£50m Per Year Combined - Brand Owners Discuss Growth/Tactics in 2023 - Q+A | The Midnight Pod Ep 56
A recorded group episode of The Midnight Pod (Ep.56) with Matthew Kelly, Jack Consalvi, Adam Reed and Jordan Hill answering audience questions about building and scaling e-commerce brands in 2023. The conversation mixes tactical advice (ad budgets, customer service, fulfillment, supplier sourcing, cash buffers, hiring and team structure, CRO vs branding) with higher‑level reflections on founder mindset, work–life balance, using AI for operations, and growth paths from 0→1→10M.
Chapters
Foreign.
Episode, arguably the highest revenue per square footage table in the Indonesian region. Got Jordan Hill, Jack and Salvi and Adam Reed. Some big names. Big, big names. Pod God, as he's more recently called, wanted to do a group episode because firstly, why the not. But secondly, we've got a load of questions from the audience and I feel like answering Q&As is probably more valuable than just people shitting their life story for two and a half hours, which you haven't done yet, but the other two now have. And I feel really bad because the episode we did with you was arguably the worst quality episode I've ever filmed. So I feel bad that that was your. Your first foray into the midnight Pod and it looked like shit. So hopefully this episode sounds and looks better because we're in the beautiful Lighthouse Studios in Karabakan Changu area. Is this Koroba Kalachangi? I don't know, but we're probably gonna wing it a bit. We got loads of questions. Where do I want to start? So many questions.
Where they all come from? Twitter, Insta.
Twitter and Instagram both. I should have chosen where we'll start. We'll start with this. What's the realistic amount of money these days to start building a new econ brand?
A brand or a store?
Well, I'll let you answer that and give context because they are different things.
But I think, I mean, now, no idea for a store, but I think when we started, you could easily have done it with 50 quid under quid. If you're doing like the five day, $5 a day ad set method, I don't know if it would be the same now.
I guess maybe a better way of asking that question is how do you start with basically no money and is it realistic to do so? And if you want, if your vision is to build a brand, which I think is what he's saying, can you start with like no money to go around? Yeah, because my view would be drop ship and then build a brand. But you can probably kind of do both at the same time.
You probably can do both. Yeah. I think if you're gonna drop ship and build a brand, you're gonna do it both on the same URL. It's gonna cause issues. I think you're better off drop shipping for the cash flow. Using the cash flow to invest into the brand. Yeah, you can do at the same time. But I also think there's a lot of people now professing about TikTok Organic. I don't know if it's generating sales because most people are sharing sessions, screenshots these days. Yeah, if it's generating sales then you can do that and you can basically bootstrap from zero, no ad spend. But then you also have, you know, you got to pay for your product, your stock. If you're building a brand, you don't really want to be drop shipping thing.
Everyone's always looking for like the following fastest route though and like going for the lowest. Like everyone wants a low entry point into business and you got to realize that the competition is the highest there. So the more money you have, the quicker you'll get there. And if you start with no money, it's just going to be a slower journey, which is arguably like, you know, it's not as you're going to get quick results.
Yeah, I feel like you just haven't actually got any cash. You're probably going to be low on like the skill as well because obviously you're not going to have done it in the past. So my thing would probably be not start an agency but just maybe just like run through courses and try and actually build up the skills because that's what's gonna be the second most need in demand thing. Like when you do start a business.
Yeah, true. Because you're gonna be doing everything because it's all well and good, saying, oh well, you can run organic on Tick tock, but you also have to get your website looking good, you have to design the logo, you have to do this, you have to do that.
Because if you don't have any cash, you're not gonna have any money to get an agency and to do your paid ads. Like you're probably best actually spending the time to begin with like just building up your skills and then yeah, like just basic stuff like setting up a Shopify theme so you're not having to pay for that. That's going to save you cash. Your money will go go further.
But also I think when you get around to hiring people, it's good to know what you're hiring them to do. Like you need to know the task yourself before you can teach someone to do it. So I think what you're saying makes sense.
And e comms like just such a trendy buzzword at the moment. I think if you have no money and you're looking to make money, it's better to learn a skill and then outsource that skill to other people. I think there's a very big window of opportunity for younger people teaching older people how to do shit that's why the SMMA blew up like you know, three years ago and the kind of new wave, not that it hasn't been said enough on Twitter, but Chat GBT I can see is like, yeah, that's the new SMMA. Like young guys, fucking 14 year olds saying to some 50 year old who runs a business like, yeah, how can you implement this to take away some of the labor and decrease your costs.
Yeah, been rolling two minutes and chat GPT's already been there.
Keep speaking because I'm not, I'm not texting someone, I'm highlighting the question. So I know which ones we're actually going to use because they've got about 200 of them.
Do you actually use it already in your business?
No, I'm trying to find ways I can, but I don't, I don't, you know, not yet.
I'm using it but mainly just, well, only for job postings. Nothing other than that. Yeah, it doesn't save too much time.
But what do you reckon the jobs that are going to go first? Because the main thing that everyone's saying is copywriters. But I think that probably like I actually saw a thing on Instagram, there's the first ever AI lawyer is defending somebody in court in America for a parking ticket. So I actually think it's probably going to be first copywriters because chat is basically a text based thing. But then also I think that. And people are using it already but drafting up like legal documents, privacy policies, like that kind of stuff. And then I think coding is a little bit different because you have to like run code and it has to work. But I think the next thing is going to be like assisting developers in.
I was going to ask you that. Could you imagine, could you imagine using it in your agency to like. Because I actually saw a tweet, I can't remember who it's from. He said write me a code compatible with X that does a green flash. Yeah, you see that?
So like, yeah, so I can see it. I think longer term it's because there's. Even with AI there's a lot of like design software out now like Dall E, which I got access to and there's another one like Mid Journey or something. I think probably it's going to be Figma designs are going to go first like properly or like assist with designers to create layouts. That's then going to then get put into chat to or you know, an AI software to be developed. I think the hardest thing to overcome is going to Be kind of what you do like with your business when it goes to, you know, not just doing layouts and very simple prompts and creating simple features on a website. It's going to be a lot more custom stuff. Like really custom jobs where you'll spend that long trying to program chat to do it. It'll definitely come.
In 10 years, it'll come. I mean, we tried to build AI ourselves to replicate what we do and so far we got close. But not with Dall E. Built our own, our own model.
Okay.
But the data set we need, we needed was massively massive anyway. But the, the output is not quite there. Well, it's not how I want it to be. It's very clearly. Yeah, it's something, it looks like something you put into Photoshop and applied some range of different filters or actions. It's like, I wouldn't buy that. And also for us, like if you're doing custom stuff, you cannot get away from the fact you send it to your customer that they're going to notice something. They're going to want that mole on the back of their dog's head to be in the photo or something. And it's like, okay, well still, you still need a human.
It's going to go one of two ways. Like human designers might become more in. Not in demand, but more expensive.
This is going to be less of.
Them and there's not going to be as many like low cost, low ball like designers because you can just do it with AI. But I think probably, yeah, it might become more expensive to hire a human.
Designer where there's merit. What I'm waiting for is the. And I might even exist, I don't know, but like the zapier, Zapier integration with Gorgeous or something. So that. Because I'm working really hard on like first response times at the moment, I think customer service, just such a big arm of the business that, you know, represents you. And if you're against customers in sub half an hour, like first response time, then that's amazing. And if you can do that with AI just generating responses, because a lot of shit is like, yes, no answers, people ask dumb questions and it's easy for AI to generate that response and make the customer feel like you're there like straight away. So the moment you can do that and like when your actual customer support representatives are offline, if AI can fill that space in and you always keep like. I mean it won't even be sub half hour, it'd be like sub two minutes, you know, because It'd be awkward straight away.
Can God just not do something similar to that? That now?
Yeah, to be fair, maybe with some. But I don't think to the level.
That is like, it's more like automated responses. You set like you set the parameters of.
And there's so many condition, like there's so many questions. I don't think you could physically have all the parameters to answer every single question, but AI could because it's just input output, you know?
Yeah, yeah, feed it.
I want to bring it back to the Q and A. All right. Before we spend.
Go on, let's go.
Also watch that mic thing. You need to tilt it up a little bit more on the mic. God. Quick fire question to fucking switch things up. It has to be like a 10 second answer. So I want to give people some context. How much did you spend on ads in the first month that you ever run ads?
First month I ever run ads, drop.
200 and then compared to your biggest month, 20, whatever.
Probably like 200 quid. 300 quid.
I'm gonna.
I have no idea. This is like five, six years ago.
Yeah, same. Literally ten pound a day.
Yeah.
It's probably resized.
Yeah.
How about you?
50 pound a day.
That's a big dog. Jeez, you come for money or what? Yeah, I guess it differs. Do you run ads?
No. I did when I was running a wix agency but it was during COVID and I think I put like 500 quid on and I got like 800 leads back. But it's because there's such a big search volume for like website designers at the time of COVID because everyone wanted to do e common like move online. So that's pretty good. But you can't do that now.
And what's the most you've ever spent in a down ads in a day? Rough figure to illustrate the comparison.
In a day.
Yeah. So 100 grand and 900 grand.
All right. Like between 100 and 200K.
Yeah. How about you?
Five figures?
Not six, but yeah, same.
Do I get a medal for winning or.
You've definitely spent the most. I reckon I've topped like 30k.
Oh. Why would Neon Beach?
Probably a Black Friday surely spent more than that.
No. Yes. I suppose you had to turn your ads off.
Yeah, no idea. Right. There's a lot of shit questions. There's most of some pretty good ones. I don't know if these are going to be remotely in order, how to spot trends, slash new emerging markets. And I guess he's talking about E Comm. I feel you're gonna have to sell out a lot of this. Well you worked a lot of ecom brands though, so you have insight.
Provide the humor mate.
But just quickly like my view on trends, I think it's the whole drop shipping mindset. Jump on a trend instead of build something you want to build. Jamie. Unless I'm just retarded.
No again. Well, I think maybe you might agree.
With this but I think there's a balance in there. So you want to get a trend also some of that you can actually.
It depends what space you're in. I think if you spoke to a few people that maybe are in fashion, obviously it relies on trend forecasting and whatnot. I don't know if there's such a thing as a dropshipping winning product trend forecaster but if there is, maybe go have a look at that. But we just started doing some interior design, home decor trend forecasting to try to figure out where we can expand next for our product.
But do you think reports are useful? Because I know you mentioned the other day that you bought a report on.
Something that marketing trend. I've not read it yet. Yeah, it was 163 pages and yeah, I'm not sure if it'll be useful.
But yeah, I remember, I remember the days like just looking at Google trends, like going on those drop shipping websites and just seeing all that shit. But like the funny enough the thing that I ended up doing wasn't, didn't have anything to do with that. And I think it comes down to one, either having first movers advantage and two, being the best at what you do. And if you can come in to something that already exists and be the best in branding, have the best product because you just upgrade what already exists and make that your own, then you have like a clear path of success really. But like if you're not the first and it's shit like you're gonna get a very small slice of a big pie, it's gonna be a lot of competition, it's only gonna get harder. CPAs are gonna increase and you're eventually gonna like self destruct, you know. Yeah, it's just not, it's not gonna go well unless you improve. Yeah, yeah.
You don't necessarily need to know how to spot trends. You can look at what's working and improve. One element of that thing.
Plugging again here. I actually said there's three ways to start a brand. I think it's so true. You either solve a problem, that's one way of looking at it, which may or may not have been solved already, but in that case, probably not solved already. You make something better. So you can always win by just going into a crowded market, making it better. It's just hard to make it better. Or you apply a new angle to something. For example, instead of sportswear, you've now got brands like Tala doing vegan sportswear, like ethically made sportswear.
It doesn't even need to be.
They've gone into a massively crowded market and supplied a new niche, which arguably.
Plays on the trending angle of veganism.
Because I think so many people say everything's crowded. Well, it is. Everything's crowded.
It's not a bad thing.
But it doesn't need to apply that thinking to it.
If you look at what Greta did with the fifth watches, it's. It's a fucking watch at the end of the day. Yeah, but did they release five watches on the fifth?
That was their angle.
This is how we're gonna make this different. It's not that the watch is a watch, can't really change it, but the way they marketed it and the brand was what they changed and it worked really well.
