whereby Jake will be going after the same companies but different hiring managers. So those two are basically working together as a two to BD into the same accounts. And then we've mapped that across the entire business, basically. And then James, for example, in end users, his customers are our customers' customers. So they sell into each other. Perfect example, James Clancy. I didn't actually mention this one before, but I was just thinking now, James Clancy and James Dean, call him Gino. They, they just closed a deal last week for a CISO within a venture capital firm. James Clancy pulled on the client. They were looking for a CISO, not in a cyber company, but in an end user. James Dean, that's exactly what he does. They collaborated on the deal. Clancy won the role. Dean filled it within a couple of weeks. And then there's loads of examples like that.

Yeah, we've got a few here. Emily deal in the first 6 weeks. Jake. Deal in 8 weeks. I think this is the thing and why I highlighted it, is like, if you join an environment like that or a business like that and they've got that clear strategy where they've really thought about those things, they've been intentional, you are just stacking the odds in your favor.

Yeah.

And it, it does just make sense. How do you— bar hiring, hiring people that you feel like would be collaborative or understand the importance of it— like, how do you incentivize this? Or like, is it internally, how do you incentivize people to not just be thinking about their desk? I don't know.

Yeah, of course. So we have splits, of course, and most businesses do that, but we do like 50/50 splits. So if someone wins a client or someone passes a job in, there's always like a monetary benefit for somebody. So that's important. But secondly, it's the culture that we have is so collaborative. It's— I've never seen anything like it. People in our business want to help each other out. They want to— they know that if I help Tom out or I help Jake out, that 6 months down the line he's going to help me out or come out of his way to support me. Um, and that's come from not just me and Elliot but across the whole business. And going into— we're going to go into it soon— but our hiring strategy, like, you have to be a team player to work in our business. And if we were to ever get an impression that someone wasn't doing that, or they were like withholding candidates for— well, I mean, there's no reason why they wouldn't— that why they would do that, because there's no benefit to them for doing it. But like, if someone wasn't a team player, we just wouldn't— like, we would just show them the door straight away because it's so important that we match that culture.

Is there anything like— maybe going a bit tactical, granular— but if one of the team gets a meeting with a hiring manager in their space, have you made it part of the process where of course they're going to educate on like, this is what I can do, but this is what we do as a wider business. Have you got that in there? Maybe you also have— maybe, I don't know if you Slack or like Teams, but then you might have something where you just got— sounds obvious, but maybe people don't have it— where you've just got these channels where it's like, just had a meeting with this company, anyone think of anyone immediately that you think would absolutely love you? Do you know what I mean? Having play— like having space for those conversations as well.

Yeah, yeah. So Big rule for us on client meetings is there has to be 2 people on every single meeting and there has to be someone from the opposite team.

So 2 people on every client meeting, adjacent teams.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with the idea that even if it's just like an introduction client meeting and there isn't a role there or whatever it may be, that we're able to like show live that we do cover both areas and then we can talk about the story of like where we can help the business. So that's really, really important. Um, so yeah, so we drive it that way. And then we also have— we, we chat all day, every day in like a WhatsApp group for the business. I'm sure as we're scaling, that's going to go into like Slack and Teams and things like that. But, um, there's so much, uh, incentive for people to just be sharing candidates and, and communicating across the business.

Nice. Right, so let's speak a lot around what we feel like we've done this year, most likely we'll continue to do But I think, I think a big part of this plan has been the intentional hiring as well. So let's just talk about some of this. Spoke about it with Elliot previously, but in order for you guys to keep achieving the goals that you want to, this is going to continue to be important and also has been fundamental to the success this year. So when we hear about values, we hear about behaviors, Have they evolved or do they always look like this? Did you do like a bit of an exercise?

Yeah, I think it's important that the values today aren't necessarily the values that are going to be right for the business in 12, 18 months' time. So don't be afraid to change them. I think like 2 years ago we would have had a certain set of values that are slightly different to what makes us successful today. So we actually every single year as a business, we'll sit down and do a values session. I think it's also really important that we, because we're growing so fast and we're bringing so many new people into the business, that everybody has a say on what it means to work at Hubscale and what it means to them individually. So yeah, so we, we do it every single year where we have a session across Manchester and Austin. We'll work out what the core values are, we'll review what our current ones are, if we need to change any. And then we also add— what's really important is we add behaviors to each value as well. So they're not just buzzwords that sit in the corner of the office on, on a wall. There's actually like behaviors that are tied into every single one.

