£10m+ Business Acquisition Stories, Lessons & Reality - Nick Atherton | Midnight Podcast Episode 15

Right then back with episode 15 now of the Midnight Pod and I think our oldest guest so far on the pod we have Nick Atherton on. And how do I know Nick? Well, I'm sure we'll dive into that but basically Nick works in M and A. Some mergers and acquisitions I found with one of the pods I put out a few weeks ago at this point which was like not relevant at all to like ecom business Digital marketing didn't get as good a reception as previous ones and I was like fuck, okay, people are actually interested in like econ building businesses to sell etc, etc. I thought Nick would be a good guess because we go back about six years or so, maybe even seven at this point. But also, yeah, like M and A super interesting space. It's actually how I like first got exposed to like business and shit I suppose like seven years ago on that placement when I was wearing a suit and pretending I knew things. Not E Comm specific but involved in a bunch of different things. And yeah, I think it'd be an interesting episode for our listeners who are used to kind of more ecom sided things. But I think you bring like a more mature and experienced perspective to things. It'd just be good to chat about what you do basically and a bunch of other shit. So I guess first question like usual and Tokyo's going mad is just really, I guess give us a rundown of kind of your background and what you do and what you do currently in them. Dive into a lot of shit.

Yeah. So today my main role is I run a corporate finance business which sounds really boring but actually there's a lot of fun to it. So essentially most of my day is spent trying to sell people's businesses. And the sectors vary from really tedious stuff like cleaning businesses or security businesses to actually quite cool stuff like tech businesses or software businesses, which we know recently we've gone into like much better sectors where the multiples are a lot higher, which is good for me. But also you enjoy it a lot more I think when you like the sector. So I cut my teeth on things like surveying businesses, architectural practices, you know, engineering is now a big sector as well. But you actually get to see some quite cool stuff when you go around their amazing factories and see them making huge sea jacks that they're going to put out at sea to build like wind farms and all that stuff. So it isn't all. I mean of course there is a lot of stuff that's pretty tedious. It's like, you know, you're Dealing with lawyers and accountants a lot, which, you know, I know that you. You don't particularly enjoy. You know, you. You're essentially like them, you are just the middleman all the time. So I think, obviously I built it from scratch. I started when I was 25, I'm now 38. It was really tough the first few years. I mean, I regretted it, I think, pretty hard those years. I had to move home, live with my mum, because it was going so badly. I mean, I didn't do my first deal until the fourth year of owning more VO's, so it was a real tough slog to get it off the ground. I mean, the. The kind of. The lead time for an M and a deal can be easily two years. So, you know, when you start these things up, you're so naive. You think you can do one in six months, you think everyone's going to use you. But the client base we've got now is fantastic. There's loads of, you know, you have a great contact base and you have a great reputation. So actually we're more choosy about who we take on to sell. We don't just sell anyone, you know, mainly we're interviewing them. Actually, when we go to a pitch, it's not them interviewing us, because you got to work with these people. A real intense basis sometimes, as I say, for two years. And it's the biggest thing they've ever done in their lives. Selling their business. It's more important than, you know, anything else they've ever done.

Get married.

Well, I mean, maybe kids is more important, but, you know, this. These are huge decisions. It's usually an older man, you know, some bloke in his 50s that's about to make 5, 10, 15, 20 million quid. I mean, these are crucial moments of their lives. And you're basically holding their hand for two years, going through a pretty emotional process a lot of the time, as you know. You know, you get close to the line on something and then it flops. People get very stressed and very upset. So, yeah, I mean, it's been a good journey. I still feel like we're just getting going, to be honest. We're still growing, we're still getting asked to pitch on bigger and bigger things, better sectors all the time. So I'm quite excited about the future. I mean, I don't want to do M and A forever, but it's, you know, it pays the bills and it's. It's quite good most of the time.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely, yeah. Some more photos don't know if I mentioned that Intro. That's the name of the. I guess you could call yourself a boutique firm.

Yeah, we're boutique. There's about 12 of us if you count the non execs. Most people are self employed, which is a much better model in M and A because you, you really are peaks and troughs all the time. Sometimes we can be super busy, sometimes we're not that busy. So, you know, a lot of the people who work for me also do other things, but that's good. Some of the people who work with us are also clients. So of my four non exec directors, we do deals for three of them and they're all cool guys, they've all made a lot of money, so they're very good mentors for me and they're great for the other staff in the office.

Yeah. Going back prior to that, I don't know if you told me about like four years and shit previously. I always probably thought you're just doing well, but no, what did you do? I'm asking like the cliche questions. I think it'd be useful, people watching like, yeah, sure. How did you get into that from like uni and stuff? Yeah.

So I did the only thing I liked at school, which was economics. I did it at uni. My parents made me go to uni. I didn't probably want to really, but you know, I said to my old man last night, I just thought it was a complete waste of time actually looking back, but I should have just gone and got a job. I would have been much better for me. I just spent three years smoking weed and drinking booze and all the other things. Right. So looking back, if I'd just gone straight into the bank that I'd done an internship at before I went to uni, I think that would have been a better training ground for me. I went back to the bank after uni and it was really good only because I realised, well, I realized it was Merrill lynch, but I realized I really didn't want to be a banker. I hated it. But it was really good that I. I found that out at an early age. I didn't really want to work for a big corporate. And you know, the chairman of More Face is obviously your Uncle Ollie.

Everyone's going to be writing in the comments that I'm some fucking silver spoon cunt now. Which I'll just say I've never been given any money from him or anyone.

Else in my business.

Although I'm currently trying to raid a.

Seed round that's how we obviously know each other. He was the one who steered me in the direction of working for a small company because. Because I just learned so much more working in a four man company. I worked there for two years. It went bust in 2008 in the recession. I learned so much about the business. Going into administration, him not being able to pay anyone about that as well. No. Owing loads of money to the bank. I mean, I learned how to not run a business. And I think that was one of the biggest lessons for me, was really realizing actually we didn't need a big swanky office to make money. We didn't need to employ loads of people to make money. You know, that flexible model that I learned how to operate, I think it's really saved more foes because there's been times since, you know, in the last seven, eight years where we've had really bad years. You know, Brexit was a terrible year for us because no one makes any decisions for 12 months or 24 months. You know, Covid was okay for us, but not great. Very hard to generate new deals in Covid because you can't go out and see anyone. Yeah, people don't tend to sell their companies via Zoom meetings. You know, they want to see you, make sure you're not going to mess it up. So yeah, before, I mean, economics at university, it was an okay training ground. I guess it gave me some skills that I use today. Not many, I don't think. Yeah, the accountancy was quite useful. And accountancy is so dull. But you need it, you need to understand it.

Yeah.

If you don't, you suffer.

Yeah, very true. And then how did you choose which businesses? Obviously said like some, like non glamorous ones. My experience of it was like F M. So facility fm Sorry, fm Facilities management businesses. Which is like cleaning and shit. Was that by chance or was that like. I'm passionate about sprinklers. I want to help people sell business.

So your uncle Oliver is very well known in the facilities management sector.

I probably didn't know how he.

He is the. He is one of the kings of facilities management originally. So he founded one of the very first facilities management businesses. He sold it to Carillion, obviously. You probably know the name, you know, then he sold another one to E.C. harris, which is a big property operator. So he's well known in that space. That was just where the contacts were, you know. So, you know, we tapped up every facilities management that he knew, every facility management company we knew and yeah, it was. They aren't the sexy sectors it is dull as dishwater. It's the people who maintain the lift, the air con unit, the boiler, the people who clean the floors, the people who clean the windows. You know, in a big building like this on the 15th floor they're doing the people who come up and out, the ab sailors. Yeah, there's good money in this stuff.

All the shit that happens that you don't really think about.

Exactly. Fire extinguishers. One of your first experiences at more.

Phase down to that was.

Yeah, we can talk about that. But you know one of my big sales that I did five years ago was a fire extinguisher business. Yeah, they sell almost every single fire extinguisher in the UK to Tesco, Sainsbury's. All these people, they're buying tens of thousands of these things off, you know, they're getting it in from China and selling it for a pound more than they bought it for. I mean, you know, which is not too dissimilar to some e commerce models, is it? Yeah, so yeah, facilities management that led to also the property sector, architectural firms, surveying practices, things like that. Again it's kind of very steady stuff, you know, it's very male dominated industries. You know people, old boys that have been doing it for 50 years.

Right.

And they kind of build towards a sale usually it's kind of a medium kind of exit but they've usually done quite well out of the business over the years, you know and they want out when they're 60, right. Well they usually because they want to go and do something else because they're so bored of it.

Yeah. So what would a typical deal size be and be then? Because I feel like the reason that's an interesting question is the problem with that E comm and digital marketing and this online stuff and particularly because of social media is that everyone thinks that every business either doesn't exist or sells for a billion quid. Do you know what I mean? It's like this culture of I'm going to start a business for a billion quid because they read about these tech unicorns. Sure. But when I first got exposed to all that it kind of showed me there's like this like I guess mid market more normal, more attainable I suppose in inverted commas that can still set people up for life.

But like yeah of course, I mean.

What sort of deal size?

When we started off, you know, if we made someone a million pounds that was a good result. But you know there's two things to that is that it doesn't mean that they're, you know, they're dead. They've got the million, they can reinvest it, you know, they can get a yield on that. They might go and start another business and go again and something that they prefer, they might buy 10 flats and, you know, you just don't, you know, it doesn't mean it's the end. But, but we. Yeah, I mean, look, in my opinion, if, if you make kind of 5, 6, 7 million out of a deal, you know, you never have to work again in that situation. If you invest it.

Yeah.

You know, you can easily give it to a fund manager. That will make you 6%, 7% a year after tax. Right. So life's pretty good, you know, usually at that stage as well. These people don't have mortgages. They probably have two or three houses and they probably have other things, you know, going on. So in my experience, you know, the people who are making 50 or 100, it's very, very rare. It doesn't mean that their lives are so, so much better, you know, it doesn't even. It doesn't necessarily mean they're happier either, from what I can see, you know, which is another point. A lot of people drive themselves into the ground to make so, so much money that they don't need, you know, So a lot of the time when I sit down with someone who's selling, I'm saying, look, actually, you know, they sit down and tell you an unrealistic figure that they're, like, aspiring to get. But my, My advice would be, look, take what you, you know, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the big lesson of this, is that if you could bank 10, you know, it doesn't mean that your career is over. It doesn't mean you're retiring, does it? You know, you can, you can go again and do something different. You know, you're de risking. You're de risking everything in your life on you.

Yeah.

For every guy that's gone out and made a Snapchat, a Twitter gym shark, you know, there's. How many have failed? Hundreds of thousands have failed. Right. You know, so are those people a thousand times happier than the bloke who's made five or ten out of something? I don't think they are. You know, I think having that much money is not always a good thing.

Right.

You kind of. You become a target in all sorts of ways.