Did you, when you started your business, I know yours is, but did you come up with the idea from like an area of passion, or was you specifically looking for somewhere you think there's an open market where you can make some money? Because at the minute, obviously I'm on about starting a new brand. Like, we've been discussing it this holiday, but, like, mine's purely passion and you know, that means I'll. For the long term, I'll enjoy it even if it's not super profitable and doesn't make a lot of money. So was yours, like, I'm trying to find somewhere I can make a lot of money, or was it like, I'm really interested in this area and just wanted to create something?
It's a good question. Not passion, for sure, I think.
I mean, if you like dogs.
I like dog spots, you know.
All right.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We all like dogs.
Yeah, but you've got a pet print brand. That's what I mean.
Yeah, but I didn't start because, like, your dog, the number one thing in.
My life, said, dad, make a renaissance version of it. Yeah, yeah.
Did you get your dog before the brand or not after?
In fact, I did a video shoot.
You bought him as an in house model?
I nearly did. I was going to set him up on Instagram and I thought, n. I'm not putting.
I Can do that with emphasis.
No, I did a video shoot and with this firm in Manchester, they're really good and they were like, oh, bring your dog. I was like, I don't have dog. Like, what the. Like you don't have a dog and you're running this brand? That's a bit weird. I was like, is it?
I don't think it's weird. No, it's definitely better.
But yeah, to answer the question, it was more money because I wanted to fund like lifestyle and be free and all that stuff.
So.
So my dad, like this is funny. Quick story. So he actually was selling fishing bait into stores and he became loves maggots. No, it was like he's like boilies and stuff like that. And he was basically drop shipping from, I think it's like Hungary or something, not touching the product and then shipping it into stores. And I think he was doing the most units out of any like fishing brand in the UK because it was on such volume into like high street stores. Never been fishing in his life. I literally. We had to figure it out.
Yeah, There's a good term that I like called ikigai. It's a Japanese term for like the combination of passion, opportunity and something else. But basically it's what I think everyone should strive for. And I feel like I finally got it without the whole mushroom thing. That took years and years of working out. Basically means that what can I actually make money for from what do I like and what does the world need or some shit. And it's like the ultimate combination of passion and opportunity.
I think as well.
Not everyone's gonna get there, but that's like the North Star thing.
And the passion doesn't necessarily have to be for the product itself. Yeah, it can be for the. It's so cringe, but it's true. Like for the love of creating. Because I, I think we're similar.
Jordan says that about gleaming creative pursuit of game on the pod.
You know, making sure I love the ad side. Like I just love making the content and like seeing it go viral, it's like I fucking strategized it, put it together, put it out. That's the process I love. But not necessarily like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'd agree with that 100%.
I was thinking as well, this is like a side topic, but I just find it baffling how many dons on like Twitter and all these fucking no ship cunts that talk big game, but no one's ever said what they actually do. They seem to all be in the Game of I want to make enough money to never have to work again. But then I think they're missing the point of how bored would they be if that hypothetically was the case? So then you should probably work on something that you would do for free anyway. And then it comes back full circle to like, we should probably work on that now then.
Yeah.
A good question to ask yourself is, what would you do if you had a billion pounds in the bank? You wouldn't be sat on a beach. You might think you would. You might do that for a month or a week. And then what would you probably do?
This. What we've been doing for the past 10 days.
Exactly. So then that's a good sign that you'd probably do something similar.
Yeah, yeah. My life probably wouldn't.
This has been like perfect trip, perfect balance.
I was speaking to Jimmy about it minus barley belly.
But. Yeah.
And it's like he wants to do something else. I mean, we'll do an episode with him in a few days time. But it's an interesting question to ask yourself. What would you do if there are no limitations financially on anything?
Business wise, I don't know exactly what it. It is that I'll be doing, but lifestyle wise, it'd be very similar to what we've been doing for the past seven.
I just have a few more cars and shit.
Common theme with the sun. Feel like there's definitely some, you know, element of what is it? Is it not seasonal effective?
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't feel like I'm.
I get that massively.
I'm not depressed in London from not no sun, but like I'm noticeably.
Maybe not depression, but it's like an indifference that a lot of. Just indifferent.
Yeah. Then we have the comparison now because we, you know, I've done. We've done Dubai, Bali, London. And I look back at London, going back to London, I'm kind of scared to think how it's gonna be. I mean, don't get me wrong, I.
Love London, but I am definitely being in London at all in winter now. I think finally the straws broke the camel's back. But the past four months are so shit.
It's not even selling anything more productive.
It's not even more productive. You definitely have better ideas when you're fucking caffeinated and sunburnt.
I think company and weather are just the two main.
Yeah.
You could come here solo. I don't think it'd be as good.
You would meet people very quickly though.
Yeah.
Especially if you're on Twitter and so on.
Yeah.
But, like, Percy me, I'm not, like, been a dick about it, but it might be like, oh, like, teach me how to run an ad. Teach me how to do this, teach me how to.
Or they're like Canva freelancers or some shit.
Yeah, I do, like, the whole fucking nomad meme. It's like, dons are in Bali because they can't afford to be in the West. It's quite deep. But, yeah, there is a bit of that. All right, next question.
Bali's not that cheap as well, like, in some areas, but some areas are pretty cheap. But, no. So we've had one dinner that was maybe for context, just for people listening, we had two steaks, two drinks. That was £29, which was kind of fucked. That was my first, like, oh, yeah, Bali's way cheaper.
That's not even as cheap as it used to be, though, really. That is cheap compared to London.
But then other places, it's like, like, what was it? Ten. Ten pound a drink. And that's London. So. Huh.
On that Kong, like, 600 quid.
Six people.
Yeah. When I came right in.
Yeah, that was two.
That's London price.
There are a few places that we've been to that have been like, UK.
Prices because they've realized there's a demand.
Yeah, you're not.
Yeah, but they're gonna put people off.
Everyone's paying.
That whole reason people come to Bali is because, like, oh, it's cheap. Digital nomad. I'm gonna live here and do.
Our accommodation as well. Is, like, not cheap. I think it was good at the time.
It was the last one available.
Yeah.
For New Year's Eve. So that's probably why, if I was the owner, I'd be doubling my prices, too.
All right. Another question following on from that, which I've tweaked slightly because it's a stupid question. How do you find fulfillment and continued motivation when money isn't, like, desperation to make money isn't the driving force. Obviously, you always want to make more money or whatever. But, like, when you've. When you've passed that need to just quit your job, whatever. And I think it kind of relates to what I just said about doing something you would do for free anyway. What do you think?
Well, you obviously need. If money, like, money can't be a reason why. I think it's stupid because there's. It just never ends. I want to make a million. You make a million. I'm not happy anymore. I want to make 10 million. Probably make 10 million, you won't be happy then. It's just a never ending, like chasing the carrot type thing.
And then once you become aware of that carrot.
Yeah, you know what, Milan? Shout Milan. He tweeted.
He's a wise dog.
You're not happy if you're not happy sipping your coffee. You're not gonna be happy on your yacht. You know, I read that, so it's so true. Like if you're not, you gotta fucking enjoy the little things. And then you can upgrade, like, definitely take that progressive aspect of life.
Well, I do feel like probably if you did grew business to certain size and you've had enough of it, you've got all this money, I'd probably go into doing more charity works. I feel like that would give you a lot of fulfillment and like actually helping people.
Yeah, Tipping, like tipping. Some of the guys out here who were capped, what is it? They're capped on 300 pound a month.
So some. I think somebody told me basically the government set like a limit on how much like certain people can earn in certain, in certain jobs.
I have to fact check that.
Yeah. But I think, I think that's all well and good, but I think a lot of people that probably. I don't know if that this sort of person listens to the podcast, but I think a lot of people that their goal is money. They think their goal is money. And you suggest, oh, you should go into charitable work. You're like, nah, fuck off, I'm buying a supercar.
I think the important point there, and tell me what you think on this. I think you have to make a bit of money to taste it for yourself, whether it's just enough to buy your first stupid car like I did or whatever, you know, get a nice flak. Because I think the difference between like being a student or living with your parents and making a bit of money is way, way bigger than the difference between a bit of money and 100 million. Because from the outside looks the same. Do you know what I mean? Even though we all know it's not.
But there is a graph though, on happiness.
Yeah.
How much money somebody's earning.
It's very. It ends very quickly in like 50 grand.
Yeah. So it's to 50 grand there's a big jump from like 20 to 50k and from 50 to 100, there's another like quite sizable jump.
What month or year.
Yeah. But then I think 2 million averages tiny bit. But then, yeah, past a million, like it just basically flatlines at one point.
Yeah. But thing Is like, I think you can tell people that as many times as you want, but they will not believe.
But that's what I'm saying.
And they'll be like, hell, Jordan Hill, wise guy.
It's crazy as well what most people assume. Like if they look at the. As you said, you look from the outside in, it looks like the lifestyle is so much more expensive than it actually is.
Yeah.
When in reality it's a mixture of leveraging AMEX points to get free flights.
Yeah.
Spending minute like in Bali is obviously cheaper than being in Dubai. Dubai is expensive. And you know, I wouldn't say that's another conversation, but yeah, you. How much would you say you need monthly to live from country to country, working abroad, doing most things you like, enjoying the fun?
Five grand. I reckon there's a five grand, five.
To seven even in London after tax.
Well, I think the difference in London is you don't do. You don't go out as much. Right. Because whereas in Bali you can probably go out all the time and still spend less in London. But if you went out all the time in Dubai, twice price of London. Right. I think another point on the whole money thing though, like society is conditioned to measure success based on money. Like income is money and like richness is money. But like you said to me, and it's so true, no one talks about time, freedom, location, freedom, creative like creation. Think of it as like another element of richness.
Yeah, yeah.
Because if you can make 50 grand a year from a laptop doing something you love, living where you want, that's better than making 500 grand a year doing 18 hours a day in the city.
I think because also your network as well. I think you're rich in. You like probably out of most of us because of the podcast are rich in network as well. And I think you probably wouldn't. Well, me, I might be wrong, but you probably wouldn't trade your network and the people you have around you and like doing shit like this and going on holiday with like people you get on with. You probably wouldn't trade where you're at now, making what you're making with that environment for, you know, making 10 times more a year. But you're probably on your own.
No, no, exactly.
So you are, you're rich.
Funny, people don't basically only ever use money is the tracker of richness or wealth, whatever is easiest when all talks about health, lifestyle, location, freedom, time, freedom, network, enjoyment, when actually they're all as relevant to make like a net richness, whatever the fuck want to call it. So I mean when you get to.
One of them as well, you start to cut, you start to focus on the others more. So like when you, you get a bit of a taste of money, then you start to focus on your health and stuff like that. I think gym, I know for us too, it's like a massive part of non negotiables. After every session you always feel good and it's just part of the routine.
Two shit sessions past two days.
Yeah.
You still went sunstroke and then a hangover. Yeah, still went though.
Yeah, that is right though because like in Covid when I was sort of having my come up like health just even though people are doing like home workouts, just put it on the back burner. Then now it's like, actually I have a little bit more money, but now I'm taking time out in the daytime to go to the gym and like blocking out.
Definitely not every day. Every single day Coca Cola vape and laughs at me.
No. But when I'm at home because I have fucking nothing else to do anyway. But here's a lot more distractions.
Right, next question. Bit of a boring one, but probably quite relevant. Main things to systemize and automate ASAP in an econ business.
Customer service.
Oh my God.
There's one person speaking about, I'm not going to name who needs to do that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just absolute no brain. I remember honestly at the start, I.
Think it's the absolute first one.
Four hours a day, like in the very start. And I feel like you have to, you do have to go through it because you're the one who makes. And this is very like basic level one shit. But you make all the templates to then give to the customer service reps. You join you. So it's like you have to go through it, become a jack of all trades, learn every single department. So if in the start, in the worst case scenario that one of your highest drops out, you can fill in because you know there's gonna, there's gonna be emergency moments and you might have to do that.
You don't even have to do. You don't have to make a template yourself. Like you can probably hire a very competent, very experienced.
Yeah.
Manager and just be like, look, I've got a lot of shit coming in. Can you just log in, figure out the issues, figure out how to answer.
It from like low cost. Because like you'd have to hire someone if you had no money.
Yeah, if you just had no money.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Like, just like I've got some people I can. I could probably start a new business tomorrow. It could be totally related to anything I've ever done. I could be like, hey, just manage the customer support. No idea what people are going to ask his login. Yeah, do it for a week.
That's a good person, though.
Yeah, she's great.
