30 Years Building Businesses, Lessons and Advice - Steve Bolton | The Midnight Pod Episode 78

We broke two legal crowdfunding records. We got tenants and landlords kind of come together to fight against the government. I got to Tony Blair, former Prime Minister, his wife Cherie was our lawyer. I was all over, you know, television, newspapers, and I just said, me and the guy that did it. This is going to decimate the market. You're going to drive out loads of private landlords, rents are going to go through the roof. And that's exactly what's happened. So it's one of the reasons why there is a rental crisis in this country. Not just that, but loads of other things as well.

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Right, we're back with episode 72 of the Midnight Pod. I was just saying to our guests, I'm pretty fucking rusty and don't take.

This the wrong way, but you're definitely.

The oldest guest we've ever had. And I've done 72 episodes. And I guess that's testament to the fact that all my guests have been pretty inexperienced. Whereas this is Steve Bolton, an investor into Space Goods. And I guess more recently he's become a bit of a mentor of mine, which I massively appreciate. It's been very useful. You've got 25, 30 years plus experience in the entrepreneurial game. I don't. Most people watching this don't, so there's probably loads of shit we can dive into, I guess. I don't do research. I never plan these. It was really off the cuff, but going right back, you told me a bit of your background, how you got into everything. Obviously now you're running Bolt Angels, a bunch of other things, investment network. Got a bunch of cool businesses going on, including Jack. Just ask a question. I visited last week, the HQ in London as well. But where did it all start? I guess going back to maybe briefly. I like to start chronologically, kind of childhood, teenage years when the first entrepreneurial venture came about and from there, because I know you've had some highs and lows and that's probably where we can get the most value out of it.

Awesome, thanks for having me. I'm 55, so yeah, that's the oldest. That's cool. So, grew up in Bournemouth. Dad was a professional footballer, played for Bournemouth and Ipswich. Mum was crazy French hairdresser. And both quite entrepreneurial. When my dad finished playing football, he bought a rundown block of flats and a shop, High street shop for £4,000. So I kind of grew up in that entrepreneurial property kind of world, really. From the age of about 8, he gave me a little book to follow. Stocks and shares used to take me horse racing. I got into gambling at the age of about 10. I just like the concept of making money because I didn't grow up with any wealth really. So whenever I wanted something, I could never have it. So I used to have to come up with ways to make money and just did loads of like entrepreneurial things really from the age of about 8 onwards. Shit at school. Didn't get any qualifications. Hated it. Just hated being in a class with people that teach me stuff that had no relevance whatsoever. So as soon as I could leave school, I did. Did a computer course at college for three months. Dropped out again, bored. Didn't see the relevance of it. I wrote a computer program at the age of 13 to predict the outcome of horse races. And the first time I ever run it, it got first, second and third in correct order. So I thought I'd crack the system. Never worked again. Got into horse racing, got into gambling and my dad was very systematic in the way that he thought about things and taught me that so I've always had a, like a way of sort of decoding business life generally and just trying to figure stuff out in a very systematic way. Started teaching kids outdoor pursuits when I was 17. Loved it, did it for about six, seven years. Pay was crap, but I just loved the teaching, training, coaching, mentoring, seeing people develop, grow. And that's really been a passion of mine ever since. Started a business, got fed up basically working for other people. So it's about 24, a guy had started a business. I said let's go in a business together. I won't bore you with the details of the backstory because there's so many different businesses over so many years, but we started a business together and within eight years European market leader. On paper I was a millionaire. Early 30s and foot and mouth disease happened and September 11th terror attacks. There was like an economic correction and had to sell my house to avoid bankruptcy. That's back in 2001. So I had a newborn baby 2002, rented bungalow, hole in the roof, feeling a bit shit. Supposed to be the entrepreneur big I am and basically lost it all. Had to start all over again. Started a drop shipping business before drop shipping was a thing in 2002, so a long time ago. But found a product in America, training product, bought it for $7,000, sold them for £15,000. Had a commission based sales guy did that. Got my income back up to low six figures again. So that was good. Took the pressure off and then spent two years researching the property, try to figure out a system to achieve financial freedom. My parents had done quite well through property so I found and innovated a model of renting houses to young working professional people. In 2004, ended up buying 20 houses, creating 80 rooms. It was high end accommodation like a lot of people live now, but it wasn't really a thing back then. Accountant said why don't you franchise your business? So I did that in 2007 and it went on to become the fastest growing premium franchise in British history. Led to over £400 million worth of property being purchased. Created over seven and a half thousand rooms that are still active today. Exited that in 2017 but just before I did that I got into e commerce digital tech. Started an FBA franchise on Amazon and we launched over 100 franchise brands. Had 100 franchisees, so had 400 property franchisees, 100 e. Com franchisees. Met Tash, started Bolt Digital digital marketing agency in 2017 and then really pivoted from property to tech digital Ecom and then post Covid been an angel investor for like 15 years, entrepreneur for about 30 and just love investing in businesses, finding amazing entrepreneurs like yourself, helping them, supporting them with capital with mentoring, consultancy and just advice. And was it they say? 93% of venture capitalists have never started their own business. I've started and scaled more than 500. So I think that just gives us a unique perspective to be able to help people help entrepreneurs grow their business as well as raise money and figure out how to exit as well. There you go.

Quite the introduction. Just going back to the, the first one, I think you mentioned this to me. What was that business between 24 and 30 odd where you saw success for the first time? I guess. And then it went wrong.

Yeah. So it was a. Have you ever. If you. It's a ropes course, so high and low. Ropes course you've ever been to center parks, the climbing walls, go ape. You know it was basically, it was building those. A guy had built one locally and I was taking kids and adults to use it. It was amazing. I was like why aren't these everywhere? Because there are only a few and there were no safety regulations. So we went into business together and first thing we did was create, write some safety regulations, got them ratified by the government, set up a national association. So we were, you know, two young lads in their early 20s thinking we can fucking take on the world and create a new industry. And we did. Naivety sometimes can get you a long way and ignorance. So we managed to do it. And then within three years with the European market leaders, every center parks in Europe has got one of our courses that we built. Most royal Air Force bases have got them schools, outward bound centers. And then the last pandemic before COVID was foot and mouth disease. Most of your listeners are probably way too young to remember it but it basically meant you couldn't walk on land in the countryside for about six, nine months. And because we couldn't do that, we couldn't build anything. Build anything. You don't get paid. And we ran out of cash so we had to put the business into voluntary liquidation in 2002.

