£25m Rev and 7 Years In The Ecom Game - Wins, Losses & Lessons - Matt Kelly | The Midnight Pod Ep 57

Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of the pod. We've got Matt Kelly on today. Matt. Matthew.

Would you prefer I go with Matt now?

Okay.

It seems to be my podcast name. Matt Kelly, the Midnight Pod.

Matt Kelly runs the Midnight Cod. Pod, Pod. A company called Space Goods, which is psychedelic, but not yet psychedelic.

We maybe will get Mushroom brand of the future.

Mushroom brand of the future. Also, he's an undercover guru, so we're gonna get into it.

Yeah, I guess so. I guess on the side.

Guru on the side. But, yeah, no, mate. Pleasure to have you here, mate.

Good to be here. First proper POD in Bali. I really should have booked this studio for my own because I've been doing a few here, and I put one up last night and I watched it back and thought, what the fuck is that? Filmed it on iPhone. The lighting was all wrong. The mics weren't right. I haven't got my usual setup. But I didn't know they had this stuff in Bali. Even though I've been to Bali, like, five times, I just. I've never been since 2019, when I wasn't in the podcast world.

Bali is the kind of place where it's like. It's kind of like London. Like, you can go to London, have a shit experience. You can go to London and have the best experience. I feel like Bali's kind of like that.

Yeah.

I think it comes down to who you know and, like, what they know about the place. Because if you came by yourself here, I mean, I've been here before, but. Well, I guess until I met you today, I didn't really know about the podcast places.

Yeah.

And now within 10 minutes, I'm like, fuck, I need to book this and redo the episode I just did, because. And you've got pink lights, which is very much my vibe, which you really get.

I would like to say that we planned that, but we did not. They just happened to be. We can't change the colors, though, so. Anyway, this retention is probably terrible. So I'll ask you a question, as we're supposed to do in a podcast. A little bit. I'd love a little bit of childhood backstory. Got a little. Maybe a little violin I can get out. Tell me a bit about childhood, what it was like growing up.

What.

What. How did.

How did.

Matt Kelly.

Yeah. Do you know anything about my story or not? I know you reach out to me. I'm interested.

I know a little bit about you.

Follow me before or what?

So I found out about you, honestly, like, when you launched your brand, when you launched Space Goods like a mate of mine. Oh, actually, do you know a guy called Barney Charles? He had a pod.

He brings it brings.

He would have reached out to you ages ago. I think you may have had something set up. I don't know if you did, but he's just a mate of mine. And then, yeah, that was how I heard about you. And then, yeah, saw you through the brand. So I probably like no less, maybe a bit less than some of yours. But I did watch two of your YouTube videos today to get some as to do some good due diligence.

Well, yeah, I would say I'm the most transparent guy in the entrepreneurial space because I don't think of myself as having a personal brand at all. But I guess because it's just. There's no motive. It's just I started putting shit out like a year and a bit ago. But I guess long, very long story short, from the north of England, grew up in York. Had a twin brother that I was constantly compared to, even though with the exact opposites in every way. Spent years as a rower in my youth. Wanted to go to the Olympics, but then kind of fell out of love with that. Discovered entrepreneurship when I was maybe like 18, broadly speaking. Always used to design logos, fictitious brands I would maybe one day launch. Launched a clothing brand when I was 18. Didn't know what the fuck I was doing, you know, logo on a white T shirt. Everyone took the piss. Was working in Waitrose, you know, summer job, whatever standard. Hated every second of it. Put all my money from that summer job into like stock and couldn't sell anything. Went to uni to study, ironically, business study, business at uni. Did six weeks before I dropped out. Then when I did a placement in central London in M and A mergers and acquisitions, wearing a suit, meeting, I guess, wealthy people for the first time in my life, realizing that you didn't have to be a footballer or a celebrity to make money. Because that was, looking back, probably what I thought. You know, you either get a normal job or you're a celebrity. There's no in between. And then did that for like six months. Went back to uni because I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing. I was like, well, that's better than doing nothing. Which it definitely is. Then did advertising ironically, and I did a graphic design for a year, then switched to advertising and then dropped out again because at this point I'd been like playing around with loads of different E commerce stuff. Was in like Facebook groups. This feels like Ages ago now because it is like 2015. 16. Discovered Facebook ads in like 2016. Started drop shipping jeans from China. That was like the first time I was like, oh, you can actually make money doing this. That's like doing pretty well. I'm cutting a very long story, very short that became like a proper clothing brand that we designed our own shit. I got an office in Newcastle, which is where I was at uni. My mate Ollie got involved, who's now kind of a semi co host on the pod and investor in my newest business. So it's funny how it comes full circle. That business did pretty well. I stopped going to uni, didn't tell my parents. Eventually got kicked out because I just didn't submit anything. But I dropped out at that point. So that was like March 2017. That business then like fell apart. So we just fell out and we just like fuck it, let's just stop running it. I then got back into the drop shipping space because I guess funnily enough I'd started with like building a brand as opposed to drop shipping, like attempting to with my clothing brand. But then I just didn't really have much money. I was like, want to make some money online? Like, don't know what I'm doing. I've already dropped out of uni, My mate's not gonna leave. I need to go do my own thing. Started traveling around Europe by myself and then very long story short again. And I've vlogged all this by the way on my other old YouTube channel which is linked in my podcast. There's like 120 vlogs over like a two year period, which is quite fun.

Oh, you've been in the game for a while then.

Yeah, I just never had any views on those. And then what happened? Yeah, then I went to some e commerce event in Singapore in like September 2017, which I probably credit as being like the turning point where I met people doing similar shit to me because I knew literally no entrepreneurs from home, from uni, anything. I felt like an alien fast forward like the next two years. Basically spent like two years being a full time nomad. Lived in Bali for a while. Australia, America, Europe, basically everywhere. Did a bunch of drop shipping stuff like had like a leggings website. This was back when Facebook ads are very easy to just scale a store.

Back in the day.

So probably half a million a month at one point. So like I was honestly ballin given I was like 22 at the time but didn't know anything about like investing and stuff. So I probably just wasted 90% of it to be honest, on like traveling. Bought a few stupid cars even though I wasn't really living in England, like came back in between and it was a bit of a weird setup in hindsight. Then I decided I wanted to build something more long term because like dropshipping was getting more difficult. I wasn't passionate about selling random shit from China, even though it's a great way to start and it's what a lot of people I would recommend they do that have any money or experience. Moved to London in April 2019, nearly four years ago with two other guys. Fred, who's now one of my best mates and runs a bank called Sanouchi you're probably familiar with it's massive. And another guy called Seb who just like hustle house spec and I wanted to have a base. I was still traveling but like I said to you before, wanted to have somewhere to compound like networks and so on. Because I was a bit sick of just coming back to my parents house in between traveling and so on, which is what I was doing.

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Yeah.

Then launched a jewelry business called Midnight City which grew super quick. Grew that to like 3 million run rate in like 18 months. Profitable. Wasn't really passionate about it. It was pretty early in like the UK men's jewelry scene. It Was kind of us. And then crafted London, who are now way bigger and way more successful. If Danny's watching this, well done. He's probably not watching this to be fair. But yeah, grew that in like 2019. Then launched another brand called Neon beach, which ruined my fucking life at the very start of 2020. Bad idea running two brands, by the way. But I just thought, I literally had this idea. I wanted a neon sign, an LED neon sign to be specific for my room, that was my jewelry brand logo. Couldn't find anywhere that was selling them. And being the just zero to one ideas guy within I could. Two days I launched this brand, came up the name, you know, source of supplier, like custom B2B signs, ran an Instagram ad and then that business grew to like a million quid in like the first three months. It was ridiculous. Perfect timing with COVID So Fast forward like 2020 running two brands, E Commerce booming at an all time high. However, that's not great for a complicated B2B custom sign business. We were making it in China, ironically, because China was super slow because of COVID It's like massive demand, but supply chains are fucked. It was like two sides of the same thing. I then brought all the production from the from China to the uk and then long story short, a factory went bankrupt on me. Like 3 million quids worth of orders disappeared. I was doing like one and a half million quid a month in revenue, driving a Ferrari, living in a penthouse flat. Things were going pretty perfectly until this business went quickly, very wrong. And then long story short, I had to get bailed out by investors at the very start of 2021 who bought that brand and the majority of my jewelry brand as well because of the way I'd structured it, which is fucking stupid in hindsight because if I kept them separate, that would have been fine because the jewelry business was like successful, no problems, clean supply chain. But running two businesses under the same company, which is, I've painfully learned now, it's not the way to structure things. Yeah, long story short, that that business went, Neon beach went tits up, as everyone knows. Like episode one of my pod. That's my whole angle telling that story. So go and watch that for like the full in depth. But it was a complete horror show. Like I went from having like seven figures in the bank to the business being insolvent in like four months, which I didn't even know that meant at the time. And like dealing with like lawyers looking at like business bankruptcy and shit, and ultimately got bailed out by an investor, which I guess was fairly lucky. Maybe in hindsight not lucky, but glad that happened because it was the. The best of a very shit situation. I then worked with them for six months, sold the rest of my equity in that. Which wasn't that valuable at the end, to be honest, because the brand damage had been done, et cetera, et cetera. Then went back to the drawing board to start my next thing. I wasn't like completely homeless or anything. I was still, like, had decent amount of money, a lot of experience, great connections, most importantly. And then thought, well, first I started the pod. This was like September 21st. So just when I decided to leave working with them and like go back to the drawing board, they offered me like a big slice of equity, a big salary. I guess 99% of people in that position probably would have taken that. I was like, I'd rather jump off a cliff than work for someone else. Cause I just have never done anything else. And then always had ideas for new brands, et cetera, et cetera. And probably for the first time ever, I actually thought about what I was going to do next rather than just dived into it in like two days, which is probably a great trait to have, but also a fairly risky one at times because it wasn't that calculated necessarily in the past. And that's when I started working on space goods, I guess. And within about two months that went from like, broad idea to, all right, fuck it, I'm actually going to work on this. Raised a bit of money from angel investors, which was largely to do with not wanting to do it myself again, because I just learned I would rather in the future have potentially half of something big that actually managed to get big, because I wasn't the only one trying to do it and relying on myself as opposed to doing it myself again, which I'd done in the past. So raised a bit of money that was pretty easy to do because like I said, I've got a lot of experience, like track record. Fortunately built a very good network, which is probably my greatest asset. All my mates are very successful entrepreneurs. He made me feel very unsuccessful, which is probably the best way to be a small fish in a bigger pond rather than the other way around. And then about five months from when I started working on that and like five months later, end of April, well, not this year. Last year, 2022, launched the brand. Long story short, it's been like eight and a half months now, growing it to over a million in revenue. On track to probably do like 5,6 million in the next year based on current run rate. And now that's a very. It's a decent business again. And it's quite cool to know that the previous ones weren't flukes because I probably lost my confidence a bit when shit went tits up, to be honest. But yeah, I guess now it's my third seven figure brand, but definitely one I'm most passionate about and I think could be massive. So, yeah, it feels like the stars have aligned somewhat in hindsight. Like maybe all that shit was meant to happen so I could change the world with mushrooms. So I guess for like the last, like I said, eight months. And I work on the pod and space goods. That's what I do now. So. So, yeah, that's like a. In a very tight nutshell. But that's still probably like 15 minutes.

That's. Mate, I just learned a lot about you in 10 minutes. I'm sure a lot of the people listening to well as well. I literally had like, didn't know half of that story, man.

It's a very intense story. Yeah, that's probably way worse than a lot of people can imagine.

That's a lot in a very. Yeah. Even just imagining like that insolvent, like going from that to insolvency in a period of four months. Like, what was. What was that like? Waking up or even going to bed during that period.

I want to kill myself. Like six months. Honestly, like, that's not even exaggerating. And I say that sounds flippant because I confidently say that because that's just the reality. And when you're not in that place, it sounds kind of flippant. But at the time that's how I felt because I felt like I went from, certainly from an outside perspective probably looking like I had the perfect life because I'd had four very good years of. Every year there's always problems, but I'd never experienced a problem on that scale. And when I say, like, I don't know of any E comm story ever that's more horrific than that. Like, people literally say to me, it's like legendary. It's like folklore at this point. Like, literally I had the Daily Mail at my door trying to write articles of me calling me a fraudster. That's how bad this go. And I had a deal with ITV Love Island. This was like peak Q4. So we were on TV, primetime advertising. I had like investment funds, wanted to put money in all this shit. So I went from thinking, this is the biggest thing ever, which I still think it could be actually massive, that market. And it's a bit of a shame what happened. But yeah, it went from like, fuck, everything's going amazingly. Two brands, completely self made. And obviously I worked very hard on to build all that. But yeah, it was a very tough lesson, I guess that things can change very quick. And in hindsight that business wasn't built on the best foundations because it's a very complicated supply chain. You know, you're making stuff to order, so ultimately it's drop shipping, but it is by definition because they're custom B2B things. Massive AOV. Which doesn't help either because people spend 500 quid on a sign, it doesn't show up. It's not like some 20 quid ring. And especially when it's, you know, largely outside my control. But yeah, it was a very messy period. Very, very messy. And it was like it was probably the social media hate combined with the fact the business was going under I'd never dealt with because I wasn't in the public eye at all before. I mean still not now massively. But yeah, like people, you know, you're ultimately people can find out who's behind something and then they get the wrong idea of something. There's like Facebook groups dedicated to my demise. It was fucking rough probably for like maybe three to six months. Peak like shit storm. And then ultimately, yeah, because the business wasn't a scam. I got bought, you know, bailed out by investors who saw potential in it and obviously liked what I'd built to that point. I guess they were investing in me. And since then the founder of that has invested in my new thing and so on and whatever. Silver linings. But yeah, that was pretty intense.