Yeah. But yeah, pretty after customer service. Anything else? I think an X Obvious one is Media Buy. I think way too many founders stick on that way too long.
Even me, I put it off.
Do you know?
But again, you definitely have to understand it yourself.
I think that's because, like, maybe you.
Don'T, but I would probably say you should.
Most courses, I mean, back when we.
Started it was like, they are not business courses.
A billion.
It's like.
And then you identify yourself as I was. I identified myself as the media buyer for way too long. And I actually spoke to. I remember speaking to Taylor Holiday at CTC before I signed up with him. I'm not with them anymore, but. And I was saying, I'm unsure about this. Like, this is what I do every day. I don't know what I'd be doing. He was like, no, you're the CEO. Like, your job is to build the company. Your job's not to be running the.
Conductor, not the violinist.
Exactly. So he's a wise guy.
Yeah.
I would say customer service ads and then the next thing would be fulfillment. That's a controversial one because I think.
Can't relate.
What is it? Print on demand.
But it's good obviously to have like different experience within different aspects of your business. But then like within the Shopify industry, there's a lot of scamming going on, like, particularly around like pricing of projects and stuff, like. But that you as a brand owner, it's probably one of the hardest things. You don't know how to code, you don't know how long stuff takes. You get a little bit of an inkling. Like you'll know from doing so many different projects. But there is a hell of a lot of scamming out there because that is kind of one area that you have to spend years to even know how to scam.
I got scammed probably last year, mate.
Really?
Yeah, yeah. Now we've just done a project for. I think it's like 6k we charged. And the agency I spoke to before, we're charging 40k for exact same.
Sure. That wasn't me.
I've heard of some. Yeah. Ridiculous website change Stories where they spend like 60 bags on a. 60 grand on a new site publishing template.
You both literally talk about me. I swear down.
Yours is worse than that.
I've told you.
It kind of makes sense though. Like you make a drastic change to the site. Like the whole navigation is different. So yeah, the algo hates it and customer journey is just different. It's just a relearning phase but haven't done that yet with mine. I think graphics are most important. Yes.
Got another one to outsource. Taxes, sales tax, vat get sorted. I'll get someone to sort it. But no one talks about it.
Yeah, yeah, true. I think just you kind of need numbers yourself really like just being as granular as possible. Even to this day. Like every three months I'll have, I'll be. I'll find something else. Oh shit. How do I not have that in you just keep adding, keep adding. Like the more granular the better and the, you know, it's. There's just so many small saving points that actually make a massive difference when you extrapolate it out. 12 months.
Yeah. My fucking fulfillment center came back last week and said they've been charging me 50p too much for every single shipment since May.
Really? Yeah.
My brother invoices one of our suppliers and he was like Adam.
Yeah.
They've been charging us like the non discounted pricing for like three months.
Well it was my fault. I don't know how I didn't notice that. It's just fucking stupid.
I think one, one of the biggest things this year has been kind of crazy is like as like the founder. Some of my founder roles have changed to be like more focused on payment terms, how to save money in different areas even we were talking earlier like if you're selling internationally, like some of the FX fees are fucked up. Like there's such big room.
I spent 100 grand on FXVs in 2020 without even realizing it because I was so keen on getting points. That's how I was putting all USD through Amex. Not realizing they charged a fucking conversion fee.
Yeah.
Because I wanted the points.
Should have got USD card.
Didn't even think. Just retarded.
Yeah. Quick tip. If you're selling internationally, let's say like you. Your UK company selling mainly to the US have you have your site in the default currency like the. Where your audience from Because Shopify's margin is like 1.5% and that's. It adds up so much and you can avoid that and just pay the FX rate fee from whoever you're connected with.
And it sold out.
Yeah, yeah.
It's gonna be a little charge, but it's not 1.56 figures for sure.
People always do this thing. Like, I've seen a lot of it on Twitter recently, but it's cancel your cards and then you'll realize how much SaaS you actually spend.
Yeah. Seen an agency owner tweet about that. I was like, don't know if to do that or not. Like me asked for the admin every quarter, let's say. And then why do you need to cancel your card, though? Can you not just check what you're paying?
Yeah.
Especially if you've got stuff that are using stuff and you've got like a big team. It's like they'll message you saying the payment stopped and then you actually put it in because you know that that's being used. But then there's probably a lot of stuff that staff have like asked for the card for you paying for every month.
So not just a lazy way of going through and auditing, like Go On Zero or QuickBooks.
Yeah.
But then you don't have to ask, like, who's using this?
Do you go through statements every month or not?
I don't, but someone does. And then he'll like. He sends me a list of like, what's this for? What's this? Forces for anything that's new.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then at the end of every year, he'll like, send me a list of.
These are all Seminyak. What's this?
These are all your software.
I was getting that question next week. Yeah.
You are Google search volume spikes.
Yeah, I just sent. Just overflow that entire place.
Great restaurant.
Yeah. Fucking yeah.
Good restaurant.
Really good.
Yeah.
Matt Hussius.
Yeah. Affiliate link.
You're making more from that than the pod.
That's a great fucking business. I got loads of fucking questions. Feel like some of them really boring because like actual business shit, which can't be fuck speaking about, but we're gonna ask them anyway. Best lean team structure for like a kind of bedroom brand that's growing. It's kind of similar to the question we just asked. Like, what's the first people you should have?
Best lean team structure. How lean do you want three people?
Well. Cause I always find it weird. People say, like, who's on your team? But you don't really. Like so many fucking agencies and shit. They're like core teams. Like four people, but if you actually count the agencies and three, plus like 20 people that work on the business.
Jamming Yeah, I think it's interesting actually that everyone around this table is completely fully remote. Like no one here actually has an office.
Yeah, I think that's a better question. Remote versus office versus in between. Is it something I do all the time?
So I think probably in office there's a lot more communication stuff and there is a lot to be said for like communicating in that way so you're not having to jump on calls all the time. Sometimes it's information just gets passed around a lot better. But for cost saving you just can't beat it. And you can spend that money on employee happiness because if you actually put it down to like per square foot, like desk rent rates, if you, if he wasn't like just in like a small co working space, the cost of having an office is actually probably much higher than you realize.
Yeah, I think I could probably build a bigger business quickly if I had an office and everyone was like here. But I wouldn't be as happy as I'm not.
But I think employees as well don't actually realize how expensive it is to have the office. So like in the co working space I was in it was 400 pound a desk. And then if you're paying someone 20 grand a year, that's like an extra nearly five grand on top of the wage which they don't realize. Whereas you could actually just take that money and put that into hiring a better person or employee happiness and that kind of stuff.
But yeah, that's been.
The world's changed, ain't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone's still trying to figure out what the best balance is.
Grass is always greener though, innit? I've been thinking the past few months, if I had an office I could do this, could do that, be like communication, be so much faster, we could spin stuff out way easier. But then I guarantee that if I set that up and I invested the amount of money you're talking about investing in person setup and getting the in person staff three months down the line, I'd be like, absolutely, fuck this, get rid of it all.
And also do you think you'd feel the pressure to go into the office?
Yeah, and I feel very guilty right now. And I know some people when they go traveling or whatever, they do not post on social media whatsoever because they feel guilty about their team at home.
Because then, yeah, it's your business though.
Like you built it like. And if they're, if they're jealous of this or that, it's like, well build something yourself and go do it. Yeah.
It's hard.
There's definitely a transition as a founder, like, when the bigger your team gets, the more of a responsibility you have to, like, actually motivate. Because one of the biggest things I learned is you need everyone to be on the same page about what the vision is. You can bottle up a lot of stuff and assume that any new hire is going to get what you get.
Yeah.
But until you actually tell them and you all have the same North Star, you're all collaborating on this to the same goal. That's what speeds shit up. I think a lot of people just hold that back and there's not enough clarity on what the roadmap is.
Yeah, I think it's important as well. That's something I've been really, really bad at until maybe earlier this year. Communicating. This is what we're trying to build. This is where we're at now, and this is your role in it now. But this is what we're trying to build, and this is why your role is important in the journey to achieving this vision.
I think giving employees a voice as well, you may just think that your idea is always the best, but there always is better ways around certain things. And, like, because they're actually working in specific areas of the business all the time, they may come up with ideas that you don't.
Oh, yeah. I think it's. It's hard. I think the culture of, you know, the countries that you're probably hiring is also difficult for them to understand that. I can be outspoken. I can't provide ideas. I can tell my boss that he's been an idiot. I'm very clear with. If any of my team listen to this, they'll know who I'm talking about them. Because, like, yeah, even two days ago, I was on a calls, like, right when you start using this, and one of my staff was like, do you want me to help you with that? Are you good? I was like, you know the answer to that. Like, I'm useless with that. You know how to do this.
Like, help.
One of the biggest realizations in business is one of them for me is like, how much of a people game it is when you get at scale. Because the moment you get your first A player, it's like actually the best feeling. You're like, holy shit. Like, when you have. So, like, you're. You have to be an A player yourself. When you have two A players, it's like, fuck, they can do something I can't. Then you have three. Then it's like, four, five, six, that's.
Like here's a question, here's a question. How do you know if you have an A player on your team or not? Maybe biggest thing for me is not.
Having to follow up on things. It's done.
Yeah.
Like I don't have to check anything. It's already done. Yeah, that's the biggest difference. And I've had shit people in the past. Now I've got a few good people. Everyone.
What if it's like very basic tasks that they're doing without being checked on? They still an A player or A players like high level, high level tasks, like complex stuff.
Well think everything on time and everything as it should be and then planning and initiative. It's kind of going above and beyond.
Yeah, that's it. Above and beyond Superstar. They're all the same kind of terms.
That over deliver like such a fucking problem.
Do you think there is with shit? Because I know like the probably the most popular place people hiring is probably the Philippines. Do you think there are more A player type people in other countries that people perhaps should be looking at hiring vas from?
I don't have anyone from the Philippines anymore but. All right.
But I mean most people who start.
And they're probably looking for operations Colombia is pretty good. But like I haven't gone down that route. You know, it depends what kind of structure you want.
I feel like in the Philippines specifically like a lot of people do go with the mindset that they're gonna try and save as much money as possible.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think like actually double what you was gonna your original budget was and you could get those like really, really, really good people within Eastern Europe. Pretty good.
Yeah.
Like people do go just as naturally just trying to get the cheapest possible work they can. But actually you're going to get a lot more for your money in that country. It's still the same. So if you do go with like you know, pay the grand, two grand a month to somebody over there. That's why you're going to get these like proper sick people who naturally take things off your plate.
A good exercise is going on. Blue chip companies or massive companies on LinkedIn just scrolling through their employees, seeing where they're from.
Yeah.
Like what's their structure?
Do you think that's all a facade though? Because I've heard people say like oh, you need, you need all UK people if you're a UK company if you want to ever build to sell all this. Was that just maybe 10 years ago?
Nah.
I now think LinkedIn is a bad place to hire people almost. But Twitter's better.
Yeah.
Two of the people that work with me now messaged me on Twitter. That's how we got to know each other.
Yo, bads get a lot of DMs, mate. Someone that said that.
Yeah, but I don't know what's changed. Isn't it LinkedIn feels like the university equivalent versus, like, online education.
I hate it. It's just there's a lot of people with big titles, nine to five. Here's. Here's a new shiny job title. You're not doing much, but you sound.
Like you are Vice president.
As expensive as they are, a lot of people who I've spoken to, you've had exits and, like, I've just, you know, talked about, like, what was the source and everything. And in creating a good team. And recruitment agencies were a big part of it.
I worked one of the past.
It was a horror show, really.
Oh, yeah. I guess it depends who you work with then, but, like, maybe for specific roles, like growth roles or whatever, like, you do get. Because the thing is, they have intel on who wants to leave companies. You don't get that inside on LinkedIn because you're trying to potion shit.
But, yeah, I think for, like, important, like, managerial shit, that's probably the right way to go.
Yeah, I think it's going to niche recruitment companies. So, like, if you was hiring a marketing role, go specific to them and then there'll be, like, operational roles because they. When they're, like, feeding through people, they need to have knowledge on what's good, what isn't, you know, I mean, whereas, yeah, they're not just, like, checking CVs for you.
Do you know, I struggle with. When it gets to, like, hiring people like that, it's like, I don't know what. I don't know about that exactly. Like, what does the job. What. Who am I. Who am I actually looking for? What am I actually looking for them to do here? Like, because if I just give them a list of shit that I've been doing, it may well be that they look at it like, well, that's gonna last me an hour a day. What do you want me to do the other seven hours a day?