Did that throw you off? Did you ever think fuck this, I'm going to go back to.

No, never, never, never wanted to go back to being employed. I just love my freedom too much. I'm too neurodiverse to work for other people. So yeah, couldn't face that. So had this, you know, just came up with this idea for the drop shipping business. It's something I've been looking into before but Just made it work pretty quickly and within three months I was, you know, earning decent income again.

I feel like no one actually speaks about failures because obviously I started this pod because my previous business failed. I'm still probably not over it. And I think there's an epidemic of young entrepreneurs, particularly social media generation, making out that A, they've never failed, but B, if they have, they don't talk about it. They only talk about obviously the highlight reel. Do you think in your experience most founders and entrepreneurs that have eventually made it big have got a string of shit that didn't work previously?

Loads of them, loads of them. And anybody that tells you different is just full of shit. They really are right, because the, the world changes. Covid Brexit, people get divorced, you know, just so many problems. Just go into business with your eyes wide open. That is going to happen. Stuff is going to go wrong and it will not work out how you think it does. That's like a good way to go, I think a good way to go into business. And unless. And you need to have the resilience to be able to deal with those problems and challenges because they don't stop, you know, even in the age I'm at, still happens every day. Problems, unexpected things. We're just about to close a deal, one and a half million ready to go across into a company and because of some FCA issue we, it looked like the deal might not even happen. We managed to find, we managed to find a solution to get over it but you know, you just kind of all good, ready to go and something happens that you just, you don't see comes out of left field.

Yeah, I guess you can lose money but you don't lose experience. Right. And you can compound and pivot into the next thing. It seems like you've jumped between industries. Obviously that was a two minute description of a 30 year period, roughly. But was that just because your interests changed, the market changed? I mean I've always been in consumer D2C which is arguably now a terrible space to be, but it's the only thing I've ever really been interested in because I like creating products and brands and I was a creative first. That was my perspective. Like how can I monetize creating stuff? And selling products online seemed to fit that description. But you were building outdoor courses, then dropshipping stuff and then going to property. Where was the consistent, what was consistent in all that? Was it just interesting building stuff and just finding opportunities?

The common thread that's run through everything is mentoring, coaching, teaching, so even though I was in property and I did that for most of the things, like most entrepreneurs, you do it for money, Right. You do it for financial security, financial freedom, fast car, big house, lots of holidays, you know, all that kind of stuff. And that changes over time, I found, not just with me, but. But with loads of guys that I know that, you know, were really, really driven. But they get into their 30s, 40s, 50s, it's just your life perspective changes, maybe have kids, all that sort of stuff. So for me, that was the common thread and the common theme. So even though we did 400 million of property, actually my main thing was finding business partners, franchisees, and then mentoring them, coaching them, and building a whole organization to do that. And that's what we. That's why we became so successful, because we were just brilliant at helping, nurturing people and make them successful. So that's the common thread. I think the, you know, I've always known, I've got adhd, but was diagnosed about four months ago. And a common thread with people with ADHD is they like variety, they like different things, they like pattern recognition, they can kind of join the dots. And some of those industries I got out of a one, a business failed two because they were just very limited in the size. There's like, you know, we used to build ropes courses that lasted 25 years that had no recurring income. So you get a one off lump sum payment and then that was it. And how many people do, you know want a ropes course? Not that many. Right. So the very small market. So, yeah, I moved, pivoted property. I fell out with love with it. I took the government to the High Court because they brought in this tenant tax that I thought was going to be devastating for the market. It has been. You know, that's why rents are so high. I failed in. In the Judicial Review.

That was axe. The tenant tax.

Right, Ax the tenant tax. Yeah.

Not for profit.

Yeah.

What's the context? I've not heard of that. And I'm renting an expensive flat, so is that affecting me right now? How does that work?

Yeah, one of the reasons. So back in 2015, the government put out a new legislation, a new tax, basically, which taxed landlords with mortgages on turnover. So it was a. It's never been done anywhere before in the world. You know, you get taxed on turnover. So even though you may. Even though you might be making a loss, you're. The bigger your mortgage was, the more tax you wanted to pay. Sorry, the more tax you had to pay it was ridiculous. So, yeah, so set up a judicial review. We broke two legal crowdfunding records. We got tenants and landlords kind of come together to fight against the government. And ultimately I got to Tony Blair, former Prime minister. His wife Cherie was our lawyer. I was all over, you know, television, newspapers, and I just said, me and the guy that did it. This is going to decimate the market. You're going to drive out loads of private landlords, Rents are going to go through the roof. And that's exactly what's happened. So it's one of the reasons why there is a rental crisis in this country. Not just that, but loads of other things as well.

And that's still in place?

Still in place. They phased it in over four years. So it was like a ticking time bomb. Started in 2017, went over the next four years. It's now in full force. And so many people have literally exited the market or had to whack up their rents to just be able to afford the mortgage and the bills and everything else.

Yeah, crazy.

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Let's fucking go. So the property business, was that the biggest thing you founded?

Yeah, yeah.

And talk to me about that. What was the business model? How did you scale it?

And eventually so sort of two business models. First business model was me buying houses, doing them up to a very high standard and then Having a small team that would rent them out. So basically you know, buy to let, but done in a very different way to the most way most people do it. Really high quality rental accommodation, really good service and you know, just grew really well. Then I basically took that model that I bought 20 houses and systemized it and then started teaching friends, family, other people saw because the unique thing about the model was it was much cheaper way for people to live but a more profitable way for landlords to rent property. So it was kind of a win win. And then yeah, I systemized that, started teaching friends, family, then it became a kind of mentoring program. And then I launched as a franchise in 2007 and that basically meant people would pay us a fee upfront. It started off at 15 grand, it went up to £53,000. So that was the franchise fee and then they would pay 500 pound a month and 5% of turnover. So it was very good. And typically a 5 to 10 year contract. So it was a great model because it had long term recurring income and the promise to the franchisee was you can earn 50 to, you can basically replace your income. And yeah, that, that was a great business. We scaled it, we had it, it was valued at 10 million. We took a bit of money off the table in 2016 and then I exited from 2017 to 2020.