Yeah, I think that that's, that's definitely like a good nugget for people, isn't it? Because you've got win and lose together, but then you've actually thought about what behaviors match up to that. Why don't we talk a bit about the, some of the, the bits that you guys do around the interview process, because I think this sort of stuff matters as well. So do you have like a set interview process or no, would you say? Or does it— obviously there's certain things that you definitely do, like the backchannel references that we'll talk about, but what are the non-negotiable steps in this interview process?

Yeah, we do, we, we definitely do have like a set interview process. Sometimes you have to move people around just to make things happen because of scheduling and stuff like that. But yeah, normally it's going to be me and Elia, but we'll do it separately because we don't want— we want to spend time with people, we want to learn about people and things like this. So we do them separately. If they pass us, they'll just go to our leadership team and then they'll come into the office to meet the team. So we can do it like really fast, like 2, 3 days if needed. But that's like, it's super, super thorough and intentional with what we talk about.

How many people would someone meet typically then?

So yeah, so 6.

Okay.

Roughly. Yeah.

And that's all intentional.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we like, we like, jewel up like certain interviews as well. So if, if we don't want it to be too laborious for someone and we appreciate that sometimes 6 sounds like a lot of people to interview with, Uh, we'll just match it up. So like Callum and Jake, or James, Ali, they'll all jump on. Uh, there'll be like 2 of them on the same meeting. But yeah, we want them to meet the wider team. We want everyone's opinion on people as well. I think as well, when we bring people into the office, they meet the whole team and we just sit down and debrief and listen to the whole business as well on what they like and what they don't like about people.

And then why don't you tell us a bit about— given a bit of the sauce here Got here on my Document Grill stage. Yeah, I think it's an insight for people. So just tell, like, what does that mean? Because I, I do think this is— I'm sure you've, you've heard other people in recruitment say hiring seniors in the industry or experienced people is hard. Obviously hiring anyone is going to be hard, but in terms of what that comes with, are they going to be moldable? They're gonna like, or you'll hear a lot of people just say it hasn't worked out. I think part of it is there's only so much you can control, but really getting into the detail of like this sort of stuff, I think, would probably help a lot of people.

Yeah.

Versus got a good track record, has done the numbers, get along with him, get some with the team, let's hire them, get them in. That's about the bit of the grill stage.

Yeah, I think, um, the reason why we do that is We learned from our previous business, we went through like a crazy growth phase and it was whereby if someone had done 200K or they were someone's mate, get them in like they're going to be good. Let's, let's bring them in. And I think when it doesn't work out, I can't speak across the board for other businesses, but for us, when it hasn't worked out, it's because we've not actually interviewed that person properly. When we've interviewed people properly and gone through the full process, Every single hire that we've made has worked out and continues to be successful for us. So I think it's important to note that, that just because someone says they've done $200K, $400K, $500K, whatever that number may be, you can't just hire them. You need to know why and what— lift up the bonnet with it. So what we do is Elliot will— and this is going to be giving it away— interview with us. But so this is subject to change now. But basically what we do is First calls of Elliot. Elliot will sell the dream, go through the big pitch on Hubscale, go through the vision of the business, who we are as a company, get them like super excited and super bought in. He's absolutely brilliant at that. And then they'll go to me and we won't prep them on it, but my interview is more just a complete like grill, like lift up the bonnet and understand where their numbers have come from and how it works. So for example, if someone says they've done $400K, What I'll do is I'll, well, I'll ask them, say they've got 5 years of experience, tell me the numbers that you've done every single year for the last 5 years, or for as many as you remember. You might not remember 2018 or whatever it may be, but when they'll then go through that, they'll tell me they did £400K this year, £300K that year. I'll then lift up the bonnet with that year and go, okay, well, how many deals was it? What's your average deal size? How many have come from you? How many have come from being passed over? What accounts have you won? How did you win them? What are the challenges that you faced when you had to overcome with them, etc., etc.? I won't go through every single question, but there's like a— but then we'll like double down into certain things. If someone says, I did, I did $400K, I did it in 10 deals, I did an average deal size of $40K, whatever that may be, I say, okay, well, how many clients did you do it with? What did you do more with one client versus another client? Why do you think this one you've done 4 deals with and you've only done one with that one, and try to get to see how they think about the job. Because you can very quickly realise when someone says they've done £400K that they've just stepped into their director's old desk and they've maybe just had everything passed over, which is fine. That's absolutely— it doesn't mean that they're not going to be able to do the job.