Yeah.

Your family become a target. You know, I think being anonymously rich is a Much better. Better life than being a famous billionaire.

Yeah. To be fair, I often, I discuss this with mates and it's like, yeah, firstly that I think being like anonymous to an extent, and maybe not anonymous, but certainly not famous. But then also, yeah, it's like often you put so much pressure. I certainly do. And having the past, probably more like, I need to make 100 million quid, blah, blah. And I joke about it because people have been on this podcast and that watch it, that will say, I want to build a business set up 100 million quid, but they've not made 50 grand yet and they're talking about making 100 million quid for a business. Whereas actually like you just said, yeah, three to five million quid and you're set for life. Like actually if you invest that, maybe even two fairly simply.

Well, but you know, you can leverage against those, those investments to do other things. I mean, you know that these days there are lots of clever banking products out there where you can you give an investor X million doesn't mean you, they'll lend you half that back in a very cheap rate like a mortgage.

Yeah.

They treat it like a house. You can take equity out of these things and set up another business or, you know, there's all sorts of other options.

Yeah.

You know, if you making that kind of money, a couple of million quid, you know, you're. Well, you're already in the very top 1% in this country.

I'd say 0.00.

Exactly. So, you know, it's not so bad, is it?

Yeah, yeah. It's just funny because people lose perspective, I think, because of social media and it's always people that have never done anything that are like. I think I've not done anything but like people that are, myself included, a bit more in the past probably to an extent now I was like, oh, I want to make a billion quid or whatever.

Yeah.

When they haven't made 5 million yet.

That's, you know, if I, on my LinkedIn, I don't follow any of those Zuckerberg link, Gates, Bezos kind of people. I just think that's, that's a different universe, you know, that kind of stuff. And you know, I don't also want to be those people. I don't think it's that fun. You know, actually when you do watch succession on Sky.

No, I'm not saying it successions.

I'm sure a lot of your viewers watch it, but it's about them basically based on the Murdoch family, you know, and they are the most miserable bunch of backstabbing rich wankers you can ever.

There's a boat that owns a son in it and he owns sky and stuff.

Yeah, exactly. But you know the misery that it causes. That much money is, you know, you wouldn't wish that on anyone.

How much? They're worth like billions.

Oh, yeah.

10 billion.

Tens of billions. There's private jets everywhere all the time. Massively unhappy, divorced, in and out of rehab, drug addicts.

It's just. Yeah, yeah, that.

No love at all, you know, zero compassion from your parents. It's. It's not a good place to be, I don't think. I mean, I, you know, I don't imagine being Elon Musk's kid is a good. Is a good life.

Yeah, true.

I mean, you might think it is.

Called like X, Y, Z or something.

Can you imagine your first day at school and you're called XYZ A Z. Whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Just because your dad's like, you're never.

Gonna have any proper friends, you know, you'll. You'll never be able to just walk into the pub and watch. Watch the football anonymously.

Right.

Your whole life is then some sort of Kardashian soap opera, isn't it? Yeah, it's absolutely horrendous.

Yeah, very true. And most of these businesses then, because obviously, yeah, maybe I want to get him up. You've got a lot of experience, more than most, I guess, to be fair. But particularly in acquisitions and like meeting a lot of successful rich whatever people. And all these businesses are they typically like, they profitable businesses? Because obviously like often in E comm and like digital online stuff, people are trying to sell businesses, reading about businesses that, you know, sell for 10x revenue and they're burning money. Like tech, usually.

Yeah. So the vast majority of the businesses we sell are profitable businesses that, you know, the profit steadily increases over time and people buy them for a multiple of the profit plus the cash they have in the bank, you know, or less the debt that they have. You know, some of them have obviously got debt, but, you know, that's a tip. And you can pretty much work out the range. It's all to do with whether they're, you know, if they've got one big customer, that always makes them worth a lot less. So. So that's why an E commerce business is generally good because there's so many customers, you're not relying on one person. But a lot of these facilities businesses or property businesses or those kind of sectors can be very reliant on Contractual cycles, which is not good. So you might have to renew that contract every three years and it might be a third of your revenue and it might be half your profit and you might lose it to a competitor because they go in slightly cheaper, but then your business is worth half of what it was. So a lot of these exits are around. You've got a plan, you've got to really plan. So when you've just signed your big client up for another three year deal, that's when you want to sell, you want to sell three months after that you don't want to sell a month, you don't want to sell a month before the tenders in because people will discount the value massively. So my job is always to structure the deal to protect the seller as much as possible to make sure that, you know, he gets most of his money or she gets most of their money in at the beginning of the deal. You know, you don't want to be waiting three years for half your money because once you lose control of the company as well, you know, who's, who's to say that this new person is not going to completely ruin it?

Yeah.

You know, and if they're incentivized not to pay you as well, that deferred element, why would they run it? Well if they owe you money? So, you know, our job is about protecting the seller as best we can, working very closely with the lawyers to draft very tight agreements, you know, around that stuff and being ready to sue if you don't get the money, you know, so that's what they're paying for with someone like us is, you know, we've been through it 50 or 100 times, right?

Yeah.

And there are guys on my board that have sold businesses, you know, in the hundreds of millions. Now I haven't, but there are guys that have sold, you know, things for 80 or 100 or 200 million. So we've got the breadth of experience and of course I'll get there at some point when I'm a 60 year old man. Of course that'll be the case. But my game is it's a bit like an estate agent. You know, when you start out, you sell the little flat.

Yeah.

In the crap end of town, you know. You don't work for Savills on the first day. Well, you do if you're some sort of posh kids, parents. Yeah. But you don't sell, you don't sell the Richmond Green house or the Hampstead Heath house in your first month. Yeah. It takes years to get that kind of trust in those contacts, isn't it to you know, to be the partner at night Frank, you know, you don't see people in their 30s doing that. You see them in their 50s doing that.

Yeah, follow some guy actually on Instagram who sells those super prime houses. I actually messaged him to come on the podcast and very surprisingly he replied but kind of unsurprisingly said well I would but this is not worth my time because you don't have a property audience. But yeah, I was thinking that because it was. It just looks like a sick job. But I guess he's probably been in the game like 20 years.

Yeah, exactly. There was another alternative for me. So when I set up more foes I also did a surveying masters at Reading and it was part time. It was so boring. It was absolutely the most boring thing I've ever done. One of my friends talked me into doing it but I did it in case more phase went bust. I could always go and work for Savills or Knight Frank or do you know what I mean? Be a surveyor and just sell houses and buildings and look, one of my best mates sells buildings. Similar job to me. He broke his big office buildings instead of companies and he's doing really well. You know, he worked for someone for seven, eight years, set up himself. He literally sits at home out of his bedroom, two kids and he's coining it now selling big buildings as the middleman. Is it the most exciting job in the world? I don't think it is but yeah.

To be fair though, I think nothing is that exciting all the time. Is it even like E commerce? People think E commerce is glamorous or whatever but it's like fucking looking at a screen 90% of the day for me.

I mean I don't know anywhere near as massive scale. Yeah, I don't know anywhere near as well as you or your audience probably but it seems like doing lots of very simple things very very well a lot of the time. Right? Yeah, you're doing so many little micromanaging things all the time, aren't you? And just constantly on the spreadsheets and.

Yeah, I suppose the difference from like e Comm is it's very fast moving like you know, you change them this afternoon on your ads, you should see the financial difference tomorrow. Whereas what you do like you're saying like fucking potentially a two year deal timeline.

I can meet people and they may not use this for five, you know, I can meet someone, you know, one of my networking events and he might Only be in his late 40s. Or she might, I have to stop saying he, but it usually is a he, you know, but. Or she might be like, look, I'm only, you know, 42, I, I'll sell when I'm 50, but keep in touch or you know, so there's long, long lead times. Yeah. And you've got to keep in touch with them at least once a year, I'd say, otherwise, you know, they will use someone else if you know, someone else comes along.

Yeah. And then there's lots of things I want to come on to, but like typical multiples. Because again in E commerce there's massive debates around this. But I think probably because it's a newer industry. Like is there like a typical range in terms of EBITDA multiples and what affects that?

Yeah, so a small business that's kind of reliant on one customer, you probably say it's worth two or three times its pre tax profit. You know, we use the term ebitda.

Which, I don't know, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation.

Yeah, your earnings. Yeah, exactly, your ebitda. But you know, a simple way to say is that is your pre tax profit.

Yeah.

You know, kind of two or three times multiple for those things. That makes those businesses very hard to sell because if you're the owner, you can imagine sitting there going, someone like me comes in and says, I'll give you three times for it. He's gonna say, well I may as well just run this bloody thing for three times. I'll just run it another 10 years, I'll get my kid in to run it. You know, the more interesting ones, you know, a five or a six times is when they've got really good customers, they're doing something a bit different, maybe that's, you know, more statutory. So like when people have to have it, you know, that's always a big thing.

Or like sprinklers, you've got to have.

Sprinklers, you've got to have a lift that works. You've got to have a boiler that works.

You've got to have never works here. I think one's broken.

Yeah, exactly. So that kind of compliant, statistically LED stuff is worth more. And then if you want to get 8, 10, 12 times, it's got to be sexy. It's got to be doing something really that people want. So probably some tech element to it, some software element to it to get that high. It's probably got to have a, it's going to be a larger business Won't be relying on any one customer, it'll be high. The other term we use which is very important is recurring revenue. So this big insurance broking business I sold in February, it was the biggest deal we've ever done. He had a 97% recurring customer base. So every year 97% of his customers just renew the insurance. Yeah, he's not the insurer, he's the middleman, he's the broker. But people love that.

Right.

You know, that's, you know, you're not going to be able to ruin that. Very easy.

That's what I'm trying to do with this next bloody business subscription.

Exactly. A subscription type model. That thing that people just, it goes out a bank account, they don't really care, you know and those things are worth a lot of money, you know. That's why if you can get a statutory compliance driven business with a lot of high recurring revenue, they're always worth a lot more than someone who's just relying on one or two customers. Something project led businesses. People are like, oh you know, I'm doing up this shop or I'm doing up this building, you know. Their businesses people hate because the margins are very thin. It's, you know, Carillion, some of you might know the story, you know, it's one of the biggest building firms in the uk. It went busted in it last two years ago or three years ago now. I mean they were just, you know, they went bust because they weren't pricing their contracts. Right. Because they're, it's such a competitive space, they're making 2% on a 400 million pound project. Yeah. Only something small has to go wrong. Right. There's a few little fuck ups and you know, your bum's out the window. Suddenly you know, you're working for free or actually you've paid for the privilege of building this hospital. It's a disaster. And you know Carilion was a, was a, was an amusing story because a lot of boys at more phase, a lot of the older boys have worked for Carillion or sold companies to Carillion over the years. So it was a bit of a shock when it went down. I mean Robin who, you know, Robin Booker is paid a pension by Carillion. Now luckily that was in a separate pot, you know, it's protected but you know that was half of his annual income, that pension. So I think when it went down he was pretty worried. You know, he's a 70 year old guy kind of relying on that pension. Yeah. But yeah, multiples really vary. I mean, I've never sold one. I'm told by some of the people I work within. Some of my other businesses I'm involved with that some of the software businesses that they bid for go for 20 times earnings, 20 times EBITDA. You know, I think that's usually pretty crazy. I mean, obviously I'd love to own one that's sold for that sense, but I've never done one more than kind of 11 or 12 times.