How do you scale a business like that? Because Obviously the entire pod is basically DTC run ads. CAC's too high right now. But that's the model, right? With the business like that, how are you scaling? How are you thinking about scaling? Is it just cold emails? I mean what even is the model to grow a business like that over a 10 year period as well?

Yeah, so over a 10 year period. So it evolved right, because of Facebook, iPhones only came out what 2007, stuff like that. So it was start off when we, when we started the marketing it was franchise shows, it was magazine ads, it was pr, a common theme through all my businesses and DTC as well. Right. It's personal brand, something I did very well, wrote a book in 2007. So I became a key person of influence of kind of figurehead and yeah, but the main routes for us were magazine, newspapers, tv, a little bit TV but franchise exhibition. So people that were looking for an alternative source of income, that's how we recruited them. The acquisition, the CPA was six grand per franchisees. So puts it into perspective. Yeah, six month sales cycle from lead to conversion. So you know it's a B2B sales process. Basically. And then it just kind of evolved over time where we did more digital, more social, but the business was really founded and built off the back of my personal brand and my reputation. And that's what we spent a lot of time and a lot of money. So we would spend internal team was about half a mil a year cost for the sales and marketing team and then we spent about half a million on, you know, ads and shows and that kind of stuff.

How do you build a personal brand? Pre Instagram, Tick tock, know what you're talking about.

Start with that always helps. Yeah, a lot of people try and build a personal brand, they've got no clue what they're talking about. So actually know what you're talking about. I think it's really important. And then, you know, different ways to do it. You do it on social media, you can do it on pr, you can. I think it just starts with a, an understanding of how valuable it is. Right. You just look at Mr. Beast now you look at Kardashians, you look at the influencers of today and the value that they're building is just immense. It has always been valuable, but I just think it's got more and more valuable to build a personal brand. I mean, Tash and I are in touch with Drock who's just left Gary Vee. He was working for Gary Vee for a long time, did his videography. So writing a book is great. Putting out social media, just having real credibility, piggybacking off other people. So partnerships, alliances, you know, we usually have celebrity ambassadors that back a lot of the brands and the businesses that we invest into, the founders that we invest into, we really encourage them to build their personal brand, get, you know, agents, PR companies, really good creative and social media at scale. So a load of different ways to do it.

But so coming to that period when you sold the business, you said that was 2016 and 17, was that like two separate parts of the acquisition? How'd that work? And then you completely left, then moved on to bolt stuff.

Yeah, so we did two things. So we did a partial exit. So basically we had 400 franchisees, 20 or five of them bought into the business on a valuation of 10 million. And then after a year later when I took the government to the high court and we lost and stuff like that. And also I'd been there, done it, I get bored after a while. So scaling a business from an idea to a team of 30 full time staff, 30 part timers and consultants and 400 franchisees, it was just like, same old, same old, you know, been there, done it. There's not that much more I could learn from it. So then I did a phase transition of three years from 2017 to 2020, where brought business partner, took over the CEO from me, built a stronger management team, board of directors, that kind of thing, and then I exited in 2020.

Do you think exiting and getting a big payday changes your view on the world? And did it change yours? Because I'm probably like most young guys in particular, I think the answer is a big payday and then all my problems in life will be solved. My mind will be at peace. Yeah, I can buy everything I've ever dreamed of. Is that a myth?

I don't think it's a myth. It happened, you know, you know, people it's happened to. I've. I've got, you know, I know people it's happened to. I've had some, you know, pretty decent paydays, but I think that it's high risk, right? It's kind of high risk. So the number of times I've started a business and thought, right, this is going to be the one that's going to give me a big payday and it hasn't, right? And then you just like, I've got to sell my family home because that one didn't work out, you know, and got to start again. Or you have a business partner that you think is doing a good job and running his side of the business. You know, at one point I had two companies and had a business partner running one of the businesses. I was running the other, and he completely it up and I didn't know he was, you know, bullshitting me, telling me lies, all that kind of thing. So. Yeah, so. So I think the safer way to go is to make sure your income exceeds your expenditure, right? And just focus on that as a priority. Don't spend more and more and more money. You know, I had a mentor once in 2002 when it all went tits up, and he, one of the things he recommended you do is like cost out your ideal lifestyle. So I did that and I had like on my vision board with things like holiday home in Florida and a Sunseeker and this and that and six cars. And he got me to cost it out and it was like, okay, to live that lifestyle, you need to earn 750 grand a year, right? And it's like, what is the cost of that? And do I actually really need that? Because you only drive one car at one time, right? You can rent A car when you want to, you can rent holiday homes or Airbnbs or whatever. So there's a thing that called the burden of ownership.

Right.

And so it's something. It's been like a big change point in my life where it's like, do I really need to own all these material things? Because they all come with a burden, you know? Tash and I rented a place in Ibiza, amazing apartment, did it for 12 months. At the end of the 12 months, we're like, we're really busy. You know, we love Ibiza. We're going every month. But if we'd have bought that, you know, we would add the buy costs, the sell costs, the taxes, the burden of ownership. We could just decide, great, 12 months, amazing. Use it as much as you like. Actually, we're done with it now. We'll let it go, you know, So I think a lot of people would be a lot happier in life if they spent less money, saved more focused on income and sure, build asset value and everything else. But it's. It's such a difficult path to go on. It really is. You know, especially when you take on external investment. You've got more mouse to feed, you've got more opinions, you've got, you know, and the further down that path you go and you get into VCs, you know, angels, I think, are great because they're a lot more forgiving and a lot more supportive. But as soon as you make that next step up, um, you know, we were talking at. Talking earlier about term sheets and stuff like that, and people joining board of directors and whatever, it just brings in a load of complexity, which is the antithesis of what most entrepreneurs want, which is freedom, flexibility, choice. The reason we're entrepreneurs is can we. We can be the masters or mistresses of our own destiny, right? And as soon as you start bringing in serious money, and then those people might want an exit, whereas you might actually say, you know, if you didn't have to please other investors, you might say, you know what, actually, I'm going to scale it back for a little bit. I'm going to run the business. But smaller scale still throw off a load of profit. So, you know, I'm not saying don't do it right, but it's, it's, it's not easy. It's high risk and it's a painful process and quite hard to get right. And you always hear all the success stories of people that have done it and done really well. But trust me, for everyone that's got it Right. There are thousands that have not, you know, that are suffering and struggling and won't get that big payday. So the safer way to do it is what I said, you know, just earn more than you spend, keep your costs as low as you can, try not to own too much stuff and have that burden of ownership. And if you do make it, great, you know, if you, if you do hit the big time, great. But I'm always really, really focused on risk and what can go wrong because I've just had so many things go wrong over the course.