I'm like, I think that's why you say, like, this is the problem. How do we solve it? And they come back to you and tell you what the solution is? Because, as you say, you don't know what you don't know. So that's how you see if they're filling in the gaps that you have in your company. And this is from conversations I've had with like big boys. That's the tips.
That's one thing. I always think I'm hiring a higher level. I'm like, yeah, what do I actually need them to do here? Like it's.
Yeah, yeah.
I would really like someone just to run the business.
Right.
CEO or what's your ideal role? Like creative director.
I don't want to do anything that isn't product and brand basically. And that's basically everything I do right now.
That's like kind of head of growth, head of creative.
Surely brands like communications and some of those emails need to be approved. That poem was chat GPT special.
Yeah, probably. But that's. I'm spending so much time fucking dealing with supply chain.
Yeah.
And all that.
Why don't you get a supply chain manager?
I mean Florian's gonna start doing that. He does customer service now. It's fucking beast if he's listening.
So you got one, you got one? Yeah. Customer service rep. Yeah.
Madam. Either. He's just solid and he came from the pod. He worked for free for a month. Over delivered.
Yeah.
And now he's fucking the over delivered thing.
So because I'm so many people under.
Deliver it pisses me off. So when he's. When you see someone like the one I'm thinking of that fucking still chasing.
Yeah.
Deliver the goods and I'll pay you. You haven't delivered them.
Yeah, it was. Yeah. I think we can all agree it was just.
Yeah.
I don't know. Like there's fucking tick tock culture just made people shit at their jobs.
Maybe. Yeah. UGC and like this is how much we expect to be paid for a 30 second video.
And it's one like leader of that niche saying you can get more money for this. And then they're like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Someone makes a call about how to double your prices and then lo and behold, that's the new floor.
Corrupts the industry.
Like I could go on a rant about this. The whole entitlement from like certain freelancers and creators that think because you're a brand owner and you're a fucking billionaire sitting on a yacht. That's never worked.
There's a lot of that in copywriting and email stuff as well.
What overpriced or.
No, like a lot of courses that are just like basically how to extract as much money as possible from a brand owner.
Do good work. Do good work.
Every new.
Well, yeah. It's the aim of the game, isn't it? Everyone, like every business owner is obviously thinking about how. Same with AOV with us. How are we going to get more like more money out of the customers you buy in the store.
Yeah, but I think you've more like in what you just mentioned, you're more like in that for us, it's like cost saving. How can I renegotiate this with my supplier? How do I lower my wages or shit like that? Yeah, that's what I would liken to the agency. How do we pull more cash out of our clients?
Yeah.
Whereas like what you're talking about is. Well, it's nicer in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there's so many ways to do it.
Next question.
I feel like there's loads of questions I'm coming up with on the back of questions and how to find a good supplier.
Trial and error. Simple. Like.
Yeah, that's a long one. I suppose initially people would go to China. That's kind of where you.
Some of the OG methods were Facebook groups, surprisingly. Or not going to Pesh, Mandalia's group. Og, we used to go there. You'd say like you'd literally post any. Looking for a supplier for. I don't know if you can't remember if I said the product or not. This is for a different thing. And you get a load of messages come through. Obviously, do your due diligence in Facebook messenger, back and forth, get a good price. The main thing is literally messaging 15 suppliers, finding out each of their quotes and then playing their prices against each other. So if you go with the first.
One, would you say when you source it from China, is it worth hiring a sourcing agent to help you as well?
Oh, actually I would, but it's difficult because the structure changes so much over time. You know, I mean, I think very. At the very, very start, you're better off just finding the product that works and then you can change the structure later on. And you know, you're never going to be start with one product really, unless you're athletic greens. But there's. Yeah, I feel like the business changes so much over time. It is handy having a sourcing agent because then they do all the negotiation and you can't speak Chinese. So why can't.
In the next 20 minutes in fluent. Yeah.
Has anyone actually been done by a supplier?
Yeah, no.
First Midnight City supplier, I got scammed like 30k. I delivered a load of shit that went black, couldn't sell it. I had to restart the brand five months later.
Wow.
Did that get delivered to the office? Yeah, you got loads of samples, I remember.
Yeah.
But, yeah, it turned green and then.
Obviously Neon beach was another fucking huge one. Fucked in the ass a few times. Only in business.
A good sourcing agent would, like, take responsibility for that. That's why it's good.
Yeah.
That's the difficulty of hopping from one to another. You never build a long.
You also want to build a bit of leverage with them where, you know you're good. Like now I'm just squeezing my pricing down on space. Good shit. Because they've told me that I'm one of their biggest clients, which I shouldn't have done.
Yeah.
So, like, payment terms, unit prices, everything.
Yeah.
Because I know that if I stop working with them, it's a big chunk.
There's economies of scale.
So you want to build a relationship with them which is mutually beneficial and sell them the vision as well. Harder to do. Right at the start. You got to build a bit of trust by paying them and shit. But.
Yeah, but you can use that approach in every single aspect of the business. Like we were talking about yesterday, credit card fees and stripe and call up, say, we're doing this volume. How do we get it down? Or can we get it down? Like they. A lot of them say, yeah, like in different areas. So it's worth asking, like when I.
Got triple points with Amex for a whole year.
Tried that. Did not.
That was just by calling us.
I got double six, triple.
Had the most in the UK, apparently. It's like a folklore. Had like 15 million points at one point.
15 mil.
I was in the account at one.
Time, I earned 115 mil.
Yeah.
That's ridiculous.
I've got a screenshot of 11 mil. I never screenshot it after that.
Wild.
I just wish it was pounds, not points.
Give me a year.
Yeah, exactly. Next question. I mean, there's loads. These are probably a bit random. They can maybe have more structure between them.
I'm chopping and changing 15 mil points. What the. Sorry.
I swear my life. I'm not exaggerating.
Put it into perspective. First class to Dubai is 100k points most of the time. So that's.
I don't really get.
That's 150 flights to Dubai, is it? Yeah.
Yeah.
Because only stuff I can put on Amex is just like software. It's like a people business, isn't it?
So let's start that brand, mate.
I know, yeah.
Yeah.
That's the only reason I started a brand again, to get points.
I was saying I'm gonna start buying them off.
Adam.
Yeah. Points aren't even worth that much. Like it's really not as valuable as you think when you actually break it down. Anyway, next question. It's quite an interesting one. Biggest influences from age 16 to 24.
I guess you're just saying like influences or influences right now.
No, biggest influence on your life, basically in your youth that. That made you become who you are.
Oh shit. We go through all the OG names again.
Oh my God.
We're saying people booked experiences. Basically saying is, yeah, go around.
It's totally different for all of us.
Like people, books, experiences.
Well, it's a broad question of what kind of set you off on the path, I think is what he's saying.
Oh, I, I mean we're probably someone's going to mention four hour work week.
I actually haven't read that.
Yeah, I've not read it either.
What?
Okay, you've not read it either?
I've not read it, but Jim read it.
Oh, okay. I work with.
Yeah. Probably not what you'd expect, but the pest Mandela. Christian Guzman back in the day. So I used to be into fitness and yeah. Feel like he instilled a Lotus.
And Chris Lovardo.
Yeah. Matt Otis. Oh geez.
What about. Have you read M.J. deMarco's books?
No.
Millionaire Fast Lane?
No, I didn't read any. I just had it in me that set me off. I just knew when I was 12 years old I was an entrepreneur. I didn't know what to do.
Yeah. Think it was like 14, 15. But now those three books, very good people. I'm not gonna name any names because I think we've made a lot of.
Murray Edwards, seven figure Maury Edwards.
Yeah.
Facebook groups back in the day. They were probably the first and actually properly pushed me to actually doing stuff rather than thinking about it. Yeah. Then a Singapore event in September 2017. That was the classic.
Yeah.
Big, big names, everything. James Beatty, Jordan Smythe, Demetrius Gardis.
How old was him you actually started, Steve?
10.
How old were you when he actually started?
Pretty late.
What drop shipping?
Like just in business.
Started in business, yeah.
Wait, 20 is not late.
It depends.
It depends what counties Dom's have got. Hundred thousand pound a month stores at 14 years old.
Yeah.
But selling like all this catkins.
I was 19 when I started my first thing property. If you don't count ebay.
Yours.
I was 16 doing that. Yeah.
It depends what you count as a business.
Gentry Club is 19. That's my first Shopify store using mum.
And dad's PayPal on eBay. Like buying from Dhgate when I was like, 15. Selling on eBay.
I was 16 through my first Insta page.
Yeah, because when I first met you, I didn't think you started that young because you went to uni and I.
Thought you were like, nah, but that's not.
He's not really got it. Because he went to uni. He didn't. He went to you, but he finished.
So.
Yeah, but you know, mate. Oh, you understand. I didn't. I didn't do anything. Like, I don't recommend that, but I literally just did it for my mom. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't even do well, but I just did it.
What do you get? Two. Two?
Yeah, I got two, too. That's not even worth having English, like. Exactly. But, you know, I just knew that what I was doing was more important, so I didn't think it's one of.
Those, you know, like. People talk about that analogy of, like, are you playing poker? You got shit hand. But you just keep. You stay in the round, you keep calling the raise.
I think the mindset is because you're, like, halfway in, there's no plan B. Like, if you actually. If you're really about it, there's no plan B.
It's always a, like, 100%. I think if you burn your bridges, like, you give yourself no other option.
Yeah.
I think the risk is, which unfortunately never did, none of us did, is go and get like a grad job and get into the matrix. Fuck that. I think you use the window. Because most people go to uni. Realistically, because I went, no, and I'd leave. I just went. Cause what the fuck else you do? You meet girls and shit and it's fine.
Yeah. I mean.
But I think the risky thing is if I'd stuck in uni, for example, gone and got the grad job, and then before, you know, you've got rent, you've got a salary, or you maybe.
The idea of starting something is the biggest risk in the world.
Best time to do it is when you have nothing to lose, which is probably uni time.
Or before I had a really, really good job, like before I quit.
What were you doing?
So first it was marketing, and then the company actually changed into, like, selling to schools, which is why I ended up selling to schools. But I was good stories I was telling you guys the other day, but. And I missed this out. My actual pod. But when I started my business, it was selling to schools as well. So it was because I saw this opportunity, it wasn't selling the same product so I went down the route of starting it. They found out basically and then got sacked and sued and they like tried to sue me but I was living at home and I didn't want to tell my parents anything about it. So I wake up in the morning, it's just like gross misconduct, like literally took me downstairs, like get out. After working four years, like I had a really good job as well, like earning P's on commission and stuff. But yeah, I was getting ready in the morning, putting on like a suit, driving to my mate's house at 9 o'clock in the morning as if I was starting work, working from my friend's house and dealing with a solicitor and being sued for literally weeks because I knew that they were basically saying like cease and desist and like shut the business. So and I was getting advice from my brother and stuff and he's basically saying now just ignore it. So yeah, so I was dealing with that. But I know that my parents advice would be fucking hell, like just close it down like, I mean and get scared.
So it's risk aversion.
Yeah. Until I knew it was okay. That was the only time I actually told him that I'm not, you know, I don't even have a job anymore. And it was one morning, I've come down at like 10am they go, how are you at work? You're gonna be late. I'm like just dressed in casual clothes. I'm like, right, I got someone to tell you. Yeah, basically I'm self employed.
Parent support is a big topic.
Do you think like because you got fired from that job, that was like you're burning the bridges moment. You're like, right, I'm gonna have to.
Yeah, I had absolutely no choice. And I had 900 quid in my account as well.
Exactly.
I think you have to have that.
Yeah.
Put yourself in a position where you just can't fail.
And there's definitely exceptions at the same time because there will be some people who do have a job and then quit and then do make like Huel, the founder of Huel.
Yeah, he's like 45.
Yeah, exactly. So like there are definitely exceptions. It's not like a one, one part.
I just find for me that sort of thing works. But I don't put you back against the wall.
Yeah, I agree, I don't condone it. But I think that, you know, if you was looking to start a business, you can't. You can run a job and on the evening in spare time, start something. So there's not that risk of just quitting and starting. You can still do that because essentially that's what I did. Like I had a SAS training company that sells mental health courses. Like on an evening. It took me two weeks. Exactly. Make it.
So what do you. It's the. Yeah, I think if you're going home watching TV and not building something, watching.