Yeah, I was with a guy recently. I won't say his name, his business, but he told me, well, maybe I shouldn't say, actually I won't say, but he's coming on the podcast so shortly. But he said he sold for a pretty healthy multiple and that was an econ brand. But yeah, it was like, it was like it was the higher end of what you're saying. But it was like nine years old. Whereas a lot of ecom brands and myself included, like the brands I had last year were only like 2 years old. Not even that. So it's like 9 years. Had a wholesale as well as online. It was pretty established.

They're still selling on the profit. They, they're not, they're not being sold on revenue.

Well, yeah, I guess, yeah, he said it was on profit. Yeah, so it was. I'm sure it's pretty healthy looking at their previous numbers. But yeah, it's interesting because you obviously read about these, I guess like unicorns, I mean like Gymsharks and Econ example, obviously. But then you read about these fucking tech and econ brands that sell for like 5x revenue and they're losing money and it's like, I mean, at that point, I suppose the business or brand is viewed as an asset itself that is going to be worth more to the next bidder. So it kind of didn't matter. It's losing money.

Yes, exactly. Maybe there's cross selling opportunities to that customer base. You know, they can start selling them all the stuff that they sell elsewhere then maybe it makes sense. Right? Yeah, it can be tax reasons sometimes these big American companies, they're making so much money that spending money on acquisition is actually tax efficient. You know, take notes. You know, it's. They're kind of strategic buyers usually. And that's, that's always what you want when you're selling your company. It's a strategic buyer, which means it's a buyer that's going to pay more than anyone else because they're desperate to enter the market either for something that they're not doing or somewhere. They aren't selling things, you know, so they're getting into the UK market. They're desperate, you know, or they're desperate to get into this watches thing or whatever it might be. They're not doing it. You know, they know that they can sell their bracelets to the people buying these watches. Right. They know that they can double the revenue overnight. You know, they all say they've got economies of scale. So they've got amazing deals with the advertisers already, you know, that they can just kind of. You'll think they can suck it up, take out a lot of the costs as well. So you'll have a lot of costs in your business that they just won't, you know. They already have. Yeah, they already have a finance department, they already have a marketing department. They already have kind of all that back office stuff that you then don't need anymore. So they're, you know, they're working out, they're doing their maths in a different way to us. I mean, that insurance, the insurance business we sold in February, you know, 11 or 12 times EBITDA, that buyer will sell for at least 20 times. When they sell, they're an American insurance brokerage, they'll sell for 20 times at least. So they view that as cheap. Buying something 11 or 12, is that.

Just a cultural thing or just because the business was so strategic, because of.

The 97% recurring revenue, literally, it's just like you're investing in something that. Just like a money tree.

But why wouldn't they pay 20x for it if they're going to sell it in the future? 20x, I mean.

Oh, I see. Well, because they're a lot, lot bigger. So that, you know, they say, he's a friend of mine now, he's guy called John, but they've made his business 30 more profitable overnight. The day they bought it, the next day it's 13 more profitable. They're already doing their maths in a way that we aren't, you know, their view of it is, well, we paid 12, but really we only paid 8 or 9 because we're already making 30% more, you know. Happy days. Right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, the strategic buy is the one, if you can find one.

So following on from that then, I think a lot of people listening, probably learning quite a lot, which is good. Yeah. Moving away from E Comm for once, which is interesting, but also being able to compare it. So in terms of like fees and shit then. So how does that all work as like a broker because certainly for me and a lot of people watching, they think of a broker, they probably think of property by default.

Yeah.

Is it similar to that? Is it different?

Yeah, it's quite similar. So the only difference is we don't work for free up front. So I won't work for someone unless they pay you something every month or certainly a fee to get, you know, to do all the work in advance. So I'm happy if I've got a third of the overall fee in maybe beforehand. The other thing I have in the contract now, which, you know, this is after years of learning, is I have an abort fee. So that means that if we have an offer in that is along the lines of something that we've discussed, that would be acceptable at the beginning. If we've said, look broadly speaking, we're aiming to make 10 million for you, we've had offers in at 8, 9, 10 million, and he decides or she decides to take the business off the market, then we expect them to pay us in a bought fee, which is kind of half or a third of what we get if it's sold.

Oh, shit. Quite a bit.

We need that because otherwise we'd go bust.

Is that if they take it off the market as well as if they go to another broker, or can they not do that?

They can't go to another broker for two or three years when they sign our contract. But if they do sell, they have to usually pay us at least 2% of the transaction. And then we have a ratchet where if we make them a lot more money than we agreed at the beginning, you know, the target price, then they may end up paying us as much as 5% of the whole deal. But they're happy to do that because they've usually made a lot more than they thought they would at the beginning, you know, so everyone walks away pretty happy at the end in those situations.

Yeah.

You know, they might have to write us a check of 500 grand, but if they've walked away with 12 million when they thought they were going to make 10, actually, they don't really give a shit about the fees, you know.

Yeah, true. Did you ever get screwed in the early days then?

Yeah.

Having tighter contracts and shit?

Absolutely screwed a number of times. So I'd say a couple of the big times were in the early years when I, you know, when it took us almost four years to do that first deal. I did a deal in about year two, but we didn't get paid on it because our paperwork was so flimsy. The buyer managed to wriggle out of paying us and he ripped us off for about 30 grand. Now, at that time, that was a huge amount of money for us. I was absolutely mortified. And he, and he literally, he was a ruthless bastard. I've actually sold him several things since and made a lot of money out of that guy.

Does that work?

Because I got my paperwork right and I made sure I made it up in future deals that I did with him, you know.

But even though he was such a cunt.

Well, yes, he was. But I tell you what, he taught me so much, you know, he went on to make 40 million quid, this guy, out of fire alarms he made of domestic alarms that you have in your house. He had. By the end, he had 5,000 people, customers like you and me, just paying him 150 quid a year, you know, 5,000 people. And it was just, it was a great business.

Only 5,000. Right. So five. So that's like 600k a year revenue. No more 750.

So sorry. So that was. So he's making about 150 pounds per person.

Okay.

It was a great, it was a great business. By the end, some of them were bigger customers probably, but it was, you know, he sold it to a private equity business for 40 million last year. Incredible business, you know.

Yeah, that's a pretty big one. He.

But he's a ruthless, ruthless bastard. And, yeah, he obviously taught me a lot in the early days about getting your contract right. We had lawyers then draft up contracts and agreements and it was just, you know, not. It hasn't. We haven't been screwed that badly since. There's a couple of times that people have tried it. There have been times where you work for two years on a deal and then the biggest problem you have when you're selling a business is what they've told you isn't true. They tell you they're making too many in profit. They're not. So that's why you have to protect yourself. Because when you get into due diligence, which is essentially people checking the documentation, people checking that what you've told them is correct, and lawyers and accountants be pouring over the accounts and all these things. If you haven't told them the truth, then the price goes down, it doesn't go up, you know, so, you know, then the seller might decide, well, I'm not selling it then, on that basis, you know, so then you might have been in, you know, you might have worked for two years for not very much. So at that Point. You also need to be paid something, otherwise, you know, you just. Your business won't work otherwise.

So would you always have a retainer from day one plus a bullshit fee, whatever. Is that how it works?

Yeah, it has to work like that. I mean, the only time that I'd make an exception is when I've worked with someone before. Maybe it'd be cheaper the second time around. Because you trust them. Yeah, occasionally I act for buyers. I don't like acting for buyers because I think it's a lot harder to do deals when you have a seller that's motivated to sell his business. It's much easier to get a deal done. When you work for a buyer, they can be a lot more choosy. They might not really know what they want. They might be using several other brokers to look for things. So if someone else brings us something else that's better, they might just buy that, you know, they might just find a business internally that they like, you know, and you don't get paid. So I try and avoid working for buyers. There's a couple of exceptions. There are some big private equity firms in London that I work for and they're probably my best clients in a lot of ways because all I ever have to do for them is one meeting. I will introduce them to the target that they're trying to buy. They will take it from there and do everything. They do all the work. So I won't even hear from them until they've done the deal and then they'll just wire me the cash. And I say to people, that's the kind of best hour, you know, of your year if you get one of those away. Yeah. You know, and I've done several like that. And so of course, if that buyer phones and says he wants something, I will put the time in because he's serious, you know, he's very, very. They're very wealthy, they act very quickly. They've got a very good in house team that can do their acquisition. So they don't need us.

Yeah. So few questions then. What's the biggest deal you've personally done?

Yeah, the one in February where as 11 times changed hands, that guy will make about £15 million probably. That was one of the biggest.

What about the 40?

So I didn't do that transaction. He sold his business for 40 and I read about it in the press. I sold him three acquisitions whilst he was building that business. The first one he didn't pay me for, but he paid me for. The second two he sold to A big PE firm last year for that amount of money. So, yeah, so they're the kind of ranges I've been close to being doing some bigger ones. I mean, 15 doesn't sound like a lot, but when you start off doing things for a million pounds or 2 million pounds, it takes a while to get to that level.

And what would an average be? And how many deals through, like, morphos?

Yeah, so I counted that. I've done about 50 over the 13 years, so it's about four a year. But bear in mind, we did none in the first four years. You know, an average year might be five or six. We also raise money for people now, which is another big string to our bow. So, you know, startups like yourself, or businesses that just need. Need to raise money to grow, we're quite good at that now. So we've got lots of good contacts with lenders and, you know, finance businesses or just private individuals that are wealthy. And so a big part of my career now is I've made people, I've made a lot of people a lot of money. Right. And there's at least 20 guys out there that I can call up and say, look, I'm raising money for X, you know, some business that you might be starting, or some business that, you know, one, you know, another contact might be starting and say, look, would you like to put some money into this? We think it's interesting, you know, and so that is a newer string to our bow, but it's quite exciting.

Yeah, cool. So to simplify, then. Well, to make it, to give an example, then. So if I came to you, let's just say, hypothetically, I have this business which I'm on a. So for 10 million quid, thereabouts. I'm just sick of it. I want to sell it on the seller. You're obviously the broker. Like, what's the process from right at the start to selling? And firstly, how do we know each other then? Do we usually not know each other? Like, do I approach you? Would you approach me? So I suppose that's the first part. And then what happens?