You want them to be aware of that and to say that.

Yeah. And we want to, we want to also be aware of that because we know how they can sit within our business. Like someone who's super strong on account management, or they may just be in it, they might be right for us but just in a different role or in a different team where we're really strong on new logo but we need someone to really drive account expansion, for example. And when you go through that and you just like pull apart the desk and understand exactly where it came from, where the wins came from, what the challenges are, etc., what I'll then do is I'll then circle back with our guys on the next, and for their next interviews, I'll just tell them, hey, 'Look, really like him or her. This is what we need to press into more. Ask them more questions around this. Double down into this area, etc.' And when you do it and you catch people off guard a little bit, you see what they're, what they're about and like what the truth behind it is.

Yeah, I just really like that just because I've met plenty of recruitment leaders who, who haven't done that, or when they have done that, then been surprised how many people they've interviewed who've got experience where they can't clearly articulate how they've achieved what they've done and to go into all of that, because that's almost like a coaching session really. And like, what you're— besides them thinking on the spot, going through these things, you're also then seeing how self-aware they are, where they feel like they're strong, or like, you're going to see how someone is actually thinking about how they've succeeded in the job. Yeah. And you'd be surprised how many people can't actually break that down.

Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. And I think as well, it's like You have to take it with a pinch of salt in terms of the level of experience. If someone's coming in with 10 years of experience, we'll double, like, we'll grill even harder on certain things. But we'll even do it when someone's 2 years in or 3 years in, just to understand how people think about the job and see how curious they are and see if they understand. I took one account and we did 200K with them, but I've got 10 accounts that I've done one deal with. It's if they can understand why and what they could have done differently, that's a brilliant hire to make because you know that they're thinking about it the right way.

Definitely. And then when do we— when do the references start? Is it once? Then do you do it on every single person you meet or no?

No, no. I think as we start to get interested, so if I've interviewed them and we start to get a bit excited about them, we pass it over to the team. We'll just instigate that straight away. So obviously we get them to give us references. But sometimes it can be a bit tricky to do that if someone's been in their company for 6 years or whatever. So we'll always do back channels, like off the record. If I'm mutually connected to somebody or someone's mutually connected to somebody who I know, I'll just give them a call and say, hey, what do you know about this person? Have you interviewed them? What did you like? Or do you know anyone who knows anyone who knows them? And we'll find a way to get around the market to understand, were his numbers correct? Or were his or her numbers correct? Was the way that they won the accounts correct, etc., etc.? And, and we're really— what's really, really important is that we cannot hire anybody unless we've done that.

You've got something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, well, I'd rather know like out the gate and not hire that person, or be aware of it so then we can then support them in a better way than— a lot of times you'd be surprised that when we were growing the business, part of you doesn't want to do it. Because you want to just get someone in and you want to just hire them. And I think that's, that's probably a mistake that a lot of leaders make, is like they'll just want to— they don't want to say no to someone who looks great on paper. And this person's interviewed, everyone loves them, but I know that there's a back channel I can do that could completely ruin it, or whatever it may be. You get a bit scared of asking those questions because— but I'd rather know where it's really powerful. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think what's really important when I sit down with any recruitment leader is not only like we're doing here, like we've got some clear things that we've spoken about that talks to how we've achieved some of the things that we've achieved. But, you know, you guys have ambitious goals like you've shared with me that you want to be 60 headcount next year, €7.5 million revenue. So then what becomes even more important, and these are the types of things that no doubt you and Elliot will be talking to the team about through the interview process is how you believe you're going to go from where you are today to where you're, uh, where you want to get to. Because as you said earlier, whether it be values or anything else, what maybe got you to this point isn't necessarily going to get it to the next part. So let's just talk about some of these things again. I think this will give people some real insight in how you guys are thinking about growing this recruitment business. Because look, you'll be close to this as well because of the world that you recruit in, but I think there's never been more of a clearer path today to not go on this journey that you guys are going on. It's never been more expensive, the cost, AI technology. So I think now genuinely, like, you really, from my opinion, have to be intentional about going on this growth journey. Because if you really wanted to, you could just keep costs low, hire people in South Africa, have AI agents do your sourcing, whatever.