How do you, how do you look at yourself now as this version who's been through that, that whole period versus before, like what are the differences in Matt Pre and post that?

Definitely way wiser. Yeah, like way wiser. Because I don't know anyone that's been through that much shit at my age. Certainly like other than health problems or whatever, I don't think you can get, get much worse as like a 25 year old at the time because that was like peak shit. And like I said, people do go through worse, like family or whatever. But in terms of business, that was very fucking rough. Especially because I had no one around me. I was the sole director, didn't have anyone of any experience helping me. It was literally a case of I was googling, like, what the fuck do I do? Like that's how raw it was. But yeah, now I just feel like nothing can really stress me. Like, almost like David Goggins, like, can't hurt me in a way because I don't think it gets much worse than that. And then like around that time, like ended up breaking up my ex girlfriend and all this shit and it was just a rough period. But yeah, I don't really recognize myself looking back because I feel like I went from super confident, like winner in my mind to like a year of feeling like a piece of, and then gradually having to chip away to build back up. But maybe the, the newer version is a better version than originally. But I definitely have a lot of scars from that period that I probably need a therapist to unwrap because, yeah, I reckon I still have like PTSD to an extent. Honestly.

Yeah, nice. Like Tyson says, everyone's got a plan until they get punched and punched in the face.

Right.

I think it's. Yeah. I don't know many people who've experienced it on that scale, but I think, I think humility is like one of the most important business skills or like being able to like bypass your ego. Because I think when you make decisions, if there's any amount of ego involved in it, a lot of the time that's probably not the best decision. So I think having that and then also good people around you who, who can probably like check you and give you good advice must just be like the perfect combo now.

Yeah, I mean, I was very fortunate back then. I was still like living with my mates running similar scale businesses. Granted I hadn't gone through that shit, but at least I could speak to them about it. And then like, even in the past year I've met a lot of people that through sharing that story on the pod, like I've met two guys I've referenced before, like now investors in the brand, like mentors to me. And yeah, I think definitely sharing that story has been very beneficial. The reason I made the first pod was because I just needed to fucking speak about it because in a way I wanted to like clear my name, to just clear up any fucking rumors or whatever about what happened. But then it resonated with so many people. I was really scared to put that out because it's 90 minutes of me just basically talking shit about myself. But then, you know, that's so rare these days that I think a lot of people just found it very refreshing and because maybe I'd have this perception online, like posting pictures of fancy cars and shit, which I'd earned and deserved. Definitely because it was all self made and have any money from parents or whatever, and I'd work my face off like five years. But I think, you know, natural tendencies. People just think, oh, that guy's got lucky. Or he has it perfect. So when I came out, said actually everything went fucking wrong. Yeah, I think people relate to that, I guess if they've never been through it, they're just, you know, the human condition is. And life is not all fucking rainbows and sunshine.

It's free therapy, really.

Yeah, exactly. That's why I started doing it, really talking about it. So.

And then. So you launched. So you went through all that, came out the other side, probably bit wiser, probably a bit stronger. Can deal with a lot more stuff. What I find interesting is how that I think most people are scared to like share this. Like skeletons in their closets. Right. Most people don't even have that many skeletons in their closet by the time they're 25, let alone 65. Right.

But you did.

And then now some of those people are your investors or like business partners or may have bought stuff from you.

Yeah.

So like talk about that a little bit because I think that is like the complete opposite of what anyone would have imagined would happen. Like sharing that.

Yeah, I think at the end of the day, like the truth prevails. Like if I. Because the whole narrative with like the Daily Mail and shit was there was an army of people online that thought I was a scamized and kind of. I can see why. There's picture me sat next to a Ferrari, 2 million quid of orders have disappeared. When it was the absolute opposite of the truth. And obviously that was proven in the fact that the business still exists, everyone got their money back, all that shit. I basically ended up having to give up the business to refund people. That was the cost of that. Sold the money these investors put in, paid back everyone. That was the right thing to do. I could have just shut my laptop and fucked off to Barley. Probably wouldn't.

I was gonna.

Wouldn't have my integrity intact.

Yeah, because you could have gone bankrupt probably. Right. And sold. Filed for insolvency, paid like someone 5k to be like. Yeah, companies closed.

Exactly.

What were those? Like, what were they? Was that basically the other option? Were there any other.

Well, I want. I wanted to save the brand basically. And that's what I did. So I had multiple people. Funds I could have worked with. But yeah, that was a process in itself, which I learned a lot. Definitely. What was the question? I'm fucking going on tangent, it was.

Basically like, you chose to, like, essentially like, save it, but you could have.

Yeah, yes. The reason that was the reason I think the story came out well and people related to it was because, like I said first, it was true. You know, people might have been talking shit online or whatever, but the facts are the facts, like, that's what happened, everything got sorted out. And yeah, just by sharing my story, I think, you know, you can lose money or whatever you can, but if you, if you do the right thing, ultimately keep your integrity intact, you have good intentions, you're probably not going to lose much else. You know, there's stories of actual scam artists and so on, which kind of piss me off, that maybe have got away with a lot more and made a lot of money out of things, whereas I lost a lot of money. People still calling me a scam artist. But those people, you know, their reputation isn't intact. And I can think of a few now that weren't named a lot in, like, the Forex space and so on. There's been a lot of scandals that have come out of that, especially in crypto as well, in the past year or two. Logan Paul being one recently, which I don't know if that's true or not, but you get the idea. Whereas for me, it was like, what I said was true. I wasn't a fucking fraudster. And, yeah, I think that's refreshing for people to hear about. So I think it brought me a lot of trust from people that watched my shit. And obviously I think someone that's been through a lot of shit is probably more investable and more backable than someone who hasn't, because anyone can fucking. Well, not anyone, but it's a lot easier to run a business when it's going well. Like, take away 90% of that and see how well most people survive. Probably not that well.

Things about who you attract as well, right, Because a big thing that I always say is like, basically who you are is who you attract, right? I have a lot of different ways of saying that, but this type, like, I'd love to know, like, who are the types of investors you've attracted, right, because they're probably gonna resonate with you and going through that as opposed to if things were going well and you'd probably get so many offers, people just wanted to jump on the train, but they might be a totally different type of investor. Like, what are. What are they?

Yeah, everyone invested in business, just angels. So, like either my mates or people that I came to become Friends with through the pod. A few of the main ones are like guys in their 30s that built and sold businesses. I think people like that in that position want to back the next generation of entrepreneurs. Obviously you have to have a good business and be credible. But I think having that story, there's so much just in the world, just fluff and people saying how perfect everything is on LinkedIn. Fucking virtue signaling bullshit. Twitter's even worse and Instagram. So I think if you just. And also like the actual vehicle of a podcast. So like two investors, for example, Jimmy and Alex, who might be watching this, literally met them for the first time. Jimmy was the second time I met Alex for the first time on the pod. We spent two hours together speaking about his story. My story, drinking wine like you build a. You can get a relationship with someone pretty quickly by doing that. I think just talking about bad shit just makes people relate to you a bit more because it's so unfiltered.

Particularly if you're English.

Yeah, exactly.

No, you actually I. Your videos on like Documenting the Journey inspired.

Yes. I do that on the side now as well.

That's like a separate series that inspired me though, because I was like doing my content. I only got into like online, like being online like last. Last year now.

Yeah.

And then I was literally like seeing what guys like you were doing, just fully just sharing it unfiltered. And I was literally like, yeah.

Literally nothing I've not said. Probably.

Yeah, I think that's amazing.

Come back to bite me. But I just think in my mind it's like because I put a video out recently about my struggles of mental health around my whole life for the most honest video I've ever made was like 50 minutes long. And naturally those things get the most views because people are like, oh, but so I have like the pod and then have the Document the Journey. So the idea of the Document the Journey is a weekly video. Wherever the fuck's going on in the business. Hopefully from now until 100 million pound business in five years time. So if anything, like no one watches that, I don't care, it's for me. But then the only way to do it is to be completely honest. So sometimes I've. People probably say, like, I look like I'm really moody sometimes doing that, but that's just like I'm not putting on a front at all. Like probably that those videos, even more than a pod, is where I'm super honest. It's just me and like a bit of me as Thor in the past.

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And see how you fucking feel. The do it for the boys. Spacegoods.com like oh, should I not say certain things because like two sides. Firstly, maybe a potential investor in the future might see it and think I'm unstable or whatever if I don't look like everything's perfect. But then they're going to find out anyway. So it, I'll just say it and then it wouldn't be real otherwise. But then the other part of me is that the other, the flip side of putting stuff online, a bit of me is honestly thought in the past. Oh like it's some girl that I like gonna fucking watch that and think he's not somebody Alpha G. But then they're gonna find out anyway. Yeah, all these guys pretending. I think there's a real pandemic of like I'm a G, like Alpha men bullshit on like Twitter and the whole. I don't know if you're on Twitter a lot, but it's kind of. I spend more time there Than like, Instagram and so on. And there's so many examples of people that they portray this whole, like, oh, I'm like this top G. Like the whole Andrew Tate narrative.

Yeah.

But then the reality is every crying to their ex girlfriend, like, the night before. That's not posting that shit. But then I'm just a pretty, like, deep philosophical character anyway, so not everyone's like that. But the long short of it is, yeah, like, I'd rather just be honest because at the end of the day, if you're putting up a front, someone's gonna find out who you really are anyway, whether that's an investor, a friend, a girl. So if you're just yourself, you're either gonna scare off certain people, are gonna attract the right sort of people. So you may as well just be yourself because you don't have to keep up some narrative 100%. Yeah.

And I agree. I completely agree. Like, even for I've had the same thoughts and when I, like, I had a similar kind of story, but not on as big of a scale, where basically a couple years ago, marketing agency was at the height, and then I was literally just fucking scared shitless, Nervous I'd lose it all one day. Lost half of it and crashed and burned. I was like, going through just mental torture for, like, months that led me on more of, like, a spiritual journey. And that was where I, like, found just, like, peace, basically, amongst the storm and just to be able to, like, manage my own state. That was like, the only way I was like. I got to a point, I was like, it. I'm just gonna try this. I tried everything else. And then when I shared that, I started sharing that online. Not really any. Any main intention, but just this is what helped. That was when, like, I attracted my, like, current girlfriend, who is, like, completely aligned to that. Whereas before, it's like the girls who I would be with were like, let's just say, had less substance.

Yeah, that was what I just, like, surface level shit.

Yeah. So it's. So. It's like. It works at all levels. 100, like, you know, I completely. Yeah, I completely see it.

Yeah.

What. What kind of. What kind of girl are you looking to bring into your life?

I'm not looking for one, but I'm just. I mean, I'm a very romantic character.

Yeah, that's. I'm a bit like that as well. So that's why I kind of asked.

You know, I just. I mean, like, I mentioned before, like, a lot of people that watch the POD will know the story with this. But like I literally hired this girl. I'm not gonna speak about her specifically, but like I hired this girl to be in a movie because that's it being my brand movie, but where we launched. That's like another girl in the second one and. But I don't know, I probably over romanticized things to a problematic extent. To the point where like I know what I visually like, which is like tanned brunette, kind of like this whole aesthetic that I just imagine that we're driving in a convertible Ferrari together. Like my pinned tweet actually is about this. Like my whole creative aesthetic is all just about like being like the 1980s driving a convertible Ferrari with like a brunette girl. And it's like the whole like movie scene from like the 80s and shit, the whole vibe. So I'm very into that. But then I. So yeah, that's the sort of girl I visually like. But I end up just over amount of sizing things and when the reality is no one is perfect. And often, oftentimes if you. At least for me, I've like given someone too much credit because they look a certain way when actually there's no substance beyond that.

Yeah.

Like, granted it might work in a movie, but life isn't a movie all the time, even though I wish it was. So I'm not searching for anyone. But I'm just. I'm very all or nothing. Either don't give a shit about anything or a girl, whatever, or I'm very invested and it's like, yeah, a romantic state of whatever. There's no in between.

Yeah.

And it's the same way I think about like things I'm into, like working on a brand or whatever. And like, even with like running, I'm gonna start running. I want to do the fastest marathon. I'm not just gonna run twice a week.

Where's in that mindset comes from? Like the on off switch?

Dunno. I definitely get like the kind of physical side of it from when I spent years rowing. That was just like brutal training and so on. I just. I've always hated the idea of being normal or average. Not that there's anything wrong with that whatsoever, but I've always been like, I would hate to be average, but whatever that is, financially, physically, you know, where you lived, the way your life looks, statistically, I don't know. I've always felt like I have something to prove.

So I've. I've. I've had that big fear as well. Like my big fear when I was in uni and I Saw my mates applying for jobs in finance. I did economics.

That was. That was the grad schemes. Yeah.