So almost all the businesses we sell are via referrals, so someone that we know will introduce us to someone that they know. So I'm selling a healthcare chain at the moment, of several healthcare homes, you know, retirement homes, and they are just friends of friends. But it's quite hard to win mandates if you just don't know them. If you're just complete random, it's pretty unlikely that you're going to win that mandate in my experience. So the referral thing, the networking thing is the way to do it. But essentially we come and see you. As I said, we spend quite a bit of time getting to know them and interviewing them. So we really want to know what they tell us is correct, especially on the financials. So we pour through their accounts, their management accounts. We want to see all the kind of stuff, we want to know all the skeletons before we agree to potentially selling them because that's how the pitfalls later on, you kind of want to close off as many as those you can. There's always surprises, you know, there are always things they don't tell you. But the majority of the time, if you spend a couple of months getting to know them, at least you've got a much better chance of doing the deal. If they're unrealistic on how much money they want, we'd walk away. You know, if we think that they are going to be too difficult to work with, we also walk away because, you know, our time is limited. It's not, it's different from an e commerce business where once the platform is in place, yeah, it kind of, it goes viral, doesn't it? But we're consultants at the end of day. Our hours in the day are our hours in the day, you know, so you can only spin so many plates. You want to, you want to bat the right horse, one that's going to get over the line. So yeah, so for the seller, we talk to them about have they been approached in the past. We start forming a list of all the companies that might have asked if they could buy them. We do our own research. We've got several researchers that will go and put together a list of maybe 100 buyers. We then whittle that down probably to 50 with the seller and then we send them a document, you know, an anonymous teaser document, bit like your flyer that you're putting out for your business, you know, a couple of pages. Try not to give away too much information, just literally enough to either get a yay or nay. The people who say we'd like more information, they sign a non disclosure agreement. Then they'll get a kind of 30 or 40 page pack which is that all, you know, song, you know, all bells and whistles document along with all the financials that they might request. Then we might meet 10 of those companies, you know, obviously in Corona it was all about zoom meetings for those. But you know, you might do three days of, you know, it's literally a parade. You do the same meeting 12 times, which is my seller and me talking about the business doing exactly the same meeting. You know, it takes two or three hours each time. You might do three or four a day. And then at that point you'll ask for offers. You know, you want some indicative offers from the people who are really interested. You know, we'd hope to get at least kind of three or four offers on the bet on that basis. And then you pick the one you want to run with. The buyer will then insist on exclusivity, which means you can't talk to anyone else until you. Until you've either done the deal or the buyer's legally withdrawn. Then it gets. Then the interesting bit really is the, is the lawyers takeover and they negotiate the share purchase agreement, which is a. Which is a massive document, 70 pages, 80 pages long, easily. You know, they can be arguing about that for months. These lawyers obviously will be involved as well. And that will be coming back and forth for months on end. And you just hope that the business that you're selling keeps performing in that time. The last thing you want is a dip, you know, and you just hope that your seller keeps his cool because it gets emotional, it gets stressful. People can get really upset, you know, at the end because they can see the money, but they can also see.

That's what I felt like on a small scale.

Yeah, exactly. And as I said to you at the beginning, it's the biggest moment of their lives. You know, maybe, you know, with the exception of the kid or whatever, but, you know, it's pretty much, you know, there's not much that tops that is there because their whole life is then you know, sorted or they think it is.

Yeah.

So. And then, yeah, literally you'll get to the kind of, we call it the completion when, when the share purchase agreement is signed. That is when you literally, you know, you go to the pub and you order a bottle of champagne and you down it and you know, the funds flow. That's the big day when the funds flow, which is usually about a week later, literally the lawyer calls up and distributes the money.

Yeah. So on that. So maybe it's just me being a fucking weird entrepreneurial type, but I reckon a lot of people listening because like you obviously read about XYZ business selling, like, particularly people watching people like E commerce brands have been acquired, whatever, like movement watches, 100 million fucking loads of examples. So two questions off that then. Well, actually, first question is, so how long? Typically from like a general handshake, this is what we're going to try and do like you agreed to buy my business for 10 million quid between that day and the share purchase agreement. How long does that typically take?

At least a few months. You know, it's very, very common that that may be, you know, offer agreed in writing, which is like the heads of terms document we call it, which is probably six pages long, which just spells out the basics. You know, I'm gonna pay you 10 million for your company. I'm gonna give you 8 million up front and you're gonna have to do this, this and this to get the next 2 million. You have to work for me. You're gonna have to re sign these contracts. You know, you're gonna have to do this. You can't work for anyone else for three years, all those kind of things and then, yeah, at least a few months. Honestly, when I sit down with the seller, when we're having our first meeting, I say the process is at least a year. Now if we do it less than a year, I'm delighted. If we do it in less than 18 months, I'm usually pretty happy, to be honest.

Do people get excited on the day that a deal looks like it might happen or are they usually, they know it's gonna take a few months.

Most sellers are very naive. They haven't been through the process before. They wouldn't even know what these terms mean. They have no idea that the lawyer, you know what the lawyer will do or, you know, that they might, you know, that they might spend 12 weeks negotiating a document. I mean, you got to realize lawyers aren't just doing your deal, you know, they're working on 20 other deals. Right. So they're not.

Yeah. And they're not slow.

They're slow. And there's no incentive for them to really do it any quicker because often they're billing by the hour.

So yeah, I think in my very limited experience, I feel like lawyers are just lawyers and accountants are living in a different generation. I think some of us. Like I was looking at this myself for this new business I'm running and I found something called C Legals, which you may not have heard of, but it just seems so modern and quick.

Yeah.

Going to a big city law firm or whatever.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you in a startup situation like yours, of course you want to keep the cost down as low as possible.

So also just speed.

Yes, Speed. I think. Look, when you're selling something for a lot of money, speed is not of the essence. It's getting it right. Isn't it, you know, you don't want any fuck ups. Right. You want it to say what it says. You know, there are all sorts of things in the spa that can come back and bite you if you don't get it. Right. So often people are arguing about things called warranties and indemnities.

Yeah.

Now that is a big part of the agreement. So if you're warrantying something or you know that you're saying something's correct and it turns out not to be, you know, the buyer can come back and take the money back potentially. So you want to be watertight on these things.

Yeah.

And those, those warranties can last for years. They can be seven years. They've come back.

Yeah.

You know, so I don't know if you've read much about Michael lynch autonomy and he.

Packard. Yeah.

Yes. I mean Hewitt Packard are coming back at him on the, on that sale that he did to them. You know, they're suing him for billions of dollars. Right.

So effectively got paid for selling the business and now they're saying what he said wasn't true. So they want the money back.

Essentially. Allegedly. Allegedly, yeah. It is a nightmare. So his, his financial director has already pleaded guilty in the United States and is serving a prison term. Right.

Super dodgy then.

Well, that's what's been, I think he has been convicted actually that the US government are trying to extradite him to face charges in the us. Yeah. So Michael lynch is a billionaire from this. But allegedly there's a lot of wrongdoing on the sale. But obviously, you know, who are we to know? But you know, the smaller point is with the spas, you pay the money because you want that high quality advice.

SPO's share purchase agreement.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Cool.

And then so funds flowing as you said, because I'm just asking the questions that I think anyone will want to know. So like someone sells a business for 10 million quid, you sign that agreement, how long's that period to someone and how long is that period between actually getting the money then? And also is that literally just. You just check your online banking one day and it's in there.

Usually the money will be there within five working days. I mean if it's a lot of money, maybe it's slightly longer. Genuinely like the money usually is coming from like the US or, or Asia or Europe, you know, or somewhere that is not just like sitting there.

Yeah.

It will always go to the lawyer. The lawyer will then disperse it and literally he will have a list of shareholders he's got to pay out. So if. Which is quite often the case, there are multiple shareholders. Yeah. They will literally pay each of those the individual amount that they want, you know, that they deserve and then deserve earn.

Yeah, it's like more nitty picky questions. I'm just interested.

Yeah.

Is that. So if I sold a business in, say I was a UK resident, blah, blah, blah, capital gains tax, am I getting that money net of taxes or am I getting that money and then have a tax liability?

No, you get the gross amount and your tax liability sits with you. So you then need to sit down with your accountant pretty sharpish and work.

Out what not spend. All of it.

What not to spend. Yeah. So obviously in the UK we have something called entrepreneurs relief, which means that if you're a director of your company, you've had it for more than three years and you own more than 5%, the first million pounds you earn, you earn from a deal from a sale comes out at 10% tax, which is really good. It used to be the first 10 million, but Rishi Sunak changed it last year, which was very annoying.

So it's now Rishi Sunak needs to fucking sell a business.

It's now 20% of the next X million above that. So, you know, your tax bill is probably kind of 20%, you know, flat on a big sale.

Yeah.

Kind of maybe slightly less, which is obviously a lot less than, you know, paye. So, you know, one of the other bits of advice we always give clients is that building up the cash in the business is a really good idea because you don't want to pay 50% income tax on your, on your cash if you can leave it in the company because that will be added to the price at the end. So. And that can make a huge difference, you know, for people if they built up a couple of million pounds in the bank.

Is that always the case then? So you'd have the business purchase price plus the excess net cash, basically.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. We call it cash free, debt free. So the excess cash minus any debts in the company, that also includes the working capital. Working capital is the amount of money it takes to run the business. Now that's obviously a card number to define exactly. The accountants on both sides will argue that right up to the deadline day, usually it's a couple of months cash, you know, a couple of months of cost to run the business. That's. That's kind of the approximate amount that I always tell sellers, they often think that's. That that's their money. But it isn't. You can't leave a business.

Capital would be taken off the net amount due to them from the business bank.

Exactly. We. I describe it as like the petrol in the car.

Yeah.

You can't.

The bloody hardware last year.

Yeah.

And a lot of people watching this probably haven't learned that yet, but it's very true in any business. Probably even E Comm's actually. Probably. Arguably very cash flow positive if nothing goes wrong. Because you get paid in three days from Stripe.

Yeah. Which is amazing.

Whereas a lot businesses. I spoke to a guy yesterday, runs a drinks company and they're on like net 120 days with all their suppliers. So they could be making a million quid profit but fucking have no money in the bank, basically.

Well, some of the biggest failures we've ever seen are companies that spend the money that they get in in advance, you know, and then the contracts are pulled and they don't have the money anymore. They've spent it. If that makes sense.

Yeah.

So there was a big American company. It might have been that time when you actually. When you were interning for more foes. There was a. There was a big American business that ended up going bust. They were one of the richest families in New York and they had a contract with a big shopping MALL in the U.S. they had a thousand shopping malls and they were paid quarterly in advance by this shopping mall owner. And that was a lot of money, right? It was $50 million. Well, $50 million a quarter in advance. Right. Of course, then this company, my client, were using that money for other things. You know, they weren't lifestyle, it was lifestyle private jets. You know, they were the front row of every basketball game. They were private jets. There were boats, there were all sorts of things you can im imagine. Right. So, you know, but it turned out to be a really sad story. So when that client pulled the plug on them, which clients do used another provider, they couldn't afford to pay back that money. They couldn't afford to provide the services, if you see what I mean. Because they'd spent it all. And they went from being one of the richest families in New York to being destitute, you know, terrible. The son who's only a couple of.