But is that to say if you're an entrepreneur, you should not pursue it, or you should pursue building a profitable business and not wait for an end goal?

Yeah, I think the, you know, one end of the scale, you've got bootstrapping. At the other end of the scale, you've got these companies that go out and raise tens, hundreds of millions of pounds and everything in between. And I think the safest way is to kind of bootstrap, you know, number of pictures. I used to be on, like a Dragon's Den kind of panel for about 10 years, and we get all these pictures where people are like, got this idea and I need a million pound or half a million or 5 million. It's like, no, you don't. You can. What is this? The minimum viable product? How quickly can you get a product? You know, it's like, I've got a. Danny who started. Jack just asked a question, the mental health tech platform before that, and he still got it, but he's not that heavily involved in war paint, wall paint for men. Quite a, you know, prolific D2C brand, High street, all that kind of thing. And actually he thought men's makeup, I, I wear makeup. I'm. There's no brand that I can associate with a man to help me, you know, with, with the stuff I want to, I want to do. So he just found a supplier in China. You know, really low quality product, cool brand that you put on the outside, put it out there. Will people actually buy it? You know, could he actually sell it? Yes, he could. He got traction, started to get pr. He's like, okay, now I'll focus on the product and the ingredients. So the quicker you can get from an idea to testing it out in the real world, I think the better. You don't need to have a hundred grand from somebody or a million quid. Now if you want to build a tech platform or whatever, then, yeah, but there's other ways that you can do research. So. So once You've got something that's got traction then. Yeah, absolutely. You got choices, you know, number of the businesses we've invested into, we've got, you know, there's an example of a competitor in the mental health tech space. Unmind that. No revenue for three years. They've raised over 60 million to date, were last valued at 280 million, but are losing tens of millions of pounds a year.

Right?

So fine, if you get in at the right time and you as an investor and you ride that wave, great. If you're the founder of that business and you're doing well and your shares are worth a lot of money and stuff like that, it's cool. But businesses like that also crash and burn and lose people a shitload of money. So, you know, it's for, for you, pays your money, it takes your chance, right? It's for each person to make their own choice and their own decision. But as a 55 year old with gray hair and wrinkles, having tried to hit the big time a lot over 30 years, the amount of times that I have versus the amount of times that I haven't are disproportionate. And maybe I'm not a very good entrepreneur. Maybe there's somebody who tries it first and does really well. But yeah, it's not easy to get the big payday.

But if you're truly an entrepreneur, surely you want to go after that anyway. That's just in certain people's blood, right? Or are you saying there's a better way to do it and still pursue your own, you know, founding business interests?

I think it's, it is probably reflective of my age, right, because like if you're not married, you don't have a partner, you don't have kids, you don't have a mortgage, you know, that kind of stuff. If you're in a. I, you know, just generally investment advice is the younger you are, the higher risks you can take and you should take, right? Because the consequences are not so significant as soon as people move into that face that they have people relying on them. And I think, you know, a lot of people that listen to your potter are guys, right? And as soon as you move into that phase, if you do of having children, your whole perspective on life changes, right? The baby that you're holding in the R in your arms becomes the most important thing in the world. You don't understand the capacity you have to love another human being until you've held your own child, right? So that's quite a definitive change point in Your life, if it happens. And then you sort of think, okay, where are they going to? How are they going to go on holiday and clothes and what school are they going to go to? And it just completely changes your perspective on life. So if it's in your nature to go for it in a big way, balls out, try and hit the big time, you know, the younger you can do it when you've got less responsibility and if you do it up, then, you know, you've had ups. I've had fuck ups. If that happens, then it's not affecting that many other people. You just got to be resilient enough to know or to find out, you know, don't you ever know whether you can handle that? Right. The kind of stuff you went through when, when you, your business went to the wall, the previous business. It's hard, right? You got people going after you and death threats or whatever. It's like it can be horrible, right? So that, you know, so if you want to go for it in a big way, high risk, high reward generally is true. But it's not just high risk, high reward in a financial sense, it's an emotional sense, it's in a personal sense. So, yeah, just most people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. The statistics show that 19 out of 20 people are employed and 1 out of 20 is an entrepreneur. Why? Because it's hard. You work longer hours, you earn less money, there's more risk and it's more volatile. I'm not saying don't do it. It's amazing. I wouldn't do anything else. I could never be employed again.

Yeah.

You know, but it's.

You can't handle the heat. Don't get.

Yeah, you gotta be able to handle the heat. And if you hit the big time, awesome. But it's not easy putting everyone off.

I think. Listen to this.

Just trying to balance the. That you see on social media about people saying, easy, you know, you too can be a millionaire. Buy my own.

Exactly. It's all these gurus that made all their money selling the dream rather than doing what they're selling the dream about. And it's just, you know, certain YouTubers that I won't name and it's. Yeah. I think particularly in the UK and America and like on Money Money Twitter, everyone's familiar with that, that watches the pod, it's basically all cap. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. And sadly, a lot of young and naive people that do listen to this pod aren't really aware of that because they've never built anything real themselves and they're looking up to and admiring people that haven't either. And they're just preying on the minds of young, impressionable people.

Yeah. And I think also, you know, the thing I've learned over the years as well is that most entrepreneurs are neurodivergent. Right. We're adhd, we're autistic, we're bipolar, where you just have to be different to be able to take on the level of risk that's involved. Most normal people that are not neurodivergent, whatever normal is these days, but they have a better balance. If you look at an ADHD brain, for example, a brain scan and a non ADHD brain, there's a difference in the physiology and the biology of how they're made. And the difference is people with ADHD have different dopamine sensors. So they look for excitement and adventure and risk and they have therefore a higher propensity to take risks because their brains are made differently. Right. So it's just something to be aware of that, you know, Gary Vee talks about self awareness. The more you can understand who you are, how you are. If I'd have known I was, you know, properly and I understood ADHD 30 years ago, some of the biggest fuck ups that I've made in my life probably wouldn't have happened. Right. So it's just having that understanding about if you are neurodivergent or you think you might be, it's a good thing to kind of find out about it and understand what other strength it has. Some massive superpowers, you know, there's no way I could have created the businesses I have done and achieved. Like hyper focus is a massive strength of ADHD pattern recognition where like, you know, I'm literally the only person in the world who's ever franchised real estate investing, you know, it's just never been done before. So the to be able to make that, you know, buying renting property and doing it up is almost 15 franchises all combined in one. So you got to have a pretty unusual brain to be able to figure that kind of stuff out. So yeah, just for most entrepreneurs, be aware that you probably over index on the risk scale compared to what most other people consider is a normal sort of balanced view of the types of risks to take.