And I saw these guys who are way smarter than me getting rejected from these, like, Goldman Sachs, et cetera. And I was like, well, what am I gonna do? Because these guys are, like, cleverer than me, like, intellectual wise. So I was like that. I'm like. That was when I started my, like, agency, which I still have now. Right. So that I was driven by that fear. But I feel like at a certain point, at least for me, like, I didn't want to be driven by fear anymore, because that fear, ultimately, which has probably come from fear of not being enough or not feeling worthy. Right. Those deeper fears that you talk to a psychologist or a therapist about, like, do you think that that is a sustainable source? Because you've got guys like Alex Hormozi who will say, famously, you know, one of the biggest drivers of successful entrepreneurs is not feeling like they're good enough. There's, like, impulse control and these other things, but then it's like, well, do you want to live a life that way forever? Being driven by that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely driven by, like, hate rather than love. Andy Fiselli speaks about it. I've always just had a chip on my shoulder. Yeah. I don't have anything to prove to the same extent, like, I did when I was younger. It's probably why I bought, like, fancy cars and shit, to tell people at school, like, yeah, I actually did it, or whatever, but, you know, those people aren't even watching anymore. Or maybe they are, but I'm sure they've got on with their lives.

Do you care what they think, though?

Not anymore. No. I probably. I probably always feel like I have some artificial enemy, like someone to prove whether that's a girl that's pissed me off in the past, which probably is right now, or, like, I don't know, someone that said I couldn't do something or whatever. But then, yeah, I'd say ultimately I'm just driven by freedom. That's what it's always been from day one. I'm not even, I think, a lot of entrepreneurs, and I've been accused by my parents of chasing money. And I find that so ironic because the guy that does the grad scheme is chasing money way more than me. I sell pink fucking mushroom powder on the Internet. That's not chasing money, that's chasing, like, creative freedom. And if you. And you need to make money to do that. So, yeah, let's just have an honest conversation. It is important. But, yeah, I think a lot of entrepreneurs get misunderstood by the general public. You know, whether that's the 99%, whatever you want to call it, flippantly. But, yeah, I'm just driven by freedom, the idea that I can at least do what I want, where I want, and I do want to make a load of money as well, because that ultimately means the business is bigger and I'm having a bigger impact, which I want to do.

What?

What?

When did you feel the most free in your life?

Probably in, like, 2018, when I first started doing the Nomad thing and everything was new. That's probably the happiest I've ever felt because that was, like, when life was. I don't know, I was a bit younger and everything was super exciting. I'd never done it before. I remember coming to Bali for the first time in March 2018, and I was amazed. I'd never been to Asia before, and I've been to Thailand before, but just even going to Thailand the first time, I was like, wow, even though I went on an economy flight, whereas now I just buy business. It's on point or whatever, but, like, never feels the same as the first time. So that's probably when I felt most free.

And so, like, when you say, now you're in Bali, we're filming this in Bali, how's it. How's it feel different compared to that first time you're in Bali?

Maybe, like, less exciting, but also better because I know a lot more people have a lot more context on things. Yeah. I don't know. Like, you can only get that, like, newness from something once. You know what I mean? She's run out of newness.

I actually disagree.

Do you think.

I think it's a perspective, maybe. I think it's hard to do. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying most people do that, but I think it's literally a choice whether you want to experience that, whether you want to experience that. Like, whoa. That awe, you know?

Yeah.

I think we naturally seek novelty as humans. Like, we want the new thing, Right? Why? Like, running a Facebook ad and you got a new angle and it's, like, slightly different. Like, everyone loves it because we always want the new thing. I think the reality is, it's like, nothing's really new except Chat GPT. That's pretty new.

Yeah. That's old now as well.

That's true. Does that affect your business? Does that affect your.

What? Chat GPT?

Yeah.

I feel like it's Played around with it. I'm not one of these, like, wizards that just has already automated their entire business with a new software, but it's pretty cool.

You tried it to like write landing pages or.

I haven't actually tried that yet. I need to do more of that shit. I need to be more innovative, waste less time doing shit manually.

I don't know. Sounds like that's one of your biggest strengths, is the. Is your like creative innovation.

I'm definitely creative first. I actually don't really like running a business, I'll be honest. I've just worked out, you know, how to do shit like logistics, supply chain, dealing with suppliers, whatever it is. Because hiring people.

So it's not like that.

I'm not. I don't want to be a CEO.

That's the gap. Then you're off air. You were saying, like, you can do the 0 to 1 like that, but then it's the 1 to 100.

Yeah.

I really like an operator CEO.

So I'm definitely. I'm very good at ideas and coming up with something from nothing like the alchemy of entrepreneurship, but I definitely have got less inspired. The second stuff's got like. It's just like a business now. It's kind of same shit every day.

Yeah.

Stuff takes months. So, I mean, so I'm very aware of that now. So that's why I've got advice around me and so on. I haven't yet got someone to like run the business properly. That's actually what I want to do in the next few months. Hire someone to do that and like align them with incentives and so on.

Yeah, but there's probably someone literally listening to this or your podcast, right? That's exactly the guy who's doing mine. He's just literally shadowing me on everything. He'll be running the whole thing in a few months. And it's like he literally found me through online. It was actually a fucking video.

I've had people literally message me on Twitter about this. Guys that have been CEOs of big brands and so on. I think one or two of them just wanted too much money. But so, yeah, slide into his in person, slide into his inbox. I just like making movies and coming up with products and shit. I think I'm very, very, very good at that. Like, probably better than most people that specifically get hired for that. So that's all I've ever done. And I've done it from like a commercial angle of I actually understand the wider workings of how to build a product. And a brand and so on. Still loads to learn. But I don't enjoy the. The admin of running a business. A lot of times, I'm honest. Yeah.

And it just becomes more.

It's a necessary evil, of course.

It just. You just start doing more and more admin, the more successful you get, though. That's the problem.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, you start doing the fun shit and then eventually. I'm not doing the fun shit anymore. I'm just looking at, like, finance and shit and supply chain, all this bullshit, which is very important, but doesn't get me out of bed.

Yeah. So how do you see it when it's like 100 million? What does that look like?

Well, ultimately, my vision, like, firstly for this, I want to build a D2C psilocybin brand. I believe psychedelics are the next CBD. That's kind of how I put it. I think I'm absolutely convinced that, like, microdosing and all that can change people's mental health for the better. It certainly helped me. I don't believe in, like, antidepressants and so on. I think we've got an epidemic of people jumping on pills before they try anything else, like going to the gym, ice baths, whatever it is. And I used to be on antidepressants when I was, like, 18. Never got on with it. And I'm, like, diagnosed as being bipolar. All this. Like, I don't really. I speak about that, like my video. And I don't take any medication for that. Like, refuse to. You know, loads of people are dealing with different. And I just think, especially in the UK or like, Western culture broadly, has just jumped on the wrong fixes for things a lot. And I. And I just believe. I just feel like I know in my gut that just psychedelics and particularly psilocybin and microdosing, you know, in a therapeutic sense, not just tripping out your ass all the time, can be very good for people. And I think there's obviously legislation change happening, like Colorado Legal in Amsterdam and so on. It's very gray area. You can't sell DC psilocybin yet. But that's always my vision. And the first step is to build a legal alternative, which is what rainbow dust is. That was my angle when I created that product. Obviously it's not quite the same as microdosing, but, you know, lion's mane, chaga, all that shit. Like mushrooms on the whole are definitely. It's a trend right now. But psychedelics specifically, because a lot of people get magic mushrooms are just mushrooms. Mixed up. I find that, you know, by spending loads of money on Instagram ads, all the comments we gave are these magic mushrooms, blah, blah. Because the brand is intentionally indicative of something a bit naughty. Because it's pink packaging, it's called rainbow dust instead of mushroom coffee, which is super boring, by the way. And also just even if psychedelics never happens, I just see this being like a Huel or an athletic greens and just like broadly as a wellness brand, supplement brand. Everything on the market is gray, black, brown, white packaging. So boring. Coffee, mushroom coffee, like collagen pills or all this bullshit. I just wanted to do it completely different, turn on its head. It looks the opposite to everything else, although I'm sure there'll be a million and one copycats very soon. The packaging is beautiful in my opinion. And yeah, this was really just me indulging my creative interest, but also combining it with a market that I think is very, very, very hot and is coming and is early, particularly in the uk. And also it's something with a longer term mission, which is like, I think important to be able to work on something long term. So I guess right now we're ultimately a supplement business, but long term, I really would like to think this can be a psychedelics business. Well, it's probably years off, to be honest, but this is the first step.

Where do you think would be the first place that you can sell to if you have to guess?

Probably somewhere in like Canada. I mean there's brands selling like actual psilocybin in Canada, like DTC now, but it's all like bitcoin payment. It's like a very gray area, I think, like selling for example, a psilocybin rainbow dust, like a true psychedelic version. I can't see that happening in the UK for at least like 3 years plus. I don't even know. I would like to do like a trial run of something in a legal place, but geez, I haven't even started looking at the logistics of that. So you could make it pretty easily. But then it's like, is it made in a legal place? We're a UK company, so is that allowed? I don't know.

Oh, you're a UK company?

Yeah. @ least for.

Now.

Yeah. When you move into Dubai, you pay VAT bills and then you realize everyone's moving to Dubai for a.

Reason. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Bro. So.

Yeah, Room. Do you still. You got a tattoo.

Recently? No, it's.

Fake. Oh, you got fake.

Tattoos? It was the, it was a psilocybin.

Chemical. Yeah, I thought I recognized because I'm.

Sick. I messaged so Christian Angermere, some billionaire investor, okay. That I really want to get his attention. So I should have. Fuck. I need send him a picture actually, because he's got one. He's got that tattoo on his.

Arm. Do you know why I recognized it, right? Because I got this tattoo recently.

Right? And this was like, I'm granny.

Tattoos. This was my first.

One. I'm.

Tempted. Oh, bro. If I've got a guy, he.

Like, literally, like, he's the most like line arts.

Back. He's like. He like. I didn't even know what I was getting going in. Like, he's. He like does like. But he's like one of the best in the world. He does like.

Billionaires. Like, what design is.

That? It's not a design. He literally like creates it. Like, I've got my. Like, this is my only thing here is. Is. Which means internal state equals external reality. That's like the thing I'm like, people know me for, but like the rest of it. But anyway, the reason I was. I say it is because I was going to get the ayahuasca symbol. Looks similar to that. And he was like, what do you think of.

This? Yeah, someone messaged me that saying. Is that.

Dmt? Yeah, that's what I thought it was. When I want to. That was me probably, mate. It was probably.

Me. It might have.

Been. I don't.

Know. It's just an ink box tattoo. Ink box is a sick brand. It's like temporary tattoos. I mean, it's genius actually. I wish I started that.

Business. What are you going to get for your first.

Tattoo? I don't know. I'd probably get something like that. I've never got one up to this point. People always say, they look at me and they think, you look like someone that have.

Tattoos.

Yeah. But I was always very self aware that I would change my mind within about a month, as I have with.

Men. That's why you just get someone to do it. We don't know what it's gonna.

Be. I'm not risking that, but I would get.

Something. I'll show you his tattoo. You'll change your mind when you see what he.

Does. Yeah, I like get something.

Meaningful. Something.

Meaningful. I wouldn't just get like some fucking tribal thing like a lot of people have. Yeah, like.

Shit.

Yeah. I like small, like line arty stuff. So I just need to pull the trigger at some point and just commit to.

It. I was always scared of it. I've also got needle Phobia, so that doesn't.

Help. Yeah, same. I hate injections and so.

On. Yeah, bro. I literally. I told him. I was like, I. I'm probably gonna pass out. And he was like, you'll be fine. I was like, three.

Seconds. Is that actually so for the.

First, like, bit, it was. It was painful. I don't know why people say it's not. Maybe I'm just a little.

Bitch. I don't.

Know. But I was like, it hurts. Like, it definitely hurts. But then, like, once I, like, just sort of, like, got used to it, it was.

Fine.

Yeah. But it took, like, five hours, and it was, like, with a fine needle. So, like, it's. Apparently, it hurts more when it's with, like, a super fine needle. I don't.

Know. It was.

Good. Like, it was a great experience. And now, like, you know, everyone says once you get your first one, you don't want to get anywhere. Like, I was like, mates that.

Have gone, like, full sleeve after one tiny.

Thing. Yeah. I was like, that won't be me. And then as soon as I'm done, I'm like, oh. He's like. He's like, you could bring it around.

Here.

Yeah. The only problem is it's seven grand a day to work with this guy. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna have a day.

Yeah. Does that sound the.

Price? No, no, no.

No. He's probably like, I definitely think that's one of three the most obvious things in life to spend more money on. Do not cheap out on a tattoo, bro. That's exactly why I'll be there.

Forever. Exactly. That's the thing. He was in Bali for two weeks. I was like. And I knew him, and I was like, he's got, like, half a million on Instagram. I was.

Like. I messaged.

Him. Yeah. He's, like, one of the best in the world. I messaged him, didn't reply. A week later, I get an email from an assistant being like, this is the date he's available. This is the prices. Do you want it? Yes or no? I was just like, take my.

Money. Travel up to how long that take. It.

Took. Like, I was with him for the whole day. We ended up just, like, really.

Chilling.

7K.

Yeah. What.

Pounds?

Yours? Yeah. There's a lot, to be fair, but it's definitely worth.