TV and complaining to your mates that are building businesses or building business. How do you do that? How do that? Teach me. Why don't you teach me? Yeah, stop watching TV on the night, like.
And I don't want to be like.
Molly smashed every weekend 24 hours and get canceled.
But like if you're chilling, you've, you've got time to be doing stuff. Like I was still like staying up like 3am, 4am, going to bed, back to work at 9am Granted I didn't have kids and all this kind of. But there's still gonna be time. You put the kids to bed at 9, right? They got them three hours. You want to chill and say like I need my rest and stuff. But if you're really about it, yeah, it's just priorities.
Everyone's got the time. It's just priority.
No such thing as don't have time. It's just you don't have sleep an.
Hour less or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, not my problem. Figure it out yourself.
Girls tells you you shouldn't have time. Focus on yourself. Focus on yourself.
Kim.
But like coming here gives you context. Like this. These Go Jek drivers that the hustle in, but they're asleep, like at the side of the road on the pad waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder. Get a job and fucking go again.
Yeah. And there's people at home.
Yeah, Yeah.
I mean like you don't actually know how lucky you are.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Next question.
It's one I get asked all the fucking time. But I'll get your take on it. You're probably the same answer. How to connect and network with like minded others when you're getting started. Probably the single most question ever, most common question ever.
I honestly think it's going to be very difficult. The people they want to connect with are probably people that they can get advice from and learn from a few steps ahead of them. And I think it's going to be very difficult to actually get quality time with that sort of person without having built something substantial or something you've achieved. Just something that you actually are open to. Talking about. Most people asking this question are probably drop shippers or something like that. They don't want to reveal what they're working on.
No shippers.
No shippers. You can fuck off. Stop listening. Unsubscribe. I'm joking. Matt needs the figures. But I think, yeah, you need to have done something that that person's gonna be like, oh, actually this kid's switched on.
But if you do want advice, I'd say just ask a question, right? Don't try and like, message me. You're just gonna think, who's this geezer? But if you do want to ask somebody a question, just ask it.
Or just listen to be transparent and honest about what you're working on.
But, like, don't message me saying, can I take you out for a beer? Like, what? Three quid beer and I'll give you three hours of my life.
There's like three kind of different categories of how you can build a good network. One, as you said, earn your stripes. Because naturally it's actually crazy how as you level up, just you find yourself in the same rooms as people who are on a similar level to you. So you always, like, navigate towards, like, people are doing similar numbers or whatever. And there's going to be one guy in that group who's always like the big dog. And everyone's, you know, and then that, that big dog just gets bigger and bigger. Like, there's always a bigger fish. That's, that's one. One side, I think paying for relationships has been like a crazy way of meeting new people. Like if whether it's consulting calls to a degree or like. Yeah, I suppose the mental angle. I hate saying mental because inevitably these guys become mates. If you're a normal guy, you will be friends with these guys, you know.
Yeah.
And then they obviously open up their black book of people they know. And because you're a normal guy, like your friends, I think when you meet.
People as well, like, big piece of advice, just don't be a dick rider.
Yeah.
Like just literally be a normal bloke. Like, Yeah. I mean, don't straight away ask him like about the business or like about money or anything like that. Have a normal conversation with him and just be a geezer. And then they're gonna respect you more. Like as soon as you start, like being a fanboy or a dick rider, in their head, you're a fan. You know what I mean?
So I think publicly asked questions on Twitter as well, because I don't really reply to DMs as much mainly because the thing you said, it's just. Don't know, it's just silly questions like when people. You can google something. I don't want to reply to that shit. But when you reply to. So if for example, you'd. Most of the shit that people reply to you on your tweets, for example, you'll reply to them. It's kind of rude not to, you know, like they've made an effort to insert your shit. You're gonna reply. So I'd say that's quite a good.
Way of fucking CEO. Shopify replied. Yeah, like billionaire worth like 13 bill or something stupid.
Yeah. What were you. What was the tweet about?
So Shopify should send out awards like click funnels. So if you do like 10 more every year, just ping out the award.
But I'm not sure. I mean I love the idea. Love the idea.
Say do it.
Just stay tuned.
Really sick.
Can we back date on hundred Miller Club?
I love the idea, but I think obviously the click funnels thing. I spoke as people on Twitter about this before the clickfunnels thing. I feel like they do that because click funnels, like half people using clickfunnels. That's how I sell click funnels.
That's actually how I found out about click funnels flexing on TikTok.
Yeah, it's like the reason I do awards is because it's fucking cool to share awards on social media. That says how much money I've made. Look at me. Shit, he did that using clickfunnels. I'm gonna use a genius. Oh yeah.
I feel like. So this is a question. Do you think so obviously everybody can fake a screenshot, right? And everyone can put it on Twitter. You can't. Do you think people start faking awards or taking pictures of someone else's business?
Harder. But yeah, don't know what to believe.
On Twitter, people fucking go so hard. Like there's websites you can put a thing in and be like revenue AOV conversion rate, like and just create fake Shopify screenshots.
It's an inspect element.
Well, I was, I was saying what I might do is basically do the website that does this. Save all the data and then expose all the people who have done it in the course of like the last year.
Just do it in the Bounty Hunter.
Build it for two years in secret and then just leak everybody.
Hilarious.
So funny, wouldn't it?
Well, it won't be sick, but yeah, it'd be easy cleanup job.
You'd be sick for the cappers.
Watch Out. Jordan Hill's coming.
I'm coming. No cap on my watch.
How do you get over imposter syndrome when dying? It's a similar sort of question.
I think you can.
I still get it now and again.
Yeah.
It's just a thing you deal with. Then you remind yourself what you have done. You're like, I'm pretty good. Just not maybe as good as the people I keep comparing myself to. And that's probably why I'm feeling imposter syndrome.
And then a lot of people, they compare themselves to, particularly now, even more than the past. Is this fucking frauds?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The amount of dons on Twitter, particularly like money Twitter, that as a general rule of thumb, I think if someone flexes their money on numbers, they're probably lying about all of it. Otherwise, why did rich people don't share their bank account balance? I mean, I've literally seen certain dons naming their names share receipts of beach clubs to show how much money they're spent. And the one I'm thinking of didn't even pay for that because I heard the story behind that.
Really.
Which I'm not going to expose that ruin their career.
I feel like I'm a little bit of a victim of it, to be honest. But, like, do you know when you go on Twitter, I think me, my agents are shit. Like, because all these other people are flexing.
Matt had that thing like a few weeks ago. And you like fucking. I like, I'm shit. I'm clueless. Because you're looking at all these screenshots. It probably just after Black Friday, it's like, turns out half of them are fucking fake. Or there's no context as to how that ROAS is so big and shit like that.
Yeah, I think it depends how you consume that info, though. It's like if you use it to motivate instead of to like belittle you, you know, you can choose how you.
How you take the message behind it.
Yeah. Because I just think of it as like, there's always a bigger fish. That's why you don't put posting numbers.
Posting numbers is like naval's like status game. On the status game to one up yourself, you have to minus one someone else. You post in a screenshot because you want to make people feel bad. That's gonna make you feel good and bad.
The ironic thing is you post a screenshot and there's some guy who's running a fucking hundred mil company and he looks at it and he's like, what a knob. You know, you don't need to post numbers unless you're flogging the course, I guess.
Yeah.
Real GS keep everything secret, mate.
Yeah, yeah.
It's also a culture thing. I feel like UK guys don't Poppy syndrome in it. Yeah.
I feel like the most genuine people who do share the numbers, they're also sharing the downfalls as well. So they're not just posting the highlight reel. It's also fucking. I've had this issue, like, see, so you can see that they're not this. Like, you just think that these people.
Yeah, on that.
Incredible.
You do that.
So I shared. I retweeted my last year's tweet from 1 January, saying I'd achieved some of the goals, hadn't achieved the others. Some fucking, like, School Shooter spec. Dom with a face like a fucking murderer. Definition of physiognomy. Just replies like, stop sucking your own dick or some bullshit. I was like, bruv, if you watched any of my shit, my entire content angle is I'm like, arguably the most authentic person in the fucking E comm space. And, like, the reason I retweeted it was like I was fucking depressed out my ass and two stone heavier. And I've achieved that goal. He saw it as, like me gloating, even though it wasn't even a big number. I said we'd done over a million in the first year because I've written that tweet a year ago. Wasn't like I was just randomly sharing a screenshot, but some fucking don in his mum's basement.
Yeah.
I mean, there's always Slytherin. He was like, he shouldn't have even had a picture. It was odd. School Shooter spec. But there's always someone that's got a fucking negative angle on that. But that pissed me off.
Can't please everyone.
No. You don't have the money or investors, but you have a vision for a brand. What to do?
Work skills.
Yeah, work. You can't. You're not gonna have to raise money.
What else they know the answer to that question.
Got skills, bruv.
Yes, skill. That's literally.
It actually starts on it. Probably a drop shipping store.
When you look at the. When you actually think back of, like, where we are now, how we got there, it all started with learning one skill and then that butterfly effect to get. It literally got here. You don't start with no skill. You don't start something big without.
Yeah, so like, it is a butterfly effect because, like, when I started my first brand, that Was I needed to make a website and I need to learn Illustrator and After Effects to create graphics for social. But then that got me a job in an agency and then the agency taught me the skills to basically run a business. So, yeah, it just starts with skills. I'd focus on that first.
I think most people, like. It's weird. I know Matt did do quite a lot of graphic design and I did a lot of graphic design. You did a lot of graphic design. I remember James Beatty saying he did. You did.
Yeah. I was like. I was making movies and really like editing home videos.
Yeah, yeah. It's strange.
I think Photoshop and Adobe Premiere are like the most valuable softwares I've ever learned because, you know.
Yeah.
You just. I think brand, if you're a branding guy, like, you carry that over so much to make like the perceived value aspect of making your brand at sick. And that's how you get.
I think now brand is becoming more important.
Yeah.
Than before because it used to just be. Get a product, fucking create a Shopify store, they all look shit anyway and just try and run traffic to it. But now, like, brand can be a key differentiator. Like, there's other people that do similar stuff to you. Your brands, arguably the best. And that's why people resonate with it and like it. So that's, I think now pay more of an important role than it was previously.
Also, most people that start young are creative first, business later. Whereas I find the MBA types, some of which I've got to know. The ones that like raise a load of money and start a business in their 30s, which. Nothing wrong with it. It's different angle. But they always come from like they're a finance guy. They don't have a creative bone in their body.
So there's two different.
But it takes them longer to start.
Yeah.
Because I think I'm more creative like you.
Yeah.
Because I can even do like videography and stuff like that. But that's where you get from 0 to 1 and then you struggle to do 1 to 10, for example. But those finance guys, they can't do 0 to 1 because they don't have a clue. They can do 1 to 10 where you're not involved in.
I think 0 to 1 is the easiest part. And like Jimmy said to you, like, you've done 0 to 1. Like it's the hardest bit done. It's like, what?
Yeah, that's the most risky part because you get.
Jim's like the finance one, but when he started, he had the creative People with him and the marketing people and that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Would you say it's easier though? Like, are you referring to the first time or the second time? Once you've done it, it's easy because you've done it before. Point is that I'd say the scale experience breeds confidence. Yeah, yeah. Like that. Zero to one. It's not. It's not easy. It's definitely like product market fit.
Yeah.
Timing.
The other interesting thing, as well as we're all solo founders, like, I think that probably the killer combo is going to be somebody who's systems orientated and finance orientated with a creative person. And that's probably gonna be like the killer one because the creative person is gonna be the more 0 to 1 then from 1 to 10. It's gonna be the systems person.
I have, I've done a range of different things like over the years and probably half of them have been with other founders and it's never worked out. And I think it comes down to always having an out. It's your fault we failed because you didn't do this. When in reality, if it didn't get done, if I wanted to work that well, I just said, you know what, fuck it, I'll just do it. We can have this conversation later. But this is your job. You should be doing this. Yeah, but I think when you do have a co founder, I just, I feel like there's an easy out for like, it didn't work because he didn't do this. When in reality you just didn't want it.
It's the ideal set of not being a Solo founder 100 and then hiring people that do the other stuff rather than splitting it from day one.
It probably comes from fear. Like they don't want to fail on their own, so they take like joint accountability of failure. That's the wrong. I get it. But I guess it's the wrong mindset to go in with because it's like you're accepting failure before you even start. That's just in a scenario I've got in my head, like what I can imagine people coming into the space might feel.