Yeah, I definitely feel that I can relate to that a lot. Bolt Angels then moving into that, obviously I didn't realize Bolt Digital was both of you as well. Obviously the Bolt brand makes sense. Now, which came first and why do you make the decision to get into starting an agency? I feel like every man on their dog has an agency now, particularly 16 year old kids that don't know what they're doing. Where did that come from? And then also the angel piece.

Sure. So when I had the property franchise, I was, you know, kind of coming to the end of my not patience, but just I was getting a bit bored. And then we also had a lot of franchisees that had done very well at a property, saying we want to do something else. Is there another business? If you got another business idea. And so I knew a couple of guys that were doing fba, doing very well. They started training other people. So and they came to me and they said, we've just done 2 million in revenue, we're training people how to do FBA. This was back in 2014, 2015 when it was kind of fairly new thing and the guy said, you know, can I pay you for a day of your time? Because we've done 2 million, there's only two of us and we just would like your advice. And we don't know if we need an MD or not. So anyway, I spent some time with them and said, you should, we could franchise this. So long story short, we started a franchise in that world. That's how Tash was going to join the property business at one point, but didn't but join the E comm business and became a mentor on that. So we scaled that pretty quickly. She became a mentor, did well with her own FBA brand and has just got a long history in kind of media and marketing. And then I'd just been given a couple of months before the sort of okay to do stuff outside of the property businesses that I had with two business partners. And we were sitting over, I can't remember if it's a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, but one of those two and I just said, you know, what you up to? I knew what she was up to and I said, you want to go into business together? So in terms of like the thought on my part of like, oh yeah, I want to go into digital marketing and you know, we can make an amazing business. It was actually the person and then she said to me afterwards, she was just like in her head saying, what's the worst that could happen? So we basically shook hands over a thing and agreed to start a digital marketing agency. So that's what we did. 2017, scaled it to a million decent level of profit within about two and a half, three years, learned a shitload about it. We took a brand, DTC brand called Absolute Collagen, from a thousand pound a month to a million pound a month. They were in the public domain, but they sort of did a partial exit on a valuation of 43 million within five years. And it was just a 55 year old lady with two daughters started it in their home in Wolverhampton. And Tash and the team did a lot of the marketing. They were the outsourced marketing department. I helped with, you know, finances and a little bit of business strategy and that kind of stuff. But yeah, that really just showed us that the potential of learning through. So having an agency I think can be great. There's some really big ones, really successful ones, but most people hate agencies and I do as well generally, because they bullshit, you know, they promise the earth they deliver very little. And we were very different in that we were an agency that were based on numbers and analytics and metrics and we understood unit economics and what were the things that really drove value in a business. So we came at it from a very, very different standpoint and had some amazing successes with our clients, but then pivoted that and saying, okay, well, you know, somebody within five years can build a business worth 43 million and we've done the majority of the marketing for them over that period. Shouldn't we be doing this ourselves? So that's what we decided to do. So we acquired a pet brand, Buddy and Lola Supplements for dogs. Healthy natural supplements for dogs. So we scaled that, but then we realized that the D2C bubble was kind of coming to an end and it was going to start getting really tough and it had a bit of a bounce through Covid. But DTC is tough, right? It's all the stuff you talk about on this pod about stock and, you know, Brexit and shipping and, you know, customer whims and needs changing and competition coming in and cat to LTV ratios and all those sorts of things. It's a, it's, you know, I think you've got an amazing business, which is why we invested into it. Right. Because the, you're amazing, the unit economics amazing, the product's amazing, but it's in a tough market. You know, you're kind of anybody trying to scale a D2C brand is, you know, kind of trying to sunbathe in the winter at the moment. It's, it's tough. It's tough out there.

Yeah, that's a lot harder than it was.

Yeah. So then we pivoted from. The original plan was Bolt Brands we were going to launch 10D to C brands and scale them and each one was going to be worth at least 10 mil. So build, you know, a D2C sort of family, if you like, a brands worth 100 million and then just pivoted a few years ago. We've been making angel investments ourselves and one of the ones that we made Triple Whale within two years went from pre seed at 5 million to a Series A, 171 million and then an even bigger Series B. And we invested into that. Didn't have to do any work, had no products, no customers, no shipping, nothing. It was just, you know, it's just investing into some really smart entrepreneurs that scaled a business and. And I've always, you know, I've always had a fascination with orders of magnitude, like the 10x principle, right? Add a zero. If you know how to make 10 grand, how do you make 100 grand? If you know how to make 100 grand, how do you make a million? If you know how to make a million, how do you make 10? And you go to 100? And that is, that concept has always kind of fascinated me. So one of the reasons I've evolved through different businesses and got into real estate is 90% of the millionaires in the world own real estate. However, I subsequently learned that 90% of the billionaires in the world do private equity or own a fund. So I've always liked doing things on a bigger scale. And so that's one of the reasons that I've invested into, you know, venture and angel investing and having a fund, but also because of my passion that goes back to my core. Coaching, mentoring, teaching, training, supporting, helping other people and sharing that wisdom and advice. And it's kind of like a bowling lane, right? Where you want to get a ten pin. To build and scale and sell a business is like getting a series of strikes in a bowling lane. And I see our job as Bolt Angels to be those buffers down the side that kids get where you can't go into the gutter, you can't fail because you've got those barriers. You're always going to get one or two down. You might get, you might get a strike or you might just not one pin down. But our job is to make sure that the business doesn't go into the gutter, that it does, you know, succeed and work and achieve the goals.

So where is Bolt Angels focusing now? If it was original, I didn't realize it was meant to be 10 DC brands, which I think, by the way, is fucking terrible. Idea because you be awake 27 hours a day and it'd be very stressful.