Investing. I mean, to me, it's like, if you're gonna get something like that, like, work with the best, but one of the.

Best. Because even if one line was.

Wrong. Yeah. He adjusted, like, the placement, like, Five times before doing it. Like these micro adjustments I myself would never even realize. But now like I'd see it. I'm like, oh yeah. The way it flows with the arm and all these different things. You just never fucking realize until you work with. I just like working with the best people in whatever I do. I just think it's cool just to meet people who are like, who are just the best whatever it is they do. You can be like a apple picker, but the best one in the world. Like you're probably going to be interesting in.

Some. Yeah.

Exactly. All right, I made questions so I'm going to see what else I.

Maybe I should get on while I'm here then. I keep putting it off, but when's the right time going to.

Come? Well actually there is another really good artist coming here so I can link you up with him. My mate's actually getting one by music. I'll show you his work after. Yeah, he's looking good. Okay, so. Oh yeah. Let's talk about traveling versus working from a base. So you're currently.

Traveling. I've done it all, tried all the different ways of doing.

It. I feel like, I feel like you'll never just be one way or the other. I feel like you always do both. Like what are your thoughts on.

Travel? Like traveling. I've done the whole Nomad thing. We literally don't have a base other than like my parents house where I came back to like once every three months. Which is. Which isn't ideal. That was when I was younger then I've had a base in London ever since April 2019. I think having a base is useful. It's like HQ, whatever, like story there. And then I've traveled probably on average. I say traveled like probably been away like nine or ten times a year at least like the past. So almost once a month. Like the past three, four years. Even during COVID like this year I felt like I was in London lows. But I still been away like nine times. When I say go away that counts like a week in Marbella or whatever. But I'm always bringing my laptop with me and people have said, people comment. On my YouTube video I spoke about this saying when you go away you should just not work. And that's fine. I get that that's like a holiday. But the reason I'm able to go where I want, when I want is because I'm working. Do you know what I mean? I just didn't work and ever nothing would get done. And then I did that For a year.

Sustainable. I did that for a.

Year. I also don't want to do.

That. Didn't go very.

Well. What would you do at 11am on a Monday if you just weren't.

Working? Well.

It'S. It's like, would people just go to the beach or what? I'd get bored of that after about 10.

Minutes. I. I think it's like, a lot of people think that once you start making money, you'll then, like, live the life, but then it's not actually a fun life.

Or. Yeah, it's always a.

Process. I think, like, particularly, it's a man thing. It's like a masculinity thing. Like, if you're actually, like, living as a man, naturally lives, you want to be working, building on.

Something. Like, build.

Something. Yeah. It's also super unattractive. I like, speak to women all the time. I like, ask them because they say, oh, I want to spend all this time with you. It's like, you don't really. Because if you did. If I've done that, I've done. If you've done that with a girlfriend who's about, I want to see you, want to see you. And I'm like, all right. And then. Yeah. And then the attraction.

Goes. I.

Think. I think you need to be away in that. That's why I asked if you did, like, any Muay Thai or anything like that. I think there was something good about just being humbled by being, like, physically.

Attacked. Yeah. I hear a lot about this. I should definitely try.

That. It's good. There's a great place here called. You seen.

Soma? Same.

Here. It's like right in center, next to Ball Gym. It's just. It's just something about, like, when you're physically under threat, you just be doing pads or whatever. It just activates something different inside of.

You. It's.

Just. Yeah, it really is. It really is great. It's a really good thing. You should go, you got any.

Mates? You do it? No. I see guys on Twitter doing that show.

Time. That's probably. You need that one, mate. He doesn't stop going on about.

It. Yeah.

True. And eventually you try.

It. Yeah, I'm trying to get my mates into running. I feel like they're all fucking get fat, so. But yeah, on the traveling point, I'm still trying to find that balance because part of me thought maybe like a year or two ago, I nearly got like an office in London and all that. And sometimes I think I want to have an office and I do the Whole like gymshark style thing where you know, 100 people, thousand people now they've got in like an office and that's, that's what I want, that's more sustainable, blah, blah, blah. But then other days I'll be like, oh, fuck it. I just. The whole point of why I started doing anything online originally is to have freedom. And if I take away my own freedom by having a lease on an office and employees that have to be in one place, do I really want that or do I want a bit of both? But then it's like I'm still trying to find that balance because when I'm back home, I tend to work from home. Like my flatmate runs the business as well. It works really well. But then other times I think, oh, is this a bit lonely? Should I be? And I'd go to co work spaces like Soho works or whatever. But then I get distracted by speaking to people and it's like there's pros and cons to everything. And then when I've been out here, I thought, am I just kidding myself? And actually I'm getting nothing done. Or because I'm maybe like happier out here because especially in the UK winter, I like enjoy the sun and shit. Does that mean actually even if I work 50% less time, I'm getting more done because I'm more switched on and so on, arguably. So it's about figuring out what works for you. I still haven't figured out the perfect balance, but I think I had a generally pretty good balance over the past few years. I also think like, especially in this economy, arguably, like why the fuck would you want an office and like massive overheads when you can, you know, E commerce, online stuff, you can be incredibly lean, like leverage a lot of software and so on. So I'm still trying to figure out, I think if you are gonna travel, you should stay in a place like a month at.

Least.

Yeah. Cause it takes probably a week to even get into a routine with like gym, where you're gonna eat, the place you stay in, et cetera. If I was gonna be in Bali longer term, I'd probably want a better villa, like one that has maybe an office or just go to a good cowork space, I don't know. But you need to build up a routine in places. So like if I was gonna pick four places to live year round, I was speaking about this with my mate the other day. I think a good combination is like London, Dubai, Marbella, Bali. Because you like London. I like in summer I basically only like it in.

Summer.

Yeah. Well, say that. I do like London in general.

But it's nice in the.

Spring. My bay, you could do like spring. It's like nice weather, obviously. Dubai. I'm not the biggest fan of Dubai, but it's growing on me, having been there a few times and a lot of people that live there and trying to persuade me to like move there. And I can see why you'd go there in like November, December, January, and then Bali maybe fits in maybe similar to Dubai, but, you know, I think those four places have had to pick out the top of my head are probably like the best places I've lived temporarily over the past few years and have a good balance between like, lifestyle and workability and like cost and.

Shit. Yeah. What do you like about Dubai? Because I'm. I'm not sold on.

It. I've been sold. I'm saying I'm maybe.

Getting. What are the things that you.

Can see the appeal during winter.

Particularly.

Yeah. So November, December, January, like dark depths of winter in the uk. I don't like the fact. I mean, I've always spoken shit about Dubai on the pod because I think so many people flock there because it's become almost like a meme now I'm moving to Dubai, head to table on tax and all this bullshit. I like the weather, I think it's very convenient. But then I actually think Bali has almost everything Dubai has, plus a lot of other benefits. I. E. Like, not every girl is a hooker. Like, you know, I think the lifestyle here is actually better because there's greenery and like, whereas Dubai is just fucking desert. Basically. A desert with a lot of.

Money. That's the thing. I was. That was one thing, because I need. I need like, I've always been living near a park or need like a forest. I'm just that kind of guy. Like when I've been to Dubai, I've like hunted for green light, healthy in Dubai and shit.

Yeah. I've only been like three times, but only once. I've never felt as settled there and I mean, I could have just not seen the right side or whatever, but I know plenty of people that live there and love it, so I'm sure it is good. But if I had to pick Dubai or Bali, it'd be Bali a million times. But there's pros and cons for everything. Like time zone wise with the UK business, Darley's definitely.

Harder.

Yeah. But then actually I say I got a UK business. Like all my team are remote and One of them's in fucking Hong Kong anyway, so the time zone's perfect for her here. But yeah, I think Bali, I've always said to people, Bali is, if you've never done the nomad thing before, go to Changi. I think it's like the starting.

Point.

Yeah. Because it's very easy to meet people here as well, even if you know no.

One. I think people come here to meet people. That's the thing I've noticed, like I'll literally be at some spot, someone with a UK accent will be like, oh, you have the same kind of voices being in like now we're going to a.

Party. Especially like Changu, like there are tourists, but most people are probably actually like working online and.

Shit.

Yeah. Whether they're fucking freelancer, entrepreneur, whatever it is. But yeah, I think that's what's good.

About. I've met one guy with a job the whole time I've been.

Here.

Yeah. I've met, you know, met more than two people. It's wild. And I think that makes a big difference. Right. And what you talked about earlier with like network, you alluded to, like, that was one of the biggest things that like kind of positively impacted you and in some.

Way.

Yeah. Like, did you. Was that like an intention? Because I think that's a big thing for a lot of people. Like one of the big pain points as to why guys come into like my Mastermind coaching program is this, that they're alone and they just want to be in a community of people. Right. That was the same for me. So like, did you, how did you do that? Was that intentional? Did it just come as you having a lot of.

Success? It's literally the most common question I ever.

Get.

Yeah. On the pod and on dm, it's probably like five times a day. It's how do I meet people? And like, can I meet you? And all this shit. And I've always joked because a lot of people now networking is almost treated like this like formal scientific thing. Whereas for me it was just getting drunk with people in Asia and then you meet.

Them.

Yeah. So it's more casual and people seem to have a strange idea. I was born with a group of entrepreneur mates. I didn't know fucking anyone in the whole of England that was an entrepreneur. So that's why I went to Singapore on a one way flight when I was like 21, went to an event, shitting myself, met a few people. And then you meet people that are on like the same level as you. And I think as you do things, you build more credibility and have a more interesting story. And then, you know, you meet people that they know, that they know, that they know. But it's not gonna happen if you sat in your mum's fucking basement. Do you know what I mean? Stereotypically. And then, yeah, I've met people through other people. So I think the most important thing is first just going somewhere because it's gonna be uncomfortable. It's like going on a first fucking date. You'd probably be nervous, but you have to do it at some point. And then you meet other people's friends, network. And then I think probably most importantly is the fact that you're actually doing something remotely interesting. Because if you're just, I don't know, you haven't done anything ever. Not much to talk about. And then just being yourself and being a decent person. Because no one likes hanging around with cunts. And there's probably quite a lot of them, at least I don't know.

Where I had to hang out with each other, to be.

Fair. Yeah.

Probably. That's how it works. So get on a flight and go somewhere. Basically. I think it's just get out your comfort.

Zone.

Yeah. Honestly, like, it's gonna be uncomfortable the first time you do it. That's.

It. I probably got a bit lax on the whole networking thing because I feel like I've got a really good one that I've probably, like stopped meeting new people, but I probably should keep doing it. Yeah. Even today, probably a part of me was like, can't be fucked doing a pod. Some guy I don't know. But then you meet them and they're normally just like.

You. Yeah, I'm like that as well. I say no to things all the time, but whenever I do it, and it's a good group of people, I'm always glad that I did. But it depends if I'm like, more naturally introverted anyway. So, like, I'm a bit. I prefer a little bit to spend time by myself. I get more energy that way compared to being around other people, which I like. But if I have to choose, I'll be by myself, like a bit more. So it depends what your personality types.

Are. Yeah. And honestly, like I said, the best network I've actually ever done is just like a strategic send. I call it life. I can go and get drunk. I made a definition. This is like, if you can go and get drunk with someone of potential influence or importance, then you should do that. Because usually when people are drunk, they're more Open and it's a great way to meet people. So.

Yeah. Does that tie in with any of your Bali.

Stories? Tight. Well, for example, one of my investors I first met five years ago when he just launched his business before he sold it recently, like years before. And we were just drunk at some affiliate world thing and it was San Diego, some E commerce conference. And then we didn't speak to each other for like five years. And then I messaged him and we had that context and he came on the pod. So you also plant seeds by meeting people ultimately, because whether that person you work together now or you don't, like maybe in years to come there'll be a contact that is later useful. That's not to say she'd go into everything with it, like a fucking initiative or whatever. But yeah, I don't know. I've had some crazy, like, I mean, what's the most crooked one? I went some. I remember going some E commerce thing with this guy called Nick Peroni. He's like an og, like guru in the Philippines for a week. That was probably like the most high risk networking thing I've ever done. We're in like Baguio City, which is like this beautiful mountaintop city in the Philippines, but it's like the equivalent of going to like Scunthorpe in the UK in the sense of.

Tourists. I've got clients in Scunthorpe, so.

Don'T say it's a forest place. Yeah, people go to Manila or whatever, like Cebu, the Islands and shit. And we were like the only. I mean, there's some very weird stories, which I'm not going to say, but yeah, it's just interesting doing shit with. There's always good stories that come out of it. I've got plenty of.

Them. I think. I think you should give a little bit of that story for the.

People. Well, hanging on now, I'll say in summary, that the weirdest thing that happened there is I ended up in the top of like a, like a, A domestic like fucking tower block. Probably like the equivalent of like a council estate in Baguio City in the Philippines with like four lady boys in a room at like 4am I don't know how that happened, but it did happen and I survived. Probably not the safest thing to do, to be fair, as like a solo tourist at the time, but as in like the other guys weren't there, they were at the hotel and shit. It was weird. I've done some weird shit. Strange niche situations that tend to crop.

Up. There you go. For everyone. Asking how to network. You now have this to look back.

To. Yeah.