Years older than me, would they not at that level have. Have like any sense of risk management? Because Even I, now 26, would be like, fuck, I'm not. I'm not blowing on lifestyle until other shit's taken care of.

Well, you'd think so. So the great granddad started the business in like the 1930s, built this amazing business. It was the biggest cleaning company in America. The granddad takes over who then really messed it up, I'd say who then the son was earmarked to take it over, who was slightly older than me, but he was a drug addict. He was a complete nightmare.

But he was growing up in that money.

Yeah. And he actually committed suicide in the end. Took a drug overdose. So, you know, it's one of those really sad stories about kind of mismanaging money. But you know, that kind of third generation is always a nightmare when they've grown up with that amount of wealth. And it's a very common tale.

Yeah.

They've never had to earn a penny. They live a life of Riley. They've become useless. You know, they're useless people because they've got nothing. There's nothing to give any. Give anyone. Have they never had to work a day in their lives.

There's a lot of that around this part of town, Southwest London, sure. Not a lot, but you know, statistically not a lot, but there's still quite a few. I want to come on to a different thing in a minute, but. So have you ever been to like a big post acquisition fucking piss up party?

I'm sure, yeah, absolutely.

What's been like the biggest, most memorable one? Because you read about this shit in like billionaire biographies and stuff.

I mean. No, it's not usually on that scale. Usually the several celebrations over the course of the following year and it's a combination of them taking us out to say thanks, us then taking them out to say thanks. We might do a trip somewhere. So, you know, I might invite them somewhere to like the Hong Kong sevens or I might invite them to, you know, the Golf at Augusta or I might invite them to the Ashes or the Lions, you know, that's a typical thing I'll do for someone when they've. They've paid me a significant fee. You know, I don't just take them out for dinner or take them on a good thank you trip. It's slightly harder these days because of entertainment tax rules. But even if I end up paying it for it myself, I'm usually like, look, these people, they've been good to us, they've looked after us, you know, and it's that old thing, you know, they don't forget that you've made them a lot of money. You know, if it deals gone well, they're generally a pretty good friend or contact for life. They'll refer you to other people they know you Know rich people, successful people usually know other rich, successful people.

Yeah.

You know the amount of contacts we've had just because like their mate at the golf club or the sailing club or golfing club or whatever they're doing, they'll be met. They've got people that are just doing things you can't imagine. So that's the best reference you can get. Yeah, but some pretty wild times at the Hong Kong Sevens or Tokyo World cup, you know. You know I bumped into you there.

Yeah. Two years ago almost to the day actually.

Yeah, they tend to be the biggest celebrations.

Yeah. Geez. I wasn't celebrating an exit there, but it's still a good time. I think I was like nine pints deep by 2pm it was very aggressive. Couldn't see any of the rugby, but that was a good time. Okay, so interesting first hour. This dog's trying to eat my shit. I just want to bring it back to how we actually met them because I think it's relevant but also, yeah, just be interesting. So, yeah, when I originally dropped out of uni, which I think the actual first podcast like last year I did that spoke about all that prior to the Neon beach scandal, got taken down because, yeah, my flatmate Fred didn't want it up. Etc. So, yeah, I dropped out of uni when I was 19 after six weeks. And then when I did a placement with more foes, which is how I met Nick. And yeah, basically the first time, to be honest, that I'd been exposed to, I guess entrepreneurship and business other than just like reading online and put a suit on and like was commuting every day. And there's some great faces on there.

Some great faces.

Yeah, it's about a five month period I think. I think it was like kind of just maybe November to March or something, four or five month period. But yeah, I probably cite that as I definitely wanted to be an entrepreneur prior to that, but I didn't really know. I never met anyone who was actually like making any money. And I think I've said it before on other podcasts. That was probably the first time I thought, oh, you don't have to be like a rapper or a footballer to make money.

Sure.

In a way, which I think it's probably true to a lot of people. You think if you're not like an A list celebrity, then how can you make money? But maybe slightly different now because social media is fucking everywhere. But yeah, kind of like what you were saying, like that's the first time I probably realized like the value in like, knowing people and just networking in general. Because I remember actually, famously, another guy that we were working with called David, who I don't think you work with anymore, but I remember throwing. Throwing a business card across the table because I had, like, a business card and I was like. I thought I was a baller and shit. Just like getting all the. All the fancy corporate stuff, wearing a fucking suit every day, which I would never do again. I threw a business card across the table to someone in a meeting and he, like, took me aside after. It's like, that's not how you do this, like, net this meeting people thing. It's just a funny story that I remember.

I didn't know that.

I remember being so embarrassed afterwards.

He would have been horrified by that.

Yeah, he was somewhere in Berkeley Square, which.

Oh, God, right.

Been to you many times since. Loads of bloody nightclubs and shit around there and sexy fish and stuff where I've taken girls and overpriced lunches in the past. But, yeah, it's just. Just an interesting time because you don't realize, like, how little you know about things until you know a little bit more. Obviously, I'm still fucking learning shit in the entrepreneurial sphere, but back then I knew literally nothing about anything.

Yeah.

It was just reflection on that time. It's quite funny now.

Yeah. I mean, I think we obviously probably struggled a bit with you because we didn't know. We didn't really think it was what you wanted to do, you know.

It wasn't.

Yeah. And it wasn't. It was play.

But it was still interesting.

But it was. It was. You know, it's. It's hard when people obviously aren't quite right for the corporate finance world because they do want to do something completely different, but. But you kind of want to give them the best experience that you can. And, you know, I did a similar internship with a law firm. I remember when I was 17 and I absolutely hated it. It was one of the best internships I ever did because it put me off doing law. It was a shipping law firm. It was the most boring thing you can ever imagine. They were talking about this boat that crashed off the coast of Scotland in 1992, and they were still arguing it in 1998 or whenever I was there. No, it was so boring. I cannot imagine this being my life. And I think it was kind of similar to you. You were so bored by it, weren't you? Or unimpressed that. But it.

I was probably impressed by the people I met. And that's the Point, I was impressed by the people I met and the things that opened my eyes to. But yeah, I knew prior to that I didn't want to do, I guess, a corporate job and even shit like wearing a suit. I mean, look at me now. Wear fucking orange trousers around the house.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think certain people love that shit. You know, go to fucking Durham Uni, study philosophy, and then it's just not me and it's probably not a lot of my audience. And it was kind of then and there that I was like, I want to make a lot of money, but I don't want to do this corporate stuff. So I'll have to figure out how to be like an Internet entrepreneur or whatever.

Absolutely.

Which is probably a realization that a lot of people mostly watching this podcast have at some point, then they set out on figuring out how to actually do that, which I'm still fucking figuring out. Had a little taste of it, but.

Well, what I admire about you is that you've gone off and done something you actually want to do. You haven't just done something that you thought you should do, you know? Yeah, a lot of my career has been doing is doing a job that I think people probably expect me to do. You know, it's a money making job. You know, it's. It's not kind of, you know, it's probably not the job I dreamt of doing when I was a kid. Right. But it's a job that is okay. It makes money and I don't hate it. But you, I think you've generally gone off and done something that you really actually love. I know it's been a rocky road recently, but, you know, overall, you're delighted that you've gone down this road, aren't you? As opposed to.

I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Yeah, exactly.

It feels definitely like the right thing and it makes the challenges more palpable.

Yeah.

Because you think, well, this is what I'll be doing anyway.

But, you know, we've had probably. We have probably one or two interns every summer. Yeah, you stayed a bit longer than most. I mean, you know, I'm in contact with some of them. One of them still works for us and she's probably our best employee.

Yeah.

Girl called eve Kilgar. She's 27 now, unbelievably. Which, you know, know, it's just crazy because you've been working with me since I thought, you know, almost a baby. But she can now, at 27, almost run a deal without any help from me. Almost. I'd say probably 90%. She probably doesn't realize it yet, but she's kind of. That's the kind of training period that it takes, you know, to get to the point. I don't think she's capable of winning business yet. She couldn't go and win a pitch, I don't think, without me being there. But where. Once I give her a deal, she can pretty much do most of it now from start to finish, so. But she's quite similar to you. She doesn't actually enjoy a Monet at all. She just does it for the money and because she's good at it. She also. She has a. She has a business on the side which is making wicker baskets in McCrabby, I think it's called.

Or I think you mentioned this before.

She spends her Saturday and Sunday, and if she's watching this, you know, she'll be laughing at me. Making baskets for like £30, you know, for basket that takes her four hours to make. But she loves it. So I said, look, you do both. I think that's the kind of great thing about your generation. Most still, my generation is that we can have lots of jobs. We don't just have to have one job now.

Yeah.

You know, you can do lots of things at the same time. As long as you pay the bills, there's no reason why you can't run an E commerce brand and do something else on the side, you know, obviously.

Podcast.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a lot more work than I thought it would be. Yeah.

But, you know, back in the day, your dad. My dad. They had one job, didn't they? You know, pretty much.

Definitely a generational shift and a cultural shift.

But we're so lucky. I think we've got an iPhone where you can walk around, just. You don't ever have to be in the office. You can just be walking around on that thing, kind of doing what you need to do. You know, certainly in my job, I don't need to be at an office ever, really. Apart from to go and see clients. I just need to be on the phone all day.

Yeah.

But looking back to that internship, I mean, the work we set you, it's very boring. It's very tedious, that research, kind of.

Yeah. Because I didn't really fucking know how to do anything else, did I? I mean, I remember sitting in the British Library researching businesses. But it was. I think. Yeah. The point I'm trying to make on that, amongst others, is.

Yeah.