Yeah.

And just have a really highly profitable recruitment business, right? So I think this stuff becomes really important, and you guys obviously signing up to this, right? And this is, this is the journey that you're going on. The first thing I've got here, which I think says a lot, is finance. And this is where easily people can go wrong. Yeah. And it's part of the conversations I've got planned this week where recruitment companies have had to learn the hard way around overextending themselves, increasing their cost too quickly, and then things get bad. So like to hear this, I loved hearing it and it was just got here that, you know, you as a business, you have to be a lot more financially literate as you scale, understand, right? What are the economics needs to look like before we hire this person and so on and so on. So talk to us a bit about this. Where are you on this journey? Why is this a really important pillar to this next phase of growth on the finance side? Because I'm sure it's going to be learning for you as well.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I think it's— you make a really good point. Like, we're very conscious that what has worked well for us so far isn't— it's not necessarily it's not going to be what's going to work for us because who Hubscale are is always going to be Hubscale. But we need to evolve as a business. We need to evolve as leaders. We need to evolve as a leadership team. To go through this next growth phase. So yeah, going on to your point, we just hired, we started in December, but our first finance director, that individual has been through a similar growth phase that we're on. They're coming from a recruitment background. They've helped build offices across New York, I think 5 or 6 different offices in the US, London, Manchester, et cetera, and just fits in super culturally. But I think it's really important that we're bringing this person into the company because As I'm sure you've seen, like, me and Elliot, like, we're super passionate about the business, and I guess we're pretty good at recruitment to an extent, and people quite bought into us as leaders, but we definitely aren't finance experts. And, um, like, we do things, but, um, we're always going to push the boat from a finance perspective. Like, we want to grow, we want to scale, we don't want to take easy options, we want to take risks on certain things. Spending thousands on flying our team around globally to host events, to host dinners, etc., etc. But we need to be making like more financially literate decisions. So I bring in a new finance director and it's just going to help us scale way more effectively and I guess help us sleep at night as well. Yeah, from a finance perspective, what are some of the things that you're—

still might be figuring this out now, but what are some of the parts that you're looking forward to in terms of— there is going to be a learning curve, that's a good thing. I feel like that's what I just love about being an entrepreneur, is like it's just a continuous personal development journey, really. Yeah. So you're going to keep leveling up your skills, and I do think that is really key. Like, you need to keep evolving yourself as the business evolves, you need to keep leveling up. But from just from your personal perspective, what are some of the finance parts you're most looking forward to? You're looking forward to maybe I don't know, every week getting an actual clear understanding of like, right, we've brought in this revenue, that's what this profit looks like. Or you tell me, what are some of the things you're looking forward to?

Yeah, I think so. We've brought this person in not to just be like a bookkeeper as such. Like, um, yes, having like monthly P&Ls updated, etc., is going to be great. And we already do that. Like, uh, it's not like we're just winging it and just hoping for the best. Like, we're One of our board members is a CFO, so we do have it to an extent, but we want— we brought this person in to be a thought leader within our business to help us make more educated business decisions as it comes to where to invest our money and where to grow in terms of like team hiring, etc. Certain things like that, that we want to nail out over the next like 6 months to a year is like Building a new office in the US, i.e., New York or wherever it may be. How much is that going to cost for the next 6 months? How much is it going to cost in terms of hiring somebody out there? How long is it on average going to take them to bill? How long is it going to take them to become productive? When are we actually going to break even on a hire? So having that in New York or open up a new office, for example, so we know, hey, right, it's going to cost us $200K over the next 6 months to open up New York or whatever it may be, whatever that number is, we will then be able to make that financial decision. Even like looking in Manchester, for example, in each individual different team, how long is it on average taking people to get up and running? How long is it until people are profitable? What's that like curve of going from cost in the business through to profit and then through to the next 12, 24 months? How much money is the business making, etc., etc., per hire? So then we can make such strong, like, financial, like, financially literate decisions in every single hire that we make, even like calculating ROI. Like, we've just hired an amazing head of marketing called Georgia, who came from an AI consultancy, and she's going to be working with our finance leader to work out when we're hosting these events, when we're doing Keep Austin Secure or whatever it's going to grow into in New York, etc. How much is that costing us, what's the ROI off it, etc. So we can just build like a real machine as we're scaling the business. And I think without having that in place, going from 22 people to 60 people, I mean, it would be— I'm sure it'd be a fun journey, but like, yeah, we, um, it's just going to help us become a proper business and like run like super efficiently.