Exactly. I had a mindset shift around this kind of stuff because I was never like a networker type guy. Just, always, just happened naturally. I had friends, I didn't ever have to put an effort to it. Right. But then I had a mindset shift which was that actually if you look at networking, imagine like you're spending some money on a Facebook ad for your.

Brand.

Right. You're going to expect some kind of return obviously, otherwise you wouldn't do.

It.

Right. I think it's basically the same in networking. It's like if you find someone who's interesting, take them out to dinner, it's like obviously they're not going to go and like give you two times the money you gave them. But like the ROI on that will probably be infinitely more than if you just fucking went and had dinner by yourself. Right. So I actually think that's kind of a way to look at it. Like if you want to meet people, it's like look at it like an investment, not because you want to get something back, but just an investment of being around better, cooler, high caliber people. And like, look at it like that way because then suddenly it's like, oh, actually it's worth doing like getting that flight to go to that conference. Someone might go, oh, you know, it cost five grand or whatever for the trip. That doesn't seem like a good use of money. But actually it's how you met like probably some of the most influential people which led to a series of different events that would never have happened if you didn't do.

That. Yeah. It's also a massive momentum thing. Cause like it's like with anything you meet more people and you meet more people and then, you know, maybe build credibility in a space or whatever and then more people want to meet you. It's like a.

Flywheel.

Yeah. But you have to start and it always feels a bit slow at the start, like with anything. And then I also think putting content out helps, but then you shouldn't put content out if you've got nothing to fucking speak about. There's way too many 19 year old gurus that have literally never been through anything and it's just like.

Embarrassing. But you can, I think you can still do it, right? I met a guy.

Here. Yeah. I think if you're documenting, you're trying to give advice when you're 19 and there's probably exceptions, but that doesn't mean it's on average and it's. Yeah, it's just like, it's a bit embarrassing. It depends what the context.

Is. I was in B work, you know, the co working space a few weeks ago and I met, I saw this guy watching an Iman Gadzi.

Video.

Yeah. So I was just standing there messaging and he came back to his laptop and I was like, oh, you're right. Like started talking to him and he's. I think he was 19, moved to Bali to start his agency. He was doing 3k a month with his agency, right. And I watched one of his pieces of content and he showed me like Iman sent him a picture of him watching this guy's video. I didn't know each other, but he was like, just keep up the good work sort of thing, right? And he then literally like, like spiraled him to be like, fuck. Actually I'm gonna keep just sharing what I'm doing. He's not coming from like a guru.

Yo. This is what I did. And then I wish I'd done more of that, by the way. Well, this is the thing. If anything, it's.

Nostalgic. He left weeks later because I invited him to some parties, some different things. And he was doing 10k a month, which was his whole series was about road to 10k a month. And he like kind of fucked himself because he did it like 5, 10 times quicker than expected to. But I think that's good because then it's like that's what I've shifted to. Like even watching some of your stuff, seeing how you document it doesn't matter what level you're at. I think just documentation. Gary V. Was right. All those fucking.

Years. Yeah, it's true. You know, it's not for everyone. I enjoy just doing it because probably part of me that still wants to be like a YouTuber, like back in the day I wanted to be a YouTuber or whatever. I used to make music covers when I was like 17, which are never that good, but they're still there, you can go find them. But I wish I'd documented more like the past five years. There's like a two year period, but I did it. I didn't do anything like three years. And I just wish I'd done it because imagine being like, I don't know, fucking Casey Neistat, whatever, or some other YouTuber that's vlogged daily, vlogged for 10 years, like on average, every day or whatever. Looking back at that 40 years time. Yeah, that's like a photo album.

Steroids. Imagine if Steve Jobs had a vlog yeah.

Exactly. Like the next Steve Jobs probably will. Yeah, they just don't know who they are.

Yet. That's.

True. So I think even if you don't post it, just make an Instagram accounts private or whatever, just document shit. So I'm glad I'm doing it now, but I wish I'd done it more because even looking back at stuff six months ago, it's quite.

Interesting. What do you learn? What do you learn when you look back about.

Yourself? Well, probably that everything's temporary, so something's going. Well, it can also go wrong. But something felt like it was going wrong at the time. It's probably not going wrong now. So you know, time changes.

Things. Yeah, I think that. But you ever look back and think like, oh, that's actually like good piece of advice or that's actually like quite true. Like things that you said in the past and then you.

Like. Yeah, sometimes I watch about my own shit and I think I've got better at like also even just watching the first pod. Like my voice sounds different. I feel like I've got more, more articulate with words because you practice it and like look less nervous doing a podcast where when you start anything, I'm shitting myself. Yeah, but if you don't do the first one, the first thing is always the hardest obviously. But that's the beauty of like a huge. I wish I'd just focused on content and YouTube earlier because I mean we're talking about Iman before, like look at his growth and like the past year. But I think that's come because he had the. You had seven years before of making videos which people look past. But it's like exponential. It's like most things, it like might take ages. I feel like with my part it's like it's felt fucking slow in the past year. I just do it anyway. But like I really feel like it's going to hit an inflection point. I probably need to start doing it in high quality studios like this for a start instead of on my fucking.

Iphone. That could be your. That can be your niche. That can be your niche.

Though. Yeah, I mean it works but I just, I would like to up the production quality. But yeah, content is just mad because it's evergreen. Like you're stacking something rather you're compounding something rather than stacking it. I mean like you're not starting again every day because like videos from a year ago still getting views. So like it's like this flywheel. So that's why I wish I'd started earlier, honestly, doing like YouTube properly and also like YouTube. Being a YouTuber is like a legitimate career now. Yeah, like we've got past the point of that being like some weird shit you take the piss out of your mates doing. Which it used to be for me when I was younger, but now it's almost like if you don't have some sort of personal brand, even just like a decent, you know, Instagram for me is like a dating app to be honest. But like Twitter is like a business tool. I don't know if you're on Twitter much, but I started, I didn't know, I barely even knew what Twitter was like a year ago. I knew what it was, but I didn't think people used it. But now there's like the whole money Twitter corner of the Internet, just like all entrepreneurs and now I've got a big following on there and like the organic reach is mad. So yeah, I think that's another thing. If you're trying to network, you should definitely just have a profile at least of who you are, because I'll get a DM from some anonymous account that's private. Oh the fuck. I don't know who you are. There's no picture of your face. So yeah, just have a decent social media profile even if you don't put content out as.

Such. What's like apart from networking? What are like the other biggest questions guys reach out to you and.

Ask probably like how to start or some shit or like what content to watch. And I just say watch every single podcast. And if you don't learn more than you would in uni, then I'll be amazed because that's the beauty of the Internet. You can literally. I think there's like some saying was like, we are like drowning in knowledge but starved of wisdom or some bullshit. I don't know what it is. But the point is like everything you need to know basically ever is on the Internet. It's more just about bothering to consume it rather than some mindless TikTok video which, you know, the create or consume mindset, isn't it? If you create something, you'll probably do alright. Whereas 99% of people just consume, you know, I mean, like, let's just scroll videos all day. You just fucking either made your own video or built your own thing. Instead of buying from this brand all the time, make your own brand. Because basically the world is consumers and creators and genuinely the creators are the ones that are reaping the rewards, whether that's creative freedom or Money and everyone buy. An easy example is everyone's buying shit on Amazon. Look at Jeff Bezos, who made Amazon. Obviously that's a very niche unicorn example, but it's an easy to understand one. But that on a smaller scale, people building shit are no smarter than you.

Usually. But it's hard though, right? Because half of the, like, downside that you get from watching social media, like mental health struggles, like comparison comes with that. Right. So, like, do you still experience that, like, when you look at other people online? It's like a big thing that a lot of guys come to me.

With. They'll be like, you know, more envious of the. Feel like they're not.

Winning. It's not even envy, it's just. They just feel like shit because everyone around them is post. Everyone who they're following is posting this.

Stuff. Yeah, I remember feeling like that. And I think the first point on that is I know for a fact, and it's easier to, to understand when you get a bit of experience and you realize that maybe you are one of those people that look like that and you know yourself that you're not. And like, I know for a fact that there's people on Twitter, Instagram, whatever, that look like they're doing this and it's all smoking.

Mirrors.

Yeah. And not everyone knows that. Especially when you have less context and experience, it's harder to tell what's real and fake. Which is why so many people fall for like Forex core scams or whatever, because that they see this guy that's driving the Lambo and they don't realize that it's fucking heavily financed and he's living at his mum's house and it's all facade. Not that that's the case for everyone. There are some very successful people that are legit, but because they never share, because, like, even the most successful people, it's not like they're doing that shit all the time. Do you know what I.

Mean? Yeah. Even. Even like Iman, like, he's grinding, he's working.

Yeah. Guarantee he's working harder than anyone that watches.

Videos.

Yeah. So he. Yeah, that's one example. So I think just bear that in mind. And you know, most of the Internet smoke and mirrors, particularly like Instagram, Twitter is a bit different, I find. But even then, a lot of people have a motive to sell you something. Do you know what I mean? So, especially if it's like personal brand space, like course gurus and so.

On, who do you follow? Who you actually get value from, or you like Whether it's actual learning stuff or like entertainment.

Whatever. I think the best podcast I ever listened to and I listened to, I don't listen to it anymore. It's MSCO by Andy Frisellis. That was the first thing he does the.

Same. Is he the 75.

Hog? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I listened to all his shit when I was like younger, like 21. He did MF CEO and now he has number one, which I don't listen to as much, but probably him is like, where I started. I wouldn't really say I listen to that many people specifically anymore. It's more just like random shit. And maybe people that I actually know that I get advice from, but I didn't have those people in my life before. So you kind of have to choose. It's like Gary Vee says, you just put like positivity in your ear. Well, not positivity, but like useful.

Shit.

Yeah. Like if you're some broke 18 year old, go and listen to David Goggins and shit and learn about working hard. And I like David Goggins actually. That's something I got onto a lot, especially when I started in marathon training. It's not entrepreneurship or anything, but it's more like mindset stuff and being just a hard motherfucker, which I relate to a lot, especially because I'm driven more by like kind of hateful energy, like, prove you wrong sort of shit, which I just think some people are. I'm just aware that I am. But in terms of like, entrepreneurs and stuff. Yeah, probably more just people in like my actual circle that I look up to or whatever. Because like I said, I think as you get older and more experienced, you can be a bit more specific. Whereas when you start, you listen to Gary Vee. Yeah, because that's just like mass market. And that's definitely better to listen to than watching Love.

Island.

So. Yeah, I think as you get older, you don't listen to the mass market stuff maybe as.

Much. Do you think being driven by that chip will last forever, or do you think there'll come a point where that doesn't motivate you.

Anymore? I don't know. Yeah, I've often thought about this. Maybe when I feel like I've made it, that'll go away. But then you probably never feel like you made it because it's always a fucking carrot on the end of a stick. The things you wanted three years ago, you now don't appreciate and you want something else. So I don't know if it'll always move and that there'll be, like, new people that I'm comparing myself to or, like new fictitious enemies in my head that I need to be or whatever. But that's, that's just the way I'm driven. I don't know if, like, one day I'll meet, like, some fucking spiritual woman and she'll, like, change the way I view the world. Maybe that's just like, that's some other fancy in my head. Maybe. But now, definitely for now. Even when I go to the gym and stuff, I always just put, like, heavy shit on and I like getting in that.

Headspace. Yeah, I think you can have both. That's one thing. I've. I've gone down that whole path and like, my girlfriend's super spiritual and it's like when I'm with her, yeah, I'm like, living a totally different. In a totally different energy. But then when I'm working or in the gym, I'm like, back in that, like, warrior mindset. And I actually think, like, I've from experiencing both. I think the best answer is having both. I think you can be too much in that. And I think that can lead to, like, burnout. And that's what it's like for me. I had, like, mental health struggles and stuff like that in the past. And like, who do you want to go to when you have, like, the worst fucking day or you're sick? You just want to, like, speak to your mom, right? Or speak to your girlfriend or. You don't speak to a guy, right? Yeah. You don't speak to your mate. Be like, I feel really bad, like he's not going to give a.

Fuck. Yeah. I've always struggled with that, like opening up to male friends. Probably one guy I speak.

To. Yeah. Well, I think it's just because most, most men don't know how to, like, access the feminine part of them because it's, like, seen as weak or vulnerability isn't good or.

Whatever. Yeah, I completely.

Agree. I feel like you've got a bit of that, though. I can see.

Like. Oh, no, I definitely.

Do.

Yeah. A lot of people say it's really cringe, but I just don't even care. But then I also think ironically, like, pretending to be like a fucking alpha G, all this bullshit all the time is actually like the least masculine thing ever because you're so scared what other people think. Well, it's like being yourself. I also know that I'm a fucking. That I'm not some loser as well, because I've. I've Proven it, like, even with, like, in the gym and shit, I know that I'll outwork anyone. So that's kind of a masculine thing. But I'm also not afraid to say that I listen to fucking, like, 1975 songs late at night and probably think about a girl that I thought would work out and, like, the pink lights and the whole aesthetic. I mean, like, I'm not this guy that pretends I only listen to Drake in future. And there is a time and place for that and I love that shit. But I listen to, like, some corny shit. I like Taylor Swift as well. Do you know what I mean? Just. People can't admit that, and that's because they're not. They don't know who they are enough. Yeah, I think, yeah, they're too scared of what people think. But it's just that we'll be.