The actual work itself might have been very tedious. But two things. Firstly, I got to go and try commuting and wearing a suit in central London for the first time. And when you've never done that before, that's fucking cool and exciting. I remember going around. I literally would walk around Mayfair taking pictures of cars. Yeah, I still got pictures of those on my Instagram. If you scroll back to, like, 2013, 14. And that was so exciting because I'd never seen that shit before. Whereas now you could go down Sloane street, see a la Ferrari. It's just. And it sounds flippant and stupid, but when you've never seen that sort of stuff, it's a different world. Oh, there's other possibilities. And, like, I don't have to do this boring thing and whatever if I don't want to. But then also, yeah, it was meeting people. And firstly learning how to speak to people and meet people, which I think I'm pretty good at now, to be fair, which could be better. But I've got a lot better at just even doing shit like this podcast, you know, with new people. It becomes a fucking process. And by definition, you get better at it, but also seeing what other people are doing. Because by default, when you grow up, pretty much up to the age of like, 21, usually when you sort of finish uni, or particularly before uni, for 18, your life and your lifestyle and your network and the people you know and the things you see about life are just given to you. You don't have your base. I have no choice in it. So if you grow up in, like, me, the north of England, and you go to a state school, very fine life, like, happy and shit. But that was what I saw. Whereas if you grow up in fucking Africa, that's what you see and that's your experience. You know what I mean? And the other extreme is, you know, if you grow up and go to Eton school and you're surrounded by fucking parents, billionaires the whole time, that's what you see. And I spoke about the problems and the pros and cons of that with Iman on the previous episode, which would have gone out by now, but, yeah, it's just interesting. And then when you actually get to start doing your own shit, whether it's on an internship or not doing your own shit, but you get to step out of what you were previously doing. And for most people, that's going to uni or getting a job or doing an internship, it's just interesting. And you probably don't have the perspective on things at the time to appreciate the insight it gave you then. But then looking back now, it's like I almost think if I didn't do that internship, I mean, I probably would have got into entrepreneurship anyway. But like, that was certainly the first. It comes back to like the whole experience breeds confidence thing. Like I met people that had made millions building businesses themselves and they weren't famous then. It was like, oh, I remember a few months later launching my first clothing brand literally after that in March 2015. Gentry Club, fucking shit brand. But I probably wouldn't have done that unless I'd met someone that was like talking about it, whatever, over a few drinks.

Totally.

So that's kind of the interesting side of that. And also as well, I think what you're saying about like brokerage and so on and so on, which is why I want to get you on, is I think there's a problem which is caused by social media of everyone thinking they have to be an entrepreneur, they have to be like the number one guy at the top of the business or whatever it is. Whereas actually a lot of people could probably be more happy and make more money and do better in like either a, like a corporate job, which was never for me, or like be potentially being like a broker like yourself and probably make a lot more money in rather than trying to build like any business or for most of my viewers, probably like an E comm digital marketing business because they feel like everyone on social media is doing it. Whereas most people on social media that talking about doing it probably making no money or they're hiding all the problems they've had, which I was public about my recent ones for that purpose. And yeah, I just think it's a conversation people probably need to have with themselves because no one posts about being an M and a broker on social media, but everyone fucking posts about running an E comm brand or drop shipping or having an OnlyFans account more relevantly recently. And if you can fucking make money from that, then fair play. But yeah, sure, yeah, that's kind of the point I wanted to make on that.

I think the M and A thing, you know, it's not super sexy, but the exposure you get to businesses is invaluable. You know, you see so many different businesses. You know, people phone you up with all sorts of like inquiries. Oh, you know, I had one yesterday. Oh, a friend of mine's got 21 BMW garages he wants to sell. Can you come and see him? You know, you just never know where it's going to take you, which is. Which is the upside of it, you know, you know, you go and see this guy, he's got 20, that's impressive, right? He's got 21 BMW franchises. You know, he's built from nothing. This guy from the East End, you know, he's obviously a bit of a Jack the Lad and, you know, but good for him. He didn't go to private school. Like, he's a kind of just a worker and he's, he's wise as, you know, anyone and, you know, you know, he's kind of knows how to make a pound.

Right.

So the thing with the M and A thing is just. You do see a lot of interesting insights into wealthy people, how they build businesses, the mistakes they make, you know, is the important thing. And actually that makes you a better business person. Watching them, you know, watching what the good ones do versus what the really bad ones do. And the real pitfalls, I always think when you're running a business is spending the profit too hard along the way, you know, which is a very classic mistake people make. And this isn't a slight against you.

But I definitely did that to an extent.

But lots of people, lots of people go out and buy the range over the Ferrari, you know, first class, around the world, when actually, if they reinvested those profits, they would be a lot, lot richer. Yeah, there's a balance. You don't want to just. You don't want to live like a pauper. When you're running a successful business, you should go on holiday, you should have an okay car. If you want to fly, you know, in a nice way, you should. But you shouldn't be kind of pretending that you've sold the business when you haven't.

Yeah.

You know, living like someone who's made 10 million when actually, I think it's social media. Yeah, I think it's ego. It's social media, it's keeping up with the Joneses, as we say, you know, the old. You know, it's. My mate's got a Ferrari, so I've got to have one. It's. It's all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I've got a client that you know quite well. I won't, I won't mention him, but, you know, he, he went out and bought a, you know, an amazing supercar. You know, a year before he was having to sell his business. Paid kind of seven figures for this supercar and had to sell it, unfortunately, for a lot less paid for it.

Yeah, I thought it was someone else.

Yeah, I won't mention his name, but he, he thought he was going to sell his business for a huge amount of money. He didn't. Ends up having to sell some of the things that he thought he was going to buy. And it's kind of a sad situation, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, you know, there's levels.

Of expenditure on supercars.

Yeah, absolutely. I've never owned one. I own a very simple car because I try not to be flash. I don't, I'm not a flash guy. I don't own a flash watch. You know, I have some property and I, I live quite a flash lifestyle, you know, so I, I like going on holiday and traveling. But when you walk, when I'm walking around, you will never see me in a Gucci jacket or a Rolex watch.

Christ. Well, I like that. I did like the watches. But yeah, it's so true. Like it's particularly in the E commerce and digital marketing sphere and the whole like online money, wi fi money, what the fuck you want to call it, like forex, E comm, digital marketing, drop shipping, all this sort of stuff that's come, that's become possible in the last five years mainly. There is a massive culture of that. And I was, yeah, I was one of those guys to an extent. I was doing very well for like three years. But yeah, you know, I mean, I liked cars, so I bought some cars. I don't regret that. But the problem is to an even bigger extent, you get guys that don't even run businesses and are making 20 grand a year buying Stone island jackets for 600 quid. Like that's, that's a thing. I've never done that. So it's all relative. I was making 2, 300 grand a year when I was 22, so I was buying stupid cars and shit that were financed, heavily financed. But yeah, it's just an interesting culture because prior to social media, I don't know if that would have been as much of a thing or if it's because of like the fact that people can actually start a business now and genuinely make really good money pretty quick because of like, you know, Facebook ads, TikTok, whatever. Like so, so much quicker now in like e commerce and just generally online. But it's always like humbling when you then meet, you know, like someone that's actually made a lot of money, like sort of 10, 20, 30, 50 million and they're fucking, they're always wearing an Apple watch. And then so I've started, I mean, in the past year I've done that for Many reasons, but I guess it's part of growing up.

But I think it is an interesting process, growing up. You don't want to show people how rich you are. It's. It's not a good trait. People don't like you for it generally. You know, it's kind of. You want to be anonymous as you can, as we said earlier. You know, it's interesting that the car thing always reminds me of footballers, right? Specifically Premiership footballers. And when, when we grow up, most boys that play football want to be a Premiership footballer and play for Chelsea and earn 300 grand a week. But I think. I think it's one of the worst lives you can imagine.

It was funny you say that because we were in Chelsea the other week and you said this. So, yeah, build on that.

You live your life in reverse. So you are super successful at 20, 25. Your career starts to fade as you reach 30. You get your last contract at maybe 32, you retire at 35. If you're lucky, right? And maybe if you're lucky, you bank some of that money. You haven't wasted it all. You know, generally they're not that financially astute, so they might have spent a lot of the money along the way. Waste a lot. You know, the smart ones put it into houses and investments. There aren't that many smart ones, you know, they generally end up pretty useless and unhappy in their late 30s. There isn't much, you know, there isn't much of a career anywhere else unless.

You become a manager like Gerrard as well.

You know, for every Gerrard, there's 20 or 30 players in that Liverpool squad that aren't a manager. For every carrier on Sky Sports, great job. There's 20 or 30 that. Who the hell are they and what they're doing? And they probably didn't make anywhere near as much money as you think, or they didn't save any of it, you know, because they were living the life of Riley, you know, and they had all the women, cars and champagne then. But Suddenly in their 40s, they're pretty kind of depressed, maybe they've got injuries, you know, they've got a bad back, they've got bad knees, you know, I wouldn't wish that life, particularly on anyone. I don't think it's. I don't think it's a happy life. I think, you know, your best years, hopefully, you know, life as you, as you get older gets better.

Exponentially better. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting because you said that, I think, yeah, like, probably like a lot of People you look at like footballers that are 25, 26, my age, you think I almost like, bit, for fuck's sake. You know that like someone like Jack Grealish is making 300 grand. Like, I'm probably terrible at it. Like, like a lot of people, because of social media, you look at someone like that and think they're making 300 grand a week. And I thought I was balling making.

That per year, but you've got a brain that ain't. Isn't going to fade at 30, whenever.

So, yeah, so when you said that.

Right, Jack Grealish is going to retire at 30 something. Right. He. Okay, he's going to be so rich, it maybe won't matter. But, you know, most of them aren't that smart. Most of them probably don't make great life decisions. Most of them have multiple wives. You know, a lot of that. Gambling, drugs, you know, it's just a kind of spiral of decline. Usually when they stop. And I don't imagine they live that happy, great lives, to be honest. The smart ones go into management or you work for Sky. They probably have a good life because it gives them a purpose, gives them something to do in the morning.

Yeah.

You know, get up and actually do something. But the rest of them, what are you going to do all day? You play golf, take the kids to school.

Yeah, very true. I think. Yeah. It's interesting.

You're not 65, you're 35. It's kind of a bit sad, isn't it?

Yeah. Because at least in entrepreneurship or just business and work in general, but I guess for this audience, entrepreneurship, business. Yeah. You would hope that you get exponentially better, of course. And then therefore, over the long term, granted, there's ups and downs. You get. You make exponentially more money as well.

More skills, more contacts and more money. For sure.

Yeah. So just on that, because it's a point I've raised in a few previous podcasts. It's like I lost a load of money and I said, what? But the one thing I didn't lose was experience and contacts. And that is very true. And like luckily or fortunately is probably a word. I feel like I've built up a very good network for my age, given it's one that I feel like a largely built. Didn't have it when I came out of uni in a way. And. Yeah, like how much? Obviously a lot of your shit, it works pretty much all network, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I think networking and having a network and just fucking people skills in general. Kind of old school business skills I suppose. Nowhere to put it is something that myself included again like this whole E commerce online, you know, WI fi, money generation kind I think overlook because everything's. You do all the shit online and even Now I spend 80% of my time at a fucking screen and I'm very conscious of it. Like I'd like to be probably more beneficial if I went out and met at the minute like investors, different people, potential employees, all that sort of. So like I suppose, yeah, in general I'm just becoming more and more aware of the importance of it and I think this generation doesn't understand it enough. And by default because we're on social media and shit, no one really has any fucking people skills anymore. But obviously you particularly within more foes I think are very good at that. So like, so how do you get good at that and what does that involve in your world?

I think people skills is quite a natural thing. Most people kind of have it or they don't. You can get better at it by spending time around people who have good people skills. I think that's how you do it, you know, if it's, you know. And again, all due respect to developers, there's 10 computer developers in a room. I don't imagine the chat at lunch is that amazing, right?

Yeah.