Well, I did. I do have a business partner that used to run LS Kickers, Speedo, massive brands for Pentland, the largest privately owned company in, in the UK. And he was the CEO and the CFO of about fucking 10 brands. So it wasn't my stupid idea. It was like both of us thinking, you're good at that. I'm good at the other side of it. We've got a marketing agency. Let's go for it. Yeah, yeah.

And where's Bolt Focus now then, if.

Not DTC Tech Impact tech. So impact Technology brands. So basically, you know, it's very unusual for, you know, you don't get a property that goes 100, goes up 100x. You don't get. Not many D2C brands will go 100x or a thousandx. Right. So if you look at some of the most valuable companies in the world, the Facebooks, the Twitters, the Apples, the Googles, there, right there. It's. It's the ones that technology can scale massively. But it's not easy, right? It changes all the time. It's very, very competitive. So oversized outcomes can happen in technology. They have to make a difference to the people, to people in the planet, right? So they've got to be a force for good. I would never invest into a widget factory or, you know, nothing against people that work in widget factories, but it's just not my thing. They've got to impact people in a really big way. So Jack is about mental health and, and they got to be. Our whole investment thesis in 2022 was that the world and the economy in the US and America and the UK is going to go through an economic contraction, right? So we launched in. We prepped for this quite a long time. We launched in September 2022, one week before the mini budget. We didn't know the mini budget was going to happen, but you look at what's happened since. Interest rates have gone from 0.1% to 5.25%. Cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine with energy prices going up. All of these things were going to lead to a recession. We've had in the last month, 5% falls, the biggest falls in residential real estate values since financial crisis. So we kind of predicted that. We didn't know exactly when, but from 2022, late 22 to 2025, we're going to go into a significant recession. Correction in web three stocks, shares, property and it's all coming to pass. So we've specifically chosen impact technology in businesses that are going to thrive in those circumstances. So mental health is going to get worse in an economic crisis than it has done. Right. And post Covid. So the need for Jack is really, really important. And then we've got another investment that's riding the wave of AI. It's the Airbnb of cloud computing, matching unused service space with people that want that demand for video processing for AI, all of that kind of thing. So the need for compute power is massive. So Kudo Ventures has built a platform, spent about 10 million quid, spent five years building this platform and we invested just when the AI explosion came. But it reduces CO2 emissions by 70% so it's the real force for good in the world. So for us, yeah, it's about impact tech on businesses that can scale and be worth at least 20 times the the amount that we invested into.

And you raised that just off high net worths in terms of is it a fund or how's it structured?

It's a syndicate. So basically we put our own cash into every investment, but it's also a. We have other partners, what we call capital partners that come in, they don't have to put in any time, but they can invest their money with us. It's eis. Most of them are eis, so it's very tax efficient and they can have the kudos of being a fund owner or somebody involved in essentially it's a syndicate rather than a fund. So that's our core investment strategy, but we also have a secondary one which is providing debt finance for D2C e.com brands. So a bit like you've done, we do with Buddy and Lola, the sort of Wayfliers, the Shopify, the Amazon, we also provide that kind of finance. So sometimes we'll invest in equity into DCC brands, but also where there's a debt finance, because then that as a syndicate, we give our investors the opportunity to make capital gains in a very tax efficient manner, but also to earn income on the way through because a lot of these revenue based finance businesses are charging 12%, 15%, 20%, 25%. And actually we can try and bring that cost of capital down to sort of below 12%, which is what we try and do. So it's good for the investor and it's good for the D2C brand.

Yeah, definitely. Was I the last DTC brand you're going to touch then for a while.

Was that your one? Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah, yeah. From an Xc point of view?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Do you think there's a consistent theme in terms of investing? Is it the business or the founder or both? And which one first do you think?

For me, timing first. So what, what is the cycle? I think it's, it's probably one of the most under undervalued but in most important aspects of, you know, we talk about it right with, with Space Goods. Imagine if you just started space goods in 2014, 20, when Instagram Facebook ads were just starting to get traction. D2C was just starting to become a thing. If I'd have started my, you know, my property business, I was early in doing it, so it worked, but it was hard. Nobody knew what the fuck I was talking about. I would go to state and letting age. I'm going to rent out rooms to a really high standard, provide all the facilities cleaner, this, that and the other. And they're like, why do you want to do that? You want to do student letting mate? And these are all people that have been in the industry for a long time. So I got into that early and was able to ride the wave. So I think timing is for me really, really important. And knowing where you're at in that cycle and just understanding that there is a cycle and it will be. You'll be too early, you'll be in the middle or you'll be too late. So choosing that timing is really important then it's about people. I would always prefer to invest in a great team and a good business rather than a good team and a great business, because a great team can make a good business great. Because so much of business about execution, so many people think it's about the fucking idea. You know, I've got a pitch, I've got a really good idea for this or that or the, you know, we get 20, 30, 40 decks a week, you know, with great ideas. It's like, what is your ability to execute? You know, one of the reasons we invested in Space Goods is because you've got a track record of execution. Okay, didn't work out as you wanted it to, but to do what you did with your previous business at the age you were at is fucking remarkable, phenomenal. And so that's what it was. It's like timing. Okay, timing, not brilliant, but the unit economics of your business. So that's a third piece. Is the unit economics, CAC to LTV ratio and a D2C sense, fundamentally important. The number of people that have come up to me and Tash before, you know, I always remember A guy with tea bag selling tea bags. D to C, right? AOV of three pound 95, you know, LTV of £12 60, you know, CPA of, like, 25 quid. It's like, mate, seriously, do you realize how long it's going to take you? You know, and yes, you could do bundling and all that sort of stuff, but, yeah, so, so, so many things, but timing, fundamentally important. The team, the unit, economics, and then the business, the product. But that can evolve and adapt. Right? So I think that's a. A less important thing. But it is, you know, it still is fundamentally important. You've got a. With space goods, you've got a differentiated product. You know, it tastes. Tastes good. It's going up against coffee. It's, you know, you got the mushroom angle and that's going to grow and explode. And I think you're ahead of your time with that. Right. And there is going to kind of. You keep nurturing that and developing that. I think there will come a time where that will hit the big time and you will be really, really well positioned for that in the future.