Living. Did you. Were you always like that or did that integration of the other side come to you later on in.

Life? I was always like that. Probably didn't put it out there as much. Yeah, because what, like, with YouTube and stuff, I've been very honest from day one. But then you also realize, I think you get. You get, like, confidence through experience and you realize actually being yourself probably attract, like I said before, attracts the right people anyway. Whereas if you've never, I don't know, been honest online or whatever it is, and you're always putting this facade up, you maybe don't know how that's going to go down with a certain group of friends or. I don't know if you're, like, in school and you don't know if the people around you, your sort of tribe or whatever, may be different, but as you get older, you realize that you're gonna have to be yourself anyway, otherwise the whole fucking brand's gonna wear off at some point. You'll be.

Exposed. I don't think a lot of people do know that, though. I think that's actually taken for granted. I'd say most people, if you ask the average guy, like, who are you? They wouldn't have a clue. What's the answer to that? I don't think most people do. Do, like, know how to be themselves, to be honest. I mean, do.

You? Yeah, it's because I'm probably still figuring it out, but it's because you're in the fucking funnel, which is like, not your choice from the first 18, 20 years of life, isn't it? Yeah, you go to school, you go to uni, probably, then you get pushed into a Grad scheme. Cause that's what everyone else does. It's kind of scary, really. It's like a conveyor belt and it's like the Matrix or whatever. But that's kind of how it has to be. I don't have a better answer, like, right now for how the world should be for, like, the first 20 years of life, because we need some system to guide people, otherwise the world would be a bit chaotic. But, yeah, it's an interesting one. I think you just genuinely know what you want to do. Like, people deep down know what they'd rather be doing, probably. Do you know what I.

Mean?

Yeah. Like, if you're on some job you hate, you probably know it's not for you. But the risk is that. And this is what I was kind of fortunate never to get stuck in, like, you go and get a grad job, say. And I keep referring to that because it's like. Like a meme at this point. And then you hang around the wrong people and then, you know, put your dreams off or whatever it is. And for, you know, you're fucking 30, you've got a kid, you got a mortgage and the job you hate. That's my idea. That was always my idea of like, hell, same. But I never went down that route. And then once you see the other side of, like, you can kind of do what you want, as long as you're willing to work really hard and be consistent, then you're never gonna go back to.

That. So I think I said to you before, I was like, how did you escape the Matrix or something? You were like, I was never in the.

Matrix. Yeah, I wasn't. Because I think I knew when I was 14 or even 10 years old that I wasn't going to be normal, whatever that was. And then before I even finished uni, I started a business and dropped out. So, like. And then it's definitely not luck. It was just following my intuition and having some balls to do it. And then. And then once you meet people around you that doing similar. That's like signed and sealed at that point, you ain't going back. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because then that's all you ever know. It's all I've ever known is working for myself, quite literally. I've never. The last job I ever had was working at a burger bar while I was at uni and I was running ads on my break. So, like, I also start from the fucking bottom like most people. So, yeah, I've never gone into, like, the normal world. I suppose I'm very aware of it though as well. I think it's important to have context on like society and not have your fucking head in the clouds and do you know what I mean? Like a lot of people maybe especially ones that come from privileged backgrounds, probably don't know what life, how tough life is for a lot of people, which is also, I think it's important to travel and see like poverty and shit. Except you maintain perspective. Because often spoke about this on my own video recently. Like I sometimes think, oh, like I'm pissed off because I was doing bigger numbers two years ago than I am with my brand right now. Which is true. But like it's incomparable, it's a business anyway because this is much better. Subscription, custom product, all that shit. And then I've got mates doing 30 million quid a year that are my age and one that's younger. But that's because I'm hanging around with 0.001% people, which I'm very fortunate enough to do, at least financially. Zero point. Whatever. But then you can't lose perspective on the fact that there's some don down the road here or anywhere in the world that's making a pound a day and can't eat. And their idea of heaven would be just having the opportunity to have an Internet connection. So I think it's important to maintain some perspective which you definitely get more of by traveling and so on. It's a bit of a stereotype. Like you should see the other, like how the other half live or whatever. Because just being in like a first world country, I think you're in like the top 10%.

Economically.

Yeah. Which people don't actually realize how mad that is. You think about that. So that doesn't mean you can't have problems if you're making money and shit. Of course you can. But it's a useful perspective and I sometimes lose it because I've set my, the bar so high for myself, which is definitely a blessing and a curse because it means I'm ambitious and whatever and I have successful friends. But it also means that sometimes lose perspective. It's like it's pretty fortunate to be able to do your own shit and travel and so on. Do you know what I.

Mean? So, yeah, I think, yeah, for me it's like my, my dad came here from, from Africa, like lost all his businesses, had to come here with, with nothing, start again, holes and issues, built his businesses up again. And like I saw him working like my whole childhood, like, well, I Didn't really see him because he was working. And, like, I never. I always felt like, oh, like, why don't you just come to spend time with me? Why don't you just, you know, give some time for us? And he did his best, bless him. But that always reminds me of, like, I could have. Like, he could have just easily been shot when he was trying to escape from the country where he was. And, like, he wasn't. And there were times when he nearly was and, like, grandparents or whatever. So it's just like, what. The way I was thinking about it is, like, one decision different could have led to a completely different.

Life.

Yeah. I think when you, like, look at it like that, it's hard not to be just like, all right, well, grateful, I.

Guess. Yeah. I'm not a very grateful person by default. I'm trying to get better at.

It. Do you how I think you don't think gratitude, though. You feel gratitude, Right. How much do you like feeling.

Feel? Yeah, I think because I felt like I drew a really bad hand in the past year. I kind of felt a lot of bitterness and resentment towards the world.

Honestly.

Yeah. That's probably, like, the first time I've said that. Whereas before I felt like I had what I deserved, I was doing well to work my fucking ass off. And then I felt like I just drew the short straw for, like, a year, which in hindsight maybe was meant to happen or whatever, but I definitely was, like, envious of my friends that didn't happen to. Yeah, I've said that to them, so I've probably done. Maybe that's tarnished my view of, like, reality and being grateful for, like, normal shit, because I felt like I should have been further.

Ahead.

Yeah. But get there.

Eventually. Does part of you like that perspective because you know that it drives you to be better and more successful in a way. Like the fact that you do have.

That. Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely better to feel like a small fish in a big pond, like I said before, than feel like you're winning everything because, I don't know, the people you hang around with aren't that ambitious or whatever. So. Yeah, if you feel like you're doing really well, I think you should probably go somewhere else if you are ambitious because you should always feel like, I don't know, at least for me, you have something to prove and people to chase. And that's better than. Depends what you're trying to achieve, of course. But I think that's definitely better if you're trying to build a business and you're very ambitious and so on is you. You probably should try and normalize like mad level of success. At least hang around with people that actually doing it. Not just like fronting or talking about.

It. I met a lot of like the guys who I associate myself with now who are like ahead of me through like courses, masterminds, that kind of stuff. Do you do you in that kind of. What do you need that kind of stuff, what you're.

Doing? Did a Facebook ads course when I was like 21. The only course I ever bought. It's pretty good course. He was like an.

Og. Who was the.

Guy? Ben.

Malol. I remember that.

Dude. He's still.

Around. I remember him. Yeah, yeah, he was like. He was an.

Asian. Yeah, he was. That just goes to show though cuz like now I kind of laugh at that but like when I knew nothing that was incredibly valuable because he knew more than I did and I.

Actually bought his course as.

Well. Yeah, I don't remember it now but it's probably did something a little bit out there. But yeah it would be.

Now. So you bought one course and did you meet anyone through that or you just went to learn the.

Knowledge? Just learned some shit. Yeah, other than that like just I used to be in like Facebook groups and so on. That's kind of how I met people originally before like went to events and so on. But other than that you can't just figure it out. Myself to an extent just like friends and then just watch more generally just friends. Like what are they working on, talking to.

Them. What's the secret to Facebook ads in.

20? Well, I haven't run my own ads for like three years. I spent millions on ads myself back in the day. Used to be in the ad account like two hours a day. I would say don't do it yourself. Get an agency and focus on.

Creative. How the fuck do you find a good.

Agency? I've worked with seven and six of them are shit. So it's very hard. So experience is one thing. I think just with agencies, broadly speaking try and make it performance incentivized. Otherwise they're just going to rinse you on a retainer and don't give a fuck. Yeah, most won't do that if you're a new brand to be honest, because you don't have enough scale. But yeah like it's difficult. Probably do it yourself. So you have enough, you have enough understanding with media buying which is what I did for years. Then eventually you get to the point where you don't actually know enough and it's too time consuming and it would be like ROI negative to do yourself. So yeah, that's probably what I say. But agencies are tough. There's so many agencies now as well because Iman's probably produced about 100,000 new agencies. Some of them probably great but some of them probably really shit as well.

So. Well, most of them just hire a contractor from.

Upwork. Yeah, exactly. That's not legit. This is like some freelancer finessing people. Yeah, but everyone's got to make some money somehow, so.

Yeah. So what does the day to day look like? It just calls meetings or you.

Like. Well, in Bali it's probably different. I mean genuinely I try and do shit that needs to be done in the morning, like deep work or whatever which is like become a buzzword now. But it is true. Like I don't eat.

Breakfast. You know, I often wonder a real entrepreneur now. Now I know you're legit that you don't eat.

Breakfast. Yeah, well I don't know who anyone eats breakfast. I don't know how people work eating breakfast. Honestly I've tried just having one meal a day as well, going super hard but I found that a bit difficult. So yeah, generally I'll do shit that needs to be done in the morning. Try and focus on needle moving stuff. I probably still get stuck in like the day to day a bit too much less so than I used to have like a team now and shit. They're actually good. Whereas in the past it was not necessarily the best people working me and like bas and shit. A bit less skilled shall we say. But yeah, just a lot of calls and a lot of planning shit I suppose. Yeah. I'm still way too stuck in like emails and stuff though. I really need to get someone to like filter shit for me so I can just like do important stuff. Because yeah, it is true, you need to work on the business, not in the business. It's such a stereotype. It is true. And you know what's actually moving the needle, do you know what I mean? Like I can either spend two hours going through emails every day to get so fucking many or I could spend half an hour or two hours hiring someone to I don't know, maybe automate that or whatever it is. So I'm not very good at that to be honest. I'm not the most organized person. I'm not very good at systems really shit at hiring typically. So I'm still trying to work it out. But yeah, I suppose now Particularly now, having messes and shit. I focus a lot on like reports and like what's actually happening. What can I do that's actually going to solve a problem? For example, rather than just spend more on ads, which I've been struggling to do in the past month particularly, we've kind of hit a bottleneck because we're only running out of the uk. So now I'm like, all right, we need to localize fulfillment to Europe so we can scale in Germany, for example, instead of just focusing on the same thing, it's like, all right, how can we scale horizontally a bit and think more logically? And then trying to get into retail right now, like Holland and Barrett, for example. Whereas in the past I was always just D2C. D2C, like an Amazon as well. So I never used to do Amazon. Trying to grab isn't a lot right now. So just being more logical about things. Whereas in the past I'd maybe just Chad scaled a bit and like one thing that was working, I just double down on that. But then, you know, that's not how you build a valuable business because you can't be so reliant on one channel. And I think probably most people are including me right now. Like Instagram website, that's it pretty.

Much. What about.

TikTok? I haven't made TikTok work, so I've been trying, I'm trying to make that work. Amazon starts to look good. So we're going to launch in Amazon, Germany, America, all that shit, which in the past I would never have done because it was like too much admin. I just want to go quick, quick, quick. But I've learned from the past you need to diversify, you know, just be a bit more logical about things and what's going to work long term rather than just trying to scale as quick as possible, which I made the mistake of doing in.

2020. So do you enjoy solving business problems like that? Does it make you actually feel good when you like solve that kind of problem? Like, okay, cool, we're gonna use this acquisition channel instead now versus like if you're.

Creating. Yeah. I mean there's literally always constant problems. Like, are this mad, like, fuck off, Unicorn spreadsheet? I call it some shit. The entire business in one spreadsheet and it's like all the numbers and I have like a sheet which is like problems and then anything that's like a big problem is in there and it's in there until it's fixed. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's in there for two months, but it's in there. So I think, funny thing I've realized, I think a lot of people think they're working towards a point where they have all the money they need and then they just don't work. That's like the American dream or whatever. You build a business, sell it, you get really rich and you sit on the beach. But I honestly reckon if you put most people in that position, after about a week, they'd be so bored. And speaking to Jimmy, who's very wealthy, the guy I mentioned before, and you won't mind me saying this, like, he sold the business, he's still working on it, but he's fucking really bored. He has all the money in the world. He wants something else to work on now. It's a nice problem to have, of course, compared to 99.9% of people. But it's like, fuck you, actually. So then it's like he says to me, like, what would you do? And I'm thinking, it's an interesting thought experiment for me because I'm not there. I would like to be in that position. But then it comes back to, well, you're going to want to work on something anyway. So actually, even if stuff feels hard, not necessarily fun all the time, because it's never gonna be fun all the time, nor should it be, because it wouldn't then by definition, it wouldn't be fun if nothing was boring or bad. But, like, you get a lot of satisfaction out working on something. Even if you think you'd want to retire and sit on a beach, you wouldn't. You want to do the next thing. You might just have different worries that aren't monetary or whatever it is. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, that's something I think about because often I think, oh, this is hard and this is stressful, whatever, but that's what we're built for. You have to work on something. Like you said before, like, especially as a man, I think you want to conquer shit. Like, even if it's a small task, you gotta have some project to work on, otherwise you just get bored. I mean, I know I would. I fucking hate sitting down, watching tv. I mean, granted, not all the time. Like, if I'm watching some cozy movie with some beautiful girl or whatever, that's a bit different. But that doesn't happen all the time. So, yeah, I think quite an interesting way to look at what you work on is, like, if you had all the money in the world, what would you work on? Then you should work on that now. And you might end up with a lot of money actually, because you'd be passionate about it. That's kind of how I feel about this brand. If I was a billionaire, I'd probably still work on this and probably did the.