Whether it's 10 sales guys in a room who work for whoever, a bank or whatever, you know, their chat is kind of more interesting usually. It's funny, isn't it? You know, they're telling stories, they're like telling jokes. They know how to make people laugh.

Yeah.

And it gets people's attention really. So for me, networking, I've always, and you know a lot of my friends and contacts will laugh at this. I've always based it around sport events. So as you know I'm a big Chelsea fan, I'm a big rugby fan, I'm a cricket fan, I'm a big tennis fan, I like going to the golf, the horse racing, you know, all those things. And you know, I'm not just talking about in the uk, I go all around the world doing those events. The people you meet at those events are usually, you know, pretty amazing. You know, you can meet, you just never know who you're going to meet, you know, so you might take some clients with you and you might meet some clients there, wherever it might be, whether it's the Hong Kong sevens. But the people in the room at those events are usually pretty high end people and you've just got to have the balls Basically to go and talk to whoever you think might be useful to you. You know, it can just be very, very simple stuff. Just be like, you know, just go up to them and try and say something funny and if they laugh and they want to talk, then you're away, you know. So I was in an event in London at Berry Brothers a couple of weeks ago.

What's Berry Brothers?

It's one of the most famous wine shops in London. They've got two acres of cellars underneath St James's and Mayfair. So it's incredible expensive real estate. Six floors down. They've got, you know, they sell all the wine to the rich people in London. They've got a very nice seller. I was at investment seminar which was extremely boring, but it was only an hour, so I sucked it up because I knew afterwards the networking would be amazing. And there was a guy there who'd built a business called Inspecs and it's glasses, very simple business, glasses. He's run it for 30 years. He's now, you know for sure a billionaire from it. He's got factories all around the world. It's on the aim, it's a really impressive business. And he gave a five minute speech, which I listened to. But afterwards they serve us some amazing wine. He was the first person I went and spoke to. Only 30 of us. I had 10 minutes with him, got his business card or whatever, got his kind of mobile number and, you know, that's the content. You just never know, do you? Like, maybe at some point I can sell him a business. Maybe at some point he's a super rich guy that wants to invest in a business that you just never know where that conversation might go. But you got to have the confidence to go up to these people because they are just normal people.

Yeah.

As long as you don't bore them. Like they don't, you know, they don't. They're not. They don't want to talk about, you know, boring rubbish. They probably don't even want to talk about their business. So talk about something else. Talk about how good the wine is, talk about how good the food is. What a cool place this is, you know, where do you live? You know, what are you up to? Just treat them like a human. Treat them like just. They're not super special. They much prefer that than if you're licking their feet. Oh, what amazing.

Yeah. I had a guy called Asher Grant on episode 12. It hasn't gone out when recording this, but it would have gone out by now. He runs some of the biggest nightclubs in central London. And that's what he said because he said his black book, so to speak. So his network is incredible because by default his industry is everyone's had a few drinks, which is. And he runs the show. He doesn't actually drink himself funnily enough. But his point was he's managed to befriend all these like super high net worth people, like celebrities, etc. Because he doesn't give a shit who they are really. Because by definition they're just another client, as he calls them, a customer on the day. And actually that has then got him in circles where, you know, usually people are, can I have a picture of this box? Can I ask you about your business? And it's the same thing you're saying. It's interesting because yeah, like they are just fucking normal people at the end of the day.

They don't.

Everyone has the same.

They never ask them for a picture. I mean that's like just rule number one.

Yeah.

I remember bumping into Jose Mourinho in Knightsbridge in and my girlfriend at the time was like, oh, go and take a picture, he's your hero. And I was like, you know, I'm not going to take it off, I'm not going to ask him for a picture. Because also he was like, if he says no, he's no longer my hero, is he? Oh, hey, yeah, true. So I was like, actually no, I don't want a picture. Yeah, you know, he's not my hero anymore. But you know, when I was, you know, 10 years ago, big Chelsea fan, he's our manager, like course he's my hero.

He's an aroma now.

I think he's pretty arrogant, average kind of guy. But you know, I was a kid then, right.

Yeah, very true. So two questions off the back of that then. So. Well, I guess the first one because I know a lot of people that watch this are like 18 to 25, I suppose, and they I guess don't have the credentials to A, be in rooms with, I suppose, powerful, impressive, wealthy people. But B, even if they were, probably wouldn't know where the fuck to start because they maybe don't have, you know, something to talk about like, you know, to those people. How do they network with. And it's a good question, like how does the average person who's saying you're just, you know, 22 years old network with people that they want to get to know? And I suppose I kind of think I know what my answer to that is, but I'M interested to know what you'd say.

I think, you know, I used to work for a headhunt business, headhunter business, and the chairman of that was very smart guy and he was a networking king. And he used to tell me just to write down lists of people that you'd like to know and people that you love to know and people that you'd love to be, you know, and try and like, reach out to those people and just ask them, very simple. Like, look, I'm a young guy, I'm trying to do this. Would you spare some time just to chat to me? Just give me 10 minutes, you know, for a coffee. So people that you know. Right. And then you reach out, you know, and you try and make everyone kind of come to the left side of the list, which is your contacts, right? Yeah, but it takes time, you know, you kind of have to build that contact base. But, you know, you go to the warm people that you know first. So, you know, your parents, friends, your friends, parents, friends, your, you know, whoever they might be. Your just, you know, people you meet at parties, people you, you know, you have to get out there. You can't sit at home and do it, you know, can you? Might do the intro on LinkedIn or WhatsApp or whatever. Yeah, you got to get out there and see people and kind of at those events. Of course, in your early 20s, it's much harder. You're not going to be the king of it then, but you got to get going then because the people you meet then in 10 years time, they might be pretty useful. You know, it's a long road.

Mmm.

You know, you can't view networking as a short term win. It's a long term thing. You know, the people that are making money, you know, they might not make money for 20 years. Some of these people that, you know, they might be super useful when you're 40.

Yeah, very true. You know, see, yes, a few points off that. So firstly, like, do you think these, like, these skills to go and do it is more important than the credentials you might have in the first place? Or do you think if you're trying to speak to interesting people or like get someone to respond to you on LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever, that you need to have done something for them to even bother, like what's the most important?

Well, I think, look, you go after the people that are slightly known to you, you have some connection to them first. Because obviously people that don't know you and you've done nothing very, very hard. Right? Yeah, I Mean, even, even for me, I'm, you know, nearly 40. If I try and reach out to some big CEO of some company, doesn't know me from Adam, he's not going to respond. Yeah, I wouldn't even try, to be honest. You know, I'd only go after someone that I like, maybe kind of knew because then they kind of are compelled to answer, aren't they? If you've got a second connection to them or, you know, some sort of mutual contact, you know, so your mutual contact thing is the way to do it. I say, but, you know, you got to go up to them and just be confident and say, look, I do this, I do that. This is what I'm trying to achieve.

Yeah, I think again, a few things off that it's like, because, like, firstly, like I surprisingly, having done relatively fuck all, but to a certain niche of people, done quite a lot, whatever. Like, I get a lot of messages on Instagram now, mainly off this podcast, and I like responding to them because. Because, yeah, then I feel like helping people, whatever you were then. But it's also the same for people at a certain level above me in the chain. But the second point on that is currently I'm fundraising for this new brand that I've mentioned in the previous episode for the first time and I've been doing. And very new to this process. Should have probably fucking spoke to you a lot more about it, to be fair, but. And I've been firstly, yeah, reaching out to a lot of people like in my network and having very productive conversations and meetings with them, etc. But then I've also just taken a piss a little bit and messaged a few fucking billionaires that I know in this space and obviously not how to reply. But then there's been a few people sort of in the middle that I don't know at all that have sold businesses for eight, nine figures in a similar space I know for a fact have sort of money that potentially you want to invest in. And I've had a few replies, a few people sort of saying like, very interested but, you know, don't know who you are, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, it's your point about, even if you feel like, you know, no one, the first contact is like, I don't know, your uncle's friend that's. He's probably mentioned you once, of course. And I suppose it starts with like, if you're literally like 18, then like, like I was when I did the placement. The first thing is probably get a little bit better at what you're trying to do. Then I think I've said it in other podcasts as well, like probably after that is go and meet people that are your age that want to do similar things, which is what I did when I was 19, 20, 21 particularly. I'm 22. Then get a friendship group, people that are doing similar shit. And then the kind of. The step beyond that is get good at the shit. The shit. The shit you're doing, which for me was E commerce. I'm still working on it, but I've done some stuff, so now I have some track record. So now when I go to people that I've met along the way, a few people who have made, you know, seven, eight figures selling big businesses, and I've met along the way in whatever capacity that there's some actual credibility now, like a few years into the game, I'm not 18 anymore, but I'm also not fucking 50 and know everyone. So then those people at that, like, next level are actually more accessible.

Yeah.

But also along the way, like, I suppose just before, make sure you actually have social skills. Social skills, which you said is natural, but actually to a lot of people and even more because of social media, I feel like he's actually becoming more and more scarce. I'm not saying I'm the fucking wizard at it, but I think I'm decent. I probably A, naturally, but B, because I've met a lot of new people and through this podcast I'm forcing myself to do even more new people. But there's so many people that I don't know fucking. I know a few, actually that like went to ridiculously good unis, whatever, but they have a fairly shit job. And I'm convinced it's because they don't have any EQ amongst any of that iq and they just can't speak to people. And at the end of the day, business and life is just people. Like, really?

Yeah. And.

And again, I think because of the social media generation, which is probably, probably similar generation, but particularly like the past five years, and people that are coming into their, like early 20s in the past five years like me, it's like people hide behind a screen and forget that at the end of the day, customers, people, potential partners, investors, whatever it is, are just fucking people. They're a biological being that's assisted by technology. They're not replaced by technology. Do you know what I mean?

No, exactly. Exactly. So I think, I think your social skills in general or your people skills improve as you get older in general. Right. They do you know, when you're 18.

You have more life experience.

Yeah. And you. You can chat more, but I agree with you. I also think the giving back thing is interesting. You touched on that. So giving back is very important to me. I like interns coming into the company. They're usually kids of clients or kids of friends, which I don't like so much. Longer term, I'd like to change that. You know, the businesses that I'm in, that we aren't just doing, you know, it's not just nepotism all the time because generally you don't find the best people from, you know, the fact that they're your clients, kids happy to do that stuff as a favor for a week or two. But the good ones aren't generally those. They're the ones that actually want to work hard and do something, not just get something on their CV and bugger off to the next thing.

Yeah.

But giving back is fun as well. Like, it's great to be invited back. Like, I've been invited back to my old school to talk to the sick form. You know, I haven't gone because they tried to expel me a number of times when I went to that school. They hated me. So now the fact they want me to come back and give a talk, I'm like, well, I'm not sure I want to do that. I'd probably rather go into the state school around the corner and do a talk.

Yeah.