So whenever I've sat down with leaders and we talk about building those foundations of growing recruitment business, I say typically most people I've met would have said, obviously if they're a really great hire, but they've always said if they were to bring in anything early, it'd be finance. So I think that, that's, it makes complete sense. And I think really great that, okay, yes, we want to grow, but these are the actions that we're taking to really make sure that we've got the best chance of actually achieving that in the right way. The other thing that I found really interesting is data discipline. Yeah. Because again, I think this, this can be something that can be overlooked as well. I feel like this is another longer-term strategy where if you really get committed to this now, everyone's going to thank you for it in 12, 24, 36 months' time. Yeah. So where did this come from? Have we— right now, would you say that people's data discipline in the business is average to poor? It might vary across the team. Where, where did this sort of come from in terms of like, we've really taken this seriously? Because I know you've taken this seriously.

Yeah.

And we sort of put this to one of the things that is going to benefit the business long term, especially as you grow.

Yeah. Yeah. So one, uh, with, uh, our previous company, I think we maybe made the change to becoming like data-driven a little bit too late, and we were maybe 50 to 100 people by the time that we started to take data seriously. And watching that it was so difficult for that business to then change the behaviors of what had worked. And everyone was having so much fun with just like winging it and just making money that like they didn't see the value in, in change. Why should I now use the CRM every day and like update things? And what's the value in it for me when I'm already billing $300,000, $400,000 and just I don't want to work here, for example, is what happened quite a lot. So we were really conscious In the first year or two, we were like, look, we don't want to be too data-driven because it's a small team, super entrepreneurial. We want to expand and just have a bit of fun with it. However, now, particularly as we've brought in new board members, the scale that we want to go through, we cannot achieve it without having true clean data. It's certain things like— and every recruiter hates using the CRM, by the way. Beat people over the head with it, but I think first of all, we articulated the value to our team around what's in it for them. It's not just about what's in it for the business and like, how good is it for the company. I mean, that's great for me, Elliot, and our leadership team, but realistically, if a consultant's coming in, they just care about making money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we articulated the value of it to our team at an individual desk level and why they should want to use data. And then also fundamentally, like, you do also have to have a conversation about this is what we're doing, this is the direction we're going. If you don't want to get involved in data and this isn't what you want to do, unfortunately, I don't know if this is going to work out. But everyone in the business is super bought into it. It's certain things like having the value, getting the value out of understanding what's our like CV to first stage ratio, what's our first stage to placement ratio, what's our average deal size across every single different business unit. What's our average time to hire? What's our average time from signing terms of a client to actually invoicing the client, etc., etc.? There's so many different data points that we can get with it whereby we can then work out exactly what our ratios are as a business. For example, our second stage to placement ratio is 61%. So if we want to do 500K for the month or for the quarter, whatever the number is, I'm not saying that's what our target is. But if you want to do 500K, you would then know that you on average would need to have X amount in second stages. If you can hit that number on average over the year, you will be hitting there. So we're making like really data-driven decisions as it comes to that. And then you can break that down, and this is the value of it to an individual, is at your desk level you can then know what your ratios are over the last year of— if I want to do 500K, you just reverse engineer it back to how many CVs you need to how many first interviews you need to get and what your time frame is in terms of making those deals. And then everyone at an individual desk level can just so clearly be like, okay, well, on averages I want to get here, so I need to do this and this. And also, okay, well, our CV to placement ratio, call it 20% or whatever it may be, how can we get that better? Where are the weaknesses, etc., etc.?

And then as part of this journey as well Because I think this is the other thing, is it also really making sure that you've got everyone tagged appropriately, you've got these business units. It's also creating those ecosystems of, of people that are actually in the Hubscale CRM. Because I do think that that's the other thing with this as well. Absolutely, again, we're being able to make decisions, data, but then for them they can actually figure out how to be successful essentially. Yeah. But then I think this is the other part, especially as you're growing, like if someone joined your business tomorrow and we've got like clean data, everyone's tagged in. I've joined James Dean's team, for example, and I can see, right, okay, so we've got 50 people in this, 50 CISOs that we've spoken to. It's going to make all of that stuff easier as well, isn't it? And I think LinkedIn's only going to be going one way in terms of price-wise. So I think also having this real discipline around your own data and making sure your own CRM is really powerful is probably just as important.