Pod. What else would you do if you were a billionaire right.

Now? Buy a 20,000 square foot house with an underground garage and put like a fucking pink Bugatti shoe on in there? Something like that. But other than that, probably not much would be different. I'd just buy some silly cars.

Again. Do you think you'd be.

Happier? Maybe not. Maybe I'd be less stressed about certain things.

But hard to know until you're there, right? So everyone says like money can't buy happiness, but it's like, well, until you've gone through that, you kind of need to experience it. And I actually disagree with that statement anyway. I think it does actually buy a degree of.

Happiness. It removes certain.

Stresses. I think that is happiness. I think happiness is the absence of. Of unhappiness, to be.

Honest. Yeah. Interesting. That's very.

Butter. Is.

It? I don't know. He sounds very.

Zen. He's my. I copied it from him. I'm joking. I don't really. All right.

Cool.

How. How into conspiracy theories and stuff are you? I'm gonna guess not very.

Much. Well, I like a lot of that. I love. I think most conspiracy theories probably.

True.

Yeah. Conspiracy facts just basically if. If the masses think it, I generally.

Don'T. Did you see what Elon said when he overtook.

Twitter? No, I'm not saying it.

Well. I don't. I'm not even on Twitter, so you should know this. He basically tweeted that he's actually. No, it was an interview. He said most of the conspiracy. Well, he said all of the conspiracy theories about Twitter turned out to be true. And he just said it in a flippant comment conversation. But when you think about how. How mad. Well, he fucking said it was. And he's one managing the company. So it's.

Like. Yeah, I mean, I think the. More it's funny because like my twin brother is the exact opposite opposite to me. We're not non identical but he views the world opposite to me in every way. Covid's a great example and that's very controversial one. Videos seem to go moot, like.

Disappearing off the Internet and people.

Sometimes. Yeah, but like we completely viewed everything differently on that and that was obviously a big one. That had a lot of conspiracy theories. There's loads of things, isn't there, but yeah, I've watched some weird.

Documentaries. Did any of them have the name, well, the name Cabal in them by any.

Chance? What? Probably not. I don't know. Unless that's a code.

Word. All right, yeah, maybe it.

Is. Just tell me.

After. You have to be careful what we say on our YouTube. Yeah, okay, cool. So. So a little bit, but don't go down the crazy rabbit.

Hole. Yeah, I just think, like, I mean, obviously Andrew Tate speaks about a lot of this shit and I think most, a lot of what he says is true. Yeah, like a lot of them are uncomfortable truths, you know, I don't necessarily think, like the government wants the best for a lot of people. And like, I think. I don't know, like, I think you have to think for yourself. And it's surprising amount of people seem to just literally believe whatever the news says, which I find wild. And then you're the conspiracy theories if you don't, which is funny. But a lot of things have turned out to be true that a lot of people said were lies over the past few years, you know, about certain diseases and so on. So, yeah, I think, I think, funnily enough, I think a lot of entrepreneurs generally think the same about conspiracy theories. The way they view the world, whatever, which tends to be different to how maybe most people view things. And there's obviously a correlation and it makes a lot of sense because they do everything differently. That's why they tend to think themselves and do their own thing. And yeah, everyone I look up to thinks the same about a lot of things, whereas people that I know and maybe have gone down a different path tend to think the opposite to me and these other people. And probably like a lot of people, I feel like everyone that's come from like the UK to Bali probably thinks similarly about the world. Yeah, that's why they're not. That's why they refuse to be in some office 9 to 5 in Stoke or whatever it is. Again, not there's anything wrong with that, but people tend to think a certain way, don't.

They? You know, it's funny, like, I did a year of work before going to uni, so I worked like in corporate sales, jobs, recruitment in London, that kind of stuff, right. I was like, okay, this is 100. Not the life I want to live. Went to uni, started businesses, etc, etc, right? To not do the nine to five. Went full circle, ran the business for seven years, scaled it to like really good amount. Live the lifestyle of my dreams, come to Bali, living the Quote, unquote, nomadic life. And what I do now is work in my office from Monday to Friday and then I have weekends and go travel and do crazy. Like, that is literally what I've gotten the whole circle and come back to do.

Something. I've experienced that. That's the irony. You end up wanting to have an element of routine. I guess you just do it in a nicer.

Place. Well, it's choice as well. Right. Like, I could choose not to work.

Today.

Yeah. But having a nice. Yeah, I do what I do, actually wake up excited to, like, do stuff. Like, I actually look forward to. Not all the time, but, like, a lot of the time. If I had the choice of doing this or partying, I would actually rather do that most of the.

Time.

Yeah. So I think that to me is like the barometer for like, happiness. I think if you're just doing shit you want to do, or at least like, you know, gives you some kind of actual fulfillment, which isn't like this jumpy up and down thing I found a lot of the time, like those big moments, you know, like, for me it'd be like signing big client. For you it'd be like, I don't know, hitting a revenue mark or new channel and it's like a win. Like, I feel like those moments are actually. They're not really like the best bit, to be honest. They're kind of like little milestones. Little milestones along the.

Way.

Yeah. All those things we, like, look up to and like.

Chase. Yeah. I found that most things in life are never quite as good or bad as they seem, which may be, like, really sullen. Is that the right word? But like. Yeah, like, generally things are not as dramatic as they seem, which I often don't like, which is why I like to make things really romantic and shit. Because I'm kind of chasing that all on nothingness, when actually the answer is probably somewhere in between. Do I mean, like, you have this vision of like a certain trip being magical or whatever, but then your fucking brains half of it, and that's just life. Do you know what I mean? Not in like a miserable way, but. But also the flip side of that is things that you think are terrible and, oh, this is gonna fucking ruin my life, whatever, usually it passes and it's.

Fine. Yeah, I think I've. What I've noticed is, as I've released the need or expectation for things to happen, my life's just been better in all parameters in terms of, like, results. Business, dating, like, doesn't mean, like, not caring, it just means going towards it but like actually being detached from it. Yeah, that was a big one because I used to be super attached. Like I need to hit this goal. Like this has to happen. I need to do.

This. Yeah, I read some book by Anthony Demello. It's like some philosophy book called the Way to Love or some. I was reading loads of stoicism recently and then I read that and it was all about like attachments basically being the single cause of unhappiness in the world. I was like, wow, there's like some very strong quotes in it. I can't even remember.

Now. Did it talk about like attachment styles? So you've got like in a relationship you've.

Got. Yeah, it was kind of like about relationships but also just like goals and. And I've definitely found myself maybe attaching myself to an outcome a lot or like what I think is going to happen with a certain person or a certain place. Basically just expectation about anything. Usually this equals what can equal disappointment, which I don't know. But then is it about. Is it a good thing to not be attached to anything? I don't know.

Maybe. I think, I think this. I've like really gone down this path. Right. So I think. I don't think I have the answer but I think I've had some good. Like I've lived long enough having like no attachment or goal where I've just been like fucking a leaf in the wind. And it was good in the sense that I could learn to not need business and that kind of stuff. But terrible for like just moving forward in life, being a man, growing, etc And I've also lived a very like 3D, just focusing on the physical, just moving forward 1% every day, which is. Which got me forward but I also didn't necessarily feel the best. And so what I found is like having that structure is a really good thing, particularly as a man. But then also basically like the one thing I get, you know how people reflect things to you and like a lot of people will say like something about you. Like what's something people say about you? Like a lot when they like meet you or picture online. That's must be.

Things. Well, one thing I've noticed girls say to me it's really weird is I seem bored and I'm. It's happened like three times in the past three.

Months.

Yeah. One was like on a date, I never saw her again. One was like someone else, whatever. I found that quite surprising because I always feel like I'm fucking loud and shit. But maybe I just wasn't interested in my head was elsewhere.

Yeah. So do you think? I think there's two reasons why. One, could it be. One could be because you are actually attached from situation where you're just like, cool either way. Or it could be maybe you're not there, like presently. It depends. Right. What do you.

Think? Yeah, I used to be like this with my ex girlfriend. She'd always say I wasn't there. So I was thinking about some. I'm. I'm not very present at all ever. Like, even now I'm probably thinking about where I'm going next, which there's just something else I need to work.

On.

Yeah. I'm always thinking about the future or the past. Primarily the.

Future.

Yeah. But then like, the future isn't a thing. Do you know what I mean? It's like just now and.

Then. How much do you feel like anxiety? A.

Lot. I wouldn't say I do. Generally. I've had bouts of it. Yeah, but like, the sun and ice baths usually fixes.

That.

Yeah. Like, I went to hospital like a month ago, so I thought I was having a fucking heart attack. And they were like, no, your heart's fine. You just like, just anxious. I was like, oh, shit. Maybe because I just haven't felt like that in years. Yeah, it was like a week of like, feeling like my heart rate was just fucked. But it's largely just in my head, or at least it wasn't anything to worry about. But then when you realize there's nothing to worry about, it usually goes. I was getting like mad health anxiety because like, one thing, I felt ill for a while, then I was like, fuck, my heart's all weird, but it's probably just in my head. Yeah, well, it definitely.

Was. So much of it is just down to belief, but anxiety is just focusing on the future, that's.

Why. Yeah, exactly. And depression is the past of what they say in it. Yeah, it's very.

True. Where are you going.

Next? What, today? Yeah, probably to the fucking gym. Can't go a day without.

That. You go every.

Day? Yeah, pretty much. Like, very rarely would I take more than one day.

Off. What have you found is, like, the best training style for you after doing.

Like. Well, I lost like two stone last year and got like, the best shape of my life. And I'd probably say, like, especially given I was running a lot, I reckon I had a better physique than most, like, fitness coaches and shit. Especially in summer last year, I was absolutely shredded. And it was like, completely natural or whatever. People accuse me of, like, taking testosterone and shit. I was like, nah, I was just doing a lot of calisthenics. Like, I stopped doing, like, weights and started doing more functional shit, like pull ups, press up, squats, all that shit. And then a fuckload of running combination, like, slow stuff and, like, sprints and so on. And I never thought of myself as a runner, funnily enough, even though I spent years being a rower and I guess there's probably cardio elements that transfer over, but, yeah, now I just found myself, like, way quicker than I ever thought I was. And I did that mad marathon. And, yeah, that's like. Tends to be a combination for me. I don't like. It's mad that I did, like, three years of, like, no cardio. Pretty much. I just, like, was going to the gym and lifting weights, but it was so aimless. So I like, now having a target of, like, a marathon or whatever. I also told myself I'd never do another marathon after the first one. Two weeks later, I was like, fuck it, I want to do another one. It's like that David.

Goddess. That's the tattoo thing as well, mate. When you get.

One. Yeah, I was like, I want to go one more.

Now.

Yeah. Then you realize, like. Cause, like, doing that. I did, like, the sub three marathon did, like, seven minutes clear, like, 2:50, 2:59. So I put on Twitter, I was gonna give a thousand pounds to charity for every minute I went over. Because Sub three marathon is, like, the pinnacle. People say it's like elite if you can do that. And I've never even run a marathon, and I'm like, 88 kilo, so I'm not a runner's build. I know people that are like, 70 kilo that can't do that. And so I was like, fuck, I'm gonna put this ridiculous goal out there. I did train a. Fuck. I was doing, like, 12 hours a week of running. Like, it was a lot. But now I'm like, all right. Now I've proven it's the similar thing with entrepreneurship. Experience breeds confidence. Now I'm like, all right, I know I'm a good runner now, factually, at least I can train to be one. So now I've got to go one more. And then you realize it's like the same thing with work. You have that little moment of, oh, I've done it. Yeah, a little dopamine hit. Everyone tells me how amazing it was, but then it's gone, and you got to do the next thing. So Then you realize that the process of training it, training for it's probably the enjoyable part because, you know, the race or whatever and running is. I like running because it's away from a screen and it's much more. Whereas, like in business there's so many external factors. Whereas running, it's just me. Granted the weather or whatever, but I either trained or I didn't. There's no hiding away from that. Whereas, you know, a building a business could take five, 10 years. Whereas running a race is. I'll train for four months and run it. I was either trained enough or I didn't. And I quite like the rawness of.

That. I think that's why you'd like Muay Thai, mate, because you either got punched in the face or you did it. It's one versus. It's just one versus.

Another. I've heard a lot about this. I must try.

It. I think. I think it's like the ultimate.

High. I like runner's high as.

Well. Yeah, all right, fair enough. I'll ask you a couple more and I'll let you get to. I'm actually training as.

Well. So. Where are you.