But do you think it's better to be have like a co founder that's a friend first and then that comes on to.
No, I tried that with Ollie years ago with the clothing stuff.
Yeah.
Ripped the gym didn't work. Grill and cracker. You started Herb. They was all best mates.
Yeah.
I think it's a really cool story.
Some. Some circumstances it can work really well, but it is at the end of the day like business is separate to the mate stuff.
Yeah.
Like it's having that ability to like switch off. Obviously I've not personally done it but then like working with friends is okay. Like literally every single person around the table is a customer and like there is two separate things. Like.
Yeah.
It's funny because me and you, like we're literally sat next to each other and Zen messaging on Slack.
Yeah.
Like talking about work and he sat.
Next to me like wonder like just I'm literally, literally here.
But then like that's. It's just separating work from life on.
Yeah.
I think the biggest. No for me is the fact that you're going in with 50% equity.
You gotta make twice as much.
Yeah.
I just don't see the. For me personally, I just. Yeah. I'm solo all the way. Yeah. I've done joint before and it's not worth potential conflict in the long term.
Would you give equity away to grow further and if so.
Yeah. Yeah.
At what point you going to.
For sure I would. I think it's great for like turbo growth but it's also a timing thing. I think raising in this market, it's not worth it.
Like I'm not but I'm don't necessarily have to be raising and giving equity that way. You could be hiring a coo.
See what you mean. I don't need it. No. It's timing thing. Maybe in the future. But.
Yeah.
Mixed up. Well, I mean you've. You've had the. So this is one of the different things about your business now is that you went in like going fucking turbo mode from day one.
I think it's. I think it's like a win win. I get money to have experienced people help me. Isn't that way better than owning the whole thing? Like. And I still own way more than I would if I had a co founder.
Probably is. But I think for us it's hard now thinking that way. It's for you starting it and structuring it that way. Way easy. But now I'm giving away something that I. A big portion of what I built at this point.
Three.
How old your thing? Three years. Yeah, I'm three. So it's like you've done all that.
It's. It's like only three years counterpart.
20.
It'll be four in March.
I thought it was like five.
20, 19. Mate. Got the video.
What were you doing in Castleton mill in 2018?
Not Crown and poor other print on demand shit.
We're in 2023 now, though, so that's four years.
No, yeah, in March it will be.
All right. Okay.
Yeah. But yeah, I feel like now because you built something, it's probably harder to actually sign that contract and give away that equity because it's like, well, it.
Also depends how fucking hefty the valuation.
Is because it feels like you're then buying them. Rather than Matt saying, I'm getting paid to bring these people on, I'm saying I'm paying them to come on.
I think it's like, what do you need? Do you need the cash or do you need the value? So I like, if you don't need the cash, it's probably not worth giving up.
But also at the end of the day it's like, okay, where do you want to take it? Here? Can I realistically get it there without that help? Probably not. How do you get that help? Equity.
Right. Well, it comes down to the whole like bootstrap versus not bootstrapped argument. It's not even necessarily about money. Like you said. It can be like if you hired a CEO and gave him 5% invested over five years, for example, if they're the right person, that's guaranteed to be a win win.
Yeah.
One thing you say is like, if you were given a million quid right now, what would you do with it? Like, how would you get yourself the next step?
Yeah. Because everyone thinks money would solve the problem.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right. Not necessarily.
So if you scale too quick, you've got supply chain problems. Like, it's actually kind of good to grow slow in a lot of scenarios because you actually need to learn the different stages of business. If you go too quick, you've skipped a load of the middle parts out. And I think supply chain is probably the biggest one. How much ship break, how much cash.
In bank in terms of percentage do you like to have?
I think a month of revenue is rule of thumb, month of revenue. That's what I've always.
Would you say if you have more than a month of revenue in the bank, you're not.
There's obviously so many variables. Depends on the business model. But that's been my. My perception over the past six years. On average in E Commerce, a month of rev. Month of rev.
Coming by everyone else reinvested.
I mean complete depends on business.
It does. But just the people listen. Because I think most people are.
I think that's a safe ship. Stores, I think that's a safe level. Yeah.
It's because no one really thinks about. I never thought and I can Think.
Of a lot of examples that match that general narrative.
Sound like really, really risk averse. But like a lot of our stuff isn't retainer work. So it's very hard to like forecast what we do. So like a majority of our revenue does just come from projects and then like the companies do work with us month on month, but it's a lot smaller than like a huge project cash influx. So like for me my main thing is because it's a people's business, is a people's job safe. So I never want to risk that. So like we're close to having like a year's worth of wages because you.
Yeah. If you had no problem, what would.
You be paying them for? Are they getting paid anyway?
No, they're getting paid anyway.
But just to sit there, he's a good guy.
They're freelancers so they get paid.
Three freelancers and everyone else is on wage. But it's like the, that I think that it saves us money having a full time person versus a freelancer because it costs us more to hire a freelancer because that freelancers cost almost loads.
Right.
And maybe they've got another job on. I can do 10 hours this week.
Yeah, yeah. So I mean so to have the actual security and relationships with customers, you're not flipping around freelancers, you've got to have like stuff. And that's something that I did learn. But yeah, like, but the issue of that is you do have to think about from the cash perspective, like how long is it, can I keep paying these guys if. If everything was to stop like we have been. Yeah, but that's just me being super risk averse like myself.
Yeah.
I mean. Yeah, because my.
I'm starting to think about it now. It's like how do. Like I've not reinvested enough. In all honesty.
It's like I think that now should.
We like we need to spend this, buy euros.
How's that? Reinvesting and just wrap it in rainbow dust pink.
Right.
Well that's invested in the Nash.
I got a load more questions trying to pick out the more interesting ones. How do you get through dark moments of zero motivation?
Change the environment.
Yeah, yeah.
Like I think actually a lot of bad habits you might pick up over a long period of time being in the same environment. Oh. I've realized it's just looking back, I'll go abroad, then I'll come back and I won't have that bad habit anymore. Just literally reset.
Well, I'm vaping on a Monday morning.
Yeah.
Monday Afternoon.
So that the science.
Fuck that one off.
Science behind this. Okay.
Like, no, just small things. Like, I used to have a monster at lunch every day and it's like fucking emo spec. But I. Then I quit and it literally, I would crash every day for two weeks until it went away. Then you, you know, you go away in some Marbella for four days, come back and I was sweet. It's just reset.
Yeah. I've got my good, good science on the story behind us in World War II in. I always get shouted at. Random stories I come out with.
Does it involve carp this time?
Yeah, niche reference. But when there was doing the Vietnam War, in fact, basically there's a. All the soldiers on opium, all the American soldiers. So instead of stopping them, the government said, well, why don't we do the world's ever biggest ever addiction study? So all of them were, I think it knows, heroin. So they're all like clinically addicted heroin at this stage. And it's known as, like, the hard drug that you can't get off.
Was it morphine?
Heroin? I'm not sure, but it's supposed to be like, you have it and you have it once and you're addicted. Like, that's what people say. So basically, all of these soldiers, there's like hundreds of thousands of them all having heroin.
Okay.
So when they came back.
You sure it's heroin that sounds.
No, it is heroin.
I was reading about it the other day again. I put something on my Instagram story.
About it, but science video before bed.
So when, when they all came home, everyone was like, fuck. The whole. The whole American is going to be like an epidemic.
Right?
Only 9,95% of the people never touched the drug again because their addiction related to their environment at the time because it was in such a depressive place and they were fighting in the war. When they came home, 95 never touched it again because their environment completely changed. They're no longer at war, they're with the family and they're just chilling. So only 5% ever touch the drug again. But it is true, like, every single time I've ever had, like, any addictions.
Or it's a heroin.
No, but, like, it's true. Like you were saying about Monster. Like, before I came here, like, I was having a monster every morning. I did that for months.
Morning.
Morning, monster.
Morning, Monster. I'd go to the shop and buy a monster. I just doubt that that was to make me feel like I had energy.
Like, yeah, I've come here worse things.
Oh, I'll natural do you mean?
But I also feel like having a vice is kind of good. Like having one vice and that's your kind of setback. It's so such stupid things. That would be those granola yogurts for me or like a grenade.
Oh, grenade.
Two or three in a row. I'd be like, yeah, it's like. But yeah, it's just weird shit for me. It's like there's always one thing that.
I vape and I was overweight, so I was like, well, instead of. And I'm still. I'm losing weight now. That's like my main focus. But like instead of going cold turkey on food and vape on food.
It'S.
Like I'll focus on one at once.
I've never seen anyone vape as much as you.
Yeah, but it just horrible.
But I think after appetite. Yeah, it kills it. But like after, after I've lost the weight, my next goal is gonna be get off the vape. So it's like doing one at once and then it's nice to have that vice. So I'm fucking after both of them. I'm probably gonna be looking for something like a way to de stress.
A way to de stress, I reckon. Vape and eat loads of food, mate.
Yeah, I might just. Yo, yo. Go back. Fall back into it. Even bigger than before.
Right, next question. Which question? Got a load left? I'm trying to pick the best ones. How much time do we have?
That's big input.
There's a lot of questions.
Yeah. Was this one?
I've circled certain ones. What's this? Probably quite a good one. What's the number one driving factor to go from 0 to 1 million to 1 to 10 million driving factor.
It's so difficult. So 0 to 1. I mean you can do that yourself, really. Kaya. I think it's get a working product. Really not. Yeah, there's no. No Magic Pillow.
How about ten to a billion? Oh, no, you're not quite there yet.
Ten to a billion.
No, stick it to 10 million.
Has there ever been times where you've hit a plateau and I think I've sold to like the max amount of customers in this country I can sell to.
And there's different types of buyers. You get the impulse buyers who will buy from a shit website. And that's where all the most of the successful to a point drop shipping stores will get to. And then they'll realize they'll hit a plateau. Then they'll quit the post a YouTube video about how they made A meal and they'll stop. But in reality, if they wanted to.
Get a single repeat.
Yeah, it's like. Or if you get from. If you want to go from one to above, new products, new angles, better branding. It's just better everything and more of it. That's. That's how you get from 1 to 10.
And then what's your thoughts on like selling different countries?
Yeah, yeah. That's like another growth angle.
I think the 1 to 10 thing for me it was figuring out exactly what activity it is that is driving the majority of the sales and do more of that and less of all the other shit. Like we were realizing that referrals and word of mouth because it's gifting primarily was huge. So it was, it was generating a sizable amount of revenue. So we're like, right, how do we increase that? It's clearly something. How's it post purchase surveys through that.
Fairing and what affiliate thing app you using affiliates?
It's literally just customers. Like this is fucking.
So you only get. All right, so you find out post purchase. Yeah.
So are you like right, well how do we drive more of that? Because 8020 rule. You want to just. Yeah, that's the strength. Right. So just make that even better strength. So we changed all our post purchase purchase messaging to incentivize that and encourage people to talk about and share it and yeah, refer, add, add shit to your packaging that encourages people to share it with someone.
I heard there's. There's one thing that gets 100 open rate and that's a package when someone.
Opens say the holiday. I think it was. I think that's a good.
So true. That's why, I think that's why pack. I mean packaging for you is iconic. That's been a big drive.
It's so true. Like what the. The one thing that gets 100 open rate.
Yeah, yeah.
Your product packaging. But I read that I was like hell, he's a genius. Never thought about that.
You know, one of the realizations as well as you mature in the game a little bit is it's the simple shit that scales. And I look back at some of the. This wasn't even for the econ but I was doing like many chat bot sequences that would then get a capture an email. Then you do an email flow. It's like I'll just send them to one page and done like you don't have to overcomplicate it. And so yeah, the big growth is just doing the simple stuff but a lot more of it and you need, you need manpower to scale that. So that's when you do the hires and you get people to do more of what you are doing. But just double, double downing on the 20% that moves the needle.
Yeah, I think the same thing can relate to websites as well to be honest. Like don't just try and over complicate everything. Literally just make it simple as possible. Like the clean website is performing really well and it's. There's nothing on it. Like it's just lightning fast prestige thing, picture and another add to cart.
I mean yeah, yeah, you can definitely.
Overwhelm people on websites very.
I think like how much shit people.
Like to be directed and told what to do. I think.