1000%. I think it's even more important in a business like ours where you're such a specialist. And for like onboarding and people to get up and running quickly. We should in theory over the next 2, 3 years have the strongest CRM in cybersecurity because of the way that we're growing and what we're doing and who we're bringing in. So that is such an added value to people coming into the business and it's such a selling point for customers as well.

Yeah, for sure. So the other things as well, I think we've spoken about, obviously part of this intentional hiring is you've hired people in this journey so far, for the most part, in pretty senior positions, right? And again, the benefit to that, from what I understand of part of this overall game plan of growth, is you've hired people that can— have got proven track record. I don't know if this is everyone, but you've hired people that have also created leaders or managers in their career. So you've got this leadership layer that you've built that have the capability or have the want to then create managers, leaders underneath them? Because that's going to be pretty key if we're going to carry on going on this headcount growth goal, achieve your ambitions. So it seems like you've been quite smart there, but that is the next phase of it, isn't it? Is that there'll be certain people in the business that then are going to be championed and supported to create managers and leaders underneath them. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's important to note as well that our business is definitely full of people who still have something to prove. And like, we're all so hungry and bought into like creating this amazing special business that 10, 15 years' time we can all look back and go, wow, like we were part of that Hubscale journey and what we built and everything that we stood for as a company. So they're all still— it's not like we've got like folks who've led teams of 100, 150, and just are a little bit burnt out coming in to build it again. But with that being said, so, so important as we go through this next growth phase, leadership development is going to be like, like you said, one of the top things that we need to get right. Luckily, one of our board members, Mike, who's absolutely brilliant, he does executive coaching for our leadership team. So we can do like loads of management training with these guys. And then also organically look at who wants to be a leader, who's performing, and see where we can hire underneath those people as well. Um, that's something that I think we're really, really conscious of, myself, Elliot, and, and the team, is we don't want to be this business that promises, uh, opportunities to people and then we'll just hire somebody over you. I would rather, and myself would rather take a bet on one of our— if we say open up a new office or we want to build a new business unit, whatever it may be, I'd rather say, hey, look, someone in our team is going to be ready in 6 months. Let's put our investment into that person and get them upskilled. Let's push them out their comfort zone and get them in it a little bit earlier where it takes them 6 months to get ready for that leadership position, uh, rather than bringing in somebody else over that person that, that can sort of then get frustrated by the fact that someone's now come over them, they're reporting someone they maybe don't— they're not on board with, etc. And then they then walk out the business and we've lost someone who's absolutely amazing.

Yeah, but what is for sure, and I just think, but what is absolutely going to be fundamental, which if I'm honest I know a lot of companies find hard, is just, is just creating those leadership layers, isn't it? So like, that, that's obviously something that's going to be crucial. And I think again actions matching up with you guys, knowing that's important.

Yeah.

Getting, you know, Mike Quartman involved, making sure investing in that leadership development is going to be key. And then the other part here then is contract. Yeah, that's going to be— I mean, that often comes up. It's not like you absolutely have to have a contract team to build a successful recruitment business. But if we're growing a recruitment business at some point, when I speak to someone that's on that journey, contracts going to come up. Yeah. So that's something that you guys are looking to make part of this journey as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And that ties in as well with hiring a head of finance because that individual does have experience building out or being like the back end of building out an entire contract division. So leaning on their experience of what worked and what hasn't worked is really, really good. Also, most of our leadership team does have contract experience. So we can lean on them of what worked well, what didn't work well in their business. And then we are now looking to hire a head of contract for Hubscale. Super, super important hire. It fits in with the mission of our business, which is to become the number one search firm in cybersecurity. There's so much opportunity from a contract perspective, particularly around consultancies, which is an area that we're starting to look at and we want to get into. Like your GSIs and like your consultancies, it's going to be like absolutely massive for us. So yeah, we're going to be getting into it. We're going strong and heavy into it. Going back to one of our values, which is to be the best at everything you do. We're coming into it and we're going to go into it and truly invest into it. It's going to take time from what we've been told. And I've never led a business where we've built contract before, but it may take 2 years, it may burn our pockets.