Trying? Where am I training? I. I actually even trade at body factory or.

Ball. Oh.

Yeah? Yeah. Body factory's.

Like. This feels a bit like influencer.

Factory. That's the only reason I don't.

Train. It's so busy as.

Well. It's busy if I want to.

Do. I like the ice baths. And.

Though. Have you done that two degree one, the little.

One? I did that once. That's actually too cold. I did like. I do three minutes in the mid. In like the normal cold one. Yeah. And then like 15 in the sauna. I do that.

Twice.

Yeah. I get pretty dizzy from that, to be fair. That's.

Good. My workspace has a sauna and an ice bath. So midday I'll just bouncing.

Yeah. Because there's none of those in the uk. Like I have a sauna in my building to below my flat. Let's go straight down to it. But they don't have ice baths and it's like, fuck sake, you're missing half of.

It.

Yeah. Ice bath's the best.

Part.

100%. You actually feel the difference. They need. Someone needs to make like a body factory equivalent In London they would print cash because it's so niche. Ice baths.

Bro. Body factory charges. I think it's like a couple hundred.

Bucks. Ridiculous. That's more than 200 quid for two.

Weeks. That's what I paid More. Less than.

That. In the uk, yeah. Way less for central London gin, which is.

Why. And it's not even that good, to be.

Honest. No, it's.

Not. Not even that.

Good. So it's not that good. Yeah, it's like whoever owns that is.

Printing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they've.

Just. It's like, I saw you coming, I know you'll.

Pay. But it's like, my mate met naval in.

There. He met.

Naval. Met naval. I know. Like, I think he met Iman in there as well. The Nelk boys. So, like. Yeah, anyone who's coming through all trains there. So it's like, if you're here for a couple weeks, you may as well go because you're probably gonna meet.

Someone. There's some nice girls in that.

Sauna. Introduce you to my friend Jade, who works there. She's a personal trainer there. She's actually got a couple hundred K on instruction. I'll introduce you to her. It could be a.

Good. Well, I could never marry an influencer girl, but I can certainly say hello to.

One. You can say that. You can be nice. Oh, yeah, health. I think health is a thing. I think it's. As you get more successful, you start to think about health because you realize you're finite. And what. What if do you have. Like, I'm really, really big onto health. Like, mostly Eastern stuff, but, like, what are your. Like, do you think about health March? Do you do any, like.

Health? Yeah, man. I've always trained a lot, so I spent, like, eight years as a rower when I was younger and, like, I went through, like, a semi. I look back now and say I was fat, but I was never fat. I was still going to the gym and shit. But, yeah, like, the running's a big part of me and I like. I like the idea of being in, like, functional shape. So, like, I could actually, I don't know, run away from a fucking lion or some shit. Not that's ever gonna happen. But, yeah, like, I probably. I feel like I eat cleaner back home, to be honest, than when I'm out here. Like, I try not to drink much. Generally when I've been out here, it's kind of different because there's been a lot of strategic sends, shall we say, and more potential distractions. But I feel like drinking in the sun is never as bad because you recover from any hangover very quick. So, yeah, I guess I like microdosing now and then. Back home, I take my own products every day. I take, like, athletic greens, and I like that as a brand. I haven't had that out here, but I'll be all right. Enough vitamin D from the sun. Yeah, pretty much just train like every day, eat clean, do a lot of sauna stuff. Ice baths I like doing, but I don't have them back home. That's a real faff. So maybe I'd have to move here just for that, but. But I genuinely feel like fasting, running, ice bath, sun and sauna and no.

Drinking.

Yeah. It's like a beautiful combination. I do that, I think honestly as well. It is.

Yeah. I'm getting fucking.

Grumpy. People speak about it more and more now. So I'm releasing Dream Dust, like next week, which is the next sleep product.

Yeah. Oh, fuck. I'll buy.

It. Yeah. So it's the opposite of Rainbow Dust. That's the.

Idea. Give me an affiliate.

Code. Yeah, it's good shit. I will first influence the first podcast.

Sponsor. I'll promote it. I've actually used you. I've actually used it and had a good time with it. So, yeah, I think that's what you want to people. I like how Stephen did it on mature.

CEO.

Yeah. He's like, you know those legit kind of relationships. All right. Have I got anything else? I feel like. Oh, you haven't. You haven't watched Ready Player one? I wrote that.

Down. No, I've heard of.

It. You need to go and watch that. You'll love it. Oh, yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you. You can obviously become fucking mastered. Like growing. I don't know if I'm talked about business very much, which is like what you're. Which is what you're known for, like, growing. A lot of people start in ecom, mostly in dropshipping, and the vast majority of them fail. Right. Or like don't. Don't scale. Like, what do you think was the main things that made you successful at it versus a lot of other people who have been.

Successful? I think summary. Such a broad point, but people on, like, on the Internet, YouTube, Instagram, whatever, they only ever talk about marketing. And by marketing they really mean, like Facebook ads. It's all like the community speaks about. No one talks about product ever. When it's basically that's the only thing that matters because you can't. You can out. You can out market a shit product by a month. But then, you know, I've had it in the past. For example, when I launched my jewelry brand, I had to go back three months and restart everything because our supplier fucked us over on the quality and had to refund, like, 3,000 orders in the first month went back to the drawing board, made the product better launched, and it was way better. It was successful. And even now, like, I spent five months developing the product and no one speaks about products. It's not glamorous. It takes sometimes a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of skill to make a good one. Especially dropshippers, they don't give a fuck about products. They're just trying to basically make as much money as they can without being called a fraud. That's pretty much the model. Like, don't get chargebacks, kind of deliver on the product. When you make your own product, it's different, of course. And I just think that's the main thing, branding and products, like, what is the actual thing you're selling? And I've got better with that over time. I was not that good at it to begin with and no one is, but I think that in a nutshell is the only way to really scale, especially past a certain point. Because like I said, you can. You can out market something shit for a while, but then the reviews are bad, people don't come back. Like, I'll repeat customer rate, like this past month is like 70%. So it's mad. Which is probably not good, actually, because it means we're not acquiring enough new customers. But that's another issue. We had no stock and so on. But I would honestly say that look at any massively successful brand, not like little drop shipping bullshit like athletic greens, Gymshark, Apple. Obviously people are obsessed with the product and ultimately where you make money really is people coming back. Because once you've acquired a customer, if they only buy once, it's very hard to be profitable first order. Unless you've got like a neon sign, it's 300 quid, which that model was great for. That problem with that was the quality was not quite good enough because. And shipping time was long and the experience wasn't great. But if people come back, and that's why I'm focused on subscriptions, because you want people to ultimately get, like, ethically addicted to the product is kind of how I view it and just really like it and want to give you money because think about the brands you buy from repeatedly because you fucking like the product. Like Athletic greens. I spend 80 quid a month on some green powder because for me it works, or at least I believe it works and it's there on time and my LCV must be mad. And that's how you make a big business ultimately. But no one's talking about that because it's not easy and it's not glamorous. Whereas I spent a million pound on Facebook ads, gets clicks. No one wants to sit and work on a product for five months and go through samples, supply chain, all that. And also because most people drop shipping are just borderline frauds anyway. That's just the truth. Like no ship all this shit. So yeah, build a good product and people come back and then marketing should be the easy.

Part. You know I used to my biggest fear when I was running my agency at the beginning was like oh shit. Like if this result isn't good and the client's not going to like it and then people are going to say bad stuff about me slash the business. And that happened a couple of.

Times. Yeah, it does happen for.

Me. I had clients who like left bad Google reviews and that literally like shook me to my soul. Like I was literally like a mess from a couple of clients saying bad things. And then we launched our January ads and I hadn't wanted them for like five days. So there was like, you know, X amount of people saw them booked, whatever. And one of the one comment was from this agent, we work with the state agents in the uk he said what references do you have like to prove this service actually works? Because we were making a bold claim and this was days ago and like literally my body went, here we go, what are we gonna see? And it was literally a this long of a response. I posted on my stories of an ex client saying how fucking great his. How great it was not working with us anymore. He said here's the results I got, here's what the experience was like I'm still making money from it to this day from a year ago working with them. And that was the moment I realized, oh shit. Cause that was when I started focusing on the service. Right? Yeah, the equivalent. And I realized that is it and that's what we're doubling down on. Just making it to the point where it's like there is no one else to compare it to because it's just.

Different.

Yeah. And I think that. And that's also what's exciting, that's what's giving me the passion back as well. So I think like for anyone listening, it's like if you just focus on that, that's like innovation that is.

Like also I've worked with so many agencies and freelancers and it's shocking to me even to this day that don't realize the value in over delivering because I'll come back I've worked with this person. There's a video editor I worked with two weeks ago and currently in like a dispute between us because I think he delivered absolute shit to the point where I can't use it. And I'm like, I'm not paying you. I've already paid him 50% up front, which to me it feels like a scam. And he's saying, oh, I need to be whatever. And I'm just thinking if he just over delivered, I'd have worked with him for the next three years. Does he not see that? It's wild and like it just, I just don't get it. So anyone listening that runs an agency, just be fucking good at your job. It's the only way to win. People just look past that. They want short term profit, profit, profit, new client, new client or you know, the drop shippers. New customer, new customer instead of people coming back. So I mean my, the brand's not perfect now. We get bad trust, pilot reviews, whatever, but like it's way better than shit I've done in the past. I'm so much more aware of it. And it's a constant feedback loop I think as well. But it's never gonna be perfect. But just listen to customers or clients, whatever it is, and that's the most useful feedback. Like people said that they thought it was too sweet, so we changed one of the sweeteners. Now it's different. That took six months to do because the fucking supply chain is long. But it's never gonna be perfect. But just try and make it as good as it can be and make it better progressively. And it's just wild to me that people don't think being good at their job is relevant anymore. But that's the.

Culture. Well, it's this entitlement, right, because they come in through a course or watching someone on YouTube. It's like, this is how you make the money. So it's like, well these are the things I need to do to get the money. That's, that's the actual job. Well, the intention is just to make money, right? It's not actually to like do something good or do something innovative and.

You make more money long term anyway by being.

Better. The problem used to be when people start a business, it's like, okay, well I have this idea, I'm going to build this app that used to be the problem. And it was like, no, just focus on. Now it's switched to just focus on like someone's problem and solve that. But the problem is it's gone now too far to that direction where it's like, okay, we're focusing on who's got the problem, but the solving the actual solvent isn't there. So what I get tons of guys, like starter out guys, as I'm sure you do, who reach out and they're like, what should I do? Trying to get my first client, probably. What should you try to launch my first store, whatever. And I'm like literally just message people off, like who you actually like. Offer to work for.

Them.

Exactly. Be honest about where you are. Say, look, I'm not an expert, but I'll just do this for free. If you like working with me. Yeah, maybe sort something.

Out. My customer service now was a podcast viewer and he worked for free for a month because he wanted to work with me. And now he's full time and he's really fucking good. Because you just impressed me so much. Yeah, people aren't willing to do that. They think that everyone started with loads of money and shit. Listen, I didn't get paid for like three years from E Commerce because you've not. Wasn't very good. Then you get better. So people just got to go through.

It. Yeah. We'll have to put this about the start of the pod so far that's like the most valuable fucking. Yeah, probably listen to. Yeah, that's what it is though, right? It's just doing the things that most people aren't willing to do. That's what makes you successful. Just look at what everyone else is doing. Just do the opposite thing of that. It will probably lead you to a good path. Yeah, because anyway, one more question, then we'll wrap up right. We're gonna fast forward all the way to the end of your life. It's your last day on planet Earth. You've achieved all the things you've wanted. Space goods to the moon, probably X number of other companies, got a beautiful family, people who care about your friends. You've gone to space. Whatever you've wanted to do. You're a.

Billionaire.

Yeah. Can't leave behind any of that shit though. To the people you love and care about. But you can leave them with some words, some advice, some wisdom. What would you tell.

Them? Very dramatic, but something I put as the fucking like slogan of the brand. I think nothing exists until you create. Which I think is like so cheesy. But that's the way I viewed everything and it made perfect sense with this. And I'm pretty good with slogans, so I like that one. So nothing exists until you Create it. And it's just. I think the general vibe is literally everything ever was created by someone just like you. Everything. Whether that's a relationship, a thing, a product, even a fucking building. Like even countries were effectively created by people that just went to a piece of land and made this thing. So that's probably what I'd say. And I try and remind myself of that every day. Whether it's like, just create shit. That's the way I try and the way I'm trying to live. So that's quite a dramatic ending, wasn't it? Because it's on my fucking phone.

Case. It shows what you're doing is, like.

Real. There's so many things I can say, but I think that's like A nice summary.

One YouTube. Instagram was the best place people to find.

You. Yeah, the midnight pod, probably on YouTube and all my Twitter and Instagram will put in the bio and so.

On. But he's linking himself in the bio. I actually did a podcast yesterday and the guy, he was like a business guy. He literally, like took the mic. It was like, right, so it's been a great. He like signed himself off. I was like. That was. I had to give him a round before. So if you want. If you want to say goodbye, that can me. May be the new thing. And sign us.

Out. Subscribe to the pod. As always. Cheers for watching. That's what I say at the end of mine and I push the mic away, but I can't do it here. No, I've been a pleasure as.

Always.

Sweet.

Cheers, Sam.