Yeah, definitely. So I guess good timing with mushrooms is bad time with D2C. Yeah. DTC is hard. A lot of my mates that are in D2C are also finding it harder than it used to be. I think it's probably better to start a business in a hard time rather than start in a good time and then think everything's easy. Right. I mean, I definitely worked less hard a few years ago and it was definitely easier to print money from a laptop.

Yeah.

It's just not like that anymore, which is why I think there's a lot of people, just a lot of people selling courses and just kind of this way. There's 20 people running an SMA agency on Twitter for every brand owner, like, if not more. Because, yeah, I think starting a brand is really hard.

Yeah, but it is. But if you're doing it right, it's hard to get out of it. So my top tip would be build your personal brand at the same time, right? Because your personal brand will stay with you forever, right? And you build an audience and you build a following and you build traction from a personal brand point of view.

So I've got the podcast.

Exactly, mate. Yeah. And it makes money, right? And so building that personal brand alongside it, and even if it crashes and burns and whatever, you know, documenting the journey like you do is such a smart thing to do because the brand might fail, Right. But people will just be like, well, you gave it A shot. Right. And, you know, halls, bar, this is what happened. And that will. Will stay with you as long as you can kind of do that congruently and ethically and you're not, you know, trying to rip people off and it, you know. Yeah, it just has massive value that will stay with you for a long time. Plus you get all the skills, the learning, the content, all that, the people that you're going to kind of meet through doing it. So. And you can take that with you. Whereas the business might go to shit, but you're still you. And you built a personal brand, an audience and a following and skills around that.

Yeah, that would be a difficult episode of the business went to shit. And I had to say that I'd failed. I think that's part of the reason I put stuff on the Internet is to put the pressure of being public about something. And there's definitely an element of benefit to that. Yeah, it is pressure, but I think I'm kind of used to that now.

Yeah. And it doesn't always work out. Right. It's kind of. I. I started telling my story about the business failing and people were like, oh, you shouldn't talk about failure. You know, I'm doing this back in, like in 2004. You shouldn't talk about failure. It's like, why not? It's just a normal part of life, you know. Do you ever get on a bike and just like, start doing wheelies? No. You fall off and scrape your knees. You start with stabilizers and goes wrong. And the more people understand that's just a normal part of, you know, we accept it in every other part of life. And it's one of the differences, I think, between the UK and the us. I got a lot of, you know, very successful friends in the us. And I remember going over there, my sister lucked out when she was 18. She got a job as a nanny with a family of billionaires. And we got to know them and see how they lived their life. And we're still, you know, still good friends with them today. But I just remember going over to the States and hearing, you know, positive stuff on the radio entrepreneur channels and Tony Robbins and people like that. And it's just, they celebrate, you know, failure. They accept it as part. Even the rules and regulations. If you have a business in the US that fails, it's so much easier to restart than it is in the uk, you know, So I just think there's a. Certainly a culture in this country of people wanting you to fail or waiting for you to slip up and not going to get all political and talk about what Russell Brand's going through at the moment and that kind of stuff.

Right.

But it's just like there are media, politicians, big corporations that, you know, want people to up. So I'm pretty open about talking about it and I think if anybody is worried about building their personal brand because their business might up, don't worry about it. It's just normal and it's what happens. As long as you're not stealing, lying, cheating, you know, doing it without integrity, then put it out there.

Yeah, definitely, definitely think there's more of a culture of that. It's very true about the UK Tall Poppy syndrome, innit? Everyone getting cancelled. Lucy here wrote a document and you pulled out something interesting that you take three months holiday every year.

I did Before COVID Yeah, before COVID.

Before COVID So is that because you got busy post Covid or.

No, I just wasn't allowed to travel, Right.

I was in lockdown, traveling to somewhere else. We weren't just taking time off work.

Yeah, but the COVID had a big impact on all of my businesses, as it did for most people, right. For a period of time. Didn't last massively, but no. I heard a guy on stage, billionaire, went to a conference. This billionaire spoke and he said, I take one week's holiday every month and I'm just like, I was sitting in the audience working fucking 100 hours a week in my business at the time, or two businesses at the time. I'm like, you can't, it's not allowed, you know, it's just impossible to do. How can you be successful in business and take a week off every month? So Anyway, that was 2002. I set some goals that year after my business failed and one of them was take three months holiday every year. Another one was only work with people I like and trust. So I set these kind of core guiding principles and it took me two years, but I did it for the first time in 2004. And I'm not saying I took three months holiday and just sat on a beach and didn't do anything. I, I actually, I was, took my laptop with me, I had my phone. But changing the environment, traveling, being in different places around the world, then doing it with family, you know, with my kids and stuff like that as they were growing up, I just found I actually achieved a shitload more because most people can relate to it, right. You go on holiday, a different environment, bit of a break. I can't go on holiday for more than three or four days without my brain catching up with me and wanting to do work. Right. I love it and I enjoy it and stuff like that. So I would typically go away, maybe wake up 5, 6 in the morning, work through to 11, sort of 12, get stuff done, and then just go off traveling or, you know, explore, go fishing, whatever it might be. And I found I was more productive and built a load of successful businesses. So I did that three months holiday every year from 2004 through to 2020, stopped during it for Covid, and then we took this place in Ibiza and went over there every month. So I just find I'm, you know, different. There's a great online thing by John demartini called the Values factor or the Values Effect. I don't know if you've ever done it, but it's 13 questions. And you just answer these questions and it spits out what your core values are. Because most people think it's shit like honesty and trust and, you know, love and those sorts of things and it might come into it. But for me, it was entrepreneurship, business. I love business. One of my values. Because the true test of your values, what do you spend your time on, what you spend your money on, and what you talk about most of the time or think about most of the time, that's really what you value. The core essence of what you value are those things. So for me, it's entrepreneurship, travel, kids, family, my relationship, important relationships in my life, the sea, being on boats. Right. So you wouldn't sort of say how the can boats be a value? Well, it's where I spend a lot of my time. So I think about what I enjoy doing. Travel, I love doing it. So the more you do those things that are in line with your values, the happy you are, the more fulfilled you are, the more productive productive you are. You know, you've talked on one of your previous podcasts about happiness. I don't think happiness should be the goal for people. I agree with you. It's fulfillment, right? Because we can't be happy all the time. You don't have, you know, you don't have night without day, you know, black without white, up without down. You know, you've got to have that variety of overcoming challenges, right? Doing a marathon is not fun, Right. During the last five miles, six miles of a marathon, I didn't find them enjoyable, but I was fulfilled after I'd done it because I'd achieved something, you know, So I think understanding what those values are, for me, it's travel, it might not be for other people. Right. So taking that time off on holiday, it worked for me, but I'm me. Right. You've got to find what your thing is that I remember you saying when you're in Bali, that was one of the happiest times. And you know, when you're over there and the business was going well and stuff like that. Right. So I think finding out what your values are and then trying to align that as much as possible to what you do and, and then also who you do it with, people that have got similar values to you, you know, I'd encourage anybody in a thinking about a relationship or in a relationship, this might be dangerous advice. But if you do that values exercise and so it's John demartini and it's called the values effect or the values Factor. It's a book, It's a free online 13 question. Little diagnostic takes about 15 minutes. That's honestly one of the most valuable things you can do because it just basically lays out a blueprint of if I do those things, I am going to be more fulfilled and likely to be more successful. And how can I craft my life around doing that more? Right. In 2002, when I decided I don't, I only want to work with people I like and trust, well, I had some customers that were, you know, not people that I particularly enjoyed. I couldn't get rid of them because they were paying the bills. But over a period of time, I did that more and more and more. And then, yeah, the holiday thing for me was a game changer. So. And it doesn't have to be going to, you know, the Seychelles for a ten grand holiday. It can be, you know, getting in a campervan and going down the coast for a week or just, you know, I've done this before. I've literally in the same town, booked a weekend in a hotel a mile away from where I live.