Yeah, but again, it matches up with getting finance person in, it like all matches up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Doesn't mean it's not going to be hard, but what's easy these days? Yes, but like, yeah, it makes sense. Again, that's the— like, when we're talking about what, what your— what bets you're making, what you're doubling down on that should result in you achieving future goals, and, and this is part of it. To round this out then, like, what You know, we're talking about the future, we're talking about the bets that you're making, what you're doubling down on, strategies. For someone in your position, what do you sort of keep front of mind, or what are you going to try and keep front of mind going on this growth journey? Because I don't know, like I said, I feel like if you're someone that's going on this journey, it's something that you really got to choose. Yeah, I think in today's world, because it's just going to be so easy to go, it was probably less stressful when we was 20 people and I knew everyone. So how, what are you trying to keep in mind as you continue to go on this journey, which clearly is going to be a lot more growth, new problems, new challenges, highs, lows?

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, I mean, it's intense, but we love it. I think first and foremost, like me and Elliot are so obsessed with like just being, making the business super successful and scaling it and growing it. We have one shot at life. Like, I'm the youngest I'm ever going to be. I've got like less responsibilities than I'm ever going to have. Likewise of Elliot. So let's just like have a big shot and see where we get to. It's kind of that like shoot for the moon and land at the sun. That's so cringy to say.

Yeah, but it's like you've been in the US, mate. But I think it's about—

yeah, exactly. I think what we're really, really conscious of is, yes, data is super important. Yes, finance is super important. Yes, we want to grow and mature the business, but we need to keep the fun there. And like, what has made us what we are today and why people, I'd like to think, love working at our business and come in with a smile on their face every day and come in not just to do work but to achieve a vision. Is because it's such a fun environment to work in. And what I don't want to do, and what we're really conscious of, is we don't want to lose sight of that as we're scaling and growing the company, where it's just too serious, we don't have a laugh and a joke, we don't celebrate the wins properly, we make people— like, everyone's desk is too rigid and etc. So that isn't who we are, that's never what we're going to be. So authentically to ourselves, we just love that, like, entrepreneurial spirit, pushing the boat out, taking risks, doing what other people may think are like crazy ideas and stupid ideas. Like, give it a go. Like, and we'll always promote that across the business. So just keeping the fun there, I think, is the really important thing.

Yeah, so very much, yeah, keeping that sort of secret sauce that's really helped get to this point and continue to, but maybe with a bit more of an adult head-on along the way, and it's maturity. But like, I think that's all we're going to ask you to it, because I do think that's going to be— that'll be the challenge, right? So it's great to hear that that's something that you're thinking about, that you guys no doubt are going to be intentional about, because I do think it's— you want to obviously be part of a journey where, yeah, things do get mature, things do, um, get better, but we're also enjoying the journey.

Yeah.

Versus it just becoming, oh, we've become like really corporate, or like a lot of the things that we weren't. But I do think you're right, it's just going to be that balance of enjoying the journey but then making some grown-up important decisions that, like you said earlier, that we framed to everyone what's in it for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because I think that is the part, is that, okay, I think most people would appreciate and understand that a business changes and it evolves, but if I understand why it's going to benefit me not now but also in the long term, and we're also having fun along the way and enjoying the journey, then it could be a pretty cool journey to be part of.

Exactly. Yeah.

So I'm excited to see where it ends up. Like, it's been really cool to get to know you and Elliot. And like I said, you know, I've said it a few times, but I just think it's where we are today in, in the landscape where you can't log on LinkedIn right now and not see people advocating like how expensive it is to hire, do you actually want to do that, AI agents, like it just like it is it that's just on the mind of a lot of people. So I really admire anyone that is really choosing this intentional journey of like growth, you want to grow something amazing. So I always commend that because that's gonna come with a lot of challenges, a lot of learnings. Yeah, but like you really have to want that, I feel like, in today's world, because then you know what you're signing yourself up for. So I really commend that, and I'm excited to see how it goes. And, you know, getting to know you guys and meeting different people in, in the business, I think it's really exciting.

Yeah.

So it's going to be really interesting to see how it all plays out. No doubt you're going to learn a ton along the way, but I think it's, um, what this recruitment industry is all about, you know. Like you said, just giving it a real go. You keep using what you've learned, keep wanting to get better, and hopefully you can create something really special.

Yeah, man, we're just getting started, so—

Love it.