Yeah, my thing is like so it's called like visual hierarchy. So when you look at the page, what's the first thing your eyes look at and can you like declutter it? Streamline the messaging? A lot of time you land on a website just so much shit and you're trying to digest it and nothing gets done properly. Whereas like it's the visual hierarchy. Where do your eyes look? Is that the correct thing? If not then on your product page. Even if it goes against your branding, make sure you add, you know, make your add to cart like black, bright green, a positive color, something like that and all these little things can add up. Like there's a lot of things about, particularly just a B testing like even klaviyo pop ups and you can see the colors that work for your brand. Like just putting it as a even. We've even done like shades of green. Like change a shade of green. It's increased the you know, form fill out rate by like 2%. It's crazy.
It work, it works with someone, not others.
Yeah.
It's not.
I always.
So people listen. Don't go change all you wants to green straight away.
Yeah.
What's your thoughts on like the branding versus CRO? Because like you could do a load of shit that would make it better but in reality a pastel cream gray website that has a bright green or red button just doesn't work. Like just looks shit. So how. I mean.
Well that's why there's a term brand first CRO. That is a term.
Definitely a middle ground.
Yeah.
It's making a decision.
Depends what you want. We had this conversation last night. It's like it depends why. I mean I'm not gonna claim this conversation. It's not my idea. It's a good conversation though. And it was like what do you actually want from the Business like do you want to build the brand? Like represent. You want to be a George Heaton type person and be that guy that's known for having built this fucking incredible brand or do you want to build something to sell? If you want to build something to sell, then fuck all the brand stuff off and focus on conversion rate and the income.
The easiest way to increase conversion rate is make your product better and make it a better offer.
Yeah, that's kind of relevant to this question where Don's asking would you sacrifice branding perception order for potential? Basically, would you sacrifice brand to make more money? Is this for the wholesale opportunity recently? But not sure it aligns with our brand. Right.
I was gonna tweet a response.
I think you also do need an element of brand to be able to sell something. Cuz like yeah, you do.
But I saw this.
Otherwise people would say make the argument, well just run a drop shipping store that prints cash.
I saw this tweet and I think I'd recommend the guy who, who sent this to go read. Fuck, what is it? It's like something shit, I can't remember the book. It's. I'll say figure out the name of the book and tell you later, but got it. Something Immutable laws of branding. It's like seven immutable laws of branding. Something it's like you don't like our level. Everyone here in this room and the guy who tweeted that our level, we youe can sacrifice that part of the branding to generate more money. Like you are not making much of an impact to your brand by doing what he's asking should I do go and do it. Like, you're not Coca Cola, you're not Louis Vuitton. Like doesn't fucking matter at this level. People aren't buying. You might think people are buying from you because of your brand.
Yeah. So there's a very, very good story about this one. So it's actually manscaped and I watched it's in the Shark Tank pitch. But basically I think they had 2,000 units and there were this super like men's grooming, old schooly branding. And then they couldn't sell the units so they thought, fuck this, we're just gonna throw it in the bit. Throw that like brand in the bin. And they were like, we'll just be funny and like do whatever we can to try and sell these units. They run that advert and it's the iconic advert in the, in the shower. Loads of anecdotes about like your balls and stuff.
They spent 50k on that first angle. I heard.
Yeah.
Because I listened to the same thing, but.
Well, they went on Shark Tank Original.
Yeah, yeah. And then on that. On that. It wasn't originally. This was like just further down the line. But the. On that second ad, I think they sold out within 14 days. All units.
Yes.
And that's because they made a decision. Let's not be too cute and.
Yeah.
Like. Like, let's just not be too asked about the branding. Yeah. Let's just make some money. Because it's gonna die.
They didn't have a brand because accounts. They're not selling anything. Yeah, yeah.
Kind of the basics. I mean, it's product market fit. Like, try multiple angles. If you first start with a product and see what works and then double.
Down that question just.
It's genius, though, because when I saw Manscapes, I was like, it's actually really simple. I didn't think of that. But there's so many copies of Manscape now as well. But then sometimes you do come across brands and you're like, how the fuck do they do that?
Revenue.
Most people say brand, they really just mean visual aesthetic. That's where it starts. Like, when I say I'm good at branding, what I actually mean is making it look pretty consistent because, like, space goods is a. When I say brand, it's just. I'm referring to the. It's pink and has an 80s vibe.
Yeah.
It's identity.
Yeah. That's the visual identity. You can't have a brand when you're nine months old. Brand is how people feel about it. And that takes years. Like, represents a good example. Gymshark's probably another good one, I think, where it's like emotion.
Not around this table. That could have been around the table. Who actually has a very vet. Like an actual brand.
What, Fred?
Yeah.
Like, even he says he's the one that had the conversation.
Yeah.
Saying just fucking sound.
Well, yeah, even. Yeah.
So he's putting away from that perspective.
Yeah.
But I think that his community is so good.
Yeah.
You make.
But that's what I mean. It takes longer to build that. So when I'm referring to brand, I.
Really just mean the visual identity.
Yeah. Like, that's all it is now. Although long term, you can't shortcut that either. Yeah.
So, you know, like, a logo is just a logo. Like the Nike one, which is arguably like the biggest brand like, that people feel about, like, just do it. That was literally 200 quid and they paid a random designer to do it. And then they made the brand around it. I mean, I don't.
I think the wholesale thing, it's not going to affect brand.
Yeah.
At all.
Yeah, I agree.
You got to be doing.
If you don't try.
Huge household name almost to be. To be worried about, oh, it's gonna affect brand perception. If I do wholesale, I wouldn't even.
Be what the brand side, I wouldn't even be worrying about. It'd be more like what are the payment terms and what the logistics like, because if that. That causes more hassle than it's worth, then that would be the fucking. The determining factor to not do it.
Yeah.
Not the brand side.
Yeah. It's interesting to be that probably going for so long about that they're buying the product.
It's wholesale for you. Is a completely different story in it.
Yeah, I'd like to do retail and so on. Like new channels and shit. I've always thought about building a brand that's just on the website, but now I'm looking at it differently. Like Amazon Retail.
Yeah. Well, they say that with. When you do start an E comm brand that if you think that it might be a product that might go into B2B to actually build the margin into it. Because certain retailers will want a certain amount of margin. But there's like a client I work with at the moment that make us a very small amount of margin. And then now they want to go into B2B. Like it's impossible because we're so cheap on our website. So actually have to increase the price.
A friend of mine runs like a custom custom socks business and does it like. He's probably just more B2B now than D2C. But originally it was just a little website. There's an idea they added on Sunday and it turned out it worked and they're making a bit of cash on the website. And then they ended up in a few different retail stores and they probably do more from that now than they do D2C. But the issue is they priced solo on the. Their actual website. Yeah, there's no margin there to really make that much cash from.
Like if you're making 10% margin, like.
Even small, it's not worth the time.
It's gonna be hard for you, especially.
When this is custom stuff. So you have to actually make it.
Yeah, no way. Yeah.
So yeah, good point.
I've got plenty of margin for that.
Good.
Do you think the cost. So it turns like actually acquiring a customer in a store. So somebody's walked past your product. Let's say in Holland and Barrett, they're looking for a mushroom supplement. Do you think the cost is going to be at 50 pound? Quite expensive for them and that. That'll struggle because it is. 50 quid is a lot of money.
What's 13 on it depends what store is.
Yeah.
Stick it in Boots.
No chance.
I'm speaking of holding about now. I reckon we'll get it in there.
Stick it in Waitrose, holding them. Barrett, you've got way more chance than Boots and Morrisons.
I think it is interesting because you've not got that. It's just a package on a shelf. So there's a lot more that goes into the appeal of that. But. And like people consider price a lot more than you've run an ad. They clicked on the website. You've got all this fancy information on there.
Yeah, yeah.
They've not got that experience.
It's just.
It's just a product with a price on the shelf.
You have to have like a hologram of you in like pink just explaining the product.
Or just have a screen playing the movie.
Yeah.
Do some wavy fucking shit. Have like a vending machine with a new flavor called lsd. It was like J Lemon sugar digestibles. Off the top of my head.
JML that used to have that, like. Do you know, in Asda it'd be like a new product released. So they'll have a TV at the top. Probably something that you could do from the movie on there. Be sick.
Yeah, that would be cool. That'd get attention for sure.
Yeah. 100% in the shop window holding the bike.
Yeah. You're always very guerrilla marketing friendly.
I'd say I need to do that 8 meter mushroom in Hydra.
Yeah. You're just giving all your competitors that idea. So do.
They're not gonna do it. They're all pussies. Or fucking southwest London daddy's money. Referring to one of my competitors.
It's got a chip on its shoulder.
Yeah, I do. Might do second home in the Cotswolds. All right, final few questions. How long do we have, by the way? Quick pause. Alright, yeah, cool. Fine. Perfect. Still rolling. All right, next question. This is another interesting one which I think is a lifelong debate. How do you best manage work life balance as a young founder or just a founder? But he said young founder.
What now? Or like in the beginning? Because in the beginning there was no balance. It was like, yeah, I was working a hell of a lot and I didn't think I was. Didn't go out, see my friends for Extended period of time. Parents would tell you you weren't celebrating for six years.
Yeah.
And you'd be like, but I love doing this. Like this is my hobby. It's not a job. But there's no balance in the beginning at all.
It's a luxury that you get when you start making money.
Yeah.
It's been a good balance in Bali.
I would say 100.
Yeah.
But like there's also seasons, aren't there? Because I did like four months in the trenches in London recently. Didn't go anywhere.
Yeah.
It's too long.
Yeah. I think you've always got, as a founder, you've always got to be on standby to sacrifice everything. But that's just kind of like the responsibility you accept.
Eric Thomas. Sacrifice who you are for who you will become.
Yeah.
What about like burnout? Do you ever get burnout?
Yeah, that's when you go away.
I actually feel like physical illness when I get burnout.
Yeah.
Get a headache, I have to go to bed.
Focus.
Fucking.
It's like they want to try and manage it but I can literally plot on a graph and it's even in my revenue. Like I go in three month cycles. Absolutely fucking hammer it. Like it'll be every single waking hour. I'll be working, like working on evenings.
Certainly not this week.
Yeah. Well this is why I'm billionaire Jordan Hill exposed.
That's why I mentioned to get home because it's like when I get home I'm just going to grab cycle started but then like in three months later summer's going to be starting. I'm like going to be going to maintenance mode, not super hyper growth mode. It's literally three month cycles. It's metal and I actually had a little bit of it like before you boys came out. To be honest, like December last year was like our best model.
I wonder if by saying it's three month cycles you've like self, you know, you've.
Prophecy.
Yeah, because that mate, I'm such a big believer in self fulfilling prophecies. You know, you are your thoughts.
You know what I like when I was a kid, like my mum's friends apparently started speaking quite early and my mum said a few times like two days old.
Yeah.
Speaking French after like a year. But she was like, oh, your friends said cost gap. She was like, oh he's gonna, he's gonna be smart, blah, blah, blah. And then I think I showed a very small, probably very small interest in business or money because my dad's an accountant. Probably like counting some change. On the carpet or something. I was like saving up for some.
At his first store when he was.
Yeah, I was like counting up some money to go buy some sweets from the shop and because I had some vague interest in adding up money, they probably said, oh, he's gonna go into business. And then this story becomes a thing around and around and around and then you become that kid and it's like they've given you an identity. I sometimes feel like I've grown up to kind of achieve that identity. That.
Yeah. That's funny. So in school we did like awards, like at the end of the year when we have year 11. I got voted for like first to become a millionaire.
I didn't get it.
The guy sat next to me got it.
I was.
Yes. He works at grad scheme PwC. Does the.
He actually.
He actually went to a grad scheme. Yeah. Big four.
Yeah, yeah. All the same.
And I thought, not a chance, mate.
Watch me sell their souls. And then.
Yeah, chip on my shoulder. But I was so annoyed. Don't know why. It was six form award.
What's he doing now?
He's an accountant.
The meme is true.
It's probably in the. What time is it? It'll be in the office right now.
How?
6:00Am in the UK. Oh, no, sorry.
Probably in the office.
Yeah. 6aM 7aM how many success stories came out of your town? Was it quite one?
Me, really. No, I'm joking.
This guy.
I had no idea, mate. I live in a very small village.
I suppose like from school, I mean, because.
From school.
Yeah.
Actually I don't really keep track of people in general.
Like.
Yeah, not, I guess my year in school. Genuinely people have done well but they've not like started shit. So they've got like really good paying, like highly paid jobs in corporate office.