Right.

Just to change the environment and get out of my space for a period of time.

Yeah.

You know, so it doesn't have to be on a big scale, but find out what your values are and try and live more in line with them.

Yeah, it's very true. I need to do that. I'm gonna do that test after this for sure. So what's next? Been doing this stuff a while.

Yep.

Are you focused on Bolt Angels? Is there goals after that? Are you more chill in life right now? Just enjoying your time? What's the deal?

Big vision, positively impact a billion people. So big goal. But I'm very fortunate to know and work with Mo Gat from Scary Smart and the ex Google guy. We brought him in, met him through a mutual friend. Danny met him in Jack. He loved Jack. As a mental health tech platform, he's got a goal of making a billion people happy. And so he's at 51 million, I think, or 52 million, something like that. So when you're around people with those really big goals and I genuinely think Jack has the potential to change the world and make it a much better place in the world of mental health and kudo. So for me, it's just doing more of that, supporting the companies that we're invested into, supporting entrepreneurs like yourself to just achieve their, you know, full potential, realize their full potential, and through that, you know, just make a big positive impact in the world. And I think I've stopped wanting to do that myself. Somebody said to me once that you can achieve anything you want in the world or in your life as long as you're willing to give other people the credit. Okay. So for me, I'm quite happy. One of my favorite books is called the Trillion Dollar Coach. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. So it's a. Can't even remember the guy's name. Bill Campbell I think it was. But it's basically the book was written for him as a gift after he died because he mentored Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, the founders of Google. It was actually Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, and a few other guys that got together and said, this guy has made such an incredible difference to all of our businesses and all of our lives. We should write a book in his honor distilling the principle. So one of my favorite books of all time. Recommend it to anybody called the Trillion Dollar Coach. And yeah, so for me, it's about magnifying the positive impact that I can make on the world. That's why I do what I do. It's what gets me out of bed every day. As long as I do that in line with my values. Through the fund and Bolt Angels, we're making a difference to the investee companies, but also the shareholders that we've got in the fund. Right. I've kind of not done it where I own 100 of it and I'm never going to let anybody else in. We've kind of democratized fund ownership by people can invest in the company at 25 grand upwards. You know, typically we recommend 25, 50, 100 grand, but that puts it brings them on the inside We've got our AGM tomorrow. I'm just really looking forward to, this is what we did in the first 12 months, this is what we're going to do next 12 months and sharing those opportunities and insight and learning and community with more people, you know, did it before my franchise business, we had over 400 franchisees and I got massive satisfaction from changing people's lives through the business that we had. So bolt Angels for me make a lot of people a decent amount of money as you know, our angel investors, our capital partners, but really make a massive difference on the brands and the businesses that we invest into and help them, help them achieve their full potential. So doing that alongside boating, fishing, you know, being a good dad to my four kids, the best that I can be, being a good partner, being a good friend, you know, just looking back on my life on my deathbed thinking, yeah, that was that. He did pretty well.

Nice, nice. Final question, I ask it to everyone. It's a bit, it's a bit typical at this point, but three bits of advice to your 18 year old self.

Upon reflection, to my 18 year old self or 18 other gen to mind. Be more, be more self aware. So have more self awareness. So if I'd have spent more time trying to really understand how my brain worked, how I thought, what my strengths, weaknesses were, all of that sort of stuff. So yeah, definitely self awareness for me would be number one. Number two is don't underestimate what you can achieve. Because if I, if I think now what I've achieved, I would have thought no fucking way when I was 18. I think there's an old saying that we tend to underestimate, we tend to overestimate what we can achieve in the short term and underestimate what we can achieve in the long term. So when you get 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, so believe in yourself more, you just, and this is not just true for me, it's true for everybody. We're capable of way more than I think we think we are.

And.

And just realize that life is a fucking roller coaster that you might think that and you might want it to be a straight up path to success that goes from bottom left to top right. It doesn't, it's a jiggly mess that goes up and down and backwards and sideways and forwards and you know, so just build your, build resilience through these challenges that, that come. You know, don't expect things to be an easy ride because they won't and really focus on building your resilience and see every problem as an opportunity. Don't just expect you're going to get to a place in life where there are no problems. There will always be problems. And the best piece of advice I try and give my kids is learn to love problem. Learn to love solving problems. I think that's one of the best pieces of advice I can give people is learn to love solving problems. Don't just think oh it's a fucking problem and be down about it. Try and flip the psychology.

Yeah, that's a good one. I like that. That's the point. With some experience behind it. I think unlike a lot of our guests who probably say the same stuff, it's been a pleasure always, mate. Hopefully my listeners learned a lot. I certainly did. As always subscribe to the pod. We're back on weekly episodes now and we'll see in the next one. Cheers for watching PE. Sam.