Because I know the next step will be that they want to send 10 of their kids to our companies every summer, you know, whereas I'd probably rather have the state school kids that actually just want to work and do it.

Joseph Ranchi, where I went.

Yeah, exactly. So. So, you know, the old boy nepotism club, you know, I've benefited from it hugely. So I'm not going to slate it completely. But it is about people who want to work hard and get on with it, not not getting a job because your old man or your uncle or your. Or your granddad did something right.

Yeah, yeah. Another thing on networking as well is like, I had a few guests on. Actually, I won't name them, but we had like, kind of a bit of a debate on this because they kind of viewed networking and they're both successful people, funnily enough, young people, young guys. But they almost viewed, like, networking when I brought it up as, like, some, like, weird, like, really forced, like, making friends process. Whereas, I don't know, like, maybe because of, like, LinkedIn culture these days and shit, it's Become this weird thing. But like when I say network I just mean fucking meeting people. That's basically it. And just meeting people and getting to know them and potentially working together.

Yeah.

And that's not some forced like weird process.

Exactly. You can be on a train, you can be on a plane, you could be at a lunch, you could be at the rugby, you could be at the cricket, you could be at a concert, you could be in a restaurant, you could be at a members club that your friends invited you to, couldn't you? I mean there's all sorts of people all around that are interesting. So my view is, you know, never dismiss anyone when you meet, when you, when you meet someone at a party you just, you know, house parties can be full of cool people doing cool stuff. You know, you never know where you're going to meet someone. It's a bit like you never know we're going to meet your wife or your husband, isn't it? Like you kind of don't shut the door on anything or anyone. Always be like, give them the time of day, listen to them, what they up to, you know.

Yeah.

See where it takes you.

Yeah. I also think like the whole meeting new people thing, just by definition, but again just because of social media is like way more scary than probably maybe it used to be. But also just like it's quite nerve wracking because like I went to meet some potential investor actually on Friday last week in Soho House via another guy that I'd met through another guy that I'd met through a mate. So again a classic example of just the fucking chain of people and you know, whatever, went to meet this guy, we had fucking drinks and I sort of pitched him on what I was doing, whatever. But then 20 minutes later he said, oh, do you want to come fucking sneak into this Soho House party that I've been invited to by the owners of this agency. It was like Phantom Agency or something, it was free fucking bar all night. So I said, yeah, cool, I'll go. I thought I'd be there for 20 minutes. Was there for like six hours. Ended up inviting four of my mates who also snuck in by the time they came. Didn't have to sneak in, there's no one on the fucking door. But yeah, I must have, I think I actually made like a fucking iPhone notes page of like who I must follow up with because I met so many interesting people and, and that's important to do.

As we've said, like when you're that drunk you should write it down or you should.

Because otherwise you'll forget. There was some guy I met on the roof of Fucking on the Strand who was in Amsterdam and he was particularly interested in mushrooms. And I wrote a note down because I knew I'd forget otherwise to follow.

Up with him totally.

And I may never fucking speak to him again. But, you know, I think, and ironically as well, there's a lot of this shit on Twitter and like the whole money Twitter sphere, which I've got more into in the past few months. And it's like, there's a lot of people that think you should like never drink and be fucking tea to shit. But there is a lot of benefit if played correctly in knowing when to have a drink with the right people and the potential doors that opens because just everyone loosens up a bit. Because if I'd not had a beer with that original guy at 6pm, which I was a bit like, oh, fucking don't want to drink tonight. But then if I'd just gone home, yeah, of course I wouldn't have got to know him as well as I did, which was a decent amount. And everyone else that he introduced me to.

No, absolutely.

So it's knowing how to read, like, you know, the pros and cons of a social situation that doesn't mean fucking go to the pub every night and just hang around with people that aren't doing certain shit. But I mean, it's a balance.

Yeah, for sure.

Particularly in a big city like London, which is, again, comes back to the point that I've said to a lot of people, I think if you can, and most people can, if they're willing to, like, live a certain way, you should move to a big city if you're serious about, you know, trying to do something. Because I just think the benefits of potential meeting people massively outweigh, like the short term cost or whatever. Like, rent's really high, blah, blah. But just, I don't know.

We're so lucky to have London.

Share a house with someone.

Yeah, we're so lucky to have London. It's one of the greatest cities of the world. Definitely one of the great cities of the world, you know? Yeah, it's safe, it's secure, it's civilized, it's multicultural. It's so interesting. There's so much going on. All the big, big business players are here, you know, all the big. You know, there's nothing that you want in London, maybe, apart from sunshine, I mean. Yeah.

But that's unproductive to it.

Yeah.

So.

Sure.

Yeah. So I always say to people. I actually get quite a few DMs on this saying I live at home, my parents in X place in the Midlands, wherever. Should I move to London? I'm like, well, if you can. If you can afford to. Which you can. If you get a job anywhere, basically, then you should.

Yeah, well, as long as you're an hour from the city, you're fine, aren't you? Yeah, you can afford to always afford to live an hour from the city.

Yeah. So, yeah, I just think it's super important to have access to the right people and then do with it what you will. I suppose one thing I want to come on to before we potentially wrap up soon, still like a fucking hour and 40 already. To be fair. It's just investing and all that side of thing.

Yes.

I feel like my generation thinks the only thing I think of investing wise is I should get. I wish I got into Bitcoin in 2013. Or I'm going to sell a business and then invest and interested to get your take on it because I know you've got a finger in a few pies.

Yeah, no. So as well as Morphos, I've got four other investments that I'm actively involved with. One of them's a big fund called Red Rice. I've given them some money, they're introduced, they're investing in all sorts of things.

They're a Castor investors.

Castor is the big one, the big sports brand. But on a day to day basis, I'm involved a lot more with the other three. I'd say two are going well and one's going less well. But the two exciting ones are Sherpa, which obviously you're involved with as well, which is the online education business, literally an online tuition business. And also Imagine Health, which is a mental health wellness business that she psychotherapy for people. So, you know, two sectors which are booming with Imagine Health, we've got, we've got Google as our main clients. It's really nice business already. Dropbox as well. We're talking to all sorts of other blue chips and, you know, we're looking to really ramp that business up. We're looking to do a digital offering, which means you can, you know, literally talk to a therapist online through an app, which I think is very current. A lot of people need it.

I was actually on one last night. It's one called Mind Labs that raised a lot of money. Yeah, there's the founder.

Better help. Yeah. So we. The education business is interesting, but yeah, no, so my main job in those business is actually just doing the funding. They're both quite cash hungry, we're growing them, we're trying to raise money or we have been raising money. So yeah, I've probably raised about a million pounds this year for the education business, which has been quite, you know, interesting. We've got maybe 15 shareholders now. It's exciting, it's, it's. I find a lot more interesting than just being the broker because I'm the owner, you know, and I'm excited about both those sectors. I think the world's our oyster in both, I think mental health and online education, you know, that they're two really good places to be.

Yeah, agreed.

Yeah. So it's completely different to the middleman brokering thing, but the skill, a lot of the skills are the same raising money. You know, what's interesting for me is there are opportunities potentially to work more closely in different ways with those companies and that might be my next career, might be, you know, being managing one of those businesses rather than just being the investment director, which is kind of where I am at the moment. But it'd be amazing to be the chief exec of one of those things and grow it properly. The experience is incredible, you know, especially when you've started it from day dot literally form the company and you've done all that. The track record, if you get one of those to be successful is going to be a great story, isn't it?

Yeah, well, mental health, I guess mental wellness is the space man, you, brand is in.

Yeah, exactly.

Fucking. Any potential angels watching, please message me. Email is in the bio. Okay, few final questions before we wrap up then. So you kind of touched on it already. I was gonna say, like future plans going forward. Where do you see yourself going? Obviously still fucking very young, relatively in the grand scheme of things. Where would you like?

I'll carry on growing morphos to the point where, you know, I Hope we're doing 10 deals a year, got a decent team, it's a cash cow business, you know, but interesting. But ultimately I think my real passion lies with these startups, you know, trying to develop a number of those. You know, I, I was saying to someone last night that Maybe I'd like 10 of those, but actually the advice I've been given is just focus on a couple, don't overspread yourself because literally how many hours have you got in a week? You know, you want to have a social life, anything you want to play, you want to play sport, you want to see your friends, you want to Have a girlfriend, you know, you can't, you can't spread yourself so thin that they all start slipping through the cracks. So I think I've picked those two. I've maybe got capacity for one or two more and then I'll probably see how they go, you know, and hopefully in my mid-40s, you know, I'll exit one or two of them and life might be good, right? Yeah, that's good already. But life might be, you know, different.

That's your phrase, I've noticed. Okay, final cliche question before we wrap up then. If you could give advice to yourself at age 18, what would it be? I guess in a life and business sense.

Yeah. So, I mean, I wish I hadn't gone to uni. I wish I'd gone and got a proper job because uni was a complete waste of time for me. I think if you go to a really good red brick university and get a top degree is fine, but to go to some basic uni and get a kind of crappy degree, I feel like that was a complete waste of my, of my time. And I know you agree with that. I think the other thing was on a personal front. I got married far too young. It didn't work out, you know, and that affects your business life big time. When your personal life isn't going well, it really takes you off the ball. And I think that set me back several years in business terms. It really distracted me as it does. So, you know, not going to uni, not getting married, I think were the main bits of advice I'd give myself. And also I think the third one, which is really important, and we've touched on it a lot today, is don't try and put too much pressure on yourself to be too successful, too young, because most people aren't. Most people don't make any money until they're 50 or 60. You know, this idea that we're all going to be multimillionaires in our 20s or even our 30s is very rare. It's very uncommon. You know, it's unrealistic. And be happy, don't be rich. You know, it's kind of try and be both, try and be both. But you know, don't imagine that just because you got a few million in the bank that you're suddenly 10 times happier. In my experience, it brings a lot of complications as well. And, you know, that should be your life. You know, prioritize being happy over anything. Don't just, just wish for money.

Yeah, good advice. No, yeah, we'll Wrap it up there, I think been about nearly two hours actually. Jesus Christ. Hopefully that was I think a very. Yeah, a solid insight from more experience than most of our guests, I suppose. And it not just specifically ecom. I think we covered a lot like deal making, relationships, networking, just life I suppose as well. There's probably 20 other things we could have gone into actually, which always happens. But nearly two hours. So I don't want to fucking drain the viewers energy. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed that one. If you enjoying the pod by the way. Yeah, subscribe to the fucking pod down below, let people know to also watch it. It's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts as well. I'm trying to do an episode a week as I've said from the start, which right now by episode 15, we are keeping up with an episode a week will be for at least a year, I mean which would be fucking difficult. But I'm working on it. Gonna hire someone to start outreaching to fucking other people soon. I'm rinsing my entire network at the minute. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed the episode. In summary, if you did subscribe and subscribe, let people know and we'll see you on the next one. Cheers for watching. Bye.