Which is fine as well. It's like so.
Yeah, in some people's eyes, yeah, it's very. It's great. Really successful. But in my eyes it's not for me. I don't see that as success because it's not my idea of success.
But I think there's something.
Honestly can't think of anything. I'm trying to think like sports people like musicians or something like that.
But yeah, well, Jack, like you were saying earlier, like, I think people think in particular my town, that I make a lot more money than I do just because I do travel.
Yeah.
The average wage in Scumthorp is six grand a year.
We were comparing houses like in London where you can get what you pay 2 mil for you. Get for what, like 400 grand in your town, Literally.
I think it's just the traveling thing. People thinking I make a ridiculous amount of money, but yeah, you don't actually need that much.
Oh, thought of someone. There's a guy a few, few years younger than me who plays cricket for England. You went to my school. That's the only one I can think of.
Your leaves, right, yeah, yeah. Next question.
Oh, and another guy was on Strictly Come Dancing. Yeah, he went to. He was like, he has down syndrome.
His name's George.
I remember he went to primary school.
He was like TV presenter without syndrome.
Yeah. On CBBC or something. He's done really well.
All right.
It's mad, but yeah, I went to the same school as him but he's like six years younger than me. But yeah. Anyway, sorry, continue trying to think of.
The best closing questions. It's all a bit corporate.
Get off LinkedIn people what they want to hear.
Maybe I'll wrap up with my usual question to all of you.
You've already asked us though, me and Jordan.
You asked Jack. That was a year ago. Jordan can think somehow.
It was like yesterday.
Alright, yeah, I'll ask the last question then. It's been here like two hours. I'll start with Jack. Go on. If you could give three bits of advice to your 18 year old self, knowing what you know now, what would it be?
Don't spend too long learning and not doing. I spent way too long fucking reading loads of shit, writing notes. Had like a whole notebook just full of notes. I just look back like I should have spent that 50 quid on that first ad earlier. So I'd actually plotted like I have in my notes. It's quite cool. You know when you go in your notes, you see the date you wrote it and it's like 2018. I wrote Adrian Morrison's drop shipping webinar. I told my dad about it. I remember this and he was like, what's that? Nah, it's not gonna work. So yeah, fair. And then like three years later or whatever, I'm doing the same thing. It's like, should have done three years before.
I might go back through my notes actually.
Yeah, it's too deep.
Yeah, I get like me writing out like a bird. I've got that 16, I've got that.
It's so bad. When I used to have relationships and hopeless romantic. If I'm like emotional, I can't think straight. Right. Or like I lose emotion. So what I actually do before I have a Conversation with a bird. I'll write everything out and then I'll be there with my phone, like baking points.
Next point.
I'd say we've kind of meant there's been sprinkles of this in the conversation we've already had. But self fulfilling prophecy is real. Like whatever you tell yourself you are what you become kind of thing. So what you think is what you become. So yeah, it's all in the mind. Never have a plan B, always have a plan A. And then that's probably going to be controversial. There's going to be people who say, you know, you should have a plan B just in case. But I think if that's your mentality, then this isn't the right route for you. Honestly, controversial or not, how I feel.
I've just thought of a good question I'm gonna ask after this round to mix it up. Continue.
And then the third one, probably just more as a. Just words of wisdom for running a business is you can never know your. Like, nobody ever regretted knowing their numbers too well. So always audit what you have. See where you can save money. And payment terms are beautiful. So work on those as well. Like have those conversations. Don't be afraid to talk to people. Ask questions to different people. Never take. Never take the first answer as the only answer. I'll tell you, quick backstory. And this is actually related to uni, so it's not even business related. But the uni I wanted to get into at the time. So into Leeds, I called up, didn't get the grades and they said, no, sorry, you didn't get it. My mom actually made me call again, spoke to a second person. They said, yeah, okay, you can. So, you know, I mean, never, ever take the first answer.
Call Emirates again.
So now whenever I get a no, I ask, I call again. Talk to a different person. I did it with PayPal.
I'm gonna call again and say my dog's in the vets and he's changed my flight. Make it more emotive because it's.
At the end of the day, you're talking to people. It's like human psychology. There's gonna be one person who's maybe slightly more emotional than the other. You feel like helping you more. It's just the classic like, you know, social engineering almost.
That's it. Is that three?
Yeah.
Well, I won't ask you that again. I'll ask a more interesting question.
Fault 3 as well.
Never mind. I'll go on then.
Not too late.
All right. If you lost the business and every penny you have right now. But you maintained your knowledge and experience which what nearly happened to me.
Yeah.
What would you do tomorrow and to rebuild? So say you couldn't do the same thing again. The business is gone, you lost every penny.
What business would have built.
How would you get back to where you were as quick as possible and what would you do?
Probably start what I've been working on this week.
Oh yeah.
Would you need money to do that though?
Not much.
Yeah, not much. So how would you get together direct. Say you literally went to zero.
Right.
Okay. I'm talking like literally on the streets. Hypothetically.
Only fans on the street.
Well if you lost every penny and everything.
Only fans you do only fans. No.
I mean surely the real answer is you'd call five mates and get ten grand off each of them and start something.
Well yeah. Then do it if you have mates of the money. Let's pretend you don't have mates of the money.
Well that's the thing because that's literally.
I'd probably do what I did like the first time which is I'd get a part time job and save the cash and then use that cash. That's literally what I did in 2015. 16 I finished uni and to appease my mum and dad I got a part time job at next in the warehouse.
Fucking hell.
Yeah, and then I was applying for grad schemes and stuff like that. Got interviews but again it wasn't just so they thought I was doing something. Yeah, just get a part time job, save the cash or if you couldn't.
Work on print on demand. And what would you do? Someone force you into a new area.
I mean I do have ideas so it would be. I have a couple interesting ideas in the pet space but like subscription based consumables. Not going to go to too much detail because you never know what the future might hold. But yeah, I definitely move into subscription.
What would you do is this without maintain knowledge, don't have any friends, you can give me cash. Can't go to VCs and raise money to start something new.
No. The only thing you lose is the business and money. You maintain everything else which is arguably the most valuable part.
But the most obvious one is to do what you've done and present an idea, get people what would that idea.
Be on the spot you can't do what you're doing now. Anything that comes to mind.
Thing is I'm so, my mind is so committed to what high adjusting helps us now. I still minus the idea. I think I would find something that's working another country and then, yeah, do it in a different language somewhere and scale it somewhere else because that's always a fucking easy conversion.
Space goods. Bali.
Yeah.
That's kind of how I looked at Saw brands in America. Crushing it. There was no one over here doing it then put my own aesthetic angle on it.
Yeah, smart.
And there's so many up and coming countries as well that I think Goldman and Sats call it the brick countries. Brazil, Rush. Well, not Russia anymore, but in India.
Scaling cash on delivery or some shit. I've heard guys doing that.
Yeah, that's mad.
What do you do?
Controversial, but I'd probably just do like a local business but raise money.
Mushroom farm.
A local business.
I work like a restaurant or cafe or.
You said this a few times this.
Week that you want to feel like your calling box.
I think you should do it. Start a vape shop. Just sit there and try the flavors all day.
Yeah, probably just do like an in person business because I think that that's where a lot of my skills lie. Like, I mean, so it's so easy to do. Well, obviously I've not done it yet, but there's obviously the operation side of running it. But in terms of like getting customers, it's probably so much more easy because you, you're in a specific location, just pick a busy area and just do better market than everyone else. And it's not actually that hard because a lot of business now are like owned by older geezers who don't have. Just have a social. Don't actually optimize.
Like Flame Spa.
Could not be asked.
Got the opportunity there. Flame Spa, bring that to the uk.
Yeah.
There's probably reasons why that's not allowed.
Yeah, a few.
Probably just do that and then think of the next thing I do because.
Interesting.
So you wouldn't do it long, is that what you're saying?
I'll do it. Yeah. Just get my feet, get on my feet.
You'd start a cafe or restaurant to get on your feet?
Yeah, I'd do like a sick one. Like something cool. Like I don't have to think.
Yeah.
But then I'd do. Then look into doing something that would actually get me back to where I am now.
How would you buy the cafe or restaurant? No.
Just build it.
With zero money?
No, I have to ask for cash because whatever you do, you have no money, do you? So I just raised the money because I was looking at doing it before, like literally had a whole plan on everything I was gonna do ghost kitchens. Yeah. So it's basically.
It's.
That's what Mr. Beast's done. So do a Beast Burger.
Yeah.
It's actually loads of restaurants already that were just struggling. He gave them a menu and then they just go on to deliver and ship it out. So that's why there's so many locations.
Like a. Like a dark page on a website.
No, no. So Ghost Kitchen is basically like on Deliveroo. If you order a Mac is. It might not even come from macchis. It'll come from a unit with a kitchen and they're.
They just have the ingredients for it.
That's insane.
So in Leeds, mate. So there's like slap and pickle. They have like loads of dark kitchens. I've been. Been in units, like looked around. We're just gonna do like run like three different menus through a kitchen. But then all you have to do is acquire customers through social like food review pages. Fucking. And we're gonna get a chef to like build an actual sick menu out for us. Yeah, we can do like some Japanese shit. And then you just have to basically work on the algorithm of just eat Deliveroo. Have your own social organized stuff.
Quite an interesting thing.
It's just E to C food, mate. I've changed my mind anyway.
I probably drop ship Prime Water.
Yeah, yeah. So that Wakey Wines got banned off TikTok.
We got banned. No way.
Yeah, yeah, because he's fucking prime have released a new energy drink can and at the end of the video was like. And these are going for 100 pound. You got loads of shit.
What would you do? Matt.
Probably wouldn't do E Commerce again, you know? You know, actually I think a better remark, a closing remark, which made me all make a closing remark. I wish when I was 19, I started a podcast and did it every fucking week for seven years because it would have 5 million subscribers by now. Because I think the one thing in life just consistency.
Yeah.
To keep swinging. I think Danny Miranda or whatever, some guy that started a pod after me and he's been way more, way more consistent than me and he posts about it. The stats around podcasts and it's a classic. Everyone starts pod now, but they do three episodes. I think the stats around people that do more than 50 episodes, like 0.1% of those that started really something like that. So I'm already in at the 0.1% of consistency. Then you think about the don't do 500 episodes. So you're almost guaranteed to make it.
Homozy said he Was doing pods. But five years, is it like there's a lesson there, you know, So I.
Wish I'd made more content when I was younger.
Yeah.
Because I reckon you can never lose if you build a personal brand. Almost.
I've actually. I told you about this. I've got a little private insta. I've got my whole. Since like I was 16. It's pretty lit.
Would have been lit if you've done it unlisted on YouTube then.
Yeah. And that's like the private. Quite like the private nature of it.
You have to watch it all again and make sure there's nothing bad in there.
Yeah, yeah. I just don't feel the need to publicize it.
Right, Any closing remarks? I think we're wrapping up.
Get in touch on that works.
Oh, we're gonna wrap up now in like one minute.
Is this one still running?
Yeah.
But to get all of you, we use this camera.
Ah, so you wanna. Okay.
How far back do I need to go? How much did I miss?
Closing remarks.
Oh, are you putting a new battery in? Oh, right. Okay, cool.
Did it literally just run out like five minutes ago?
That would have been.
We still got these ones.
Yeah. This would have been talking.
Is it going? I'm finishing it now. Anyway.
What do you want to plug?
I was just going to plug the agency.
I need a affiliate link.
Have some higher quality leads this time, please.
Any high quality leads? Want to get in touch?
Well, any closing remarks. We'll go around the table. Any closing remarks or where you want to send people to. I know you're a fucking agency owner, so.
Yeah. So websites that works agency and follow me on Twitter and Instagram Ordngill.
Start a new niche and cac. John Salvi.
Now I'm trying to post more on Twitter and probably Insta as well on Salvio on all channels. My name is Jack Consalvi for reference, but Consultio is the only out I got. Yeah, hit me up.
Probably the same ads read on both, but business just stick to Twitter.
I think. Ads read. Not ad swed.
Ad Swede. Is that what you sound ads, Reed?
That's what it sounded like to me. You're deaf, though.
Yeah.
You can do all that. Well, as always, subscribe to the pod. Plenty more classic episodes on the way. Stepping up the production quality out here in Bali. Cheers for watching. Subscribe as always. Catch you in the next one.
Peace.
See ya.
Bye, Sam.
